At this year’s Busan Indie Connect Festival (BIC) 2026, we managed to sit down for an exclusive interview with Logan Moon, CEO of Seoul-based indie studio CanOpener. The team has spent the past three years quietly building Dungeon Settlers, a game that blends settlement building with dungeon combat, and with Early Access just around the corner, Moon shared the story behind the game, the choices that shaped it, and what players can expect when it launches.

From Anime Inspiration to Three Years of Development

Moon began by describing Dungeon Settlers in his own words. “Dungeon Settlers is a game that you build a settlement in a barren land, and then go into the dungeon to tragically fight with the monsters within the dungeon, and explore mysterious stuff in the dungeon, and come back, and build your settlement, and train your members to even get deeper,” he said.

That core idea, according to Moon, came from a mix of anime influence and his own frustrations as a strategy game fan. He pointed to the anime Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? as a key inspiration, noting that the characters in the show “have their lives on the ground” and prepare for their dungeon dives instead of just fighting monsters non-stop. His background as a colony sim fan also played a part. “When I played Windward and other colony simulation games, they didn’t have that much depth in the combat itself,” he explained, adding that combining deeper combat with a colony sim format would be a great feat

Turning that idea into an actual game has taken time. Moon confirmed that Dungeon Settlers has been in development for a while now.

“We have been developing more than a bit, three years.”

As a small, self-funded studio, that timeline has shaped several of the decisions the team has made heading into release.

One detail that stands out about Dungeon Settlers is its choice of a Lizardman as the game’s main key art, something not commonly seen in the genre. Moon said the decision was meant to immediately signal that the game is a fantasy title. “As a fantasy game, showing the Lizardman, which is not a human, we thought that could be effective to tell people that it’s a fantasy game,” he explained.

That fantasy identity seems to be resonating with players so far. Dungeon Settlers has already been playable in demo form, and Moon shared that the response has been encouraging. “They mainly say that the game’s potential is huge and they are waiting for the release,” he said of player feedback, adding that some fans have gone well beyond a casual try-out.

“There are even people who played more than 100 hours into our game, even though it’s in demo stage.”

A Gameplay Loop Built Around Tough Choices

Asked what sets Dungeon Settlers apart, Moon pointed to its core gameplay loop. Building up the settlement requires resources gathered from the dungeon, while surviving deeper in the dungeon requires a stronger settlement to back it up. “In order to make the settlement better, you need to get resources in the dungeon. But in contrast, to fight better in dungeon, you also need to improve your settlements,” he said, describing how the two sides feed into each other as the most important part of the game.

That loop is paired with moments meant to feel genuinely difficult. “In Dungeon Settlers, you can experience really cruel situations where you have to make tough decisions,” Moon said, tying it back to the anime that inspired the game. One example he gave was having to abandon a party member to keep the rest of the group alive.

“You sometimes need to abandon your member to survive, to make the other members survive. So that’s kind of a tough decision you have to make.”

When asked about character relationships, a feature often expected in games with strong social elements, Moon was upfront that it isn’t a current focus. “I sometimes get asked about the relationship system in the game. I really want to put more into the game. But as right now, we don’t have that much relationship system in the game,” he said, explaining that the studio wanted players to focus more on combat, rather than the relationship between characters He didn’t rule out expanding this later, adding that the team might need to revisit to see how much we can put more effort in those areas.

Why September 4, and What Comes After

With so many games launching around the same time in September, Moon was asked why CanOpener chose September 4 for Early Access. His answer was direct and tied to the studio’s size and finances. “We are a small team and we have been developing for three years. So we do not have more space to spend more time for the game,” he said, adding that the lack of revenue during development made waiting longer difficult.

“We are not getting any revenues from the game and it has been financially hard. That is why we chose September for the release date.”

Moon was equally straightforward about where the game currently stands. Early Access will let players train their party members and take them into combat, which he said “gives you a sense of progression and achievement.” At the same time, he acknowledged the version isn’t complete yet. “We do not have enough content, in my opinion. And we are not supporting modding yet,” he said, adding that the studio plans to address both after launch to make the game fully fledged.

In terms of scope, the Early Access version currently includes two dungeon regions, enough for players to go from the first region to the last region and see an ending. The finished game, however, is planned to include six regions in total. “We are going to make four more regions to make the game completed,” Moon said.