One of the most talked-about names in Brazil’s indie scene is at Brasil Game Show 2026. Joeveno, the solo developer behind the Brazilian Drug Dealer series, is one of the exhibitors in the show’s Indie Area, which runs until Monday (October 12) at Distrito Anhembi in São Paulo. He is showing his latest game, Brazilian Drug Dealer Before 4, which launched on Steam in September.

The game: a boomer shooter that is pure Brazil

The full title says a lot: BRAZILIAN DRUG DEALER BEFORE 4: DEMONS FROM THE PORTAL TO HELL I OPENED ARE STILL IN THE FAVELA AND NOW I HAVE TO SAVE MAMADAS FROM RONALDO. It is a standalone sequel to Brazilian Drug Dealer 3 and runs on the same engine as the original Quake. It pays tribute to the Brazilian bootleg games and mods of the 2000s that many players grew up with on PS2 or at internet cafés.

After closing the portal to hell in the previous game, the hero watches the Mamadas get kidnapped by Ronaldo McDalest. The chase runs through Rio de Janeiro state, São Paulo, Salvador, hell and even heaven. There are 18 campaign levels with co-op, 7 horde maps and 6 deathmatch maps. The big change is movement: you can now dash and double jump, thanks to fireworks the hero stuck somewhere they really should not go.

The weapons follow the same spirit. The berimbau, the coconut-shooting payphone and the money paper-plane gun are back, joined by a feijoada slingshot and a chimarrão flamethrower. You heal by eating pastel and drinking sugarcane juice. The game costs US$ 4.99 (R$ 19.99 in Brazil) on Steam, is available in 15 languages, and is set to get new content every month. So far, almost 99% of its 770+ Steam reviews are positive.

The developer: from viral tweet to QuakeCon

Joeveno is from Rio de Janeiro and also works as a content creator and musician. According to the community wiki, the series was born at 3 a.m., when he suddenly shouted the game’s name in the middle of a conversation with his girlfriend. The first post about the project passed 1.2 million views, and what was meant to be a five-level mod became a commercial game. The community even chipped in to pay the fee to put it on Steam.

Brazilian Drug Dealer 3 now has more than 9,000 Steam reviews, around 98% of them positive, and has been covered by international outlets. In 2025, Joeveno had a booth in the BGS Indie Area. This August he went to QuakeCon in the US, where he met John Romero, John Carmack and Tom Hall, the people behind Doom and Quake. He brought Romero a physical copy of his game as a gift.

A T-shirt full of QR codes

I met Joeveno in person at gamescom latam 2026. He went to the event on his own, wearing a T-shirt covered in QR codes that led straight to the game’s Steam page so people could wishlist it. It sums up a solo developer who makes the game, does the marketing and meets the public all by himself. Judging by the numbers, it is working: the game passed 60,000 wishlists before launch.

If you are at BGS 2026, stop by the Indie Area to meet the game and its creator. Everyone else can find Brazilian Drug Dealer Before 4 on Steam.

Source: Joeveno.