What It's Like When Your Game Flops

Nels Anderson, founder of Sonderlust Studios, shares the full arc of developing and launching Generation Exile, a sustainable solarpunk city builder set on a generation ship fleeing Earth's ecological collapse. Drawing from credits on Mark of the Ninja and Firewatch, Anderson left Campo Santo in 2017 to pursue a new direction: blending emergent narratives from games like Crusader Kings or RimWorld with a more accessible city-builder format. The result took over eight years and a small team of about six, sold fewer than 2,000 units despite following standard indie practices, and now informs his pivot to a new prototype.

Breaking from prior successes

Anderson departed Campo Santo post-Firewatch to avoid repeating first-person narrative exploration, embracing his pattern of never repeating game types to maximize learnings. Remote work viability from Firewatch's distributed team (San Francisco, Vancouver, UK) enabled hiring local Vancouver talent without an office. Funding started with a Canadian Media Fund (CMF) prototype loan—effectively interest-free—and led to Kowloon Nights investment (now Kepler Interactive personnel), providing cash and advice without publisher oversight. Firewatch revenue shares were minimal due to his contractor status and splits with publisher Panic, insufficient for full development. This self-reliant setup aligned with past experience