“Ask Me Again in 3 Months”: Why Unhinged Might Kill (Or Perfect) the Sanity System

Thanks for sitting down with me, Seyed. Folks who caught your Spotlight interview already know your favorite games and that weird chocolate–honey–milk concoction you call breakfast. Today, we’re finally digging into Unhinged itself.

Before we get into the nuts and bolts of the game, I want to rewind a bit. You’ve been open about where this project came from: the long road, the false starts, and the game you had to kill before this one could exist.

Development Background

In your first Steam announcement, you opened with, “This is my second game (kind of… I killed the first one), and I’ve been working on this for almost three years.”
You touched on that whole saga again in your Spotlight — why you scrapped the old project and started fresh.

Hashtag: Many devs would bury that story! What made you willing to pull the plug, and what did that dead game teach you that’s keeping Unhinged alive?

Seyed: Someone once told me, “Failure is the bridge to success”. I took that to heart. I don’t shy away from my screw ups. I am who I am because of my screw ups. My first game was a massive screw up, but I came out with so much experience that I do not regret it.

I pulled the plug after I pitched the game to 70 publishers and they all said the same thing: “game is cool, but we have no idea how to market it and who to market it to”. They were right. The game was not marketable at all. No clear genre, mismatch of gameplay and art style, etc. It was a mess, and I killed it.

I took all that learning and experience and started working on the Unhinged concept. I’m a better, faster developer, and I understand Steam and the survival craft genre better.

Hashtag: Unifiq Games is described as “a tiny London-based studio.” Is “tiny” code for “it’s literally just me,” or do you have a team hiding in the shadows?

Seyed: I’m a solo programmer but not a solo developer. I’ve had extremely talented artists and sound designers contribute to the project. They have all worked within a freelance capacity, so in some sense, yes, it’s just me as a full-time developer, but I’m not the only developer.

Hastag: What’s been the hardest part: the technical challenges, the loneliness, or talking yourself out of killing THIS one too?

S: The technical stuff, you’ll eventually figure it out. The one thing that you will NEVER know, and whoever claims they know is lying, is “what’s going to happen at launch”. It’s my biggest fear and is always at the back of my mind: “What if the game flops?”

Hashtag: But you’ve been solo-devving this for three years, and now you’re promising open-world survival with complex systems, automation, base building, AND a deep sanity mechanic. What’s the MINIMUM viable product that hits Early Access? What’s the realistic scope here?

S: You’re right that it seems the game is promising too many things, and I’m a solo programmer on this. I’ve been very diligent with scope management to ensure I deliver a solid MVP in Early Access. The majority of the following features are planned for 1.0 but will NOT be shipped at Early Access:
1. Co-op Multiplayer
2. Extensive localisation support
3. Steam integration (workshop, achievements, cloud save)
4. Mod support
5. Deep combat & complex NPC behaviour
6. Advanced character animations
7. Hunting
8. Base defence
9. Seasons
10. The full map (only one-third of the map will be shipped at EA)

Limiting the scope means I can add meaningful depth to features that matter most and make Unhinged distinct: sanity system, weather/sky, systemic crafting, building, base-building, automation, inventory, power, etc. These are the core of the game, and if they suck, I don’t think Steam achievements and modding matter at all.

Hashtag: “Retro-futuristic corporate island” – where did this aesthetic come from? What media/art/experiences are you pulling from to build this vibe?


S: Films, TV shows, and other games have mostly inspired the theme and setting. Retro-futuristic sci-fi aspects by the likes of Lost, Interstellar, and Chernobyl. The corporate-island element, as seen in The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, and Alice in Borderland. The alien-like lifeform by Satisfactory and No Man’s Sky. The rustic, DIY tools by Rust and Far Cry 6.

The Hashtag Connection

Hashtag: So, we should mention that you’ve been following Hashtag for a while and that you’re a Posh Unicorn [Patreon supporter]. When did you find us, and what gap did we fill that made you go from casual reader to a paying supporter?

S: I’m so flattered by my Patreon title, haha. You sure know how to play the mind game 😀

I found Hashtag in the most serendipitous manner possible. I think I was researching inventory systems in survival games and was reading through the Reddit comments under a relevant post. You had commented there and shared a link to the ‘pillars of survival games’ on Hashtag’s website. I was fascinated by the website’s content and wondered why I did not know about Hashtag. So I joined your Discord, and the rest is history. I think this was about a year ago.

What gap does Hashtag fill? I’m an indie dev spending the majority of my time developing Unhinged. I have very little time left to research what’s happening in the broader landscape of survival games, which, ironically, is highly crucial. Hashtag spoon feeds me that insight. Every interesting update from a survival game, interesting Reddit posts on r/SurvivalGaming, you name it, they’re all distilled in a concentrated format and shared in Hashtag newsletters and Patreon. What would have taken me hours or days to do, I’m now getting for free, right in my mailbox.

Hashtag: And for your audience who might be discovering us through this interview – how would you explain what Hashtag’s about and why you think it matters in the survival game space?

S: If you’re a survival player, think of Hashtag as your food taster and cup-bearer. They play and identify survival games you may have never heard of, and tell you which ones are scams and which ones are worthy of your wallet. I don’t think there is any survival game not being reviewed by the Hashtag curator on Steam.


Design Philosophy

Hashtag: Given that you know exactly what we’re about, talk to me about Hashtag’s 5 Pillars. These are guidelines I created to define the genre for myself and to put a framework around what other players like me felt when we thought of actual survival games. What do they mean to YOU as a developer? Which ones resonate most with your design philosophy for Unhinged? Where do you think Unhinged is strongest across the 5 Pillars?

S: Those five pillars were precisely the first thing I read on the Hashtag website. I refer to them from time to time. I think the term ‘survival’ is so broadly applied to many games that it has lost its meaning, so benchmarking a game against those pillars is a good litmus test for the survival genuineness of a game.

I think the pinnacle of survival games is The Long Dark, which truly adheres to all the pillars, and every other game takes a mix of them. For Unhinged, I’ve tried to stay true to all the pillars, albeit in varying degrees.

For Unhinged, I have combined Necessities and Health into a single framework: the sanity system. Every passive event and active decision affects your sanity. Hunger, thirst, sleep, achievements, injuries, food, drugs, weather, etc., you name it.

With Management, there is both Inventory and Power (electricity) management. 

With World, there is a day/night cycle and sky conditions such as clouds and fog. Both are linked to the sanity system. Ideally, I want to make the day/night cycle even more meaningful and engaging.

With Resources, the game features scavenging, crafting, building, farming, and trading. Resources are limited, and choices matter in how you use them.

Hashtag: In your spotlight, you were refreshingly honest to explain that you didn’t come to survival from passion for the genre, but from commercial viability and system recycling from your previous game attempt. You’re three years into this thing now. Has making a survival game changed how you see the genre?

S: Absolutely. I’m so much deeper into the nitty-gritty of what makes a game ‘survival’ and why I believe the genre is timeless. First of all, it taps into the primal human psyche of survival. Secondly, it offers the opportunity for a sandbox play-style, letting players tell their own story. Thirdly, it works insanely well as a co-op. Having spent all these years scrutinising the genre, I cannot imagine myself making a game in any other genre now.


The Hard Questions

Hashtag: Every survival game promises “brutal” and “unforgiving” conditions in Early Access, then gets patched into a cakewalk because players whine. Where’s your line on maintaining your “brutal” description? Are you designing for people who want actual survival tension, or are you going to cave to Steam reviews demanding easy mode?

S: I think the players’ tastes in survival games are incredibly varied. Some love grind and some hate it. Some love inventory management, and others would rage quit if there is no ‘craft from chest’. Although I deeply believe that “a game for everyone is a game for no one”, I also think it’s possible to cater to various tastes.

My own philosophy, which many other games have done, is to ship the game with various difficulty levels or customisable settings. I think this allows all players to play the game as they see fit without abandoning the game’s soul.

The vanilla Unhinged experience will remain brutal: meaningful needs, no autosaves, limited resources, environment hazards, etc. But for those who want a more chilled playthrough, you’re taken care of.

Hashtag: You say sanity is “more than hunger or thirst” and tout the “most complex sanity system ever.” But complexity ≠ meaningful consequences. How does going insane actually threaten my survival beyond just being another bar I need to top off? Does it create cascading failures across the other pillars, or is it just busywork?

S: Correct. As I mentioned before, there is no health bar. So if you’re hungry, your health isn’t affected. However, hunger depletes your brain chemicals, and over time, they deplete your overall sanity. Once you go below a certain threshold of sanity, you become ‘unhinged’.

Being ‘unhinged’ is a challenging state that is difficult to recover from, but not impossible. Besides the audio-visual illusions, you start hallucinating hostile creatures that attack you. There are other limitations of being unhinged, but they all lead to a downward spiral of losing more sanity, eventually leading to death. When you die, you don’t wake up in bed. You lose all your progress up to the last manual save point. 

I have to emphasise that these features have not been playtested yet, so I may change them in the future based on how they turn out in practice. This is how things are set up at the moment, but I will find out very soon after I run my first playtest batch.

Hashtag: Brain chemical imbalances sound ambitious, but The Long Dark nailed simple needs through brutal consequences. Why does survival need a “complex” sanity system? Are you adding depth or just more meters to juggle?

S: To clarify, by ‘complex’ I really mean it is not just a meter like hunger. And no, there aren’t necessarily more meters to juggle. Sanity and brain chemicals are the primary meters you look after, which are displayed on the HUD, while everything else is secondary and not shown on the HUD. 

The brain chemicals behave in interesting ways and are nicely intertwined with other game systems. For instance, you fall down a 5-meter-high cliff and sprain your foot. You instantly get a Serotonin hit. But you’re also enduring pain, which also gradually depletes serotonin. The pain eventually goes away after several in-game hours, but you can consume a drug you crafted that alleviates the pain instantly and prevents serotonin depletion. However, consuming drugs too frequently can weaken their effects as well as lead to overdose. 

I’m taking a different approach to needs management because I believe players would appreciate a fresh take on needs. It may as well turn out that it actually sucks and players hate it. There is only one way to find out: playtesting with the community. Ask me this question again in 3 months and I can tell you if I killed the sanity system or kept it 😀

Hashtag: You’ve name-dropped Satisfactory as an inspiration, and I can see why: the modular machines, the automation, the expanding footprints. Satisfactory is brilliant at what it does, and what it does is NOT survival. It’s optimization porn. How do you borrow from Satisfactory without becoming Satisfactory-with-a-sanity-bar? What’s the actual survival tension once my machines are built and humming?

S: Great question. Unhinged is certainly not targeted at hardcore automation fans. The automation in Unhinged is quite light compared to Satisfactory and becomes accessible from mid- to late-game. The idea of automation in Unhinged is to let players automate repetitive tasks so they can spend more time on the game’s more exciting features. The main tension with automation is inventory and power management. 

Q: Run Unhinged through the gut check: Does hunger actually threaten you, or is it a minor inconvenience? Do you agonize over inventory, or hoard everything? Does the world actively work against you, or is it window dressing? Give me your honest assessment – where are you worried about slipping into “crafting simulator with survival aesthetics”?

S: Hunger does not kill you, nor does it deal damage. However, it accelerates your brain chemical drainage. You can stay hungry and keep your chemicals high through other means, but I don’t think that’d be sustainable for too long. 

You have limited inventory space. It’s by space, not weight. Some items stack. You can increase your inventory space as you progress. You can also build storage units to store your items.

I’m actually more worried about the opposite, that is, the game being too survival-y for the broader spectrum of survival players. I think, in terms of jeopardy, the game aligns more with The Long Dark and Green Hell than with cosy crafting games with survival aesthetics.


Looking Forward

Hashtag: Hey! You! You got 6000+ wishlists in under a week! What’s the community reaction been like so far, and has anything surprised you about what players are most excited about?

S: The community has been super supportive, and people have been very excited. I hope I won’t disappoint. In fact, I ran a survey of my community last week, and some of the results were quite surprising. 90% of people said they prefer a mouse and keyboard over controllers. I honestly thought controllers were more popular!

Among Unhinged’s features, automation and Zelda-style building were the two that people were most excited about, whereas the sanity system and the corporate trials were the least popular. Given that I did not frame the game as automation at all, this was quite surprising.

Lastly, I found this comment to my question of ‘what other games is Unhinged similar to’ quite hilarious: “Closest I could say is if Ark, Bioshock, Lost Skies, and Fallout all had a baby together, gave it an endless supply of legos and explosives, and then left it unattended for waaayyyy too long.”

Hashtag: If someone’s on the fence about wishlisting Unhinged, what’s your elevator pitch? Why should survival fans care about THIS game specifically?

S: Before the survey, I would pitch it as the fantasy of being trapped in a corporate experiment that messes with your mind, and you need to survive.
Looking at the survey results, it seems people are drawn to other aspects of the game. I’ll give you my updated pitch in the next interview! 😀

Hashtag: What’s next after the playtest? What’s the roadmap looking like for getting to Early Access?

S: Multiple rounds of private playtests up until Q1 2026, then I’ll open up the playtest publicly, and then a public demo in Q3 2026. If things go according to plan, I’ll participate in the Feb 2027 Next Fest and release into Early Access shortly after that.


Thanks for taking the time to walk us through your design philosophy – always interesting to see how different devs approach the genre.
Good luck with the playtest, and I’ll see you around Discord!



This was a good one! Want the bonus round? I asked Seyed what feedback would break his heart, and what feature he’s secretly dreading reactions to. His answers are honest. You can catch them over on our Patreon as a free post!
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-Jordan