As part of Pride Month, Thinky Games is joining in the celebrations by publishing a series of Q&A interviews from LGBTQ+ video game developers and artists. Our final guest for this year's series is Gwen C. Katz a.k.a. Nightwell Games, who does game design, programming and art for the upcoming game Deductopia.
Q: Hi Gwen! Thank you for taking the time to answer our questions. Can you introduce yourself and describe Deductopia for us?
Gwen: I’m Gwen C. Katz, an author, artist, game developer, and former mad scientist. Right now I’m working on Deductopia, an all-ages detective game in a cozy slice-of-life setting. If you liked Duck Detective or Little Problems, this will be up your alley.
Q: You previously published a horror-themed narrative game called The Wolf of Derevnya. What prompted the move to the all-ages scenes of Deductopia?
Gwen: My followup to The Wolf of Derevnya was originally going to be Surradia, my art history-themed deduction game, which is much more tonally similar to Wolf. But what I noticed at events is that kids were really into this type of game, but they struggled with the reading level and adult subject matter. So I thought there was a good niche for a more all-ages detective game.
Q: Which parts of producing the game have you most enjoyed?
Gwen: The art has been a lot of fun. I love drawing, but sometimes it’s hard to prioritize amid all the other tasks that are part of game dev. So I’m really enjoying working on a project that’s so art-forward. It’s a good day when the only thing on my to-do list is drawing!
Q: What goes into self-publishing Deductopia? What are the pros and cons of developing the game with your own resources?
Gwen: Publishing options have really dried up as the game industry has fallen into crisis in the past few years. One of the reasons I chose to go ahead with Deductopia is that I knew I could make the whole thing with my own money.
Q: Deduction gameplay is often associated with a noir aesthetic, but you chose to create visuals inspired by children’s books instead. The results are quite striking! When building the world of Deductopia and picturing each chapter, were there specific values you had in mind?
Gwen: Picture books are a uniquely narratively rich art form that rewards visual exploration. You’re meant to return to them over and over and keep noticing new things. There aren’t many other types of art that do this — Hieronymous Bosch comes to mind, and Chinese landscape artists like Xu Yang. My main inspirations were the Magic School Bus books, Where’s Waldo?, and Highlights Magazine.
Q: You’ve enlisted composer Starling Tan to create an original soundtrack for the game. How do you feel about the role of art in indie game development?
Gwen: I worked with Starling a few years ago on a small interactive poem, Mandala, and she did a terrific job, so I was really keen to work with her on a full-sized game. Music is maybe the only game discipline that’s even more underappreciated than narrative. But I really think of a game as a gestalt where every aspect of the game (art, writing, music, mechanics) is an inextricable part of the whole.
Q: Our database of thinky games launched about two years ago, and you’ve been a regular contributor for writing up game descriptions. It’s safe to say you’ve followed the evolution of the detective genre closely. What’s the most recent game you can think of that broke new ground? What do you think could (or should) be next for the scene?
Gwen: I gotta go with Type Help. It’s only every few years that someone releases something like this with a novel mechanic that just doesn’t feel like it has any direct precedent, and I’m always a little bit jealous that I wasn’t the one who thought of it. I couldn’t possibly guess what will be next — surely it will be something else that takes me by surprise!
Q: Any other game recommendations you'd like to share? We’d love to hear about games you enjoyed recently, whether thinky or not.
Gwen: I’m really into Titanium Court right now. It’s a truly bizarre experience, and I mean that as a compliment. I’d like to see more games that take big swings like this by rejecting genre conventions and establishing their own visual and textual language.
Q: Finally, do you have any advice for LGBTQ+ game developers out there?
Gwen: A lot of us in creative industries are worried about being replaced or made redundant, but I want to remind everyone that the one thing that can never be outsourced is your individual perspective. Particularly for members of minoritized groups, your viewpoints and perspectives will always be an important contribution to the art form.
You can wishlist Deductopia on Steam and solve the first three scenes in the demo. The full game is expected to be released during Fall 2026.
Read our previous Pride Month articles:
- "Whatever you do, you gotta be your most authentic self": How Blobun's game development became an act of self-discovery
- "Making a game as a queer person automatically makes your game queer": Anya Spadin on finding delight in the difficulty of Clover's Quadrants
- "Find or build communities that empower you!": Teaming up to create meaningful games at Purple Sloth Studio
Disclaimer: Thinky Games is a Carina Thinking Games Initiative and may have professional relationships with individuals and businesses related to the subject of this article. Please see our Editorial Policy for details.
