Interview: Matchstick Studio Talks Meander, Crochet Migraines, and the Pause Menu That Never Unpaused

When a game exists because learning real crochet kept giving its developer migraines, you know it’s going to take a few unexpected turns.

As part of our coverage of Weird Days: Dark Tales by Warm Light on Steam, we caught up with Vanshika, the one-person studio behind Meander, a cosy crafts sandbox where you draw with yarn, design your own stitches, and turn your creations into a scrapbook.

We spoke about a crochet simulator that became something else entirely, the garden that never grew, and the three hours lost to a pause menu.

Meet Matchstick Studio

Matchstick Studio is a team of one.

Team is just me. I do the art and coding and marketing and design and whatever else the project needs.

Which is a job title we can all respect.

Quickfire Round

First console/system you ever owned?

The name has been lost to time, but it was a pink, heart-shaped handheld with a few games on it, including one about sorting sheep.

Favourite boss fight of all time?

The bridge boss in Noita.

Go-to snack during crunch?

Whatever’s in the kitchen.

Pizza topping that must survive the apocalypse?

As long as there’s cheese, I don’t care.

Honestly, a very healthy attitude for the end of the world.

One game you’d love to experience again for the first time?

Animal Well.

The weirdest or creepiest game that has stuck with you for years?

Noita again, which makes it the only game to win two categories in this interview.

A Mosaic of Small Ideas

Meander didn’t arrive fully formed from a single spark. In Vanshika’s words:

This is a mosaic of small ideas that were glued on to the project over time.

It started with crochet. Learning it kept giving her migraines, so she figured she’d make a crochet simulator as her first game instead. The only snag was that she didn’t have the skills to handle actual yarn physics.

So it became 2D.

I guess we’re drawing? Why overcomplicate the input?

Then came the stitches. While researching which ones to include, she noticed that a lot of complex stitches are just combinations of smaller ones. Rather than draw a hundred stitch types by hand, she let players make their own. Cats, flowers, houses, anything you like can become your brush.

Why would I limit what you can make?

Animation came along because she made an underwater scene that really wanted to move. Glittery yarn appeared because she was experimenting with glow-in-the-dark shader effects and someone suggested glitter.

Fair play to whoever that was.

As for the look, everything grew out of the stitches. Vanshika wanted them to feel as realistic as she could possibly make them, and the rest of the aesthetic followed from there.

The Garden That Never Grew

Meander almost looked very different.

The original idea was 3D. It wasn’t a sandbox at first. And instead of a scrapbook, there was supposed to be a garden where your art would grow on trees, complete with trading, an economy, and a mutation system.

There was just one problem.

She couldn’t draw a single tree she liked.

After two weeks of trying to get some version of the garden working, she dropped it completely. And then it clicked.

Scrapbook! It was the perfect way to display what you were making.

The scrapbook added extra layers of creativity too, letting players collage their work, add stickers, and write on it. The trading and market systems went in the bin along with the trees, and for a very good reason.

I didn’t want to put numbers on people’s art, and I had no way for the game to distinguish between a random squiggle and something you spent hours on. So, no judgement, pure sandbox. Just make stuff.

Every Problem Is a First

Ask which mechanic caused the biggest headache, and the answer is simple.

All of them.

Meander is Vanshika’s first game, so every new feature and every new bug was her first time running into that particular challenge. Some got fixed, some got creative workarounds, and some got cut entirely. Optimisation has been the biggest challenge so far.

Her creative process is refreshingly direct. She gets an idea, then tries to make the smallest possible test version of it work in the game. If she can prototype it within hours (or minutes, if she’s feeling impatient), it doesn’t break anything, and it kinda sorta fits the vibe, it stays.

For Meander specifically, more is better. Every added feature is another tool you can use whenever you want.

One of the biggest highlights was the animation system, which she didn’t think was possible until she discovered Godot’s Path2D nodes, which let you move something along a line. It was added a whole month after the demo was already out.

And the thing she’s most proud of? The brushes. Specifically, the chain stitch brush.

That took me 20+ tries and the first version of it was just a “V” with no shading.

Twenty-plus attempts at a single stitch. That’s the kind of dedication crochet demands, whether it’s real or digital.

Crayon-on-the-Wall Energy

Asked what a secret cheat code would unlock, Vanshika’s answer wasn’t a joke. It was a wish.

I wish I had a cheat code that would erase player anxiety.

The whole point of Meander, for her, is the imperfection. She could have made the original crochet simulator with a few 3D stitch assets you stack like Lego. That wasn’t the point. She wanted every stitch to be different depending on how fast or steady you were going.

Whatever you made, I wanted it to feel like it was yours, and it doesn’t matter if it’s flawed and if the stitches aren’t identical and if it looks a bit weird.

A lot of people she’s spoken to have been too anxious to try the game because they don’t think they’ll make something pretty. Her answer to that is perfect.

I want proudly-scribbling-on-the-wall-with-a-crayon energy.

The Great Pause Menu Mystery

Every game has bugs.

Some are complicated.

Others are not.

Meander kept randomly freezing, despite nothing much changing. Vanshika spent three hours going over the entire codebase trying to work out what had gone wrong.

What actually happened:

• She added a close-pause-menu button.
• She forgot to make it unpause the game.

Three hours. Every developer reading this just felt that in their soul.

Meander at Weird Days

For Vanshika, being part of the festival is an honour, especially with so many amazing games taking part.

During Weird Days, you can play the Meander demo on Steam.

She’s also full of praise for fellow selection The Totemist, which she playtested and would definitely recommend. She hasn’t had time to try the others yet, but has seen amazing art and ideas across the whole lineup.

Before you dive in, there’s just one thing she wants you to know:

You don’t need to be an artist to have fun with drawing.

And the one feeling she wants you to leave with?

Joy.

That’s it. That’s the whole answer. And honestly, it’s a pretty good one.

Looking Ahead

Meander releases on 15 December.

Further down the line, if she can make it work, Meander 2 would be the original crochet simulator idea, complete with plushies you can grow on trees. The trees may get their moment after all.

That won’t be the next game, though. Vanshika has a list of more than 50 game ideas, and the one she really, really wants to make next is a creature-crafter. She’s not yet sure what skills she’ll need for it, but she’ll figure that out once Meander is done.

Based on how Meander came together, we’d say she’ll work it out.

Wishlist Meander

If Meander sounds like your kind of creative calm, try the demo and add the game to your Steam wishlist. For development updates, Vanshika posts those on Bluesky.

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4714860/Meander/

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/matchstick345.bsky.social

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matchstick345/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@matchstick345

itch.io: https://matchstick345.itch.io/

Meander is shaping up to be a game that doesn’t care whether you’re good at art, only that you make something. And after a festival full of dark tales, that might be exactly what you need.