Sassy Chap Games on Date Everything launched in a tough market

Among the dozens of games already scheduled for release in 2025 — which include some of the biggest franchises and most anticipated titles in the industry’s history — one particular title stands out for how strange and fascinating its premise is: History of everythingthe first title from Sassy Chap Games. It may not be the biggest title of 2025, but it’s certainly the most entertaining on one premise. But the team behind it, as well as publisher Team17, are definitely serious about developing and launching it, even though the market is still in a tough place after 2024.

This dating simulator has it right in the title: the player character can – through a few magic glasses – meet, befriend, and eventually date every inanimate, animated object within their home. From the washer and dryer (voiced by David Sobolov and Neil Newbon, respectively), the grand piano (voiced by Joey Ofodo) and Your Doors (voiced by Ben Starr); To your overwhelming sense of existential dread (voiced by Sung Won Cho).

Sassy Chap itself is founded by a group of voice actors, including Robbie Daymond, Ray Chase, and Max Mittelman. I had the opportunity to speak with Daymond at the Anime Frontier conference about Date Everything and launching such an extraordinary title – a first for the studio, no less – in what is by all accounts one of the toughest markets in gaming history. Below is an edited transcript of our interview.

GamesBeat: How are you feeling about the launch so far? How was the reception?

Ruby Diamond: Our marketing numbers are a bit unbalanced from individual viewpoints. This is an indie game, so marketing budgets are always huge, and a lot of the feedback we received was just organic. So, you know, it came out of nowhere – I think the trailer had 400,000 views for one look of it. And now we have reached millions of views. And then we have a number of viral Tiktoks and Reels, and next thing you know, we’re getting views with Bs. So we’re very happy, and the wishlist numbers are amazing.

I think the fun part is that everyone gets it. Nice to see. That was the fear. Will they think this is just a joke, or will they realize there’s something deeper? And I think there was a moment where people were like, “Oh, we always have these dating segments where you can do toilet dating.” And I say, well, that’s part of the joke. You don’t write 1.5 million words for fun. We’ve created some really deep, likable characters with some downright funny story lines, but also some very serious ones. When hopefully you can get back to these characters and treat it like a real dating game. We tried to create more than 100 people.

GamesBeat: Going into the background a little bit: I think I have an idea where the basic idea came from. There’s a whole history of weird dating simulators. I think Hatoful Boyfriend was the turning point.

Diamond: Hatoful Boyfriend, Monster Prom, Dream Daddy – that’s right, Western dating shows are fun. We were just brainstorming ideas about what we wanted to achieve. The idea was, what can we do that hasn’t already been done? What if it’s all just? What if we took this genre to its logical conclusion and let you date everything?

GamesBeat: Since we’re talking about it, do you have any professional or personal experience with this type of dating simulation game?

Diamond: I’ve played with it, but mostly for homework. (Rachel: “Sure you did, Robbie.”) I know a lot about its history, but I’d say it wouldn’t be at the top of my list of something I’d play until I started making it. Then I said, “Well, I better do my research.” And we played them a lot – the good ones, the heavy hitters. And I think we kind of figured out, where are some weaknesses in the format, and then how do we enhance that, and then how do we play into the things that people enjoy most in a dating sim game. As I said before, one of the things is creating those meaningful relationships.

GamesBeat: It’s not just about hot people.

Diamond: He – she He is About hot people, but that’s the thing we wanted to do that leans more towards simulating Eastern and traditional dating, where it’s like you’re actually dating someone. I was like, yeah, we can do that. Every experience can be intense. Some of the characters are just funny, but mostly they are very deep.

GamesBeat: Did you have any background as a game developer before this?

Diamond: No, this is our first game. We — “we” being Ray Chase, Max Mittelman, and myself — have been doing other creative endeavors outside of voiceover for the better part of a decade. About six years ago, we decided we wanted to make something, something tangible. Will it be a show? Will it be a podcast? Will it be a game? Ray Chase, the lead designer and game director in this area, has always been interested in game development. He’s been going to PAX and a bunch of other game development conferences for years. He said: What about the game? This is where the idea came from.

What kind of game do we want to make? We had no programming skills. We all learned how to work with all the programming tools, and how to build in Unity. We use a language writing program called Inky. And you know, it’s a wild experience, to do something we’ve never done before. We’ve also never managed a team of 40 people. We have never worked with a well-known video game publisher. It started as three guys in my garage, but now we have a company with employees that we are responsible for. I really enjoyed watching everyone step up to the plate and produce. Our programmers, our artists, our musicians, the voice actors who lent their voices. Everyone is great at this. So, yeah, we’re really happy with where we’re at.

GamesBeat: I’ll admit that when this was first announced, there was a part of me that thought… this is a weird environment for this kind of game, right?

Diamond: Who will make the big dating segment in 2024? I think it’s been around long enough where we need, like, a big dating segment to jump back into the zeitgeist. And I think, judging by the feedback, we’ll see after release day, but it looks like people will be playing it, which is really exciting.

GamesBeat: It’s probably one of the best genres you can come up with right now — it doesn’t require the massive budget of a big RPG or open-world Soulslike game.

Diamond: I feel like we’re a little above the true “low budget indie” budget, but we’re kind of hovering in this double-dip space where we can get talented people on board, we can make something that looks great high quality and keep our overheads low. Our entire team is remote. Our publishers are in the UK, so you know that gives us the flexibility to produce something high quality, and then what we have to sell to make it back is not as much as we would say, you know, if you pumped $50 million into a game or something like that .

But that’s also the thing: we also discovered that we’d have really talented people if we shared a little. So we have a proper engagement program within our development team, so that the people who have contributed the most to the game will get some real background, including our performers, our talent, our musicians, our artists, some of our programmers, and you know, not everyone, but the core members, if you make The game does well, they’ll get a cut of that, and it’ll come out of our pockets as CEOs. But for me, it’s worth it. Not only is this the right thing to do, but it allows, motivates and gives people the passion to work on something. So, yeah, I think we can develop a culture of that within video games where, you know, these huge properties are making billions, and you know our game won’t do that, but we’re small, and if we can participate, the big dogs can participate too, right?

GamesBeat: What are you most curious to see after the game launches?

Diamond: Obviously the first question is who gets the most love.

GamesBeat: Who’s the most popular in the end?

Diamond: It’s a popularity contest when you create 100 people. That’s just human nature to be curious about that! But I’m actually curious. The game tracks your metadata about how you play, which is something we were really important in setting up, and we’re now working on creating an engagement platform, potentially for post-launch, to be able to show someone IRL, “Hey, this is how you played With it!” And, you know, obviously we have to get that data. We’re not planting it We can’t look at it as a whole right now, but it’ll be great to see how the audience plays. And, you know, in each spreadsheet, you can have three different endings with four, if you include the fact that you may never meet them.

GamesBeat: There’s a shoebox in the closet somewhere that looks like *checks clock.*

Diamond: There are some characters that are difficult to find. Some of our secret characters require really specific things in the world that you have to do to unlock them.

GamesBeat: It better be these people truly Hot, Ruby. I’m just saying.

Diamond: It’s very exciting, but it’s worth it, because it’s fun and unlike the other characters. So the cool part is that I’m mostly looking forward to seeing how people play and then meeting other people within the community to discuss how they play. The odds of meeting someone with the exact same game are actually roughly one in a million. But that’s what interests me most: hearing the feedback. I’m excited to see how people play. I mean, I’m a theater kid. I want to know what my audience feels. And we really tried to let a lot of different voices be heard. We had a group of different writers and artists who loved creating these characters from their point of view. So I want to know how people respond to them. And it’s clear that everyone at Sassy Chap and Team17 loves all of our characters.

GamesBeat: Someone has to be the least popular.

Diamond: He would be someone I would vote for, I know him inside out.

History of everything It will be released on February 14 on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series