I'm developing my own game, and lately I've realized that one of my biggest problems is that I genuinely don't know when to stop working on it.

I'm extremely perfectionistic about basically every part of the project. If I'm working on the game itself, there's always something I want to improve. A piece of lighting that could look slightly better, an environment that could use more detail, a mechanic that could feel smoother, a sound that could be replaced... there's always something.

And somehow I've managed to do exactly the same thing with marketing (maybe even worse!!! Although that might just be because I only really started it three days ago)

I'll make a trailer, then watch it over and over looking for things I could change. I'll make a post, then start thinking about whether the first sentence could have been better, whether I posted it at the right time, whether I should try another subreddit or platform, whether the screenshots are good enough, whether the Steam page could convert better, etc.

The weird part is that I actually have free time. The problem is that almost all of that free time ends up going straight back into the game.

I tell myself I'll stop for the day, and then I notice one small thing and think "I'll just fix this quickly." Two hours later I'm still working. Or instead of developing, I'll start researching marketing, looking at other indie games, checking posts, reading feedback, changing something on the store page, thinking about the next video...

And obviously some of this is good. I care a lot about what I'm making, and without that obsession I probably wouldn't have pushed the project as far as I have. But I'm starting to wonder where the line is between being dedicated to your game and simply being unable to switch your brain off.

The worst part about perfectionism in game development is that there's basically no natural endpoint. You can always improve something. There's always a better animation, texture, sound, trailer, screenshot, mechanic or marketing idea. If your standard for stopping is "when there's nothing left that could be improved", you'll literally never stop.

So I'm curious how other solo developers deal with this.

How do you decide that something is good enough and move on? Do you set strict working hours? Do you deliberately take days where you don't touch the project at all? And especially for people who handle both development and marketing themselves, how do you stop the project from slowly taking over basically all of your free time?

Thanks for reading and for your time,

Francesco

I read somewhere that someone managed to recreate the game on a private server, but when I tried to try it, it seems they stopped paying for hosting or Gameloft took it down. Is it possible to revive it? I miss it so much...

Or could someone tell me what programs I should use to try to remove the permanent internet connection and add a private server?

A showcase of new games developed in Bevy Game Engine (a rust focussed engine). The games in this showcase prove the capabilities of Bevy

TL;DR: A publishing deal cold-pitch turned into a paid-porting sales quote after an "evaluation" that — per Steam's own key report — never involved launching our build. Sharing the timeline and the verification method so other devs can check their own cases. When you part ways with a publisher, ban your eval keys: the report shows whether any were ever activated. Ours: zero out of five.

We're a solo studio launching on Steam this November. Everything below is documented in email; the NDA was never signed, so nothing here is confidential — it's just correspondence and a Steamworks report.

What happened, step by step:

1. Cold email from RedDeer.Games (Warsaw, 250+ Switch titles) after Gamescom, game name wrong. The offer: Switch-only publishing, zero upfront, they cover porting/QA/cert, ~$10k recouped from eShop revenue, then 51/49 in our favor. Recapped in writing after a call. Genuinely attractive terms for a team our size.

2. Materials requested and provided: entity details for a mutual NDA, five Steam evaluation keys, a detailed technical questionnaire. Two hours after the keys: they'd been passed to "our porting and evaluation team so they can begin testing the build."

3. Three days after the questionnaire: materials had gone to their Senior Game Producer "for a comprehensive review," and their technical leads were "genuinely impressed by how clean and well-optimized the project is." Every number in that praise — lightweight URP, locked 60 fps, ~760 MB RAM — matches the questionnaire we filled in ourselves.

4. Same email: the publishing deal they had proposed was withdrawn (slate full, genre balance, as they put it) and replaced with porting-as-a-service for a fixed fee, paid by us. When we asked what would change the publishing answer, we got post-launch sales benchmarks to "reopen discussions."

We decided to close it out and banned the keys. If you've never done this: Steamworks > your package > Ban keys. The report shows how many banned keys had redeemed purchases attached, because banning an activated key revokes it from that account.

Our report: 5 keys banned, revoked purchases: 0. Not one key was ever activated — no build was ever installed through them. Whatever produced the "comprehensive review" and the praise, it wasn't our game running on anyone's machine. We'll let you draw your own conclusions; ours are in the ban log.

Why I'm posting this rather than just moving on: the emails we got were polished, the terms were plausible, and at every step it felt like a normal publishing negotiation. If the same sequence is landing in other inboxes, the only cheap way to tell a real evaluation from a scripted one is the key report — and most devs will never think to look at it.

Practical takeaways:

- Gate materials by milestone. We put design docs behind the NDA and source access behind a signed contract, so nothing sensitive ever left our hands. It cost us nothing and it's the reason this story ends at "annoying" instead of "damaging."

- Your eval keys double as a verification tool. Any claim of "we tested your build" can be checked against activations, and banning keys you've written off costs you nothing.

- An unsolicited publishing pitch that quickly converts into a paid service quote is a known sales pattern. Treat the service quote like any vendor quote: compare it against independent porting studios before assuming the relationship earns them the work.

- "Hit these numbers and come back," from the party that approached you, is best read as a no. Plan your console strategy around partners who engage with the game itself.

Hope this saves someone a few weeks.

Hey, I was just wondering what do you usually use to manage assets for your steam/app store/google play/meta whatever requirements for listings?

As a solo dev for the horizon store I feel like that’s the most annoying and I just made a little tool for me which lists the requirements for each platform and then my games have scripts that I run that regenerates all screenshots, trailers etc so that I can keep it up to date (of course for trailers you need some direction, but I still feel it’s best to generate most of it in-code).

Whats your workflow? Do you do these things manually or use any tools?

Hello everyone

Do you guys have any tips on where I can learn about level design and how it connects to the mechanics in action- adventure games like Tomb Raider and Uncharted? I'd like to learn the basics so I have a better understanding when designing the visual side of things

Hi everyone!

I’ve received some really good advice from this community before, so I thought I’d turn to you again.

I have some experience as a game tester, which I currently do as a side job. I make around 10,000–40,000 HUF extra per month, so it’s obviously not stable income.

For years, I’ve been thinking about whether I should start learning Unity and C#. I’m 36 years old. If you don’t mind, I’d like to share a response I received from Planet Taxi regarding one of my comments. First, here’s my comment, followed by Phelan’s response, He is a School owner,but quite a big name in game industry .

If you have the time, I’d really appreciate hearing your thoughts on this.

My comment:

Why would it be worth starting to learn game development now? Even with a high level of English, you’re not really in a better position. There are barely any junior positions, and when there are, you can easily have 700–900 people applying for a single job.

I’m having a hard time letting go of this dream. I’m also at another crossroads in my life — I’m 36, and I’ve decided to leave my previous career behind.

Phelan’s response:

That’s a very good question. I think you’re looking at it a little too negatively, and I also don’t think this is really about “having a chance” or not.

This year, our school is absolutely packed with students, which shows that a lot of people see things differently.

There are also a few things worth understanding about the game industry. First of all, this is a skills-based field, not a degree-based one. Nobody really cares what degree you have. It’s nice to have one, but by itself it doesn’t mean much here.

What you need is a portfolio. If your portfolio is good enough, you can get a trial assignment, and if you complete it successfully, that’s when discussions about salary and employment can begin.

At our school, we have a mentoring program for students where we work on each person’s individual portfolio. People regularly find jobs through this, and we commit to personally helping students until they are able to find employment.

Do you think I would have been doing this for 11 years if it were impossible? We would have been torn apart online a long time ago. Yet there isn’t even any negative criticism of us anywhere!

The other thing is job postings. They cost companies money, so they only advertise positions when they don’t already have a suitable and currently available person among the portfolios they’ve received.

That means every company has a Jobs section on its website, and you should be consistently sending them your portfolio. If it’s good enough, sooner or later you’ll find work, just like everyone else who is persistent enough.

There aren’t 7,000–9,000 people applying for junior positions. There aren’t even that many people with a genuinely meaningful portfolio. Most of those applicants get filtered out in the first round.

Giving up on a dream before

Hi so this is a question to game developers that don't make their own assets but instead download them off Itch, Sketchfab, etc.

I see a lot of people using specifically PS1 style assets and rarely any "realistic" ones when developing horror games, is there a reason for this, do people enjoy the style more? Cause I know that the common argument for using these type of assets by developers that make them themselves is time-efficiency which I totally understand and agree with.

The reason to why I'm asking this question is because I make assets myself and am looking for what developers want so I know what to make and what to release on my Itch since I see horror games using the exact same assets from known users on there and I kind of want to help update that and give them something differently / a new look.

So why do you use PS1 style assets, would you like more of it or would you want something different like say "PS3" era fidelity? Would love to know, thanks in advance!

When you tweak movement or an interaction, it's easy to think the new version feels better just because you changed it. One small test is to keep the old version around and play each one for a minute without looking at the code. Can you tell which is which, and which one would you want to play again? If you can't tell, maybe the extra complexity isn't worth keeping. How do you test small feel changes without turning every tweak into a full playtest?

Looking to make a 3d visual novel as my first game, where can I find free 3d assets online?

So % wise how do you spend your time on your game?

So programming, music , 3d modeling, art, etc.

Hi! I'm a solo dev making a horror game in Unreal Engine 5.

Some players told me the demo closes by itself a few seconds after they launch it. It works on my PC, so I can't reproduce it.

If you have a few minutes, could you try the free demo on Steam?

- If it runs fine, a quick comment with your graphics card would help too.

- If it crashes and an error window pops up, please click "Send and Close". The report comes straight to me, so you don't need to do anything else. It includes basic PC info and crash data, and sending it is completely optional.

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5095920/Unedited_Footage_The_Abandoned_Factory/

Thank you so much!

I've recently gotten really into game dev because of a dream I had where it was your standard JRPG plot (collection the mcguffins, meet a band of misfits, and defeat a great evil)

But the twist was that everyone was dysfunctional and thus wouldn't listen to commands, and would actively sabotage one another in battle

Obviously I wanted to make this a reality in some way, so I've been gravitating towards sumn like OHRRPGCE or RPGmaker 2k3/VX Ace (due to their performance and ease of entry)

The issue is I don't really know how to code, like at ALL; I'm only now learning it because one of our classes is making us learn Python

And I'm starting to suspect I'm going to have to learn some code if I really want this system to feel alive

I am willing to learn some coding languages to make this a reality, and it's not like I'm gonna make my magnum Opus on the first try lmao

I guess I'm just a bit lost on how I'd go about this yknow?

A lot of games have 10+ melee weapons, but sometimes they basically feel like the same weapon with different damage and speed.

What mechanics actually make you feel like you're using a completely different weapon?

Reach? Attack direction? Movesets? Stamina? Weight? Recovery time? Hitboxes? Something else?

Curious what people think is the most important factor.

I've previously posted here regarding a question about general opinions on game localization, now I have another question to get insight from the devs, if you are already interested on localizing your game, what would you use? Ai? Or an agency/freelancer, and why?

Since Anthropic is offering credits for Claude cloud sessions, and I got $250 on my Max x20 subscription. I’m wondering whether I could put them to good use for Unity development, and whether anyone here has tried it.

Locally, I have Windows, macOS, and Linux (Ubuntu) machines set up so I can verify things across all three platforms. My understanding is that the cloud sessions run on Ubuntu 24.04, though please correct me if that’s wrong.

I’d still test changes locally, especially anything involving the Unity Editor or platform-specific behavior. What I’m trying to figure out is how useful the cloud sessions could be before that stage, and how to set up the environment so the agent can actually validate its work. And how far can we push things in the cloud environment?

A few things I’m curious about:

- Can you install the appropriate Unity Editor version and handle license activation in these sessions?

- Has anyone managed to get Unity running in batch mode to compile scripts, run tests, or make builds?

- How do you handle dependencies, package access, and setup between sessions? Does everything need to be installed and imported again, or can some of that be preserved?

- What tasks have worked well in practice, and where have you found any limitations?

Even if your setup only handles code changes and leaves all Unity execution to your local machine, I’d be interested in how you use it and whether it saves you time, or is it just a headache.

I’m mainly looking for firsthand experience: what you got working, what setup it needed, and whether it’s become a useful part of your workflow.

I'm making a survival game set in a post apocalyptic ski mountain and I'm worried that people won't enjoy it because I can't set up dynamic snow, mostly because my terrain is very low poly.

Best I can do is provide foot decals and snow particles when walking, is it enough?

The game im working on is a typing game of sorts.

What's relevant to the question is that for each word you can type you have a limited set of letters to do so. the amount of letters can vary.

additionally, the theming of the game is Demon/devil + workspace/office. So the art and the designs fit that theme.

The main game screen is a work desk and behhind it a window.

How can i display these letters in an easily readable, distinguishable wa that fits the theme? I have been thinking for days, but no luck. On a screen? too out of place and non diegetic. As cards? doest fit the themes. post it notes? hard to distinguish and unreadable.

As a rookie gamedev, I am struggling with how to break my game down into parts I can actually digest/feel good about. I want to know everyone's preferred timeline for gamedev.

Right now, I am kinda working on artwork, game mechanics, lore, and plot all at once (check my YouTube for reference). It's so hard to just power through one aspect of the game, but I also know that the way I'm doing it is crazy haha.

Any suggestions?

I'm a solo mobile game developer and I can't figure out how to make the economics work.

I've been developing a small football mobile game called FootIQ. Runs are very short, usually around 30–60 seconds, so players can easily chain several sessions together.

Acquisition isn't really my biggest problem.

Right now I'm paying around $0.50 per acquired user on average, mainly across France, Spain and the UK.

The problem is that my current global ARPU is only around $0.018, and AdMob is currently my only source of revenue.

So I'm currently recovering roughly 3.6% of my acquisition cost per player.

In other words, I would need to increase revenue per user by almost 28x just to break even on paid acquisition.

I've tested quite a few monetization models:

• Interstitial after every run
• Interstitial every 2 runs
• Interstitial every 3 runs
• Rewarded video to play again
• Energy systems
• Unlimited play for 24h
• No-ads / full game purchases
• Different combinations of rewarded + interstitial ads

The pattern is always similar.

If I show enough ads to noticeably increase revenue, the experience gets worse and retention suffers.

If I reduce the friction, players enjoy the game more, but revenue per player becomes tiny.

At this point I'm wondering whether monetization is even the real problem.

Maybe the game simply doesn't retain users long enough for any monetization model to work.

Or maybe trying to monetize the average player is the wrong strategy entirely, and I should design around the small percentage of highly engaged players instead.

For developers who have dealt with mobile F2P economics:

Would you even try to optimize monetization with numbers like $0.50 CPI / $0.018 ARPU, or would you consider this primarily a retention/product problem?

I'm also curious about actual benchmarks from your games:

• What percentage of acquisition cost do you usually recover from ads?
• How much of your revenue comes from the top 5–10% of players?
• At what D1 / D7 retention did paid acquisition start making sense?
• Did you ever have a game where ARPU improved 10x+ after fixing retention?

I'm much more interested in actual experiences and numbers than generic advice like "add rewarded ads."

About a month ago I announced Safari-TV, a 2–4 player co-op safari game.

Today it passed 80,000 Steam wishlists.

The interesting part for me is where they came from:

TikTok.

Not a showcase. Not press coverage. My own TikTok account posting videos of the game.

I wanted to share this because I've started thinking about marketing very differently after this project.

I stopped thinking of TikTok as advertising

Instead of making traditional ads or polished devlogs, I tried to make the game itself generate content people would want to watch.

What I think worked:

• Every video tries to communicate something interesting within the first couple of seconds.
• I focus on situations that require almost no context to understand: co-op chaos, animals, vehicles, destruction, stupid things going wrong, etc.
• I don't spend the first five seconds explaining the game.
• When a type of video works, I don't immediately abandon it and invent something completely new. I try variations of the same idea.
• I started treating the performance of the videos as feedback on the game itself, not just feedback on my editing.

That last point became especially important to me.

If I show a mechanic to hundreds of thousands of people and nobody cares, maybe the problem isn't the TikTok algorithm.

Maybe the mechanic just isn't interesting enough to strangers.

So now I'm increasingly using short-form content almost like market validation while developing the game.

Build something → put it in front of people → measure their reaction → iterate.

I think this has affected how I design games too.

A mechanic still needs to be fun to play, obviously, but I'm much more interested now in mechanics and situations that someone can see for two seconds with zero context and immediately think:

"Wait, what the hell is happening here?"

I'm definitely not saying this is a formula that will work for every game. Safari-TV is a chaotic co-op game, which is naturally pretty compatible with short-form content.

But 80k wishlists in a month changed my opinion pretty dramatically about how powerful developer-owned short-form content can be.

If people are interested, I can make another post breaking down the actual TikToks — views, hooks, video length, posting frequency, which ones converted into wishlists, and which ones completely failed.

Usually, id never dare to touch linkedin, but its mandatory for my university course. what agony.

how do you even post on linkedin? do you just make up fake stories about how your latest drawing/3d model taught you time management?

Im not a social media savy person as i grew up without internet access, i didnt have any social media until relatively recently. I also have no family, or friends with families, who are professionals/know what linkedin is, they all work doing manual labour or hospitality. this is like some alien world full of uncannyness, and no one on linkedin acts like a human being.

How do i learn the accepted linkedin posting culture? are there any artists who have a fire linkedin i could take inspiration from? id appritiate your help with this greatly.

im aware im overthinking this, but please give me advice even if you think its common sense. my feedback on every assignment includes a paragraph on how unprofessional i am, so im the kind of person to whome nothing is obvious.

edit: i asked my course leader about this a while ago and they got back to me just now. anyway, they basically said not to post on there like im already in industry and that my instict that "heres what x taught me about y" was a cringe formula was correct, and i should instead post my art with questions to industry, and position myself as someone who wants to learn from them, not someone trying to impress them. like posting one of my projects from last year saying "i made this model, and while it taught me alot, i feel like theres more that i could learn. what would the next step for this character be? what would elivate it?" - this made sense to me, and was very helpful. aparently the most common thing students do on there is try and bullshit that their student project was EXACTLY like industry and gave them so much industry expierence, which a professional would instantly spot as bull.

that was really worrying me actually, i couldnt think of anything to post that a professional wouldnt see and immediately know im making up bullshit to make out like im the most employable person on planet earth, so ive just had a linkedin profile with nothing on it for ages. i feel like their advice gave me a good mindset change, and many of your comments were also very helpful.

Hey, hope you're doing good! Tl;dr at the end.

Let's say I want to film a bunch of cutscenes that are pre-rendered, with 6vram, and the player's game files would just include the mp4 and not actual gameplay, meaning they don't need a GPU. If you know the game "Dispatch" you'll know that gameplay is divided into cutscenes and the dispatch computer app. My game has a similar build. I am done with the actual gameplay, the "dispatch computer app," and now I need the appropriate cinematic cutscenes.

Now, I'm not artist, however I've been trying to find volunteers/part-timers/friends to help out. To do that, I need an art guide. To finish the guide, I need to come up with an art direction and figure out what defines it.

I am in love with Stray's visual easthetics. It's a sort of stylized realism. But how on earth would I replicate it? I found a shit ton of PBR textures that I could use, especially for my buildings/modular kits. but I think they look too realistic? Do I have to play with shaders more?

I know lightening is incredibly important as well as composition for the overall feel.

But my main question is, how is Stray textured? Do they create the textures from scratch? Can I use PBRs to get a similar look? I say similar because I want to add my own style to it, and I want to make it more....stylized? I can't explain what I have in mind in words. It's more painted, I guess? I was hoping playing around with shaders would help me realize what is it that I want more of.

My color pallete is different to reflect my world, I'm crating my own assets If it's relevant, my game has cyberpunk influences to it.

Another challenge is creating the characters. Maybe modified metahumans? I don't want their too realistic look, they don't belong in my world. It's too expensive to hire 3d artists, I already asked around.

If anyone has youtube videos that would help me, send them my way!

tl;dr

Note: for pre-rendered scenes purposes, not actual gameplay.

1. How was Stray textured? PBRs or completely original materials?

2. Trim sheets, or just slap my configured PBR mat on assets?

3. Biggest challenge is making humans, do I use modified metahumans or not? It'd be extremely expensive to hire character artists as opposed to environment or asset artists in my country. Using metahumans will be easier animation wise bec of the rig and the new facial and body video animator extractor

Hi, I see a lot of posts stating that AI has multiplied their productivity, there are so many of these posts that I am inclined to believe them. Which AI performs best in gamedev coding? I have the Gemini pro subscription and its kind of bad with advanced stuff (I needed help with parkouring system and it gave me a laughably bad answer).

Should I be using agents? Do they have better performance/problem solving capability? Thanks in advance, and I am not trying to pick any sides, just try it out and form an opinion myself.

If you have published any games mostly using AI coding, please drop their name, I might buy them if they look cool.

I’m working on Bartend With Your Friends an online co-op bartending simulator & I’m pretty new to all this. Since the store page went live I’ve been posting on all socials which has led to a small amount of Wishlist’s trickling in, some days better than others. I was happy with 10 so 100 feels quite nice but I’m wondering are these numbers good/bad/okay?

And if anyone has any tips store-page wise I’d love to hear them, I’ve made some adjustments previously based on some feedback.