What do you get when you combine wild driving, hunting for ingredients, restaurant management, and a whole lot of ridiculous chaos? You get Meat Safari, an upcoming indie game that takes these ideas and turns them into one wonderfully goofy adventure. We recently caught up with Doug, the solo developer behind GoblinRunt Games, to discuss the inspiration behind Meat Safari, the challenges of developing a game on his own, the games that shaped his creative vision, and his plans for the future. From hilarious in-game moments to four-player co-op, Doug shares what players can expect when they step into the world of Meat Safari.

Meat Safari launches on December 7, 2026, for Windows, macOS, and Linux. You can check out the game and add it to your Steam wishlist using the link below.

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5200400/Meat_Safari/

1. First off, for people who may not know GoblinRunt Games yet, can you tell us a little about the studio, who's on the team, and how you all came together?

GoblinRunt Games is just me! I’m Doug, the solo developer behind Meat Safari. Professionally, I’m a Quality Engineer with 15 years of experience specializing in front-end/UI automated testing, but my real passion is gaming and has been since I was 5. As a kid, my parents got me one of those Tiger Electronic handhelds and I played it so much! I would be late for dinner or neglect my chores because "I needed to save April"!

2. How did GoblinRunt Games get started? Was making games something you always wanted to do, or did the idea of starting your own studio come along later?

I’ve been making games since January 2025. Watching what Balatro achieved made me realize what was possible and gave me the push to start making games myself. I was stunned to see a one-man game even be considered for an award like that. That's when I realized there was a shift "in the air" and that the gaming industry was returning its focus back from the AAA giants to independent developers.

3. Let's go back to the beginning a bit. What was the first video game that made you fall in love with gaming, and what was it about that game that stuck with you?

That’s super tough. I think my love for gaming has come in waves. As a child, I was always cooped up in the playroom of my house playing either my dad’s ColecoVision, which I still have, or my NES. The big ones during that time were Q*bert and, of course, Super Mario Bros.

Later, though, I remember playing a new type of game I had never experienced called Final Fantasy X. I literally thought the X was an “X,” and my brother and I would call it that, haha. But seriously, I had never played an RPG, much less one with a full-blown story. It showed me what games could be.

Then came Smash Bros., which has been a staple in all stages of my life. Childhood was OG Smash, then Melee was high school. Brawl was college, and Smash 4 was my professional career. It’s been a blessing to grow up in a period where the gaming industry has been at max creativity. There are so many meaningful games I can’t count them, but I will say my favorite game of all time is The Binding of Isaac. An absolute masterpiece.

4. When did you first decide you wanted to make games yourselves rather than just play them? Was there a particular game, experience, or moment that made you think, "I'd love to create something like this one day"?

Now this is a crazy story. Back in about 2013, a coworker and I started playing a table-top card game called Dominion. We loved it and played it to death. I had every expansion and even made a custom box to hold all my cards! We would play it daily during lunch. One day, I asked him, do you think we could make something like this? So we tried, and boy did we try. For a couple years we meticulously built and scrapped features, cut out physical cards, and scribbled all over them. Eventually, we realized the cost of making a physical card game and, since we were early in our career and didn't have much cash, we shelved it around 2015.

Then, fast forward to 2024 and I found the box collecting dust in my closet. After seeing Balatro be nominated for GOTY, I knew it was time to make the game I always wanted to. That game ended up becoming Luxuriant, my first game.

5. Let's talk about Meat Safari. Where did the idea for the game come from? What made you want to combine driving, hunting for ingredients, and running a restaurant into one chaotic experience?

Meat Safari was actually inspired while I was on vacation earlier this year. My family and I went on a trip to Dogwood Canyon Nature Park right outside Branson, Missouri, and it was gorgeous. I work remotely and don’t spend a ton of time in that part of the US, but I was very captured by the “nature” of it all and wanted to attempt to give that feeling to others.

That said, I learned my limitations and abilities quickly and pivoted to ensure my personality was on display this time around.

6. One of the things that stands out about Meat World is how ridiculous things can get, especially when you're hunting with a car or piling cargo onto the roof. Is that kind of humor a big part of GoblinRunt Games' personality, and how much fun have you had coming up with these ideas?

The games I have made in the past were games I wanted to make, but lacked my personality significantly. They were fun, but I wanted funny. This time around, I wanted to inject ME into the game. Not just make something I thought someone else would laugh at. If I wasn’t laughing, I wasn’t happy with the result. As you can imagine, making Meat Safari was an absolute blast. It’s a funny game and I would be up late past midnight on many nights just laughing to myself when modeling or scripting, just knowing that what I was making was so insanely goofy.

7. The game supports up to four players, and everyone can take on different responsibilities, from gathering ingredients to keeping the restaurant running. Was co-op always part of the plan, and what do you think makes playing Meat Safari with friends special?

Co-op wasn’t just part of the original plan, it WAS the plan. I know from experience a game can be good, but with friends playing with you, it can be great. I set out to make an experience that is made better when cracking open a few cold ones with the boys.

The demo is single-player and designed to give you a taste of the full experience. The full game supports solo play and up to four-player co-op and is bursting with variety and jokes.

8. Indie development can be a real challenge, especially when you're trying to bring a game with so many different systems to life. What's been the biggest challenge for the team while developing Meat World, and was there a moment when you felt like everything was finally coming together?

Terrain. HOLY BEANS, I battled the terrain! For most of the models in Meat Safari, I utilized an incredible tool called Blockbench. I highly recommend it for silly modeling, and it was so intuitive! I was able to sort of “move the tool out of the way” and just be creative.

Terrain, on the other hand, was like a movable, sculptable cloth that I was working with in Blender. If you have ever utilized Blender, you know it has a learning curve. Learning to slice, cut, bend and shape vertices, edges and faces took months. It never got easier, either. I just had to brute-force through it all.

9. As a studio, what games or developers have influenced the way you approach game design? Are there any games you look at and think, "That's the kind of experience we want to create for our players"?

Isaac is always present in my games because it was the first game that made me step back and try to understand the systems, loops and components of what a game could be. For the first time, I wasn’t just playing it, I was building a relationship with it. Edmund McMillen is a genius!

For Meat Safari, Overcooked played a big role, obviously, but a less obvious inspiration was an N64 game called Rush 2: Extreme Racing USA, published by Midway Games (RIP). It’s largely a racing game, but also had a stunt track that was sort of like a free-roaming Tony Hawk, but in a car. My brother and I would always boot that thing up and go straight to doing flips and tricks. We just wanted to make the highest score and see who could get the most insane tricks in their car. Meat Safari has this spirit built in.

10. Finally, what does the future look like for GoblinRunt Games? What are you most excited for players to experience when they jump into Meat World, and where can everyone follow the studio to keep up with what you're working on next?

Assuming the game sells decently, I want to make free DLC to add new drivers, vehicles and pets. I think the variety is what keeps Meat Safari fresh. Oh! Expanding the world would be a lot of fun, too! Ultimately, I want to make the game that the community wants.

You can follow Meat Safari and add it to your wishlist on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/5200400/Meat_Safari/

Meat Safari Releases on Dec 7th, 2026 for Windows, macOS, and Linux.