This article originally ran in Back Alley Games Issue 19, September 2025

Cozy life simulation games have gained massive popularity since the early 2000s, with series like Animal Crossing and titles like Stardew Valley (ConcernedApe, 2016) taking over the gaming world. In a post-lockdown world, escapism is popular. Go figure.

However, the appeal of kind neighbors and mist-cloaked forests is lost entirely on Keith Thomas, developer of Dock King.

A life simulation game set in a pirate-infested town in Madagascar, Dock King is anything but cozy. Players will cart heavy boxes around and work grueling hours at market stalls all to survive – and possibly thrive – on the docks.

The premise Thomas is working from, pirate market simulator, is clear, but he said he has struggled to separate his work from other games in the genre with much gentler settings.

“One challenge has been building a game that is traditionally seen as cozy, a life sim with colorful graphics, despite not liking the current generation of cozy games,” he said.

Responding to his own feelings on the matter, Thomas said he positioned this project as an “anti-cozy experience.” Some of his unimplemented ideas include dock dwellers kicking the player into the water and fish that can drown you.

That doesn’t even mention the debt and taxes, either.

It’s not all gloom and capitalism, though. Thomas has tried at every turn to make gameplay both balanced and rewarding in a way that feels tangible to the player. There are three jobs available in Dock King right now, each impacting the player and world in unique ways.

First is a delivery minigame where the player carries crates to stalls. Besides money, successful deliveries may lead to increased stock at market stalls for that in-game day.

Next is working at market stalls. Thomas said that if players choose to work at a stall they had previously delivered a crate to, they will have better chances to make more money while working.

That kind of real-time impact may not be unheard of, but it’s certainly uncommon among life simulation games.

“Not to say that Dock King is truly unique,” Thomas said. “But no game has the same mix of mechanics from what I can tell.”

Lastly is fishing, which nets the player items. Particularly masterful anglers may also be able to purchase a fishing stall that will allow them to profit from their hobby.

Outside of its mechanics, Dock King is beautiful. Thomas claimed he isn’t an artist, but the pixel characters and 3-D environments ripped straight from a storybook beg to differ. 

Artist Ben Collie has also contributed to the former, populating the docks with characters from swarthy to charming.

Part of the reason that the environment is so charming is that Thomas has spent so long working on it. Of the two years of development time, he said he spent the first year building up the environment without even beginning to work on mechanics.

“They say that the ‘right way’ to make a game is to start with a prototype of game mechanics and iterate on those until they are fun,” he said. “I have done somewhat the opposite.”

That backward method stems from Thomas’ general development approach, where he works from fun, one-off ideas. In this case, the idea led to a short video he posted on Reddit, which garnered a positive response and encouraged him to make the game.

“I knew the vibes were there after the post,” he said. “I really wanted to get those right before moving on.”

Before the idea for Dock King floated to Thomas “through the Universe,” he was finishing his first game in over a decade, WizardPunk. Despite years of industry success under his belt, his personal work stayed unfinished and fleeting.

“I started developing when I was about 15, and in my 20s, I found success professionally,” he said. “But I lost my mojo with my personal projects.”

After a hit flash game in 2011 called Community College Sim, Thomas would go on to try making a “house party RPG” where the player would level up keg stand and beer pong skills.

That game would never be finished. Neither would Delaygram, a social satire game inspired by his own disillusionment with social media. 

Each unfinished project takes much from Thomas’ own life at the time they were conceived, a concept he said he has never felt comfortable with.

“I always feel a bit awkward including too much of myself in a game,” he said. “It’s something that I’m actively trying to get over.”

Getting over that fear isn’t linear, but it has led Thomas to an interesting place with Dock King.

“One thing that impacted me a lot in real life was my father’s death about five years ago,” he said. “I don’t think I will explicitly add this to the game, but it has guided me toward a concept I will include: growing up.”

He plans to incorporate the idea of growth in a positive way, using it as a way to bolster the game’s central premise of building up a community. 

That premise also happens to be central in Thomas’ real life and relationship to the ICG community.

“The entire community has given me tremendous motivation and hope and all of the other good feelings,” he said. “I’m proud that a community like this has sprung up from my home.”

Wishlist Dock King on Steam at: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2014160/Dock_King/