Meet The Devs Bob Conway: “my games feature gay men”
There are thousands of indie game developers out there and therefore it is easy to miss out on a lot of them. Indie Game Reporter makes a change. In Meet The Devs we interview a new game developer every Monday and Friday. With this series of article you can learn about interesting indie developers, creative new videogames and stories on how developers worldwide try to entertain all sorts of indie gamers
Today we are interviewing Bob Conway, who makes games with queer themes. His games usually feature gay men. Bob Conway hopes that people will remember me for my characters and their stories.
Bob Conway his games feature gay men
Which of your game developer achievements made you most proud of yourself?
“I’m probably proudest of finishing Yearning: A Gay Story (YAGS for short), which was my passion project in a lot of ways. It was my first real game development project and was probably way too large for a first project, but I got through it, and it came out in January 2019.”
What kind of games and which well-known persons inspired you to become a game developer?
“I have two big influences. A friend introduced me to Ayu (from Sake Visual)’s Jisei series, and that was really my first time playing visual novels. That definitely got me interested in the genre. At least, as somewhat of a choose-your-own novel in-game format. But I didn’t really consider game development, myself, until Obscurasoft released Coming Out on Top.
That game remains one of my favorites, but there were a few things I wished the game had dealt with differently, or more directly. Those thoughts led to me wondering if I could write those storylines for myself. The result was YAGS, which also got me into the visual novel developer community.”
What is the hardest part of being an indie game developer and how do you try to tackle that problem?
“Since I have a regular full-time job and do game development on the side, the hardest part is finding the time to work on games. The pandemic has actually made that harder, rather than easier.
In general, I’ve found that I should take advantage of times when I feel like doing different aspects of game development, from finishing up a piece of code or writing a crucial scene or putting in a minigame, even if that means some things get written or coded in out of order. Then, when I’m in the mood for something a bit more mindless, I can fill in the gaps.”
What are you currently working on that gamers should play?
“I’m currently working on Zen: A Gay Sequel, which is the sequel to YAGS. It touches on a lot of the same subjects, such as developing friendships and coming out. It is intended to be a lot more adult than YAGS. It also has given me some fun programming segments because it’s focused around a schedule planner.”
More information about his games
Interested in character-driven slice-of-life games featuring queer themes? You can check out my games and other information at Bob Conway his website. You can also find more information about himself.
Are there other Indie game developers that deserve a shout out?
“There are way too many and I worry I’d miss some if I tried to list them all. So instead, I’ll just recommend everyone checks out the 2018 and 2019 BaraJam Game James on Itch.io. There are a lot of some great (and usually free!) games featuring gay men, which I would definitely recommend if you enjoy queer games.”
If you want to read more about developers, you will find more articles in Meet The Devs. Every Monday and Friday we will publish a new article in this series. That way you can meet new developers!