Katana Zero Creator Justin Stander On The Relentless Drive That Brought The Game To Life

Not all heroes wear capes. The protagonist of Justin Stander's hit action game Katana ZERO is a bathrobe-wearing samurai with a penchant for synth-driven '80s music. Stander's highly rated independent game has, in less than a year, sold 500,000 copies, generating $5 million in sales - a blockbuster in the indie market where the average game makes around $16,000. For a 26-year-old, Stander has been at this for a long time. The Delmar, New York, native designed games in middle school and by 16 had released a free Web game, Tower of Heaven. Stander started to develop Katana as a student at McGill University, taking on freelance game development projects to fund what he thought would be a two-year project. Instead it took five years. "There were an innumerable amount of days that I woke up, worked, went to sleep and that was it," Stander says. Katana is available for PC, Mac and Nintendo Switch, and Stander is developing new story lines, game levels and other add-ons to keep it current - and selling.