Devlogs usually contain progress updates and exhausting marketing fluff. But every now and then, one pops up that’s far too good to vanish unnoticed in Steam’s timeline basement. Devlog #18 for Cabin Crew Life Simulator is one of those—maybe even the poster child.

Nearly half the games on my Steam wishlist don’t have a release date, or at least not a concrete one; some of them are in Early Access. So I end up digging through devlogs and news posts fairly often, just to see how projects are coming along.

Most developer diaries shove their promo vocabulary straight down my uvula, but recently I stumbled across an absolute devlog gem. The title alone—"Developing games is our dream, but Mom is the reason we never gave up"—made me sit up. Wait, what? No "groundbreaking" news, no "exciting" decisions, no new DLC before launch?

Nope. Devlog number 18 for Cabin Crew Life Simulator, a flight-attendant life sim, is mostly a small story with real weight. It’s about death and endurance in extreme situations—and it’s definitely not only interesting if you’re into job sims.

From meaty horror to coffee-serving flight attendants

Cabin Crew Life Simulator isn’t Soga Studio’s first game. The two-person dev team with Vietnamese roots first tried their hand at a horror game—and failed. Because even if the third-person shooty thing Taken Soul captures the spirit of older Resident Evil games, it still missed the target audience pretty badly. According to programmer and designer Simon, the game got absolutely shredded—especially on the local market.

It was a painful flop that burned through all of Soga Studio’s savings. Simon himself wrote about it:

"We broke down and cried many times. That was an incredibly difficult period. I kept asking myself every day: Should I give up and return to my old job, or keep pursuing this uncertain path? What if we failed again? We’d lose everything, no home, no job, no money, and an uncertain future."

A surprisingly human statement for a devlog—and that really impressed me. At that point, Simon asked his mother, an elementary school teacher, for advice: should he quit game development or keep going? Her answer was: "Do what you love. Don’t give up." So the tiny team pulled itself together again, worked on Cabin Crew Life Simulator for a year, and released it into Early Access.

Diagnosis: stomach cancer

But the road to Steam was rough for Soga Studio; towards the end, brutally rough. Simon carried most of the development load, from code to game design to launch prep. Meanwhile, his wife handled the 3D art and storytelling, including the dialogue. The couple faced an almost impossible mountain of work, and the pressure led to sleepless nights, stress, and arguments (but also, as Simon says, to formative memories).

Sadly, just a few months before Cabin Crew Life Simulator’s release, the two developers were hit with a heavy blow: Simon’s mother was diagnosed with terminal-stage stomach cancer. Simon and his wife moved back to their hometown in Vietnam—and set up an improvised workstation right next to his mother’s bed. From there, they kept working without delaying the release. Simon put it on record in the devlog:

"The doctors told me her [Simon’s mother] condition was incurable, that she might not have much time left. It felt like my brain was stretched tight like a violin string, constantly pulled between fear, exhaustion, and quiet heartbreak. Yet sometimes, I felt a strange kind of peace just knowing she was there, resting behind me."

Cabin Crew Life Simulator was released literally next to a standing fan, surrounded by the smell of medicine and the beeping of an oxygen machine. That was on February 19 last year—no party, no guests, no celebratory clinking of glasses. Still, every copy sold gave the family a tiny spark of hope. At the time of that devlog (early July 2025), the game had sold around 15,000 copies, and Simon even shared concrete revenue numbers:

• Day one: $10,000
• First week: $59,000
• First month: $105,000

That money paid for care and medication; according to Simon, Soga Studio made no profit. Despite the sacrifice, his mother’s condition continued to worsen. Soon she could no longer eat or drink, while "the pain tormented her every day." Updates slipped and bugs stayed in the game longer, which put even more strain on Simon. When the medication eventually stopped helping, his mother passed away on June 18, 2025.

A new motivation

Development on Cabin Crew Life Simulator continued—as a continuation of Simon’s dream, and as his mother’s legacy. She also left behind a wish:

"If one day life becomes better for you, do charity work. Help those who have it harder than you. Good fortune will find you."

He wants to honor that. Meaning: he’ll use future profits from games (however modest they may be) to help people in his home village.

To wrap things up, the devlog also had a few pieces of advice for other indie devs (and players too):

• You don’t have to start perfectly—start with what you have and what you can do.
• Don’t give up on dreams, but don’t sacrifice your life for them. Find a balance between work and family.
• Every dream needs support: family, partners, people who carry you.
• As long as the people you love are still here, love them more and appreciate them more, every day.

This is how communication works

In that context: I recently watched the rock-hard thriller Night of the Hunted (2023). The antagonist—a completely unhinged "gas-station terrorist" with a tinfoil hat and a sniper rifle—drops a line that’s unfortunately not entirely untrue: "It’s sad that it takes a rifle for people to finally talk openly and honestly."

Well, as Devlog #18 for Cabin Crew Life Simulator shows, sometimes you can do it without a gun. And how exactly did it hurt Soga Studio to communicate the hurdles during development clearly? Isn’t it actually the case that many players (maybe even most) reward honesty? I think so. And yet, here and there, I still get the feeling there’s a silent agreement in our society that it’s totally fine to lie to each other.

So, dear devs (if you’re not already doing this): please take a page from Soga Studio, because this is exactly how you communicate with players. A promised update is delayed because your dog is sick or you drank too much? 😵‍💫 Sales aren’t enough to keep funding development of your Early Access game?

Then just write that—and in the latter case, above all, don’t just disappear. The vast majority of customers will thank you, and the few others are ... [bleeeep] ...

Alex Nitschke

I’ve been into video games since 1982, spending 12 of those years in professional games journalism. I’ve also been developing games since the early ’90s, starting with a humble C64. Outside of code and keyboards, I’ve been a musician since 1989. Man, I have no idea how I can still be alive...

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