Meet Chera & Craig Meredith

Chera and Craig Meredith encourage a more positive view of the world by creating games that focus on the good things in life. This husband-and-wife team founded the indie game studio So Peculiar.

So Peculiar
https://www.sopeculiar.com/

Bug & Seek on Steam
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2265310/Bug__Seek/

• Transcript

  I think it's very easy to focus on a project and sometimes miss when God tells us to turn to the left or right. Or to assume that because he's called us to this, it means it's going to go well.

  Welcome to Faith Forms, where we explore the question, "What does it mean to be a Christian in the games industry?"

  Today, I'm really excited. I get to sit down with two of my friends, Craig and Chera Meredith. They are the husband and wife team who co-founded the indie studio So Peculiar. And they just released their first game on Steam called Bug and Seek.

  Craig and Chera, welcome to Faith Forms. Thanks, Brock. Thanks for having us. So you guys have just released a new game called Bug and Seek. Great name, by the way.

  Great name, isn't it?

  We can't even say it without laughing.

  Divine inspiration. Brock, that's what that was.

  So it's this really cute, 8-bit cozy game about catching bugs. And tell us more about it. Yeah, it is. It's all about the bugs. It is inspired by real life nature. So we used real life bugs and built kind of a Stardew Valley-esque world where you explore and catch a variety of insects and arachnids and all kinds of things. Put them on display in your bug museum and then you collect money from patrons to come and see what bugs you have on display.

  Awesome. What was the inspiration for it?

  A lot of outside. We moved out to the woods a couple years ago and kept finding it. We're in East Tennessee. So there's a lot of bugs out here. And then our kids.

  The joy of them just exploring in the woods. You had also had the idea to make a creature collector game because you enjoy that. I like playing those games. And we thought, what better creatures to collect than the real ones? There's no lack of inspiration or content out there.

  Now this is your first game published under So Peculiar, right? It is, yes. And what is it on?

  It's currently on Steam. We're working on a Switch port. So we're in discussions right now with studios for that. So that'll be coming hopefully in April or May. We're not exactly sure of the deadline yet, but it'll be spring. And now you guys have a pretty incredible journey.

  I believe when I first met you, what was it, six or seven years ago at CGDC, I don't think you knew anything about game development at the time.

  That is fair. That's accurate.

  Yep. I remember you were super hungry to learn and you were asking fantastic questions and

  you could just tell that you were going to succeed one way or another.

  Thank you.

  Sometimes that's a good thing about me. I get really intense about whatever I'm into. And so I just, this was just something that was in my heart. And I didn't really have words to explain it. And had I known all the things that were involved in making a game, I think it would have intimidated me. So it was a lot of blessing in the naivety that I came into this with because I just kept doing what was right in front of me and eventually learned enough that we could make something beginning to end. Yeah. How long had that been in your heart?

  This idea sparked when Craig was working full time at this point at another job. And so he was just like, sounds cool. Go for it.

  He's like, well, this sounds out there, but if you want to do it, I'll support you. But yeah, for me, it was an idea that was sparked by one of our, again, one of our kids, our oldest son who wanted a big kid game. He said he was turning five. We had talked about big kid stuff that he would get to do. And he asked for a big kid game for his birthday. And so that just set me off on a, just a little journey in my mind and my prayer life about what does that look like? And really talk to the Lord about, you know, if, if you are a God who loves to give us good things, this is something my kids asking for, and I don't know how to give it to him. So what does that mean? And I really just, the phrase that kept coming to mind was just do the next thing. And so I Googled and I emailed and I found a conference in Portland, Oregon and met you and several others. And it was always just one thing led to another. So I think the idea grew over the course of about nine months as I was just writing things down and kind of gathering information and, and really hoped that I'd find somebody like you already knew what they were doing. I could say, here you go. Here's my idea. Can you make it?

  Low and behold, there's a, you know, a dozen good ideas for every one game that gets made, maybe hundreds of good ideas for every one game that actually gets finished. So there was no shortage of great ideas out there. It was just, can we get it done? Now, were either of you gamers at the time? Kids were, or my oldest son was. Yeah. I did a little bit. I mean, I would play mobile games at the time. We had a Wii. I think I played Lego. We played Lego stuff on Wii, but I was a, I played games when I was in college, I guess, when I was younger and then we had kids and that just consumed all the time. It was just no more time. So I would not have called myself a gamer by any means at that point.

  But you were far more like, I didn't even do mobile games. Yeah. I had played games growing up kind of the classic Nintendo 64 games and that kind of thing. And I hadn't played them in college or really any of my adult life. So I had to tell share trust you. Yeah.

  And how long did it take to get the vision for your studio?

  Oh, wow. That came, you know, you and I have talked about this a little bit, but I think, I think my initial step into the world of game design came as a thing to do for my kids. So it was like, oh, I want to make games for kids, for my kids.

  And it took several years, I think, for me to say and acknowledge, I really like making games. I really like doing this and I just, this is just something I want to do. So the vision for our studio probably evolved over the course of several years.

  So it's been eight or nine years since I really sparked the idea of, I think I want to make a game. And I think our studio's vision really solidified a couple of years ago when you came in full time.

  And that vision has become that we make games that highlight the good things in the world. So we love to find inspiration in the real world and kind of bring a player's attention to something good that's happening around them, even when they put down the game.

  And why is that important to you?

  I think it's easy to miss the simple things God places around us to enjoy and inspire wonder. And it's really an act of will to slow down from all the, just all the noise and all the things vying and yelling for our attention and just focus on the things that are good in life.

  Like I said, that God, I think has given us to enjoy, to reflect an aspect of his character, to remind us of him.

  So with Bug and Seek, there's so much, so much awe and wonder as you get to learn about insects.

  They're by far the most populous, you know, living thing. Well, I mean plants and kind of even bugs. Yeah, I mean, they're one of the, if not the most populous thing on the planet. We so often take them for granted, but they're so interesting. And the way, just the different things they do that I would have never thought of before we did this game and had to look into and research them. And just the creativity of God and the fingerprints of God, I think, are all over them. And they're so vital to our survival. You know, we tend to view them as pets, but without insects, you know, soil doesn't decompose and become nutrient rich. We don't have crops or food to eat.

  That's an interesting experiment to think of a world without bugs and what happens and how quickly.

  And on the kind of the broader view of that too, I think we just, as humans, we tend to focus on the negative or on the places where we, things are wrong. You know, our areas of restriction. I can't do this. I can't go here and that we can hyper focus on those things and then everything feels like it's not okay. But when we focus on the good stuff and when we focus on look at all the beauty and all the things that are happening, it changes our whole perception of what's going on in our own world.

  So personally, I want to do more of that in my own life.

  Yeah.

  And are your games going to be overtly Christian at any point? I have no intention of that. We do have another. The game that I started kind of learning with and that got me really excited is a point and click adventure that was more narrative driven, definitely more metaphorical, what I would call a fantasy version of my own testimony. But we've gone back and forth a lot on like, how much do we say that this is what we intended or how much do we just leave for the Holy Spirit to do something there?

  And could we like, I mean, if I try to take charge of that, I'm probably going to mess it up. So it might just be better to leave it.

  So I don't know, but we don't have any plans to make something explicitly Christian.

  Cool. So are you returning to the, to that first game at some point? We are. I'm hoping to pitch it to some publishers.

  I think we could use some finishing funds to get that done and out the door, having now released a game on our own and seeing all that's required to get released out the door. Plus all the things that happen afterward, localization and Steam achievements and all that stuff we're working on now. I'm like, it would be really nice to have some help with all of that and some marketing and that kind of stuff too. So a publisher would be ideal, but if not, my intent is to just keep working on it as, as often as we can, as slowly as needed until we finish. Yeah.

  Let's talk about navigating the call. I've met a lot of people over the years that are trying to walk out this vision that God's given them, especially within the CGDC community.

  There's a lot of people like yourself that have an idea for a game and they're trying to, I guess, just bring it to life and they feel like God has given it to them. Do you have any tips or just wisdom for how you've been trying to walk that out?

  Whoo.

  Yeah, probably. You want to go through? I have some experience. I feel like I'm talking a whole lot.

  So I would say, I think sometimes, at least this was the case for me and I got his, I feel like worked on me a lot in this area is that call changes. Sometimes we tend to get into a project and think the project itself is kind of the end all be all, maybe the offering to God. And it could be, but it could also be just a step in the journey. God has you on, I think, to equip you and teach you things for where he's leading you. So I have now come to have a, my view of calling has changed to be being obedient to what God is saying today.

  Because I think it's very hard as people to set our minds on one thing and say this one, like, closer than you know, has been an eight year project. And we very much felt like Chera, especially was called to make it, but it looks nothing like what we thought. And so much of what she learned, you know, led to bug and seek and, and I think part of the call and her making closer than you know, it was more so she would meet people and create informed relationships with people that would be life changing both for her and for the people she encountered. So I'll just come back to try and simplify it and say, I think it's really important to make sure we're continually checking with God daily for what is the call for me today.

  Because again, I think, you know, he's the CS Lewis line.

  Is he safe? Yeah, of course he's not safe, but he's good. It, I think it's very easy to focus on a project and sometimes miss when God tells us to turn to the left or right. Or to assume that because he's called us to this, it means it's going to go well and it's going to be successful. Yeah, by whatever standard you want to, you want to call that, you know, he called us to make something. He called us to be here. He called us to try. But we have to repeatedly go back to that conversation with him. And I think, I think whenever we stop asking him, you know, what is, what am I supposed to be doing today? Then we're in trouble because then I've made decisions on my own without him.

  And that never goes well. No, no. And to touch on what you said about being called to something doesn't necessarily mean success.

  I mean, we talk about that a lot because it's a scary thing to think. It's a daily like conversation with us is what do we do now? What do we do now? Because yeah, I mean, bug and seek has gone well by a lot of standards. But like for the Meredith's trying to feed our two kids, we're like, still waiting to see if it's going to be enough. Yeah. Yeah. And we, I feel like we have to remind ourselves that the success was in the obedience and the stepping out in faith and, you know, venturing into areas. We had no idea what we were doing and coming back into the check in with God daily.

  I'm so much of a planner. So I will get on Steam and look at the numbers and kind of project what it means for the game sales. And it creates a whole lot of stress. And if I just take things one day at a time and remember, you know, for today, we have enough and to be thankful for that. The quality of life for that day is amazingly different.

  I'm curious, Craig.

  You were supportive of your wife, sounds like from the very beginning, but you weren't running, helping run the studio in the beginning, were you?

  No. He filed our paperwork. Yeah, I did all the.

  Yeah.

  It was a poor choice at the time, but like when we created email addresses for the company, I made mine so peculiar legal. Because that's all I did. I did contracts. Now I get on calls and stuff and I got to figure out how to change the name on it.

  But no, I wasn't involved until really two years ago, like Cheryl would bounce ideas off me occasionally just for the story part of the game, but.

  But yeah, I was not involved in the least really until two years ago.

  So what changed there?

  I got really burnt out with what I was doing and kind of lost.

  I felt like there were differing alignments between me and the company. So that combined with burnout just made it time for a change. And they handled that very graciously. They were very generous and a lot of that has allowed us to continue with this. But, you know, I, one of the lessons got taught me, I had thought my call was to be there, you know, at that company forever and help steer things in a way. And I think for a long time, he had been trying to whisper and nudge and tap me and say, it's time to go in a different direction. And I resisted it. So it really took kind of a fiery crash, burnout crash where I just had no energy and Cheryl was worried. I was depressed for me to realize, oh, so that's what that nagging feeling kind of was.

  And so when I left, I had no idea what I was going to do. I just knew I couldn't stay.

  And we prayed about it. And I think God has called me in a few different directions. But we felt like one of those directions was to step into the studio because we already had it. Cheryl was making great progress and strides. And she had the idea for Bug and Seek.

  Well, and he also felt was feeling called to write. So he did all the content writing for Bug and Seek, all the funny little taglines and the descriptions. He also did pixel art, which he did not feel called to at all. But we kind of just shoved on him and he did really great with that. But he's writing a book. He's he's written the book and he's about to send it out to some agents. So that was a big it's a big pivot from the business world that he's been in for a long time. Yeah. Yeah. Fiction writing fiction.

  So last time you and I spoke, Cheryl, you talked about feeling pressure to be something more than you are to come off bigger, maybe.

  And you said that you started telling people now that you're just a tiny two person dev team. So I'd love to hear more about the kind of just that pressure you were feeling.

  Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I have ideas about where that comes from. I think it's just a conglomeration of a whole lot of things. But, you know, when you see all these other studios putting out games and you want to perform as well as they are. And we want to put something out that we're proud of. Like there's just it was just kind of this tendency to say, we know what we're doing and we're going to show you that we know what we're doing. And so here's all the ways we can prove it. And that's, you know, from everything to like the graphic design on your website and making sure things work smoothly and trying to present ourselves in this professional way. And then we got really helpful feedback. Is it just okay to say like this guy? His name is Eric. I can't remember his last name, but he's from Tilt. We reached out. We saw we heard him on a podcast. And so we just reached out and said, we really liked what you have to say. Can you can you give us any advice? And generally speaking, people have been really kind and helpful when you reach out and say, I like what you have to say. Can you help me with something? People like to share their wisdom and experience. Yeah, Eric Kovach. Yes. I think that's how it's pronounced. And do you want to share like his feedback for us that was pivotal? Yeah, he made the point to us because on Steam we had just so peculiar games. LLC. So peculiar LLC. Like I thought, oh, you put the legal name of your company here. That's right. And he made the point to us, you've got to help set expectation. If you put that, people are going to expect a studio of a lot of people. And it's just us two. And he said, when you let people know, hey, it's just us two. That's that resets expectation. So people aren't expecting large studio quality and and timeliness and that kind of stuff. Well, I shouldn't say timeliness, but just large studio product. If we don't respond to your email in two hours, like it's because we're like also homeschooling kids and feeding the dogs and doing the other 50 things that we have as a two person studio. Yeah. And he really challenged us to to be more upfront with who we were or who we are. Why? Yeah. Be personal. Let people know it's just the two of us. And that that felt very relieving and freeing in a lot of ways. And I think it's it's proven pretty accurate to in how people have received the game or responded to us recognizing that it's just the two of us. And yeah, we we still don't know what we're doing.

  Well, I think there's a lot of you know, I was concerned about gamers or players being very negative. You see things on Steam where people just tear you to shreds after releasing a game. And it was it was terrifying. They were covering people pleaser as terrifying to me. So it's been it's been really a nice surprise that we've had. I mean, close to 100 percent of people have really just been kind. And the few things that haven't been like we just you know, we handled with kindness and then even people then would come back and be like, oh, didn't realize like, yeah, this or that. But but yeah, for the most part, people are very kind and understanding and they want to see us succeed because we're a small two person team. And they're like, wow, it went from oh, we should see more from this game to wow, I can't believe two people made this thing.

  And so it's been really helpful on the business side of things. And just as we relate to people. Yeah. Yeah. I've found that authenticity.

  It's the best path, I think, at least not everyone's going to like you or not everyone's going to be your cup of tea or not see eye to eye with everyone. But I think people respect people that are authentic.

  And and you can pretty quickly tell if somebody's being inauthentic and phony and false, especially, I guess, in Christian circles, we see it a lot. It's refreshing to me when I hear like just a very authentic testimony about where someone's been where someone's at the struggles and because none of us have it all together. We're all learning and struggling through life on a daily basis.

  Yeah, I think I think people give more grace if someone's authentic and not trying to prove something or sell something.

  That's very true. It's very true. If I hear someone that has it all together, I think I can't relate to that person. I don't know if I can really hear what they have to say. Yeah. So it seems like a really good piece of advice for people starting out no matter where they are with their game is to be authentic.

  Absolutely. Yeah. And that leads in to the next part here. I want to talk about just practical tips or pieces of wisdom that you've gleaned through this process.

  Even if there's like some mistakes you've made, I think that's a good way to share some wisdom as well.

  Even when God calls us to something, that doesn't mean that we're going to not make mistakes or succeed all the time.

  Yeah. So if you have tips around launching a game or creating a studio or just anything that sticks out in your mind for the last few years. Well, the first thing that comes to mind is I think smaller and smaller every time we do something new. I'm like, how do we make it smaller? Because we are just two people.

  And things are always just bigger than you think. So closer than you know is the first game I started. Been working on it, like we said, started eight years ago. Still not finished. Got a ways to go. And I trimmed it down. I thought I trimmed it down a lot, but it's a big project. And so Bug and Seek, we said, let's make it small. And we thought we could get it done in a year. It took us 18 months to release. And here we're 18, 19 months now. And it'll be another six months before I get to say, okay, I think we're done enough that I can start the next one. So that's two years.

  And then so then, you know, the next project I'm like already going, how can I make it as small as possible so we can get it out the door as soon as possible. Yeah. And that's not to say we don't dream big, but we're focused on quality. I think anything we do. Yeah. If we want it to be do well, should be quality. But yeah, sometimes you can't do something huge at great quality, the whole length of the project. So if we're going to sacrifice one thing or another, I'm going to sacrifice the size of the project and make it make it something good, but make it something small. Yeah. Yeah. And Brock, you're probably one of those people that told me make a small game. And I was like, sure. Okay. I'm going to make this game that I want to make. Yeah, it's one of those things that you have to go through it, I think, before you really learn it.

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

  Another thing I would say is it's important to understand the kind of the market, the game you're making, what kind of player it's appealing to, you know, what kind of audience you hope to draw. But you have to kind of do it in a detached way. I think the comparison trap is a gigantic pit of despair, because you very often hear of all the success stories, or you hear of the terrible failures, you don't hear of this, you know, the 98% in the middle. Yeah. And it can be real easy to hear the success stories and let it just impact you in a negative way, because you aren't seeing those same metrics. You know, you aren't getting that many follows or clicks or likes or upvotes on Reddit kind of thing. But, you know, it's a double edged sword because I do think it's important to be informed about the kind of game you're making, and how practically you're gonna attract players. It's easy to think, once I make it, I just put it out there, and people start playing it and buying it and they love it.

  And that can happen every now and then but there's a reason people call it catching lightning in a bottle.

  So there's a lot of work that goes into building an audience and a following. And it's important not to, I'm preaching this as much to myself as anyone, not to despise the small beginnings. Yeah. You know, I remember when we had a discord server of like 20 people, we were like, I can't believe 20 people want to talk about our game. Yeah, yeah. And now it's like 400 or something. Yeah.

  And I, I would say along with that we talk a lot about hope versus expectations, especially as believers like hope is a good thing, right? It's a really good, we're supposed to have hope. And we never want to doubt that God could do something really amazing and we could see things blow up and it would just, you know, we'd say, yay, praise God for all that.

  But we also want to say, yay, praise God for one sale today, you know, or, or what just having a good day at home. And so just setting our, allowing our hope to be there but recognizing that God's going to take care of us no matter what. And we're not going to be disappointed in Him or our own work. If it doesn't happen, like we're proud of our work no matter what, no matter what numbers look like. So yeah, that's a constant, I just like it's a constant head thing. Yeah. And another practical tip I would say is expect to, if you're really serious about it, you've got to treat it like a full time job and you've got to put in a lot of effort to it because you cannot

  put out something that is not quality I think and succeed or very rarely you can there's some games every now and then that happens but I think as Christians too, it reflects on us and our faith and our creator if we don't at least, and I'll call it kind of the reasonable best we can do do the reasonable best we can do we should then. Yeah, not overwork or striving, you know, I think we still are supposed to work from his rest. But you can do a lot, a lot of work still without striving and, and again always checking in daily, what am I supposed to do today what does it look like.

  We've had seasons where we've had to work, kind of crunch to get things done in time and other seasons where we were able to relax and take it easy.

  So it's again one of those kind of there's danger on either side of the spectrum not not working enough and working too much. Yeah, and so you have to kind of, it's up to you and God define where that healthy balance is but, and sometimes he stretches us in different ways, which is also interesting. Because he comes from like, just work, work your tail off like work to you collapse kind of mentality. And I have wrestled with discipline in the past. And so I feel like God has really stretched me and challenged me to come on show up, do your part and do do everything that I can that's in my power. So that means I have worked really hard and long hours on bug and seek and you have to, but also some of the challenge that God has given him is you're not in control, take your hands off this a little bit, you know, yeah, he, I feel like time and again, he has let me very clearly see that doing any more work or effort is just banging my head into a brick wall.

  So, got to give each other grace for whatever he's, you know, wherever we're at in the moment. So that's been been stretching. Yeah.

  So I want to ask one more question.

  That's wasn't on

  wasn't on the stock here. So, okay. So I'll give you a minute to think about it and it we've kind of, you've touched on it a lot. Anyway, but I want to, I want to directly ask you, what does it mean for you to be a Christian that makes games. I mean the first thing that comes to mind for me is, is doing it is just what's my heart in it. Like what's my attitude toward it.

  Am I grateful for the work that I get to do today, or am I angry frustrated that it's not going as well as I'd hoped.

  How am I responding to people with problems because you know making games we're asking for feedback people share their thoughts on what you've made, and they'll share like we have to differentiate bad bugs between good bugs in our game all the time but we have like the bad bugs that are reported.

  And again is like chronic recovering people pleaser I'm like, the worst part, they tell you all the things that are wrong. But how I respond to those things, I think, is, you know, one of the most like, it could be Christian or not Christian in those moments, regardless of what kind of game it is. Yeah.

  I think for me it affects.

  How to say this. So I think it's important to be, to me to be a Christian game developer means that what I'm making I'm making with God.

  It's, you know, it's not for God, it is, but it's far more important to be made with God. And that can look a lot of different ways for a lot of different people like share said none of our games were will be overtly, or, you know, pedantically Christian.

  Yeah.

  Yeah.

  But it's very important also to remember that in making the game with him.

  Everyone it touches, you know, as someone that he, he wants to touch or interact with.

  And so, including people who don't like it. Yeah, or might have something bad to say yeah like the biggest way.

  And just seeing what we're doing play out in a faith perspective is just the interactions with people, and how much kindness, how far kindness goes and just treating someone like a human being like they're seen and they're heard, which I think is the call for all of us.

  Yeah. Yeah. So I, to summarize just, you know, making it with God.

  I think the thing that everyone you interact with is, is someone good, you know, Christ died for. Yeah.

  Cat cat's here to see all the animals coming out. I would say to, I mean, this, you know this.

  I had conversations about this and I know we could talk about it for hours but there's also things like in the game like as you're designing that I think we can be kind as developers, or we can be unkind. I, my son was recently telling me about this, this particular game I won't call it out, unless you want me to, but there was like a, there's like a trick, there's like a, there's a path that makes you think you can go here but you can't really go there and try you just end up like collapsing and going back to the start. And they said it was like the developers said it was like their little joke. And I'm thinking, what a, what a terrible joke like who's in on that, except their studio, you know, no player is going to appreciate that. So there's just little, I think, just ways to be kind, and, and if you want to make people feel like they belong.

  Do that with your design and make sure that they like things are smooth and when it makes sense to you know that this button would do this thing, make it work. So there's like that piece of excellence feels like that is Christian, because it's, it's doing what we said we would do it's, I don't know working doing good work again valuing the player yeah valuing the player and all those little ways there's a lot of ways that you can express value as a developer designer.

  Well sharing Craig I appreciate your time so much I loved talking with you. And where can they get your game right now bug and seek right now in the steam store. And then coming up, it'll be on switch in the spring. April, April or May, hopefully. Yeah, so you can look on steam or go to bug and seek calm to sign up for mailing list and find out for the switch release. Yeah, and can they get in on your discord through your website as well.

  Yes, yes, discord through the website and on our steam page. Yeah. Awesome. So, everyone check it out. It's a really cute cozy fun game. So, an excellent title.

  titles ever, ever given to it.

  It is pretty good isn't it.

  Well thank you again.

  Thanks Brock. Yeah, thanks for having us.