Film studio documents St. Louis video game creator’s battle with cancer

Sam Coster didn’t know if he would live to see the completion of Crashlands, the video game he dreamed up with his brothers. But today, Coster is cancer-free, Crashlands has received national acclaim, and the perseverance of the three brothers is the subject of a new documentary.

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While filming a short documentary about local game studio Butterscotch Shenanigans, Alessio Summerfield began watching home videos of the studio's founders. He watched hours of the early lives of the Coster brothers, Adam, Seth, and Sam. That’s when it hit Summerfield: Sam, who was diagnosed with stage 4 non-Hodgkins lymphoma, really could die.

"I’m sitting here, watching him as a young kid having a sixth Christmas, and there was a possibility that I might see this guy pass away," Summerfield recalls thinking. He wondered, "What do I do if he passes away?" What did that mean for him as a filmmaker and a storyteller? Summerfield resolved to share Sam's story as best he could.

The documentary Dev Diary Season One: Brace for Impact has been picked up for January 21 publication on Steam, a video game and film platform with more than 125 million active users. Earlier this month, Brace for Impact also shared the Costers' story at MAGFest, a popular music and gaming festival near Washington D.C.

See also: Butterscotch Shenanigans: Beating Cancer With Video Games

Initially, Summerfield and James Reichmuth, co-owners of local video development and production company Forever an Astronaut, didn't plan to create an entire documentary about Butterscotch Shenanigans. They'd planned to spend 20 minutes, maybe an hour, interviewing the Coster brothers about what it's like to run a game studio.

Then they heard the story behind the studio's latest game, Crashlands. Sam said it was keeping him going after being diagnosed with cancer. "The entire purpose of this game essentially stems from Sam realizing that he might die," says Summerfield, "and wanting to make something that means something as his last game."

He decided the story of the Coster brothers—a trio he describes as "so damn lovable" and "a weird beacon of positivity and fun"—deserved more. The interview turned into a six-hour conversation, which evolved into a months-long production process during which Summerfield and Reichmuth followed the brothers through Sam's battle with cancer and the challenges of starting a game company.

"Our goal was to survive long enough to learn the business," Sam says. Then, after they learned of his diagnosis, it became "survival in a very different sense—this constant sense of trying not to expire, in a real-life sense and a studio sense."

Summerfield and Reichmuth were there, in December 2015, for the PET scan where for Sam discovered he was cancer-free.

And they were there a month later, when Crashlands was released. The Costers' website describes the game: "Play as Flux Dabes, a galactic delivery truck driver whose latest shipment gets interrupted by a megalomaniacal alien named 'Hewgodooko' who tears her ship to pieces looking for useful tech." As Dabes, players milk aliens, make weapons, and murder maniacs, "all in the name of ON-TIME DELIVERY!"

Crashlands' vibrant, wonky designs and zany humor, straight from the minds of the Coster brothers, enraptured gamers. The game went on to earn enough in just three days to cover the past two years’ worth of production costs. It received glowing reviews, with Time magazine declaring it one the year's best games—twice. It put Butterscotch Shenanigans on the map almost overnight.

"[Crashlands] might be the most accomplished video game to ever come out of St. Louis," says Summerfield, whose film studio tells the Costers brothers' story in a six-episode documentary series, as well as a feature film–style cut. 

"Growing up, you wanna have some aspect of your life be good enough or cool enough or something enough that it would make a good movie," says Sam. "If I had to choose, it certainly wouldn’t have been the thing that it ended up being."

Next, Forever an Astronaut plans to share other inspirational stories. A larger series, Dev Diary, will "showcase the resiliency of independent developers and the importance of small teams and overcoming challenges," says Reichmuth. "The Butterscotch story, in particular, is this crazy underdog story of all of these elements coming together at one time."

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