The Outback Life's For Me - A Chat With Dinkum Developer James Bendon
Have you ever felt the pull towards a quieter life? A life with less ‘go go go’ and more ‘slow slow slow’? A life in a small town, perhaps, designed entirely by you. The layout is yours, the buildings are yours, the roads are yours, and the townspeople – well, they do their own thing, but they’re not annoying townspeople – these are people we like. Imagine that life, created by you, tailored to you… And now throw in a couple of crocodiles and cassowaries chasing you to the ends of the earth, and you’ve got Dinkum.
Dinkum is a survival life sim set in the Aussie outback, offering gamers the ability to spend their days building up their town and creating something wonderful – or thinning out the lethal Aussie wildlife; whatever floats your boat. Developed and created by James Bendon, Dinkum left early access last year and has seen its popularity surge since its launch.
Dinkum is James’s first-ever video game, and he drew inspiration from the games that he loved playing. “I think Dinkum wears its inspiration on its sleeve. Animal Crossing & Minecraft, but some other inspirations that maybe aren’t as apparent are Monster Hunter and Valheim.” Excuse me? Not as apparent? I’ve seen the way those cassowaries chase me around the map. It’s apparent.
Though heavily inspired by the cosy townbuilding of Animal Crossing, James concedes that he “accidentally” incorporated survival mechanics into the game. “In the beginning of the game, it is more of a survival game, and it slowly transitions into a town-building life sim”.
So, remember when I said earlier that Dinkum lets you build your perfect town and perfect life? Well… it does. But only if you survive. You’ve gotta earn that peaceful, perfect life of your dreams. If you’re looking for someone’s name to curse while crocodiles chomp on your character as you play, look no further than the developer himself. Dinkum was a solo dev project that began as a creative endeavour after moving interstate.
“I was always creating games in my free time, and when we moved, I asked my partner, ‘Can I try and make a game for one year?’. Eventually, that one year turned into four years… we got married and had a child before I released Dinkum!”
Krafton (the publishing powerhouse behind Subnautica and PUBG) came on board when the game was in early access and took on the publishing responsibilities, which helped James focus on development. “[Marketing and advertising] was never why I got into this”, and bringing Krafton on board allowed James to focus on the successful 1.0 launch that Dinkum saw last year.
In the lead-up to its release, James shared that a group of his mates kindly helped him with playtesting. They’d all hop on Discord together and play Dinkum so James could iron out bugs. “At first, it felt like I had to nag them, but then slowly but surely, after a week or so, I jumped on the Discord, and they were playing it without me. So that was like “oh wow, I don’t have to nag them anymore. Maybe the game’s not so bad”.
James looks back on its launch last year with joy, but the unprecedented success of the game was something he didn’t see coming. “I had worked on this thing, and it was mine for four years, and once I gave it to the public, there was such a great response, but it was overwhelming”.
Like letting your baby out into the world on their first day of school, releasing Dinkum to the public handed the reins of control over to the general populace, who were now free to do as they wished with the game. However, to set any fears at ease, they did some cool stuff. “I didn’t think Dinkum was that much of a creative game – that’s what surprised me the most. My friends were min-maxers; they just wanted to get all of the money and get all the items. But when I released it, there was a whole new subset of the community that’s like ‘oh no, I just wanna make this island look nice, and I wanna decorate town streets and put furniture in my house’. So after release, I realised I have to give these people more tools to express themselves – and they always surprised me with what they did. Now I know that no matter what I give people, they’ll find a creative way to use it that I didn’t intend.”
The creativity gamers showcase when playing Dinkum is something James speaks quite fondly of, saying that some people use the title more as a creative program than a game. Some of the highlights for him included people showcasing both their artistic and architectural talents. “There’s a whole group of people that do pixel art; they’re creating pictures in the map. And then there are people who are creating cathedrals or massive waterfall landscapes. The things that they’re showing off are things I made, but what impresses me is that I know how long it would take [to build these things]. I can’t even do that in my own game; I don’t have the patience and the drive, so it’s always amazing to see. It’s all really good… One of the best parts of game development is ‘oh, you’ve surprised me.”
The highlights for Dinkum continue ever rolling on as the game prepares for the launch of its physical Nintendo Switch edition on January 30, 2026 – a “dream come true” for James. “Nintendo is my favourite gaming company. I think everything they do is amazing, and they’re my biggest inspiration. So to see my game on a shelf next to other Nintendo games – that’s a really great feeling.”
Dinkum’s future in 2026 is bright, as James admits, “there’s still some updates left in me. As long as there’s someone still playing the game and they’re excited about it, it’s hard for me not to get inspired by that”. Though James couldn’t share any specifics, he did assure me that fans of the game can expect to see “more stuff” coming to Dinkum this year. Which is awesome because I frickin love stuff.
In terms of what we can expect to see next from James Bendon, father of Dinkum and game developer extraordinaire, a new project is on the horizon… though he doesn’t quite know what it is yet. “I hate the name of the genre, but I’ve been inspired by friendslop games. I really like how expressive the characters are with proximity chat, so I wanna make something that involves that”.
Whatever this mystery project ends up being, I’m keen to see it.
Dinkum is available for purchase on PC & Nintendo Switch, with a physical edition coming out on January 30, 2026.
