Jack joined us on our Discord server in January '25 for a text-based AMA to chat with us about the Lunchbox Entertainment origin story, working with friends and family, the inspiration behind Sirocco, modding their way to funding, and much more!
Katherine: Happy timezone and welcome to today's Success Stories with Jack Wink, who has generously agreed to spend the next hour with us answering questions about his journey, his studio, how he got there, and so much more!!!
Jack, thank you so much for being here and sharing your insights with the Work With Indies community!
Can you start by telling us a little about yourself? Who you are, what you had been doing previously, and what you are up to now?
Jack: I'm Jack (Wink), I'm the Co-CEO of Lunchbox Entertainment. We're making a Warcraft 3 (WC3) map I worked on with my friends as a kid into a standalone game called Sirocco. I was a modder (WC3 mapmaker), actor and a writer before getting into standalone game development. : )
Also, fun fact, my brother is the other Co-CEO. Pretty cool to get to make a game with your brother and best friend, and I wouldn't want it any other way.
Katherine: Awesome! Turning a map into a full-on game is an amazing feat! Could you tell us a little more about how this came to be?
Jack: Not sure how interested in the deep lore of WC3 maps everyone is, but essentially the "MOBA" genre didn't exist in the mid-late 2000s. There were just Hero Arenas. Dota 1 was really a game changer for how heroes and those games worked though (heres a great website if the origins of it all), which eventually spawned League of Legends and Dota 2, but there was another mod that was wildly popular called Battleships. There were a bunch of variants of it, but the most popular at the time was Battleships Pro. My BFF and I made our own variant that ended up being the blueprint for Sirocco (for clarity, we did not make pro).
We were kind of mystified that none of the big AAA studios caught on to it sooner which is why 12 years later we said enough was enough and started bootstrapping our own standalone game.
Nate: Ha! I was angry there wasn't a good dedicated indie games job board for about 5 years before I finally decided I'd have to build it myself.
Jack: Yeah! Exact same feeling for us. You get fed up at a certain point. We really feel like the "MOBA" genre (I hate using the term but I kinda have to) is really misunderstood and unexplored. There was so much creativity that was lost because everyone just wanted to make a League clone. Now everyone just thinks of MOBAs as sweaty esports games, when really, at their core, they are all about emergent creativity and strategy you can enjoy with your friends.
Penny: I am also someone who thinks of MOBAs as sweaty esports games! When you grow your community, will you be actively trying to cultivate a different mentality about MOBAs? What do you want your community of players to feel like?
Jack: Such a great question. And re: MOBA sweat I get it. Competitive games are all sweaty to a degree by nature, but I just wish people knew what it was like playing Dota and Battleships for us as kids. There was no ladder. There was no MMR. It was just messing around and discovering new ways to play. So we want there to be a place for competitiveness, but we can't have it be all about competitiveness.
It's kind of like playing Soccer or kickball with your friends. Are some people going to take it super seriously? Sure. But everyone is really there to have a good time. In terms of our community, I think we really are trying to cultivate that ethos. I want people to feel like they can learn how I used to learn back in WC3: in real time. It's a big part of our design philosophy as well. These games are overwhelming, but it's ok not to know what everything does if you aren't punished for making a "bad" decision.
Nate: What were your brother and BFF doing before Lunchbox? How did your prior experience, if at all, prepare you to start and lead a game studio?
Jack: So Max came from the content side of things (Twitch, Loaded, Rev3 Games) and Arik was a modder and wilderness guide. Funnily enough, [.c-highlight]I think Arik's wilderness guide training has been the most useful to game development since it trained him to be such a good leader[.c-highlight] lol. Obviously, Max's background is super valuable too, since he has such a deep insight into how games are marketed and how communities are built. For myself, my most relevant background experience comes from my studies at University. I was studying aesthetic philosophy at Columbia Uni, which really helped concretize my thinking on game design.
[.c-insight] 💡 Editor's Note: Wilderness guide was not the answer I was expecting! But also a great example of how diverse perspectives can add so much value to our teams. And that the non-"game" attributes you learn outside of the industry can become your superpower when you enter the industry. [.c-insight]
NamasteGeek: Would love to know more about what aesthetic philosophy is. And if time, a couple examples of things you’ve used from it in your game design.
Jack: Aesthetics is concerned with why we appreciate things. And so I often studied games as objects that we appreciate, since they are one of the few things that we engage with so intensely we can spend 1000s of hours playing them. That research helped me develop a model for designing games that we use at Lunchbox. One of these days I'll have some time to write something or record a video that goes more in-depth about it. But a good thought experiment to pose for yourself is to ask yourself: What is a game? And how does that definition include both Pong and Chess? If you come up with an answer I love to read about them!
Les: Hey there Jack, it's nice to meet you, and I have a question whenever you'd like to answer. How does your brother motivate you to keep the dream alive, and vice versa? What is something you realized you had to manage in your relationship and further strengthen the desire to do something big like this? I'm also on the stepping ladder of making my own game with a group of close people (one of them being my partner). I understand there's a difference between a professional persona you have to hone in, and I believe the same can be said when you're working with someone closely related to you (or even super close friends for that matter), and there is a certain aspect that must remain professional in order to withstand the unexpected and demotivating occurrences. Would love to hear some insight from you, it's heavily appreciated :))
Nate: Related to Les’ question, when we met over dinner at DICE, the three of you looked like you were having a lot of fun together. That was… 2 years ago now? Are you still having fun? How do you keep things fun and keep everyone engaged at the studio?
Jack: Working with my brother has been one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences in my life. It takes a lot of self examination and dedication to getting to know each other in a deeper way, not just as a sibling, but if you are up to the task it really makes you a better person and leader. Looking back it's hard to imagine building Lunchbox with anyone else.
Having partners you can trust and be completely honest with is critical. In terms of keeping dreams alive, it's just important to [.c-highlight]remember that you are manifesting something incredible with people you love. Making games is fucking hard. So it's easy to forget. But it's important to step back sometimes and just appreciate what you built with the people you care most about.[.c-highlight] That will always remind you of what's important. The biggest difficulty working with a sibling is getting to know each other as equals, and not just family members. It takes a lot of personal growth and self examination but if you can manage it, the level of trust is unparalleled.
To answer Nate’s question, you gotta have fun! Kind of gets at what I was saying before: You gotta remember that you are living the dream. Making games feels impossible at times, because it almost is impossible. But when you can enjoy what you've built the way you can with a game, it's hard not to smile and laugh. So yes, I'm still having fun! Maybe a bit more stressed, but I wouldn't want it any other way.
I think in terms of keeping that in the work culture, that's maybe more difficult for me to say. Though I really do enjoy what I do, and I think that rubs off on people.
Les: That's a beautiful message, thank you so much~
Katherine: Reading your article, it looks like you expanded your team in a matter of months! Could you let us know how that process went in terms of team building, creating a sustainable work culture, etc. as a new studio built on friendship? Were there any changes to dynamic? How did it affect your vision?
Jack: Growing is a real challenge. Looking back, I'd say that's where I wish I had the experience I had now the most. When we first raised money, we felt too much pressure to get everything moving faster so you end up just spending money on problems you could have tackled more slowly and effectively.
Nyankind: As someone with a million ideas, prototypes, and the experience to make games, I can’t fathom finding enough free time to make something that’s worth pitching. Do you have any advice on how to make the jump from making something for fun to pitching and getting funding for a full project?
Jack: Mods are huge. [.c-highlight]We wouldn't have been able to get funding without our WC3 map.[.c-highlight] I am very much in favor of doing whatever you can to build a prototype of your game concepts with whatever tools you have at your disposal. Everyone has an idea, so you need to have more than that. Modding is your best bet to get your ideas into the hands of players, which is what publishers and VCs care about.
I know for a fact VCs take mods very seriously. If you pop off in Roblox or Fortnite, you got a real shot of getting you game funded to develop it as a standalone.
[.c-insight] 💡 In our Discord, our members frequently point each other to game jams and solo projects as a way to build their portfolios. We don't discuss mods as much, be it as another option for portfolios or as a way to prototype and prove out a concept. But it makes so much sense– especially if you can build on top of a game with an engaged audience.
"We made a thing and a bunch of people are playing it, a lot," is such a strong signal.[.c-insight]
Ib: Hi Jack, you mentioned bootstrapping Sirocco. I'm currently working a non-gamedev related full time job but hoping to bootstrap a project and at some point transitioning to working on it full time. Do you have any tips or insights about the topic of funding your work?
Jack: Bootstrapping is terrifying and also incredibly important part of the process. You learn a lot very quickly when your own money is on the line. The key when bootstrapping is creating milestones and sectioning off portions of capital for each stage with a clear vision for success. Not knowing what success looks like will kill you, and that's the value of bootstrapping. Those skills are more important than ever in this market.
Nate: Piggy-backing off of @nyankind and @Ib, funding for new games and studios has been really hard to come by for the last couple of years. How does a team with no games experience get funded when so many others with gobs of experience didn’t? Any lessons learned that you can pass along that might help our audience with their pitches?
Jack: It's almost impossible right now. We got extremely lucky. The environment that we were able to raise capital will probably not exist again for a very long time. But I don't know if you will need it in the future. Whether it's AI or better modding tools, its very possible that gamedev gets a lot more accessible to the point where programming and long art pipelines aren't necessary. Hard to say for certain, but we are in a time of huge transition.
A lot of the biggest indie successes didn't raise capital though, so it might be more of a curse than a gift.
Eve: For starting your journey, did you seek out investment or business-related funding? Or block out working time outside of work?
Jack: We sought out investment after bootstrapping our mod for a year and a half. Before that we were all working part-time with full-time jobs or studying (I was in Uni).
Nate: We're almost out of time and I don't want to steal all the question space, but I do want to ask one more thing about the game. How is Sirocco most different from the game you originally sought out to create?
Jack: Beautiful question. In some ways, it is exactly what we envisioned, and in other ways it has evolved into something none of us would have expected. In terms of what we envisioned, it is very aligned with our design goals:
- Emergent Depth - Depth arises from the intersection of mechanics, rather than the implementation of formal systems.
- No “bad” decisions - Reduce the number of mandatory choices normally found in the genre.
- Learn as you play - Players should be able to grasp the key systems from playing the game.
Yet, there are countless "happy accidents" that you uncover and challenges you have to overcome. For instance, [.c-highlight]when we programmed recoil into some of our abilities (which was something you couldn't have in WC3) we found out that you can use it to jump over terrain. This was initially flagged as a bug but actually totally aligns with emergent depth so we keep it in and is to this day one of my favorite little details about our game.[.c-highlight] In terms of challenges, MOBAs are incredibly deep and complex system oriented games, so there are very intricate problems that you have to solve for in terms of player incentives.
For instance, if players are saying things like "I want to use more of the map" or "I want more things to do", you'll never get them to feel more engaged by creating arbitrary areas to visit. You'll have to create what we call "secondary objectives" for them to compete over. And there are a whole bag of things you gotta watch out for when designing them. But that's part of the fun of it.
Ultimately, [.c-highlight]we're attempting to design a game that is to be played for 1000s of hours[.c-highlight], which is ambitious to say the least. So if you are taking on that task, be ready to think very deeply and to challenge yourself, because you will have to do so early and often.
And have strong design pillars! It will help you discover new and exciting things you never thought you would happen upon.
Katherine: Jack, thank you so much for answering our questions, lots and lots of powerful insight this past hour! To sign off this amazing AMA, any last words of advice to people trying to start their own studio/trying to break into the industry?
Jack: My advice would be to leverage mods, try and create content as you develop your game, and grow as a game designer as much as you can. It's a deeply conceptual art form that requires a lot of thoughtfulness.
Katherine: Stellar advice!! Thank you so much Jack!
Les: Thank you so much for your time Jack, insightful and hopeful, and the Indie team for putting this together
Nate: Thanks so much Jack! This was a lot of fun. Great to be able to chat with you again. Hopefully we can do it again soon. Be well my friend!
Jack: Thank you everyone! Y'all are amazing. Work With Indies made all of it possible! It was a pleasure to be here.
