Video Gamers Podcast
Mr. Sleepy Man - Indie Deep Dive with Devin Santi – Gaming Podcast
Wed, 02 Apr 2025
Gaming hosts Ryan and Ace are joined by indie dev Devin Santi to dive into Mr. Sleepy Man! This unique and charming game delivers a dreamlike adventure filled with surprises. We chat with Devin about the title’s development, artistic vision, and what it takes to bring an indie video game to life. It’s a video game packed episode that’s a must-listen for indie gaming fans! All the gaming news you need, every week from the Video Gamers Podcast! Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Ol’ Jake, Disratory and Gaius Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/videogamerspod Join our Gaming Community: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/ Follow us on X: https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU12YOMnAQwqFZEdfXv9c3Q Visit us on the web: https://videogamerspod.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is Mr. Sleepy Man all about?
Hello, fellow gamers. Welcome to the Video Gamers Podcast. I am your host, Ryan, and joining us today, we have someone who may be still in Mr. Sleepy Man, but I think he's woken up from his vacation. It's Ace.
Hey, I'm back, man. I am definitely a little bit of Mr. Sleepy Man, I won't lie, but I am here regardless.
Sometimes it takes a little bit to get back in the flow, you know?
It takes a bit to wake up and get back out there.
And joining us today, a special guest, someone who is maybe a superior musician to all of us, a game designer, many, many, many talents that most of us wish we had. It is the one, the only, Devin, the Mr. Sleepy Man himself.
Yo, how we doing?
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Chapter 2: Who is Devin Santi and what is his background?
Hey, we're doing great. We are so stoked to talk to you. We cover this game in our indie episodes, and we're pretty excited to have you here. You're the creative force behind Mr. Sleepy Man. You're a solo developer. You got many, many hats that you're wearing right now. You're a musician, programmer, composer, game designer. Can you start off by telling us a little bit about yourself?
Share us with some of the background and kind of where this all started for you.
Yeah, I guess I'm a masochist because this is just like, it is, no pun intended, a nightmare. But at the same time, it's like it's half nightmare, half like creative revolution. It's so fun. I love making games. It's like the best thing. It's been an awakening, making this game. Oh, really? With awakening, you say? Yeah, awakening. Right, right. I'm already starting with the puns.
Chapter 3: What inspired the creation of Mr. Sleepy Man?
But anyway, I started as a musician, just making music and funny YouTube videos. And I'll say the core of the creative force going into Mr. Sleepy Man was like, I was kind of artistically split. Like, I would make kind of, like, I would make serious music, and then I would make funny videos, and I really didn't know how to, like, blend the two worlds together.
And when I stumbled upon the creative idea of Mr. Sleepy Man, the idea of just, like, he's this wacky, silly, sleepy guy, but there are nightmares, and the nightmares are coming for him, it was like, it just, like, clicked. I was like, okay, this is perfect, like, artistic. I can do anything I wanted to do artistically, and I wouldn't be, like, confined by...
let's say, whenever you do something creative, it's almost like sometimes you're putting yourself in a box. But because Mr. Sleepy Man is this dream world aesthetic, there are no rules. And that kind of just allowed me to do whatever I wanted. That's pretty nice.
Yeah, that's cool. I love that. We recently covered Split Fiction 2 recently. That is a game that dives into the mind of these characters to where it's taking all their ideas and then kind of Anything you can create is the limit, you know, basically, which is such a cool idea and a premise. So with you, you know, you're saying creating this from the dreams and the minds and stuff.
As a gamer yourself, like... Did you always kind of lend towards these types of games, platformer styles, or is this just like a nostalgia throwback type thing, or do you favor something else, and then this is just what kind of lended itself to what your artistic expression was with the songs that you created? Where did this game come from, and what do you normally play?
You know, I love 3D platformers. I love Mario 64. Heck yeah. I'm a huge Nintendo nerd. I love Zelda. I love all that. And, you know, I didn't necessarily intend to just make a cookie cutter 3D platformer.
If anything, it was just, like, the character controller of a 3D platformer is so fun that I just, like, there's something just so expressive about it that it just, it's just what I wanted to do creatively. Like, I didn't even, it wasn't even necessarily a conscious thought of, like, ooh, what kind of game am I going to make? It's just, like, naturally that's what I gravitated towards.
and it was kind of a mistake because I learned quickly that the reason why there aren't that many 3d platformers is because they're incredibly difficult to develop. So really the first like two years, we're just trying to get a working character controller. Oh, banging my head against the wall. Um,
And the idea of just like, OK, and in 3D platformers, usually the gameplay loop is just like you're running around and you're collecting things and you're jumping on stuff and that's it. And I always like wonder why is there never more to 3D platformer? I want to do more exploration, more interactivity. And that's because like it takes so long to make a 3D platformer.
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Chapter 4: What challenges does a solo developer face?
without getting bored of it like that was that was kind of a new thing for me so really it's just about having that back and forth the looping i can't imagine the challenge for i couldn't yeah because when it's bad you notice and even just the idea like i have to listen to it all the time and i'm like i'm my harshest critic so the fact that i have to listen to the sound of my voice like every character is voiced by me mr sleeping man's voiced by me
And it's just like, I can feel my nasal cavity when I hear the sound of my voice because it's me. So it's just like, oh my gosh, it's the worst. But at the same time, it's great. So I'm glad that people are liking it so far. I'm waiting for someone to trash me. When is it going to happen? When am I going to get the horrible review of someone just hating my game? It's just like, I'm waiting for it.
But it hasn't happened yet, but I'm sure it will happen at launch.
Yeah, I mean, there's always going to be somebody out there. You know, you can't please everybody. I mean, we recently had a troll review where it was just like 15 puke emojis. And we're like a 4.9 on the pod, and we're like all five stars, and then we just get one like that, and it just says terrible or something. And we're like, okay, you know.
I don't know, man. You just got to brush it off.
Yeah, people are going to have their pains. But we've loved what we've seen so far.
Yeah, absolutely loved everything about it so far. So Mr. Sleepy Man is filled with like 2000s nostalgia, pop culture references and things like that. But do you have like any personal media from there or influential games and aesthetics that really affected the game and your development?
um i really love anything 2000s yeah the game is a love letter to the thousands and like it's not just like people say oh 2000s nostalgia like in a game usually they're just drawing from like a game like banjo kazooie or ocarina of time whatever but like i love everything nostalgia like
i'm a huge lincoln park fan so like that type of music is influenced in the game like new metal or like pop punk from the 2000s like that people don't even realize it's just like in the game and it fits because it is oh it's 2000s aesthetic so really anything 2000s and i there isn't there isn't a limit on that period nice yeah okay yeah i can't i can't even imagine it
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Chapter 5: How does music influence game design?
Why do I need to use this form of meaning to escape from the past? And that becomes kind of an overarching story theme in the game.
I'm super excited to see the story of the game. You have no idea. Wait, this game is a story?
I thought I was just rocking out. No, no. Things happen. Stealing donuts. There's a cause and effect.
Yep, yep.
If anything, there are things in the demo that happen in the demo, and you think, oh, this is just a funny, crazy thing, but all of your actions in the demo have an effect on the rest of the game.
oh all right okay so choices matter yeah so yeah it's a linear story so i mean it's whatever well so so within like creating the game you know um you know some of the best ideas and we know this from just uh brainstorming and coming up with things for the pod or other stuff you know Sometimes mistakes come up with unexpected results.
You know, was there any situations in here where you're like, oh, whoops, I messed that up. But you know what, that kind of works. You know, was there like a happy accident that helped kind of shape the game for you?
That's probably my entire life. Yeah, right? I feel like Mr. Sleepy Man as a character is the embodiment of that because I didn't intend to make him a video game character. I was just drawing a sleepy guy. I was practicing drawing because I knew I wanted to do game art. And I was like, oh, Sleepy Man, Mr. Sleepy Man, that sounds funny.
And then it kind of just occurred to me that it would be a fun game idea. But then even the idea of him being this character who, you know, you're doing morally wrong things in the game. You're stealing a cash register. You're messing with people in the town. I didn't realize the comedic aspect of that, that, oh, Mr. Sleepy Man, because he's asleep, he doesn't have any moral accountability.
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Chapter 6: What role does nostalgia play in Mr. Sleepy Man?
Yeah. You know, there's a famous Rick Rubin quote. It's like, you really, if you try and make something for someone else, you're going to ultimately fail. I'm paraphrasing that. But in a game, it's like, you have to really balance that because at the end of the day, it is for someone else. It is like, it's like cooking. It is the same thing.
It's like, you're not the one consuming it at the end of the day. Yeah. But, you know, when someone like just pops into my Discord and they have like a thousand lines of feedback, you have to really take it as a grain of salt. I feel like the best feedback I get is from people who have been following the game and truly understand my vision of it.
And like the feedback that they give, it's like someone that actually cares about the game rather than someone who's kind of just nitpicking and they think it should be something else. Like that's subjective, like there's subjective feedback and objective feedback.
someone objectively sees where the game is going and can help steer in that direction that's great but if someone's just like they don't even want that type of game yet they're giving feedback because they saw some other game that did that that's usually kind of how i yeah you kind of have to just filter through what's useful and what's
It's got to be like a filter. You got to be like, all right, you know, I got to – and I'm sure it sucks to have to go through all that and kind of knock out the nonsense, you know, every time. But, I mean, it's just one of those things you have to do because otherwise it's just – it's too much. Like I said, everybody's got a dang opinion on every little nook and cranny.
Oh, well, this jump was a little too off in my opinion.
You know, like –
There's 4,000 jumps. Like, really, this one? This is the one? Exactly, yeah.
The triple jump is too difficult. Yeah.
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Chapter 7: How does feedback shape the game development process?
And I just remember just, like, thinking, like, well, people kind of miss the point sometimes, because... A musician will get really into a song because of a technical aspect, like, oh, this guitar solo is so fast, or look how fast this drummer is playing. But people don't think about that. People that listen to music, they just want to connect.
It's about the emotional connection, what resonates with them as a person. When you hear a song, why are you listening to it? Are you listening to it for a drum fill? Or are you listening to it because the person is saying something that means something to you? And I think that's the core. And I go into game development with that perspective as well.
Dude, that's awesome. Because at the end of the day, what do you play video games for? To have fun. To escape, to have fun, to enjoy. And like you said with the music, I hear Freebird. I don't think of the lyrics. I just think, I want to run through a wall right now.
I'm like, Freebird! Freebird is a great example because that is technically proficient, but he's emoting through the guitar playing. It's not... playing fast for the sake of playing fast, he's playing fast to communicate these ideas. which I feel like a lot of metal music with anything that's like, you know, that stuff is just like, look how fast I can play mom.
Oh, that's awesome. So what are some of the like unique, uh, advantages and challenges of developing game completely by yourself and on your own? Like, have they introduced, like, have they influenced the way that you, uh, creatively make decisions?
Oh yeah, I think just coding is so fun. I didn't realize how fun coding would be. Because it's just like problem solving at its... You grind it down to its basic principles. I didn't realize that I would actually kind of be good at it. I mean, it's still up for debate if I'm good at coding, honestly.
I think it is just like I'm good at criticizing myself in that way because it's like I can look back at my past mistakes and improve upon that. And game development, I feel like it is almost like every person should try and make a game because you've learned so much about yourself and you see your mistakes in real time. If something doesn't work because of a lack of logic...
That's so great for someone's development. I think there's a lot of boomers out there that can really benefit from that.
That's for sure.
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Chapter 8: What can we expect from Mr. Sleepy Man?
benefit of the times I think there's gonna be more solo developers like me coming out well that's the thing yeah it's easier so now there's I mean just like with podcasts I mean there's four million podcasts there's a million people that want to create video games and there's a ton of them that have never even got close to the level you are already you know creating these games so it may be easier but the the pool is much deeper and
that you got to swim through to get to the top and kind of have that exposure, which you've done pretty well so far, which the music, I think, is a big tie-in, at least for us.
For us, it definitely resonated. That's for sure.
And so with that, as you're creating this, how does that work with the chopping board, the chopping block, your prototype process? Yeah. where do you bring things in and chop them off? Like, okay, that may not work. You know, how does that whole kind of system kind of flesh out?
Well, it makes you really honest with yourself because as an artist, you have to kill your darlings, as they say. Yeah, yeah. Last year, there was an entire other world in the game, and I was just like, it's got to die. Rest in peace. You got to put them down. Dang. Yeah. Sorry, kids. We got to put them down. Yep. You have to kind of have that mentality.
It's like at any time, I love everything in this game, but y'all could die. At any time I throw any of it out. And that's that that takes like a radical honesty, because if you hold if you hold everything that you've made too close, you become blind in a way. Yeah. You know.
You might be the realest person I've ever talked to in my life. You're so in sync with yourself. It's awesome because it means you're an honest developer. You know what doesn't work and maybe even if you put a lot of effort into it, if it's not working, you just got to cut it. You have to.
I like to see the personal growth in making things, and therapy is great too. Everyone, go to therapy. Go to therapy as a preventative measure. That's the thing. No one wants to go to therapy as a preventative measure. I'm going to tell you, go to therapy as a preventative measure. You're going to thank yourself in five years.
Yeah.
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