How indie decorating sim Urban Jungle generated 90k wishlists on Steam thanks to fests, demos, and some luck
Kylyk Games is a three-person team currently working on their debut project Urban Jungle. Here’s how they went from launching a Steam page to becoming full-time indie devs.
Last week, programmer and artist Maria Yakovleva shared a story behind Urban Jungle on Reddit. As she explained in a post, she decided to make her own game after watching Codemonkey’s 10-hour Unity tutorial.
Yakovleva joined forces with two friends and launched a Steam page for Urban Jungle in January 2024.
Who are Kylyk Games?
- In addition to Yakovleva, Kylyk Games comprises game designer / artist Kiunnei Vinokurova and programmer Kirill Tsarkov.
- They previously worked on mobile casual games at companies like Mytona and Playrix, but Urban Jungle is their first project for PC.
- As Yakovleva said in her previous post last year, she initially started making clones of various classic games and releasing them on itch.io to train her skills.
- Urban Jungle was originally a hobbyist project, with the team working on it in their spare time. However, it turned into a full-fledged game with quite impressive metrics.
- “Programming and 3d were [at a] junior level and art was [at a] mid level, when we started,” Yakovleva said. “We’ve learnt everything on the go, made a lot of mistakes development wise, but [the] game is coming to life in the end.”
- Right now, all three members of the Kylyk Games team are working on Urban Jungle full time.
Urban Jungle took off in May-June 2024. While Yakovleva, who was also responsible for initial marketing, said the first 1,000 wishlists were “pure luck,” the game quickly crossed the 7,000 mark and continued to steadily grow thanks to a series of promotional activities and events.
In June 2024, Kylyk Games signed a deal with publisher Assemble Entertainment (Lacuna, Endzone, FAR: Lone Sails), which helped further market Urban Jungle. However, Yakovleva noted that the team managed to reach 50k wishlists on their own, before partnering with Assemble.
As of January 17, Urban Jungle had 89,654 outstanding wishlists on Steam.
Image: Kylyk Games
Here’re the key things that helped Kylyk Games reach this impressive milestone:
- The team released 4-5 demos and improved the game based on feedback;
- They participated in the Women-Led Games Showcase in June 2024 as part of the Next Fest;
- Urban Jungle was featured by Wholesome Games and IGN;
- The game was nominated for the Most Wholesome Game at the 2024 Gamescom Awards;
- “One Thai Facebook account that shares discount coupons posted our game, and it went viral,” so a bit of luck there, too.
Urban Jungle is a relaxing decorating sim with puzzle elements, where players can turn an ordinary apartment into a “green haven” by placing various plants. It is currently expected to launch in the first quarter of 2025.
“2 people believed in my stupid idea about [a] small game about house plants and now we’re [a] real indie team,” Yakovleva said, also thanking her husband, friends, and fellow indie developers for their support.