Indie games often struggle to get noticed on mobile, but one new release has a better chance than most: Downpour.
Its creator V Buckenham is well known in indie circles after working at Sensible Object, Die Gute Fabrik and more recently Niantic. Buckenham also created popular Twitter bot-maker Cheap Bots, Done Quick before an Elon Musk-era purge of those tools closed it down in 2023.
It also helps that Downpour’s pitch is compelling, too: a game-making app that’s very quick and easy to use. It allows players to make an interactive story and share it on their socials ‘before their tea gets cold’, says Buckenham.
A new UGC platform on mobile might sound like an investor pitch, but Buckenham doesn’t plan to raise money to complete with the likes of Roblox – Downpour is self-funded and is really just being put out there to “scratch an itch”.
“I don’t need to take over the world, just to keep the lights on,” says Buckenham, who quit as lead game developer at Niantic in 2021 to build Downpour because “it seemed unlikely that any of the (exciting!) projects I had worked on would ever be released.”
When Downpour launches on March 6 across iOS and Android, Buckenham is hoping other developers and content creators will spread the word organically; there’s certainly no UA spend or marketing budget.
“It’s scary, right?” says Buckenham. “I have some contacts at Apple, so I am hoping I’ll get some visibility through being featured – but of course you never know. I also have a prior network of game developer friends who have audiences themselves, so there’s some hope of seeding the app through those channels. But the big hope is that Downpour has mechanisms to organically grow – the point of the app is that people can make games, and then share those games via other social platforms.”
Buckenham namechecks interactive storytelling tool Twine as a “huge inspiration” for Downpour, and hopes that, like Twine, under-represented creatives use it as a way to express themselves.
“I think that the largely male leadership in the games industry underinvests in things which scratch itches that they don’t personally experience,” says Buckenham. “And I think a focus on character and story and those kind of messy fannish feelings is one of those things.”
There is a long list of new features to add to the tool over time post-launch, says Buckenham, who is charging power users a $4.99 subscription to unlock more sharing features and unlimited uploads.
“If I was thinking purely financially, I don’t think I would’ve made Downpour – i’m not sure I would be in games at all, to be honest,” adds Buckenham. ”A successful launch means that people make funny and interesting and expressive games that they wouldn’t’ve made otherwise.”
