Exclusive Interview with the Creators of *Shadow of the Needle, Dream of the Scissors*: The Creators Are Actually of Chinese Descent and Speak Mandarin

Three weeks after its release, *Dressmaker* has garnered over 13,000 reviews on Steam, with a positive rating hovering around 98 percent. According to estimates from the third-party data platform Gamalytic, the game has sold nearly 600,000 copies.

Developed by Cozy Lives—a three-person team under the South African independent studio Free Lives—this game surged into the top 10 of Steam’s global best-sellers chart on its first day of release, briefly ranking ahead of *Diablo IV*. Game Teahouse conducted an exclusive email interview with the development team, marking the first time a Chinese media outlet has spoken directly with the creators of *Needle Shadow, Dream Tailor*.

Those who participated in the interview included co-creators Jonathan Hau-Yoon and Sabrina, lead programmer Ruan Rothmann, and producer Anja. The following is the full text of the interview; the interviewees’ responses were translated and compiled by Game Teahouse.

01

A South African game, but the lead creator is of Chinese descent

If you've ever looked closely at the wall in the tailor shop in the game, you'll notice a Chinese character—"福"—posted upside down.

In Chinese culture, hanging the character for “fortune” (福) upside down is a pun that means “fortune has arrived.” We posed this question to the team—originally just to confirm whether it was an intentional cultural Easter egg—but received a completely unexpected answer.

“This was a deliberate design choice,” co-creator Jonathan Hau-Yoon wrote in his reply. “I was born in South Africa, but I’m of Chinese descent. I grew up speaking English, Afrikaans, and Mandarin. In my parents’ restaurant, there were several Chinese characters hanging on the walls, and ‘福’ was one of them.”

The upside-down "Fu" character really stands out.

This answer has practically rewritten many players’ understanding of the game. The stand-up collar designs that appear early in the game and the subtle Eastern flair in the fabric shop—previously widely interpreted as a fusion of art styles—now seem more like a projection of personal memories.

Sabrina, another key figure in the game, further confirmed in her reply that the team does indeed plan to add more Chinese clothing: “I’d really love to collaborate with an expert in Chinese fashion in the future so we can accurately portray those designs. For example, the way a cheongsam is cut is completely different from the pattern-making techniques I’m familiar with.I’d love to delve deeper into this and incorporate that knowledge into the game.”

The connection between *Shadows of Needles, Dreams of Scissors* and China goes beyond that.

According to GameLook statistics, Chinese players account for approximately 9.4% of the game’s player base, making them the second-largest group after the English-speaking region. Among the languages supported by the game, only English, Simplified Chinese, and Japanese feature full voice acting; Simplified Chinese isn’t merely a matter of adding subtitles, but is treated as a genuine market in its own right.

02

Three People, Three Weeks of Prototyping

Free Lives is a name that isn’t very familiar to Chinese gamers, but when you mention its games *Broforce* and *GORN*, many people will recognize them—the former is a gory side-scrolling shooter, while the latter is a gladiator simulator known for its exaggerated physics.

Why did a studio known for violent, satirical games create a quiet sewing game?

Producer Anja believes the answer lies in the convergence of two forces. Sabrina has a “deep and infectious passion” for historical costume-making, while Jonathan—her longtime partner—noticed that a sizable group of people share this passion, yet there are almost no games catering to this interest.So the two spent three weeks building a prototype, “trying to distill the tactile, creative aspects of garment-making.”

“From Free Lives’ perspective, this whole thing is pretty confusing.”Anja didn’t mince words in her letter: “Such a small, genuinely heartfelt sewing game has garnered a huge response on social media and itch.io. The disconnect between it and Free Lives’ usual style isn’t enough to overshadow the team’s genuine passion.”

The prototype launched on itch.io in July 2025 and garnered approximately 30,000 downloads in its first month. While this number wasn’t particularly surprising to Free Lives, what was astonishing was the level of enthusiasm in the comments section: players shared their own creations, wrote lengthy reviews, and even created mission generators on their own initiative.

Xiaohongshu is full of posts shared by gamers

Jonathan originally viewed it as just a hobby project he could work on little by little, but the response showed that its audience extends far beyond sewing enthusiasts. “There’s also a large group of people looking for a game centered on self-expression,” Anja said.

In September 2025, the project was officially greenlit and placed under “Cozy Lives,” a new sub-brand created by Free Lives for heartwarming titles, with a core development team of just three people. Anja admitted that having a small team actually made many things easier: it was simpler to cut back on scope creep, and everyone could have face-to-face conversations in the same room.However, the trade-offs were still brutal. For example, the feature that allowed players to sew dresses by hand and have their characters wear them was ultimately cut because “the time required was simply too high given such a short development cycle,” and it became one of the players’ biggest regrets.

In an interview, Anja said that the game has now proven its potential, adding, “We have a long list of content we want to add in the future.”

03

Leave every decision up to the player

What surprises professional sewing enthusiasts most about *Needle Shadows: Tailoring Dreams* is its attention to industry details: bias cutting, grain lines, and pattern piece alignment—all these real-world nuances have been preserved. But it’s clearly impossible to incorporate every tedious step of real-world garment making into the game. What were the criteria for deciding what to include and what to leave out?

“We want every decision a player makes to be meaningful.” Sabrina’s response outlined a clear methodology: “We start with player autonomy and work backward from there to shape the entire design.” The skirt is designed to be modular to allow for the maximum number of combinations; the cutting process must be preserved, because the piece of fabric you cut out will appear exactly as it is on the skirt—whether you cut each piece from a different fabric or carefully arrange the pieces so that a flower lands right in the center of the skirt.”

The decoration phase offers complete freedom; players can place any accessory anywhere they like. It is precisely this freedom that has given rise to gameplay styles the team never anticipated—some players use trim to recreate famous paintings, while others use lace and feathers to create three-dimensional animals.

The only part of the entire game that isn’t a creative choice is the sewing itself. “But a dressmaking game can’t do without it,” Sabrina says. “Fortunately, the sewing mechanics are well-designed: as you practice, you’ll sew faster and more precisely. It feels like you’re developing a real skill.”

Everything from cutting the fabric to sewing the clothes feels very realistic.

As for the official showcase of player-created content, Anja expressed cautious optimism: “The highly sculptural pieces we’ve seen have amazed the entire team. We don’t want to make any promises, but the team does want to implement some kind of gallery feature.”

Lead programmer Ruan revealed that the team is considering adding a New Game+ mode, which would allow players to replay the story with all unlocked content and relax the money restrictions; currently, players can already craft and sell ready-made clothing without any restrictions.It’s worth noting that some eager players haven’t waited for the official update; on the Nexus Mods community, the most popular mod available via the player-created ModLoader is a “sandbox mode.”

04

“Generative AI is like creating more sand on the beach.”

In recent years, the stance of indie game teams toward generative AI has become a hot topic in the industry, and the Cozy Lives team has previously expressed its opposition publicly. We asked Jonathan “why,” and received the longest response in his entire email.

“I strongly oppose the use of AI-generated content; I believe it has no place in any industry that truly values craftsmanship,” he wrote. “This is actually a difficult topic for me to discuss—I feel there are so many negative aspects to it that I couldn’t cover them all without writing a book.”

His “simplified” explanation is this: Generative AI is built on the use of works created by billions of human creators—without their consent or compensation; it erases the original sources of human creations, competes with the people whose work has been stolen using the proprietary products it generates, and at the same time attracts trillions of dollars in investment.

In his view, embracing generative AI is tantamount to embracing a future in which “the internet is flooded with generated content, facts are even less reliable, news is even less trustworthy, and good movies, games, and other media are drowned out by a sea of AI-generated content.”

This Chinese-American developer also specifically cited a Chinese idiom to wrap up his point: “I recall a Chinese idiom about sifting for gold on a beach. I believe that for most industries—especially the creative sector—generative AI has created an additional order of magnitude of sand, yet produces only a minuscule amount of gold.”

05

Plans to engage in in-depth cooperation with the Chinese market

On its first day of release, the game shot into the top 10 of Steam’s global best-sellers list, outperforming *Diablo IV*—and the ripple effect this had within the team was just as significant as outsiders might imagine.“To be honest, everyone was a little taken aback by this meteoric rise,” Anja said. “We knew it was special, but the whole Free Lives team is absolutely thrilled right now.”

Regarding the localization issue that Chinese players care about most, the answer is somewhat surprising:The Simplified Chinese localization was handled by the French localization company Native Prime, and the widely praised Chinese title “Needle, Shadow, Cut, Dream” was actually their suggestion—the four characters “needle,” “shadow,” “cut,” and “dream” encapsulate the themes of needle and thread, light and shadow, and dream-making.

In addition, the team has established a partnership with Game Dash, a Chinese public relations firm. As for how much they can achieve in the Chinese market in the future, Anja remains open to possibilities: “We’ll see what collaboration opportunities arise, and then we’ll see what we can do.”

Over 10,000 reviews on Steam

The story returns to that fabric store where it all began. In an interview with Creative Bloq, Sabrina said that the core of this game is to recreate “that moment when you walk into a fabric store”—the heart-pounding excitement of facing walls full of fabrics and endless possibilities for combinations.She learned to sew from her mother as a child, but was later diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which prevented her from pursuing a career in garment making. In a sense, this game is her way of reconnecting with that craft.Today, that connection is reaching nearly 600,000 players worldwide through their screens in the form of virtual fabrics—and nearly 10 percent of them speak Chinese.

As for Chinese players, perhaps in the near future, they’ll be able to craft a genuine cheongsam in a game update.