I sat down with Tobey Gronow, the solo dev behind The Local—a high-speed, parkour-heavy FPS that throws you into a playground of momentum and mayhem. We talked about how the game came to life, and what’s next for this breakout indie hit.
Tell us a little about yourself and how you got started in game development.
Tobey: During highschool, I had an IT class where we started learning how to program, and I was immediately hooked. I loved the idea of being able to precisely tell a computer what to do, and the thing I really wanted to do was make a game. A few days later, I got my hands on a game engine that ran on the 3DS (of all things) called SmileBASIC. Terrible way to start, to be honest. I didn’t learn much but I loved every second of it. I’d say I’m a programmer first and foremost, but for whatever reason, I always end up having games as my main projects.
What inspired your latest game, and what was the initial vision behind it?
Tobey: The very initial vision for The Local was for it to be a game more akin to something like Stardew Valley, but where you run a pub instead of a farm (hence the name, The Local). Doesn’t sound very fast paced, does it? That’s because it wasn’t. Took a few months before I realized the game wasn’t fun, and I decided to fix that by adding movement. But I actually lost steam for a bit here, and development was entirely halted, and then eventually restarted about a year and half later.
This rebooted version took some of the pub ideas for the Orders gamemode, but the real star of the show is of course the Source inspired movement. I loved playing on Surf servers in CS:GO. I found it had a sort of therapeutic effect, which is something I really wanted to recreate, and I’d say I succeeded in doing so with the rail grinding. I also added air strafing and b-hopping for good measure. In terms of aesthetics, a huge inspiration was Persona 5, especially with its graphics design.
What were some of the biggest challenges you faced during development?
Tobey: Getting Ghost Data working was quite a big challenge, but something I look back on very fondly. I love a good challenge like that. A challenge I didn’t enjoy was designing the world, especially Northern Peak. This is the only part of the map that is largely vertical, which the movement really wasn’t designed for. This was the only area that had multiple large scale revisions. The first version actually took place inside the mountain, with a large series of caves, but it just wasn’t fun. The second version moved back to the mountain’s surface, and was honestly pretty good, but it was very annoying to get up and down the mountain. The final version introduced the speed strips, which are essentially just super fast rail elevators to get you up and down. I think those, plus the new industrial aesthetic, really completed it. That was also the last part of the map I had to make.
Is there a particular moment or feature in your game that you’re especially proud of?
Tobey: I think the feature I’m most proud of is the Ghost Data, and especially the Demo player. As I said, this was a big challenge, but I absolutely loved making it. I think it’s also a feature that just has so much value to players. It prevents people from gatekeeping their best routes, and just allows people to really hone in and master the course instead of solely having to focus on routing, if they’re not into that, of course. Otherwise, you can just ignore the feature, and do the work yourself.
How do you approach balancing creativity with the realities of budget, time, and resources?
Tobey: I could lie here, and say I planned everything out, and masterfully managed scope creep. But the reality is, The Local was supposed to release almost exactly a year before it actually did. It also wasn’t meant to have a bunch of gamemodes. It was just going to be Orders. Ultimately, that extra year made the game significantly better, but yeah, I honestly don’t do too well with that balance. It’s why I’ve only released one game. But I did definitely reach a point, probably at the start of the year, where I really started to lock things in, and decided on the release date about 2 months in advance.
What advice would you give to aspiring indie developers just starting out?
Tobey: This is the advice I would’ve given to myself if I could have: don’t be stubborn. Game development, whether you’re just starting out, or you’ve been doing it for almost 10 years, is a learning process. So take the time to really sit down and learn the basics. I was really stubborn and just learnt the specific things I needed at any given time. But I’d honestly be a year ahead of where I am today if I had just taken the time to watch a good, maybe 3 hour long tutorial, covering all the basics. Boring? Probably. But you’ll thank yourself later on for it, and things are gonna get very fun after that. If you’re into game development, it’s incredibly enriching, and absolutely worth the time. So start off right, and enjoy!
What’s next for you — any future projects or updates in the works?
Tobey: I’m currently working on a level editor, and then after that? I’m not too sure. But I’d ideally like to make another game, and hopefully with a small team.
Where can people follow your work or support your game?
Tobey: You can play The Local for free on Steam, and if you want to support me, you can buy the supporter DLC!
Game: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2560050/The_Local/
Supporter DLC: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2560140/The_Local__Supporter_Package/
Discord: https://discord.gg/5fdgd8A6s8
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tobey_jinc/
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/tobey-jinc.bsky.social
