"We Knew We Were Cooked": Inside One Indie Dev's Scramble To Escape Slay The Spire 2
Making a video game is hard enough without the industry's biggest 800-pound gorilla deciding to sit on your head.
The 2026 release calendar is already a minefield, but there is one specific landmine that has indie developers sweating bullets: Slay the Spire 2. It turns out that when the sequel to one of the greatest deckbuilders of all time announces a release window, smart developers get out of the way.
I recently spoke with Dan Schumacher of SchuBox Games, the developer behind the chaotic cooking roguelike Omelet You Cook. He was frank about the reality of the situation. His game is hitting 1.0 on February 8th, a date specifically chosen to avoid getting crushed by the Spire.
"WE KNEW WE WERE COOKED"
Originally, Schumacher had his eyes set on a March release. That plan evaporated the second a fellow developer gave him a heads-up about the competition.
"I remember my heart sinking when they told me 'watch out for Slay the Spire 2'," Schumacher told me. "I knew immediately we were cooked."
The fear isn't necessarily that players can't buy two games. (Although, with the economy in the gutter that is also starting to increasingly become an issue) The fear is that the content creators, the lifeblood of modern indie marketing, won't have time for anything else. Schumacher pointed to streamers like NorthernLion, who practically lived in the first Slay the Spire.
"I know for a fact he and many other streamers will be playing the sequel non-stop for weeks," Schumacher admitted. "They simply won't have time to check out another roguelike deckbuilder that comes out at the same time."
The panic was real enough that SchuBox Games actually contacted Steam to move a scheduled Daily Deal from a prime Friday slot to a "slightly less optimal" Sunday just to facilitate the date change. When you are willing to sacrifice a Friday feature to escape a release window, you know the threat is genuine.
NO DATE IS SAFE
The reality is that with over 20,000 games released in 2025 alone, finding a quiet spot on the calendar is impossible. Even moving to February 8th presents issues.
"One of the first reactions we saw in our Discord after announcing February 8th as our 1.0 release date was someone asking if we knew Mewgenics comes out on the 10th," Schumacher said.
It is a "pick your poison" scenario. You can either launch alongside a highly anticipated indie darling like Mewgenics or launch alongside a genre-king like Slay the Spire 2. Schumacher noted that he has spoken to other devs who are avoiding March entirely, either pushing forward to February or delaying until summer.
"It reminds me a bit of the Hollow Knight: Silksong situation," he added, noting the mix of respect and fear developers have for these titans.
THE CLOWN AWARD IS DEAD
Schumacher also touched on a recent change to Steam that might actually help smaller devs: the removal of the "Clown" award and its associated point farming.
Omelet You Cook famously lost its rare 100% positive rating recently due to a troll review, a phenomenon often fueled by users trying to farm Steam points via "Jester" or "Clown" reactions.
"It’s hard to say whether Steam’s change... will have any tangible impact on us," Schumacher said. "But overall in terms of the health of Steam’s review system this was a fantastic change. There will always be trolls... But at least now those folks aren't incentivized by a badge indicating their successful trolling."
Omelet You Cook launches its 1.0 version on February 8th. It might not be Slay the Spire 2, but at least the developer was smart enough to make sure you actually have time to play it.
