I worked with a publisher for a few reasons: 1) I didn't know what I didn't know, and didn't want …

I worked with a publisher for a few reasons: 1) I didn't know what I didn't know, and didn't want to "find out" AND make the game at the same time. I needed a partner for the business/marketing end. 2) An advance (funding) helped de-risk things for me. 3) I needed help to find an artist. I was having no luck on my own. Even with the traction the game had! Publishers actually came to me. In a weird coincidence, I happened to show the game in a Discord where localthunk, the Balatro dev, was hanging out, and he shared it with a few big streamers. The prototype was streamed to thousands of people like ~5 weeks into its development, and the publishers started showing up immediately. Not normal. Very lucky. I started very confident, and stayed relatively confident, for myself, but there were some weird days where you'd get a paranoid feeling: "Wait, all you do is drop a ball in this game. Why do people like it? Are they just blowing smoke up my ass? Am I having a manic break, thinking the gmae is good? It really can't possibly be good enough, right? …