Micromanage the Chaos: Building Apocalypse Express with Matia
I hit record a few minutes too late. You know that feeling when the best stories happen before the camera starts rolling? That was exactly what happened with Matia and me. We were already knee-deep in talk about last-minute demo chaos, scrappy teams, and the kind of source-control disasters that make you question your career choices. It set the tone perfectly for a conversation about Apocalypse Express, a hectic action-management roguelike where you’re the only conductor on a train determined to keep going, even when everything is falling apart. I’ve always loved games that scratch that tinkerer itch, where you turn messy parts into a finely tuned machine, and this one hits the same part of my brain that loves modular mechs and min-maxing.
The idea behind the game feels simple at first. You manage a post-apocalyptic train that’s always on fire, sometimes literally. You shovel fuel, flip track switches, fire a cannon, repair modules, and hold everything together while enemies try to tear you apart. It has the rapid decision-making chaos you get from Overcooked and the endurance of a roguelike, dressed in a dusty Mad Max tone. What really clicked for me was how much pressure comes from doing very simple actions. You interact, you fix, you repeat. The panic builds as more tasks pile up, and suddenly you’re juggling disasters instead of handling neat little problems. You either find the rhythm or the wheels come off.
The game started about three years ago as something manageable for a small team. Now it’s made by a core group of five, plus a few part-timers helping with programming, audio, and marketing. Matia has five years of big-studio experience behind him and later worked in a studio-for-hire environment, so he’s seen both ends of game development. That experience shows. Their workflow feels surprisingly clean: Git for the repo, Jira to wrangle planning, Confluence for design notes, Miro for brainstorming, Discord for daily comms, and weekly sessions to either knock out milestones or explore new content. It’s not glamorous, but it’s the kind of structure that keeps a good idea alive long enough to ship.
We got into source control for a while, because Unity can be a minefield. Two people touch the same prefab or scene and suddenly a merge turns into a rescue mission. Matia loves how Perforce lets you lock files, but the team stuck with Git because “free” is hard to argue with. That led to one rule: constant communication about who is working on what. I shared a near disaster of my own, where a storm knocked out power in the Midwest. I pushed to the wrong branch, someone pulled, and for a few minutes I thought I had wiped out half the game. Backups saved us, and I never forget how important redundancy is now.
Another thing that stuck with me is that marketing is just another design problem. If you can’t describe your game in five seconds to a stranger, you still have work to do. Their before-and-after build posts did so well because they told a story visually, fast. Reddit is still one of the best places to learn what people actually want. A strong demo multiplies that. If you’re building anything yourself, put something playable out early enough that you can still change course.
Then there’s pacing. At one point, the artist pitched a hilarious idea about a super-buff enemy sprinting alongside the train. Everyone loved it, and nobody approved it. That’s the discipline that keeps a game on track. The backlog will always be full of shiny distractions. The core loop is the job. Particle FX feel satisfying to polish a year before release, but they aren’t progress. Every indie team needs someone who can say no, and sometimes that person is just a calendar reminder.
Talking to Matia felt like walking into a workshop where the sparks fly even though the budget is tight. The game is focused, the team stays hungry, and they’ve borrowed the best parts of big-studio discipline without losing the indie drive. I’m excited about Apocalypse Express because it rewards the tinkerer instinct and demands calm when everything falls apart. That’s good game design and honestly good training for creating anything.
If you’re building something yourself, there are a few lessons here worth keeping close. Keep your actions simple and your pressure honest. Put your plan somewhere visible. Protect your friendships with clear agreements. Get your demo in front of players earlier than you think you should, and listen like your entire roadmap depends on what they say, because it does. And when the nightmare of merge conflicts or last-minute tutorial rewrites threatens to ruin your week, remember the train only makes it to the station because someone kept shoveling. One fix at a time. Just keep going.
Episode Info
Marketing came up often. Their focus is on organic reach: TikTok, Instagram, X, and Bluesky for visuals and updates, but Reddit is where the real magic happens. The right subreddits don’t just share interest; they convert into wishlists and Discord members. They also give brutally honest feedback, which is gold. The demo is the real lever here. It’s not just about getting eyes on the game but testing what hooks players. Releasing right after a festival window is a smart way to ride the momentum, and that’s exactly what they’re aiming for.
A few things stood out along the way. First, simplicity under pressure is a superpower. Apocalypse Express gives you basic tools, then forces you to decide which disaster to tackle first. Startups feel a lot like that. Most of us don’t fail because we lack features. We fail because we don’t choose well when everything is on fire. Do the next best thing and keep moving.
Second, tools matter less than habits. We all love arguing about Git vs Perforce, but what really prevents disaster is communication, file ownership, and small rituals like announcing when you’re touching a scene. Process is a feature. When the team moved from chaos to lightweight sprints with a visible backlog, progress suddenly had direction. Indie or enterprise, it’s the same lesson: write it down, give it a deadline, and ship.
Third, friends can make great collaborators, but only when expectations are clear. Matia’s caution about mixing friendship and creative work hit home. Roles, ownership, timelines, and what happens if someone leaves need to live somewhere more official than group chat. Clarity protects both the people and the project. Enthusiasm fades after a couple months. The work only keeps going if the structure is there.
