David Szymanski

David "Dave" Szymanski (/səˈmæn.skiː/ sə-MAN-skee; Polish pronunciation: [ʂɨˈmaɲ.ski]) is an American^{[‡ 1]} video game developer. Szymanski developed games such as Dusk, Iron Lung, and Gloomwood.

David Szymanski
Szymanski in 2025
Occupation	Video game developer
Notable work	Dusk Iron Lung Gloomwood
Relatives	John Szymanski (brother) Evan Szymanski (brother)

Life and career

Video of a "visual prototype" Szymanski was working on before he started to develop Dusk^{[‡ 2]}

David Szymanski is the brother of video game developers John and Evan Szymanski, known for developing My Friendly Neighborhood.^[1]

Under the username "jefequeso", David began to release games on Itch.io, Game Jolt, and Steam in 2014, including the freeware horror game Fingerbones and his first commercial horror game The Moon Sliver.^{[‡ 3][‡ 4][2]} On October 31st, 2014, David expressed sympathy for the Gamergate harassment campaign, writing on the GOG.com forums: "I agree with pretty much every sentiment of GG. I agree that videogame journalism needs an overhaul, I agree that there's a concerning bias on display, and I'm against radical feminism."^{[‡ 5]}

On December 10, 2018, David released Dusk,^[3] a retro-style first-person shooter game.^[4] For Dusk, Szymanski has been credited by SUPERJUMP with "single-handedly revitalizing the boomer-shooter genre".^[5] He then released Iron Lung on March 10, 2022, a submarine simulation horror game in which players navigate an ocean of blood on a moon.^[6] Sales increased after the Titan submersible implosion, which disconcerted Szymanski.^[7] He faced criticism online for increasing the price of the game by two dollars, to which he told those complaining to "go pirate it or something".^[8] Sales of the game dropped after the price adjustment.^[8] On April 21, 2023 Markiplier announced that he would be directing the film Iron Lung^{[‡ 6][‡ 7][9]} and Szymanski said that he would have a cameo in the film on Twitter.^[10]

Szymanski released Squirrel Stapler in September 2023,^[11] followed by The Pony Factory in 2024. Both had originally been released as part of the Dread X Collection^[11][12] and take place in the same world, while the latter was inspired by Jacqueline Ess: Her Will And Testament, a short story by Clive Barker.^[13] In January 2025, he released Butcher's Creek, a first-person horror game about a man going to the titular Butcher's Creek on a quest to collect snuff films on VHS.^[14][15] David, John and Evan Szymanski developed Secret Agent Wizard Boy and the International Crime Syndicate, which was released as early access on March 6, 2025.^[16][17] Szymanski worked with Dillon Rogers in developing Gloomwood, a stealth survival horror game published by New Blood Interactive.^[18]