Cory Darby
Cory Darby is the co-creator of A Game About Feeding A Black Hole which has gross more than $1M in sales. He jumped into game development after spending 15 years in software development. His theory is that indies fail mainly because their games are unclear, unmarketable, overbuilt, or boring too early. He would like to help fix that.
Sessions
Why do certain gameplay moments stick with players, get shared, and define a game? In this talk, I break down how we designed standout moments in A Game About Feeding A Black Hole through pacing, anticipation, novelty, clarity, and payoff. Using examples from the game, I’ll show how memorable moments can be deliberately designed and not left to chance.
This session brings two postmortems on projects by members of the Godot community!
Dice Gun Commando, Josh Anthony - This project was started in March 2026, and released a public demo on April 16th, 2026. I'll dive into how I accomplished that effort, and give my thoughts on how to get something released quickly.
syzygy.systems, Zane Walter - Zane and Same set out to make one game a month for a year. They’re back 18 months later with thoughts on how it all went.
A Game About Feeding A Black Hole, Cory Darby - What does it actually take to build a commercially successful indie game? In this talk, I’ll break down three key lessons from co-creating A Game About Feeding A Black Hole, a game that sold over 250,000 copies. I’ll cover why developers should start with what already sells, how I build around three core pillars, and why early validation and aggressive scope control matter more than big ideas.