Snacko is the work of husband and wife team Erisa Liu and Jordan Gonzalez, who have been creating and developing the indie game since 2018. While Snacko still won’t release for a bit longer, what’s been revealed has players excited for when it will be available. Snacko is a “cat-venture” farming simulator, but it’s got lots of other elements that will keep players invested for a long-term experience. Snacko will feature cats as the main characters - Momo and Mikan, based on Erisa and Jordan’s cats - but will also have other animals to interact and form friendships with.
Snacko has undergone many changes since its initial development, first starting out as a top-down Zelda-like but gradually transforming into the game players can see advertised today. Part of the advertisement and hype surrounding Snacko comes from its continuous presence at Wholesome Games events. Wholesome Direct and Wholesome Snack are both volunteer-run events to highlight indie games and developers, and Snacko has been involved since the beginning. In an interview with Game ZXC, Erisa and Jordan discussed Snacko’s history with Wholesome Games and how it’s grown throughout the years.
Snacko and the 'Wholesome Hug of Death'
Wholesome Games and its events, Wholesome Snack and Wholesome Direct, do a lot of good for indie games and developers by showcasing their games. Snacko has been involved with Wholesome Direct since the beginning, so its appearance at this year’s Wholesome Direct during E3 wasn’t a surprise. However, Jordan said he and Erisa were blown away when they found out Wholesome Direct would be part of E3.
“I feel like indies have a really hard time getting spotlighted and Wholesome Direct, and just the Wholesome Games in general, is a really awesome way to give these much smaller devs a more concentrated spotlight and they just do so much work. I'm blown away by how much they do for all these games for nothing.”
Wholesome Direct also organizes charity donations, so some of the profit from any items sold gets donated. Snacko has one music track on a vinyl record, and proceeds from those record sales went to the charity of Wholesome Games’ choosing. This year’s Wholesome Direct saw a t-shirt with tons of protagonists from its indie games featured in the lineup, Snacko included, and proceeds went toward the International Rescue Committee (IRC).
Erisa and Jordan talk about how grateful they are to be considered for Wholesome Direct each year, but also discussed how the “Wholesome Hug of Death” affected them their first time around. Snacko included a surprise announcement at the end of its Wholesome Snack slot saying it was now on Kickstarter. So many people clicked the link that its redirect through the game's website actually crashed. This instance is what prompted the duo to stop self-hosting and pay to have a different company host their website, according to Erisa.
“I know you asked earlier, “How was Wholesome Direct for the game?” And I think a lot of developers, not just us, were hit with a lot of traffic. So some of the smaller ones who haven't experienced the 'Wholesome Hug of Death' before had their websites go down... That should be one of the advice is if you're going to be part of the event, just pay for it, don't do your own hosting.”
Snacko on Patreon, Ko-Fi, and More
Erisa and Jordan were quick to point out that were it not for the help of their patrons on Patreon, Snacko would not exist as it is today. The Patreon is regularly updated, so anyone wanting to invest in Snacko can still do so there. According to Erisa, Ko-Fi has the best text editor, so that platform is the best for her in terms of usability. Those who want to contribute to Snacko can also do so through Ko-Fi. The Kickstarter for Snacko has ended, but Patreon and Ko-Fi are great ways to still get involved with the game and keep up with its updates.
The best way to communicate is through the Snacko Discord server, especially for things like Kickstarter rewards, and Erisa said she always encourages people to join. Though Snacko won’t release until 2022 at least, there’s a lot to preview about the upcoming cat-venture that keeps people excited for more information.
Snacko is in development for PC and Switch.
