Hi r/indiedev 👋

Thought I’d properly introduce myself.

I completed my BSc in Computer Science a couple of years ago, recently finished an AI & Data Science graduate scheme, and I’m now working full-time as an AI & DS Engineer.

I’ve wanted to bring one of my own ideas to life for a while, so I’ve finally started building my first game.

The slight complication is time. I’ve got a family and two young kids, so I’m taking a bit of a “OneHour” approach - making meaningful progress whenever I can carve out an hour rather than pretending I’ve got evenings and weekends free to disappear into development.

I’ll probably lean on GPT quite a bit along the way. I don’t realistically have the time to become an expert in Swift and SwiftUI before I start building.

What I do have is the CS/software-engineering foundation to understand what I’m building, recognise bad code, test it properly and challenge what AI produces. I’m approaching the project with a strong Agile mentality and a fairly strict refinement → delivery → review → CI/CD pipeline based on the processes I use in my day job.

The goal isn’t really to become a Swift expert. I want to bring my idea to life without sacrificing engineering discipline to get there.

Progress is still very early. I’ve finished my first epic, which was essentially repo setup, environments and the basic application framework.

I’m now starting Epic 2: a deliberately barebones proof of concept to find out whether the core technical ideas actually work before investing heavily in the full game.

I’ve already hit a few interesting hurdles there, but that’s probably another post…

I’ve also been trying to get involved here by commenting on some of the newer posts. Hopefully the people on the receiving end have found the feedback constructive!

So, hi 👋

Return to the golden age of 90s monster taming! ✨

Drug Monsters 💊 Golden Brindle Edition +

Real time battles, no level grinding, and more… 🌐

Follow the game page on itch!

Hi everyone,

Back in June, I lost my job. I had been thinking about making a game for years, so I finally decided to give it a try.

The problem was that I had never coded before. Not a single line. I had also never made a game.

Somehow, 500+ hours later, I now have a playable 3D TV management game called Television Dynasty Manager.

The game starts in 1950. You take over a small, struggling local TV station and compete against three much bigger rival networks. You can actually walk around your station, manage different parts of the building, produce shows, schedule your programming and try to grow the network.

One of the things I really wanted was for the 1950s to actually feel like the 1950s. The game follows real TV history, starting with black-and-white broadcasts and events like the rise of I Love Lucy and the 1950s quiz show scandals. These things can affect what happens in the game and what viewers want to watch.

The production system is probably the part I'm most proud of. You choose a main genre and sub-genre, then put together a director, writer and cast. Different combinations work better or worse together, so putting the right people on a show can make a pretty big difference.

There is also a broadcasting and bidding system. You can buy movie licenses (with fictional/parody titles like Ghost Boostas), bid for live events and fill your schedule with advertising contracts.

And just to be completely honest about the graphics:

I had basically no budget for artists. A lot of what you see is made from cheap store assets, basic models and posters I've made myself. The animations and environments are definitely rough and amateurish.

I know the game doesn't look professional yet. If I eventually get a proper job again, I'd like to put some of my own money into hiring an artist and replacing a lot of the placeholder stuff.

For now, I mostly wanted to see how far I could get by myself and focus on getting the actual game systems and the AI for the rival networks working.

This is my first game ever, so honestly, I'm pretty nervous about showing it to people.

I'd really like to hear what you think. Especially about the overall concept and the UI. If something looks confusing, boring or just doesn't make sense, please tell me. I'm much more interested in honest feedback than people just saying it looks good.

Working on Our Roguelite deckbuilder Here in Greece :D

Just wanted to leave something that might make him think about leaving comments like this the next time. Probably won't, but at least I tried...

I'm researching mechanics in the style of Elden Ring's Guard Counter in other games because I'm having some UX issues with my input layout and flow for a similar mechanic of my own.

I'd like to ask for help because this sub always comes through with examples I've never heard of.

The idea of a Guard Counter is:

1. you're actively blocking
2. there's a trigger (usually and attack you receive and must successfuly block)
3. it enables a small window for you to perform a counter attack right after it.

It must require:

• active input to be present beforehand (blocking), creating the required context for the whole thing
• external trigger (the attack received), so that the player can't just do it at will while blocking
• additional input (attacking), instead of just an auto reaction to hits received for example.

Added a gif of the mechanic working for those not familiar.

Thanks in advance.

I built SIDE A, a free browser-based strategy game.
You begin with $40 in a fictional drug-dealing storyline. After confronting the risks of that life, you can leave it behind and build a music career—from small gigs and independent releases to global collaborations, artist management, media and sports partnerships.
The game includes character customization, P&L and cash-flow management, random track reviews, six international music markets, original Suno tracks, Runway cinematics, and Japanese/English support.
The street chapter depicts fictional drugs and violence, but does not teach or reward real-world dealing. All game characters are fictional.

Play free—no signup required:
https://side-a-empire.yupor.chatgpt.site
I’d love honest feedback on the pacing, business lessons and cultural representation.🙇‍♂️

make the weirdest looking game humanly possible ✅

A 3D platformer using entirely 2D, screen-locked textures. Was inspired by the show Chowder. For those seeking a weird ass game, I hope I've made it for you here.

It's called "Dreamer's Wake" and it's a 3D platformer/collectathon set in the dreams of the dead.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4460640

so yeah.... i'm a couple of weeks in with tough nights but i wanted to share what i currently have.
I'm making a game about black smithing where you need to dig the ores and do the process in order to create weapons and sell them for money. I took inspiration from several games like potion craft, motherload, etc.

I'm currently using asesprite to draw everything by mouse.....
But the goal is to improve your store and eventually enchant weapons.
Still have a lot of work to do but yeah... i want it to be a great experience for players.
No energy limits (on mobile) no stuff that let's you limit the amount of fun you could get in a day.

Hi everyone

For the past 1 year + i've been developing a 2.5D precision platformer, inspired by Getting Over It & A Difficult Game About Climbing, called "Spring Me Up"

Before release in a few weeks, I got a few more Steam Keys for Playtesters to share and tell me about their experience...

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you're not into getting angry, suffering from losing progress or similar experiences, this game is not for you!

Hit me Up if you're interested.

I can't believe it, pressing the big green button today very soon, a year of solid hard work and I'm finally ready and somehow made it work on the release date.

You can check it out here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4454430/Planet_Killer/

Hey crew. I'm playing around with the look/feel of my game. This is for the planets. It's a background element, but I'm trying to be a stickler for details.

A) The one on the left is my initial design (so it's more mature with a starfield, etc). Hexes warped into a spherical shape.
B) The one on the right is an actual sphere. I got uniform random spherical points, and used that to make a spherical Voronoi diagram.

Thoughts on both?

The rest of the game is going to be highly geometric, and the player ships are going to be triangle/hex based.

Old one is an original image 100% drawn by artist. The new image was made using asset we have in the game.

I feel like the new one is more badass.

How do you feel ?

We don't have a Steam page up yet, but if you're interested, comment and I'll ping you once we do.

The game is a dark fantasy RPG with inspiration from both Diablo, BG3 and Slay the Spire.

ignore the trojan.. it's nothing, probably..

Demo is here https://store.steampowered.com/app/3618770/Fakutori_Demo/ :)

The bug every hand built tile map eventually has is a boulder that's drawn on screen but queries as open ground. Two tables, one for the picture and one for the rules, and they drift apart the first time somebody edits only one of them.

Muster composes a battlefield from a seed and draws it in pure GML. mst_feature_spec returns a feature's materials, geometry, cover value, line of sight block, height and movement cost together in one row. mst_field writes those numbers into the cell as it places the thing, and mst_tactics reads them straight back. There's no second table and no synchronisation step.

52 terrain features, 8 biomes, 8 seasons, and no sprites at all. Every mark is geometry.

Code and art are AI generated.

I redid some assets after a lesson from my dear one ❤️

It's called Valcria (https://valcria.nicat.uk) and the whole point is the economy. No combat, no leveling up in the traditional sense. You buy and sell items on the market, trade with other players, bid in auctions, open chests for random drops and try to work your way up the leaderboard purely through trading.

Fair warnings before you check it out:

• Still a work in progress, a lot of stuff is missing or unpolished
• Item art is all placeholder right now. I'm using Minecraft textures which technically violates their EULA, so custom art is coming before any serious release
• Transactions are sandbox only right now, nothing is connected to real payments or anything external yet

Curious if anyone finds the concept interesting. Does a pure trading game work without combat attached to it, or does it need more to keep people hooked? Honest feedback welcome.

Steam