Little Rocket Lab interview: “it helped me rediscover why I got into programming in the first place”

Little Rocket Lab has only just been announced, but it’s already caught our eye from a visual and gameplay perspective. It’s right on our radar, as a game that looks likely to consume hours of our lives. So what better way to learn more about it than to speak to Kyle Schmitz, developer at Teenage Astronauts, about his first solo game: Little Rocket Lab.

Kyle used to work at Ubisoft, so knows all about big game development, but this is his first solo game. He’s teamed up with publisher No More Robots, a team that has a great pedigree for cool and different games. We spoke to Kyle about this, Steam Deck support, other consoles, and of course asked the important question: can you pet the dog?

What made you want to move away from a large publisher and become a solo developer?

Funny enough I never actually set out to switch from a large publisher to pursue indie dev. I spent several years hopping from one job to the next when I started to become dissatisfied working for large corporations. I had started the game as a side project in the evenings for fun, and just kept working away at it a couple hours at time. Along the way it helped me rediscover why I got into programming in the first place. Being able to work on something so immediate and tangible was incredibly satisfying. It took a year or so of working on it part time until I realized that it could have some legs and might be a viable business venture.

How different is it working for yourself, with self-imposed deadlines, etc? Do you miss anything from the Ubisoft days?

It’s a lot more work. I easily put in far more hours than I ever did in any of my past jobs. But at the same time you can move so much faster, as there’s no meetings, approval, sprint planning, onboarding, etc. Plus I love just being able to take any weird idea that comes into my head and start putting it in the game, without having to run it by anyone first.

If there’s one thing I miss though, it definitely is co-workers. I have a great group of contractors that I work with, but nothing really beats being able to turn to the person sitting next to you and just chat, bounce ideas off of them, etc. A lot of really great ideas come from that kind of collaboration, which is hard to do when you’re sitting there at a desk by yourself.

What made you want to create a factory sim, and how did the cosy-element come into play?

I actually started off wanting to create a life sim. I’ve always been in love with Harvest Moon and similar types of games, but farming was starting to become pretty overdone by this point and I really wanted to put a new spin on it somehow. I was trying to find ways to maybe automate parts of the production process like with getting villagers to help at first, and later machinery. It took a while to click that maybe I could just remove the farm all together and make the act of building the factory the goal by itself.

The art style of Little Rocket Lab is gorgeous, as a solo dev, how did you come upon that aesthetic?

I found that the really popular factory games had much more of a sci fi or even sometimes gritty aesthetic. I really wanted to take it all in a much friendlier and more approachable direction. I liked the idea of instead matching the factory builder genre with a throwback to the bright cheerful pixel art aesthetic of old school SNES games. I took a lot of influence just from following different artists on Twitter and building up a mood board of the vibe I was going for. A lot of credit also needs to go to Eirill Dragland, the artist who designed the characters and most of the hand drawn illustrations for the game. She really helped bring the ideas for the characters to life.

Are you a fan of games like Satisfactory, Factorio, Foundry, etc? Any inspiration from there?

I’ve played a bit of Factorio and Satisfactory, and I would say some of the initial concepts for the gameplay and different mechanics came from Factorio originally. I purposely limited how much I played it though, as I knew if I had played it too much, every time I encountered a design problem I would just want to solve it the way Factorio solved it. The funny part though is I’ve found some designs ended up converging on Factorio’s approach anyways, as it’s really a masterclass on how to make a factory builder. I’ll also admit that the inspiration for the rocket you’re building comes from Factorio as well.

It seems like there’s a story underpinning the factory elements, does that mean there’s a way to “complete” the game?

There is, yes. I really wanted to create a defined character that the game cantered around. Since most life sim games are really self-insertion games, typically the main character doesn’t have any dialog outside of a few choices here and there, and as such they don’t have much of a backstory, or strengths, character flaws, goals, etc. I thought that with a defined character, there was an opportunity to have an actual story with a proper arc. At the same time, in playtesting people kept telling me they didn’t know “why” they were building the factory. Adding the rocket, along with a story that follows the development of that rocket, helped immensely with players connecting with the game and feeling a strong sense of purpose for what to do next. While there is a way complete the game and get an ending, the plan is to have some additional goals to aim for after the story is finished, and to allow the player to continue playing for as long as they like afterwards.

Publisher No More Robots is known for pretty cool games, was it easy to sign up with the team there?

I will never forget the first email I received from No More Robots after I pitch them the game. The very first thing Mike Rose had said was “Dang Kyle, this is bloody gorgeous. I would play *the absolute heck* out of this”.

I’d say it was fairly easy signing up with the team there. Easy of course including the 2 years of development leading up to the pitch, haha. But the team there is extremely easy to work with and incredibly friendly. I’ve been taken by surprise a number of times how accommodating they’ve been and wanting to work together to make sure everyone’s happy, which I’m especially thankful for considering this is my first title.

On that note, do you feel pressure to “keep up” the hit ratio for the publisher, or does that sort of thing not come to mind when making a game?

I’ll be honest, that doesn’t really cross my mind. My main goal in all of this is I want to do well enough that I can continue to make games for a long time, so I’m really trying to set the bar for myself as a new indie developer, rather than meet their existing bar of games. But a good game for me is also a good game for them, so it all works out in the end.

How do you decide when you want to release a game as a solo dev. Is it publisher-led, or up to you, or a bit of both?

No More Robots actually let me set the original timeline of dates and deliverables, so really I have only myself to curse at when I miss a deadline. That being said, now that we’re getting closer to a release, it’s been a collaboration between both of us to find a date that makes sense. There’s a fine line to walk where you want a date that leaves time to finish things properly, but you need to be cognizant of the remaining budget and current investment. A bit of pressure is good here, as it prevents the game from meandering and spending too long puttering around on features that are honestly better off finished or cut.

It looks like you can pet the dog in the trailer for Little Rocket Lab, can you confirm?

Can confirm, you can pet the dog. Not only that, but you can play fetch with him too.

Will the game be playable on Steam Deck?

Definitely. We already have a build working fantastically on the Steam Deck.

Are Switch and Game Pass aimed for at launch, or PC first? Any thoughts on a PlayStation version of Little Rocket Lab?

We’ll be releasing simultaneously on both Game Pass and PC, with hopefully Switch coming shortly after launch. A PlayStation version is still undecided at this point.

What will you be doing over the holiday break, hopefully having some time off? Will you be playing any games for fun?

I’ll be taking a bit of time off, but not too much! I’ve got two young kids at home, so I want to make sure we have a lot of family time together over the holidays. I expect I’ll be playing a lot of Little Kitty Big City with my daughter, and probably a lot of Balatro myself.

Thanks so much to Kyle for his time. Little Rocket Lab is coming to PC in 2025.