Roguelike dev makes $220,000 in 3 weeks after blowing up on Steam – and I know you can't complain, but that's his share of roughly $1.8 million in sales

Giving the best game of all time (chess) a roguelike makeover was already a brilliant idea, and the indie developer behind chess-themed roguelike Gambonanza says its success has been surprisingly "life-changing." Making $220,000 in three weeks will do that for you, but I still can't help but wince since that's his share of about $1.8 million in revenue.

Developer Bluekulele took to social media to break down some of the reasons why his new, turn-based roguelike managed to break through the crowd and sell 200,000 copies in three weeks across both PC and mobile – despite their last two games combined only moving about 700 copies in three years.

"So maybe this is just luck," the dev tweets. "I'm not an expert, I'm just trying to share my numbers and observations, so take everything I said with a grain of salt!"

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Bluekulele says they learned Steam events and playtests are "insanely powerful" tools to gain wishlists, which in turn massively helps to reach even more sets of eyes on the platform. "I joined a Steam event with a very early buggy playtest build and was terrified of player feedback," he explains. "That playtest combined with the Tacticon event alone brought ~6k [wishlists] in one week."

More high-profile events like this February's Steam Next Fest put up even stronger numbers as Gambonanza managed to amass 38,000 more wishlists during the digital event's seven-day run.

"After taxes, platform fees, and everything in between, this will roughly translate to around $220k," Bluekulele tweets. "I'm honestly very aware of how huge this is. This is life-changing for me. It means I'll be able to focus on making games for a while without financial pressure and I know how lucky I am to be in this position."

That $220,000 payday comes down from about $1.8 million in revenue once you add up the sales from its Steam and mobile versions. I'm not one to complain about a $220,000 cheque (literally, I've never been handed that much), but it really puts into perspective how difficult it must be for indie developers to sustain themselves after Valve's 70% cut and whatever percentage indie publishers take, especially without a hit as huge as Gambonanza.

In the meantime, check out the upcoming indie games of 2026 you should keep an eye on.