SNAILEEYO!

SarahSweetBee: What game are you working on and what do you do? 

Gross: I’m a game dev, and I basically created my first iOS and Android app. I made the 3D models, the textures, the audio, the animations, and coded everything in Unity. And now we’re making—I hired a 3D artist and designer, Susan Tang, and she made even better 3D models and textures, and we're working together on a console version of our game, Mega SnaileeYo Adventure. 

SarahSweetBee: Can you give us a small summary of your game? 

Gross: It’s an open world 3D platformer where you collect fruit and barter with this small group of super cute—runpos, we call them—they’re these little cute, little orb-headed people and you give them the fruit, and they unlock areas in this big world. There’s several different biomes in this huge world. It’s gonna have a grass biome, a water biome, a desert biome, volcano, and a toxic biome. It’s still in development, so it might get even bigger than that. 

SarahSweetBee: Awesome! What would you say inspired your game the most? 

Gross: I started this in 2019, and I started it as an inspiration to make peaceful, non-violent games, because I wanted to inspire players to get a dopamine rush off of being chill and seeing colorful, really lush, beautiful environments. And that kind of grew into this big 3D platformer world where we have it now, Mega SnaileeYo Adventure. 

SarahSweetBee: Awesome! All right, the fun questions! If you could go back and begin again from scratch, would you change anything, and if so, what would you change? 

Gross: I don’t think I would really change anything at this point, because my philosophy is that this project developed organically, and I don’t know how it would have evolved otherwise if it hadn’t taken on the many different forms and facets that it had in its early development to now. Also, I really love the learning process and all the vicissitudes, the failures, the successes that come with it, so I wouldn’t want to change anything.

SarahSweetBee: And what has been your favorite part of your development process? 

Gross: I would say the learning, but now that we’ve exhibited at Play NYC in Manhattan this July, past July 2021, and now we’re at PAX West, it’s the people. I love the gaming community. I love gaming audiences and gamers. I never felt that I belonged in such a welcoming community. I don’t know if it’s what I bring to the table and then that’s what I get back, but I’ve really just loved walking through these exhibition halls and seeing how people engage, and they’re so friendly and curious.

SarahSweetBee: And is there anything else you want us to know about your game or what you do?

Gross: Yeah, right now, we’ve been working on the game, it’s a very small demo of the game, and we really want public support, so if you could go to bezenyo.com, all of our social media links are there. And if you could follow and share us on any of the big social media platforms—you know, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Discord, TikTok—it would go a long way, because we’re looking to find publishers or investors to fund this project to get it on a legitimate console system. 

SarahSweetBee: Awesome!

 SarahSweetBee: What game are you working on and what do you do?

Tang: Right now I’m currently working on SnaileeYo!, and I’m a freelance 3D artist by trade. 

And I’m just helping John update some of the assets from the mobile game to make a more PC/console-updated high-fidelity version. Hi-res version, sorry! 

SarahSweetBee: What would you say inspired your work the most? 

Tang: Uh, well, John’s character Snaileeyo. As soon as I saw it, I immediately knew there was something special. I loved how cute it was. My whole like, spiel I guess, and my whole style is to do something really cute, kawaii, colorful. So as soon as I saw it, I knew it would be a great fit. A lot of my inspiration came from Animal Crossing and from old N64 3D platformers, so that was kind of the style we’re trying to emulate. 

SarahSweetBee: What has been your favorite part of the process so far? 

Tang: Let’s see… Well, being just a two-person team is really interesting because I kind of wear a lot of hats. I’m not just the 3D artist, but I also do the concept art, I prototype everything… I’m also the technical artist. I get everything into Unity, get it hooked up, put particle effects on it… And so I think that’s, for me, the best part because I really enjoy the whole process from start to finish. I don’t really like passing my work off to other people. And I really am thankful to John, for you know, trusting me with all of that, so yeah! 

SarahSweetBee: Is there anything else that you want us to know about your game? 

Tang: Uh, that we are trying to make a PC console version of it and update it for people. So if you really like the style, if you’re really about the message where, you know, we just want to build an inclusive community and make wholesome games, to please follow us and like us on our social media @bezenyo. 

SarahSweetBee: Perfect!