Mumpitz Games just released Sir, We Have an Orc Problem on Steam. It's a classic little tower defense game about placing upgrading turrets then watching them chew through an army of green monsters. It is also the 15th best-selling game on Steam at the time of writing, and has generated over $360,000 in revenue for its two devs since its July 28 launch – a stunning example of how quick, fun ideas can explode on Steam and potentially change the lives of creators.
In a lengthy post-mortem shared to the gamedev subreddit, Mumpitz co-lead KaTeKaPe (who I'm going to call Kape) explains that the team shrunk from three people to two after the November 2025 release of Tiny Auto Knights, the studio's first Steam release. Importantly, Kape and their partner had both been "programming for over 10 years and more than half of that time professionally in the games industry," so they had plenty of experience.
Tiny Auto Knights took about a year and a half to make and, with Steam, publisher, and other cuts removed, netted the team around $30,000 after nine months. "So around $7k per year per dev. Not that great. After that game we decided to split up and we continued with only two devs," Kape explains.
Sir, We Have an Orc Problem is doing a bit better. "We made $361,657 gross revenue in the first 24 hours after releasing our 4 month game," Kape's post exclaims.
It's reviewing well on Steam, too: 89% positive after 550 reviews. It probably helps that it's only $10, or $9 with the 10% launch discount.
The game's impressive physics add a lot to the tower defense formula. Orcs clog up map choke points like a river of green, perfect for deployed abilities like bombing runs to blow thousands of 'em to smithereens.
"All of those numbers are still a bit unbelievable and we will surely need some more days to realize what actually just happened," they add.
"There was definitely some luck involved, but I strongly believe that there is a golden era for indie games right now," Kape continues, echoing the likes of Steam sleuth Chris Zukowski. "There are so many devs that just make a fun little game and somehow it sells exceptionally well. You just have to put your game out (social media, playtests, whatever) and let people see and play it. If there's some 'magic' to it, you will know immediately. And if there isn't, you have to decide if you want to finish the game because you personally like it or if you want to move on to something else."
Kape says the main inspiration for Sir, We Have an Orc Problem was another incremental tower defense game called Outhold, which, like Mumpitz' latest, has reviewed very well on Steam. The idea was to take a "very early, very ugly physics based tower defense prototype" and crank it to 11 with tech that allows for roughly a bazillion enemies on-screen.
The team showed off prototypes for the idea in social media posts, and soon "people were begging us for a Steam page so they can wishlist the game." The Steam page for Sir, We Have an Orc Problem went up April 9, and after some cheap promotion and Steam Next Fest demo success, ended up with quite the queue.
"We didn't spend any money on marketing, other than $200 for the Best Indie Games showcase," Kape clarifies.
Amusingly, Kape responded to a Reddit comment calling the game "an amazing example of how a gamedev with no 'artistic' ability can still make a really successful game if the gameplay shines," but not wanting to outright say "your game looks bad."
"It kinda looks bad to be honest," Kape reckons. "Maybe we can make it a bit prettier soon."
