From childhood dream to Steam release: "Craftlings" and the journey of a solo developer
With "Craftlings," Marian, alias Ariano, has not created a typical indie fairy tale, but rather a story of development filled with detours and doubts. In our conversation, he explains how closely creative vision, community feedback, and the pressure surrounding a Steam launch are intertwined in a solo project.
Looking at "Craftlings" easily tempts one into a simple narrative: A solo developer brings a charming idea to life, draws on nostalgic inspirations like "Lemmings" and "The Settlers," and lands a successful Steam release.
However, in conversation with Marian, who develops under the name Ariano, a much more complicated picture emerges. "Craftlings" is not the result of a crystal-clear master plan, but rather a long, often improvised process of technical learning, design corrections, community work, and significant personal pressure. You can read about how "Craftlings" plays in detail in my in-depth review:
The fact that Marian even reached this point has a lot to do with early influences. At twelve years old, the now 42-year-old took one of the few computer science spots at his school—six students in total—and began writing his first programs in BASIC. His first game was a football manager. Not a graphical spectacle, but a purely text-based game with a functioning algorithm that calculated realistic results from probabilities. The foundation was laid.
"I grew up in Poland, but everything I have experienced as an adult—as a husband, as a father, as an entrepreneur—I experienced in Germany," he tells me. His childhood in Poland shaped him significantly, yet he still feels closely connected to both countries to this day.
Source: Ariano Games
The long road to his own company
After his studies, Marian never worked as a classic programmer. Instead, he was drawn to the business side: data analyst, product manager. Games still accompanied him, initially on the side: he played a lot himself and worked in parallel on Flash projects, smaller mobile apps, and initial attempts to make money with games at all.
The actual step came later. With "Craftlings," Marian decided to stop just trying out ideas and instead consistently bring his own game to release. The idea was born in 2021 during his parental leave. Marian stayed at home and wanted to teach his daughter Polish. In parallel, he began working on "Craftlings," then still under the title "The Settlings."
"Lemmings" meets "Settlers": 90s nostalgia
The basic idea is as simple as it is unusual: small creatures that run through a world on their own and are supposed to build cities. You can only control them indirectly, like in the classics "Lemmings," but with the city-building strategy spirit of the "Settlers" series. Anyone who grew up on a PC in the early 90s knows both. And that was exactly the intention.
In practice, this means: instead of controlling individual figures directly, you build paths, buildings, and infrastructure that guide the behavior of the so-called Craftlings. They automatically collect resources, process them into goods, defend themselves against enemies, and work their way through the various island levels step by step. In total, the game includes twelve levels with different biomes and more than 25 buildings that gradually open up new possibilities within the production chains.
This creates a game that combines puzzle and building mechanics and forces the player not only to plan processes but also to constantly optimize them.
Source: Kim Muntinga
Marian is aware that "Craftlings" draws from these role models. On X, there are occasionally voices that point this out. He sees it pragmatically: "I borrowed from them, but the mix is so atypical and unique that it can be recognized as a creative achievement." Combining two games into one and creating a functioning system from it: that was the challenge.
A first playable prototype (as a demo) was created in 2022, entirely by Marian's hand: code, graphics, design. He did not see the fact that he had no experience with pixel art as an obstacle, but as another field of learning. "If I want to be an indie developer, it's not enough if I only master coding and marketing," he explains. "I also have to do graphics."
So he learned.
"Gronkh," 28,000 viewers, and a turning point
At the end of 2022, shortly before Marian was actually supposed to return to his old job after his parental leave, there was a problem: the position no longer existed. At the same time, something happened that he had not expected.
He was sitting in front of the TV with his wife in the evening when his Discord was suddenly flooded with messages.
"Ariano! Gronkh is playing your game!"
The German Let's Play giant had played Craftlings on his stream: in front of 28,000 viewers. Marian tuned in and watched as his game triggered a positive response that he could hardly imagine.
"That was a turning point," he tells me. No job, but suddenly the feeling of having created something that people are really interested in. He decided to continue developing "Craftlings" seriously.
Many versions, an identity crisis, a community
What followed was not a straight path. The game went through numerous demo versions, each one a bit better than the previous one. Marian worked closely with a pixel artist from Croatia, who revised and redesigned a large part of the graphics. For sound, music, and other areas, Marian brought in other freelancers.
At some point, after a conversation with the game designer of a Swiss publisher, it became clear that "Craftlings" was suffering from an identity crisis: too many hard puzzle elements on one side, too much city-building freedom on the other. The game didn't know exactly what it wanted to be. Marian had to make a decision. He consistently pulled the game in the direction of a more accessible experience: less punishment, more joy of experimentation.
In parallel, a community grew on Discord that not only played but actively helped shape the game. Players found bugs, suggested level ideas, pixelated graphics, and gave feedback on early versions. Marian speaks of this phase with palpable warmth:
"Someone you don't know comes from the internet and helps you. That was such a beautiful experience."
The solo developer and the limits of being alone
Marian describes the flip side of indie life without sugarcoating. Twelve-hour days, no weekends, hardly any break from September until the release on January 15th of this year. Even at Christmas, he only allowed himself one and a half days off. The biggest challenge was less technical than human: loneliness.
"Always staying motivated when you work ten, twelve hours a day for several weeks without exchange. That affects you subconsciously," he says. The lesson he drew from this: breaks are not a luxury, but a prerequisite for not endangering a project in the long term. He sought exchange with other indie developers on the internet and built up a network.
As a generalist—with knowledge in programming, graphics, marketing, and business—the tasks were on one hand distributed across areas in which he already had experience. On the other hand, he had to learn how to communicate a vision when working with freelancers who don't share it. "My job was always to package the expertise of others so that the overall project benefits from it," he explains. This skill, which he brought from years as a product manager, proved to be an unexpected advantage.
Octopus, "Hand of Blood," and 300,000 views
One story is exemplary of Marian's approach to marketing: in 2024, the well-known German YouTuber "Hand of Blood" (aka Hänno or Maximilian Knabe) reacted to one of his posts. Marian wrote back and asked what he would prefer as the first boss in the game: a pirate ship or an octopus. The answer came quickly: octopus.
Marian built the octopus. Two weeks later, he sent Hänno a message: "You wanted an octopus, now you have one—this is your child." The result: a video with currently about 280,000 views, in which Hänno tells the whole story.
"Many think it's enough to send an email with a key, and someone will react," says Marian. "But marketing work starts much earlier." He built relationships with influencers over months. Not through spam, but through genuine interaction. For the release, he sent over 1,000 individual emails. He responded to all replies personally: in German, English, and Polish.
The release button and a bug on the Steam Deck
The release evening was not a relaxed celebration. He was on a call with a fellow developer when he pressed the button and immediately checked if the game worked. The community had tested so intensively in advance that Craftlings started with noticeably few bugs. Marian hesitates to call himself a solo dev: "If 20 or 30 people on Discord have invested hundreds of hours in bug testing for weeks, it would be unfair to ignore that."
And yet: shortly after the release, he found another critical bug on the Steam Deck that blocked the tutorial. It was after 11 p.m. He brought his wife in. Not because she is a programmer, but so she could watch his hands in case he slipped somewhere under pressure and accidentally broke something. "When the Americans wake up, want to buy the game, and it doesn't work. That would be disastrous."
The fix was successful.
The influence of player feedback
"Craftlings" has an onboarding problem that Marian openly addresses. The biggest criticism of the game is not the gameplay itself, but that it doesn't pick up all players equally well.
The game assumes that you understand how indirect control works. A concept that is self-evident for "Lemmings" veterans, but not for many others. Anyone who doesn't know this language finds it difficult to find their way around. Anyone who doesn't take the time to understand the system is quickly gone and refunds the game. Often completely without feedback.
This contains one of the most important learnings for Marian. A tutorial must not only explain but also motivate. It was exactly at this point that he lacked time, experience, and above all the right feedback.
"That is survivorship bias in its purest form," he says. "Those who stayed told me what could be better. Those who didn't understand the game simply left." This lack of feedback was one of the biggest blind spots of the development.
Where "Craftlings" convinces, however, is shown elsewhere: some players have invested over 100 hours. For Marian, that is harder to grasp than any sales figure.
"No matter how much someone paid. Putting 100 hours of their life into a game I made is still hard for me to imagine to this day."
Overall, the game has built up a small but dedicated community.
What comes next
When asked about the future, Marian answers thoughtfully. A second game? Possibly. But the framework conditions—a complicated relationship with a former publisher contract, an increasingly saturated Steam market, a confusing AI landscape—make planning difficult.
What he knows: he wants to use the knowledge he has acquired. As a developer, as a marketing and publishing partner for other indie studios, perhaps also as a consultant. Ariano Games GmbH has been founded. The tools have remained the same. Only the playing fields could change.
In the end, he lands back at the beginning: at the boy in Poland who sat in front of a 386 and wondered how games are created. "That dream has come true," says Marian. "And I am proud that I didn't break off the path in between."
My interests are varied, I just like to enjoy life. Always on the lookout for news about darts, gaming, films and series.
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