After 3 years of "a lot of painful work," first-time dev had no idea his game was one of the best-reviewed Steam releases of the year

When I found and wrote about Sheepy: A Short Adventure just yesterday, the pleasant little platformer had around 1,750 Steam user reviews with a 99% positive rating. That's since jumped to nearly 1,900 reviews, still at 99% positive. Bear in mind, the game only came out on February 6. These are enviable numbers for any game, let alone a fresh-faced indie. The free, short game from music promoter MrSuicideSheep and solo developer Thomas Lean is a certified success, and nobody is more surprised than Lean himself.

I was surprised to learn that Sheepy, which looks and feels incredible, is Lean's first full game as a "beginner" developer. I asked Lean – who says he isn't the person behind the MrSuicideSheep YouTube channel, to clear up any confusion – about the game's meteoric success. It's already toe-to-toe with giants like Palworld and Persona 3 Reload, as well as indies like Anomaly Agent and Paper Lily, on the charts for 2024's highest-rated Steam games, with SteamDB's math calling it the single best-rated release of the year. Over a week after Sheepy's launch, Lean told me he had no idea it was so well-reviewed. (Responses edited for clarity and length.) 

"We've learnt this thanks to you, that's insane!" he said. "For next plans, that's something we've discussed already and we still have to discuss more, so I can't say anything for now. But of course, from our side as devs, we're super happy that people are liking the game so much. That's something I wasn't sure of at all until the release. Even if we were proud of the result, what we chose to do with Sheepy was quite 'original' on many points, and I personally had no idea if it would resonate with a lot of players or only a few. Overall, me and SuicideSheep are totally happy about the feedback. For now, I'm focusing on debugging Sheepy and I'll also take some rest after that." 

Lean has an Itch.io profile with some nice art and quick games, but he'd never worked on a project as big as Sheepy before, even if it is