Indie dev behind quietly massive Steam trend says they only learned to code 5 years ago but have made 2 games selling 750,000 copies: "I still don't believe it myself sometimes"

Rusty's Retirement
(Image credit: Mister Morris Games)

One indie de💮veloper only learned to🍰 code about five years ago but they've already released two games, managed to sell a whopping 750,000 copies, and quietly kickstarted a major Steam trend.

The developer who goes by Mister Morris Games released an idle farming sim you may have h⭕eard of called only last year. It's about a dog, named Rusty, who does all sorts of Stardew Valley-esque chores at the bottom of your desktop while you do literally anything else. You can work, help him, play another game, or literally go away and he'll still be watering plants.

. "I still don't believe it myself sometimes."

It's not too surprising – Rusty's Retirement contributed to an influx of chill idle sims on the platform, which even led to an entire Steam Fest de▨dicated to the budding subgenre. But the semi-viral hit isn't doing all the heavy lifting. In a follo𒁏w-up , the developer says that the similarly well-received, old-school Metroidvania has actually sol✨d around 200,000 copies. "It keeps getting recommend in subreddits."

"I basically picked based off of the game engine I wanted to use," M♑ister Morris says about getting started. "In this case, I picked Unity and C# because it had so much documentation online and that felt like a good place to start learning."

Looking for more? Don't miss our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:upcoming indie games of 2025 and beyond guide.

Kaan freelances for various websites inclu🐬ding Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky 🍃indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that's vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he'll soon forget.

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