This article was originally published on June 12, 2026 - read the full issue

By Marie Dealessandri

Snoozy Kazoo, the studio behind 2021's indie hit Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion and its 2024 follow-up Turnip Boy Robs A Bank, just unveiled a September 17 release date for its next game, Rizz Dungeon: Skeleton Key To My Heart. The announcement opened Summer Game Fest's Gayming Pride Parade last week. 

Founder and lead programmer Yukon Wainczak says Rizz Dungeon is very much aligned with Snoozy Kazoo's core identity: a "very openly queer game studio that prioritises making dumb parody games." Wainczak has been making games since she was 11 years old, with Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion initially being a college project. 

"Turnip Boy was a whirlwind, to say the least," she smiles. "That was good, but after that it was difficult to figure out how to make the studio sustainable."  

Turnip Boy Robs A Bank was developed by a different team within Snoozy Kazoo while Wainczak and artist, designer and writer Pearl Slayton wrestled with what would come next. 

"We were in a long experimental phase for two years," Slayton says. "This meant trying out things we wouldn't normally do. Rizz came to be [because] we were trying to push ourselves so hard to do new things." 

The full team of five people ultimately rallied around Rizz Dungeon, a dungeon crawler where flirting is the key to making progress.  

"It's a very queer game, and it's very wacky," Slayton continues. "Development of the game has definitely been a challenge, because it's a lot of new systems, and making the UI, although it's been a joy… You can see it's a very maximalist game. It's a lot of work. But what keeps being brought up in our team is that it feels like Turnip Boy 1. So it's like we're returning back to form." 

Wainczak adds: "It's us trying to tell a very authentic queer story, but then also just trying to find the fun in game dev again. We're building a game based on a lot of properties we like. Anyone who plays Rizz Dungeon can see the Pokémon influences. It's really to be our authentic selves, and try to make people laugh." 

But being an openly queer studio making silly games in the current political climate in the US is not for the faint-hearted. Wainczak and Slayton say they're definitely "going through it", with a recent surge in harassment. 

"Joy is an act of rebellion, always," Slayton says. "So it almost feels dutiful to make something so silly right now, especially that is also so representative of the queer community holistically. People need to feel seen right now." 

To other queer game makers, Wainczak advises to "be your authentic self and people will come." She reflects on the anarchist elements clearly expressed in Turnip Boy and how that resonated with people. 

"If you are queer, or you have opinions about politics – or both – that's going to show through in your games," she says. "I rarely see comments about Turnip Boy being a political game. I don't know if it's because it wears it on its sleeve or if it's because it's such an authentic take on it. But if that's the type of game you're making – and this applies to queerness too – just wear it on your sleeve, don't shy away from it, and don't be afraid that you're not going to find your people, because there's people for everyone out there."

Structuring the studio around the making of Rizz Dungeon has been one of Snoozy Kazoo's biggest challenges. Wainczak describes it as a "continuous push-and-pull." Being such a small studio ultimately afforded the team freedom to be flexible with its approach and not overburden itself with game design documents. 

"One of the biggest things is how much documentation [and] concepting gets done. With our other projects, namely Hobnobbers and Turnip Boy Steals The Mail – games that have been shelved currently, on the back burner for Rizz – there was a heavy push-and-pull of how much of the game should be written down and figured out before we even put mouse to code. And with Rizz Dungeon, it's been really liberating, because there's basically none. We're a very small studio – it's very easy for us to all get on the same page." 

Rizz Dungeon doesn't have a GDD or any all-encompassing document. "It just kind of lives in our brains," Wainczak says. "We found out that that kind of hyper-documented flow doesn't really work for us." 

Slayton and Wainczak recall a similar process for Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion, with the game's denouement figured out in the last two months before release. Allowing for flexible development in this way helped them to bring fun back into the development process, as by this point they were feeling "a little burnt out".  

"There's been this shift for shorter games. As a consumer, I'm very happy about that, but as a developer it's an interesting challenge, because it's learning how to develop short games on a very short timetable. Rizz Dungeon was actually meant to be only a couple-month-long project, and it just escalated." 

It's now been in development for a year, but Wainczak says it still "holds that 'short game' badge."  

"We're still trying to be that, and it's really [about] building up a good toolset, so that you can deliver short games while also understanding scope perfectly. That's its own challenge in itself." 

And this time around, Snoozy Kazoo is doing it solo. While it's being supported by Popagenda on the marketing side, it's self-publishing Rizz Dungeon.  

"It was really great working with a publisher, and it propelled our game forward, but there is a drive in me to be able to do it all ourselves," Wainczak says. "I don't just love the process of making games, I'm a nerd over the industry side of it too. It just felt like the natural next step. And with funding, we were very fortunate. The Turnip Boy series continues to succeed. We're definitely in a tighter spot – you know, the industry is a little shakier from COVID. We're a COVID studio, so we also rode the big boom and now we're experiencing the drop-off. So things are a little tight, but we're making it work, and I feel really good about it." 

Wishlist's numbers are "solid", she adds, but Slayton notes that the team "hasn't released a game in a second", which means that nailing Rizz Dungeon's launch is a necessity. Like most indie studios today, success for Snoozy Kazoo doesn't mean selling millions of copies, but simply keeping people in jobs and being able to make more games.  

"It's a little bit of a Hail Mary," Slayton smiles, with Wainczak adding: "Rizz Dungeon is definitely the game to save Snoozy Kazoo."

This article was originally published on June 12, 2026 - read the full issue