WEST SPRINGFIELD – Yukon Wainczak, a 23-year-old West Springfield resident, released his first major video game, “Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion,” on April 22.

“It’s about a turnip named Turnip Boy who evades his taxes, and the evil Mayor Onion kicks him out of his greenhouse and makes him do dirty deeds to get it back. So, you adventure through the town Veggieville and do all of Mayor Onion’s tasks,” Wainczak said.

Wainczak has worked on gaming for 12 years now. When he was in middle school, he started creating his own games on a website called Scratch for his friends to play. This is when his interest in gaming took off.  

“I was interested in games before and how they worked but once I started making them it kind of clicked, like this is really what I want to do,” Wainczak said.

He went to Becker College in Worcester where he majored in interactive media and game design. During his last semester of college, while on break, he started his business and began working on his new game for fun. He built a demo of it for a convention and received a very positive response.
“A bunch of people really liked it and were really excited for it. At this point, I decided to take it more seriously,” Wainczak said.

He gathered a small group of five to polish the game and get it out to publishers to acquire funding.?The group also provided assistance in uploading the game onto other platforms and localizing it to different languages. The game took about two years to develop. It was created by the local Indie game company Snoozy Kazoo.

“Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion” is available for $15 on Nintendo Switch and Steam, compatible for Macs, PCs, and LYTX.

Wainczak mentioned having other ideas for future projects and content but nothing set yet. His current focus is to continue to get more effects and updates on “Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion.”