After 3 years of "a lot of painful work," first-time dev had no idea his game was one of the best-reviewed Steam releases of the year

When I found and wrote about Sheepy: A Short Adventure just yesterday, the pleasant little platformer had around 1,750 Steam user reviews with a 99% positive rating. That's since jumped to nearly 1,900 reviews, still at 99% positive. Bear in mind, the game only came out on February 6. These are enviable numbers for any game, let alone a fresh-faced indie. The free, short game from music promoter MrSuicideSheep and solo developer Thomas Lean is a certified success, and nobody is more surprised than Lean himself.

I was surprised to learn that Sheepy, which looks and feels incredible, is Lean's first full game as a "beginner" developer. I asked Lean – who says he isn't the person behind the MrSuicideSheep YouTube channel, to clear up any confusion – about the game's meteoric success. It's already toe-to-toe with giants like Palworld and Persona 3 Reload, as well as indies like Anomaly Agent and Paper Lily, on the charts for 2024's highest-rated Steam games, with SteamDB's math calling it the single best-rated release of the year. Over a week after Sheepy's launch, Lean told me he had no idea it was so well-reviewed. (Responses edited for clarity and length.) 

"We've learnt this thanks to you, that's insane!" he said. "For next plans, that's something we've discussed already and we still have to discuss more, so I can't say anything for now. But of course, from our side as devs, we're super happy that people are liking the game so much. That's something I wasn't sure of at all until the release. Even if we were proud of the result, what we chose to do with Sheepy was quite 'original' on many points, and I personally had no idea if it would resonate with a lot of players or only a few. Overall, me and SuicideSheep are totally happy about the feedback. For now, I'm focusing on debugging Sheepy and I'll also take some rest after that." 

Lean has an Itch.io profile with some nice art and quick games, but he'd never worked on a project as big as Sheepy before, even if it is a short game. "That's why you have, in the end, a one-hour game made in three years," he jokes. "I had good basics of course, but I had to learn a lot of things too. I did a lot of game jams in the past but making your first 'real' game clearly is something different. Kamizoto, the dev behind There Is No Game, was an example for me during these last years. Going through a lot of hard stuff to get a good game in the end, even if it requires a lot of painful work."

One thing I was curious about is Sheepy's price tag: nothing. Why give it away after so much effort? It's easily worth a few bucks in my mind, at the very least, though I suppose charging anything would've limited its reach. Lean says "it was a lot of discussion, but to make it short, on their side they were considering that it's important for them to propose content for free to people, as they've always done with music and illustrations," referring to MrSuicideSheep's history with music curation. 

That music also played a big role in Sheepy's development, which you can tell from the way the soundtrack is woven into gameplay. "It was an early decision to work with musicians from MrSuicideSheep for the music," Lean explains. "It was a lot of discussion with them too, because doing music for video games is clearly something particular. I do music for games so I know the constraints, and we took a lot of time together to get something which works well in-game. In my opinion the best example is the third zone, the cave one, where the music evolves constantly based on where you are, but this is quite invisible for everyone because the different transitions feel super natural." 

Lean stressed that, apart from fixes for Sheepy, he's not sure what's next for him. The summit of Steam reviews is a pretty good place to start, that's for sure. 

Check out the big upcoming indie games for 2024 and beyond.