From AAA stints at Cygames, tri-Ace, EA, and more to founding his own studio, Xanthos Vouldis joins Colors of Web3 & Entrepreneurship to unpack how great games are made and why his next title is an invitation-only real-time multiplayer dieselpunk airship battle game.

We dive into his design framework, team roles, and why he’s building an invitation-only game community with squad-based online battles and a single-player campaign for every ship. Expect deep systems (armor, firing angles, crew management), PC-first plans, and a release target sometime next year.

Xanthos also explains pricing (a premium buy-in), natural-language NPCs that can brief you mid-mission, and a wild perk: finish a campaign and they’ll ship you a physical model of your customized airship. At the end, he also shares how early players can snag invites.

⌛ Timestamps:

00:00:00 Episode trailer

00:00:35 Show & guest introduction

00:02:24 Why Japan & early career (Cygames, EA, Tri-Ace, DMM)00:04:05 A simple game design framework (the “chair” analogy)

00:09:30 Who builds a game? Roles, teams, and pipelines

00:13:29 Speedrunning solo dev: free assets & engine templates

00:15:58 D&D as the best game-design bootcamp

00:23:04 Founding Studio Vale; Houdini + selective AI for art

00:42:14 Fixing “multiplayer fatigue” & role clarity

00:46:49 Why early, ongoing player testing matters

00:54:54 The future: prioritize gameplay over spectacle

01:01:36 Episode outro and next episode preview

Follow Xanthos & Studio Vale:

Studio Vale's Website: https://stvale.com/about-us/

Xanthos's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/xanthosvouldis/

For gamers that are interested in testing the real-time multiplayer airship game, you can book a meeting with Xanthos here: https://meetings-na2.hubspot.com/xanthos

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