Verto started almost 20 years ago when a friend in college “asked me if I could make a game, what would it be?” I said a falling block game where the player rotates the grid to clear blocks. Not being able to describe it well enough I made a mock up video of the game play by making a grid and blocks in Illustrator, moving the blocks, taking a screenshot, repeating that process, and putting all the images in Premiere to make a video. I shared it with him and friends who all really liked it, but with no programming skills and the only engine I messed around with was UT 2004, I ended up making a prototype with construction paper and a scrabble board. I placed the board on an upside down plate to rotate it, played the “game”, and took notes in a spiral notebook which became my game design document.
 

I ended up in the game industry on the production side of things, but Verto sat in the back of my head for years. There were several times where I started working on it, but something always came up with life that would stop me. I found that spiral notebook over a year ago while digging through some old boxes and thought “fuck it, why not now?”
 

I tried to get into nextfest earlier this year but missed the deadline by a few days, although that gave me time to get it working on the Steam deck. After a little trial and error it worked on the deck, my mind was blown. A game I’ve always wanted to play I could now play on the go, no need for my pc. I ended up not working on the game for a week or so and just played Verto over and over. I should have worked on the game that week, but damn did it feel good to have accomplished something like that on a project of mine.
 

The first moment where I felt validated for sinking time into making Verto was when I received a comment on one of my social media posts “hello, I really love your game, and I would love to know if you have more amazing games like this.” Holy shit someone actually likes my game! Now there’s two of us, hahahaha. Going into nextfest is going to be great...
 

I sent out keys of the full game to family, friends, old coworkers, and colleagues. Many liked the game, many thought it was difficult, some didn’t like it until it clicked for them, and I received a lot of great input, but I hit a low point. A colleague told me the blocks need to keep cascading after a clear. I explained why I designed it that way; to create obstacles, build tension, add strategies, add difficulty, and lets the player set up clears for next rotation. He came back saying I was wrong, that the logic was wrong, that’s not how you make a game, and listed off all the ways he would do it. That was a rough day for me and it sat with me for a while.
 

There’s no reason to sit and ruminate over those comments, so I got to work, messaging youtubers, and posting on socials. Not many youtubers got back to me, I only hit up people that played puzzle games, falling block games, or were into indie games. I also saw a trend that Japanese gamers were interested in my game so I added Japanese hashtags to social posts and had my Japanese translator write up a short email intro about the game and sent that to Japanese youtubers.
 

The next big moment was when youtubers started posting videos about Verto; the first one was Heartstrings Youtube Link, then Mael Duin Youtube link played a long gameplay session, and Higher Plain Games Youtube link had it on his nextfest video. Higher Plain Games was a shot in the arm when he talked about it being relaxing, fiendish, and unassuming game that doesn’t look like much but then it hooked him, just the perfect comment for Verto and it truly put a big smile on my face.

I moved during the end of nextfest and into the release of Verto, I didn’t give it the attention it needed, very few social media posts, and I was extremely disappointed in myself after the release. It took me a bit to get back on track with the game, posting on social, and unpacking. I think some of my trailers were messed up on release, some how I only had a translated Vietnamese trailer for all my store fronts. I still am frustrated about that, as a person that doesn’t know French would say C'est la vie hahaha.
 

To be realistic with myself, with a game that is in a niche genre, and my poor social media posts, I was hoping to sell 6 copies, well guess what I sold 5! almost there lol, 3 in Japan, 1 UK, and 1 US, I probably would have sold 6 if I didn’t give away free keys to family and friends, I should have directed them to the demo, but 5 people organically still feels great.
 

I have a few curator reviews, none from purchases, but I’ll get there. As Dory the fish says “just keep swimming.”
 

The future is wide open, I’ll be at PAX passing out cards and talking to people. I also plan on working on the cascade mode, which does feel odd with 4 people wanting it while hundreds of others said nothing.

I feel incredibly happy about making Verto even if it took nearly 20 years to get there, I can play the game that has been in my head for years, people have enjoyed it… plus I can play on my Steam Deck! :D

For those interested in the game here are some links.
 

Demo: Verto Demo
Steam: Steam Page