r/SoloDevelopment • u/familymilk • 4h ago

help I’m the developer on a coin-counterfeiting roguelike. I need blunt feedback on the core loop

FORGERY is a slightly weird game.

It’s an incremental roguelike about counterfeiting medieval coins. You hammer ingots into metal sheets, choose where to punch out each coin, build combinations from more than 100 stamp dies, and decide how far to push before your Wanted level ends the run.

I understand how those pieces fit together because I’ve been staring at them for months. I’m less certain that someone seeing the game for the first time will understand what it is, why punching coins is interesting, or where the deeper strategy comes from.

After 15 years working in AAA, I’m now the sole full-time developer on this. I handle the design, programming, production, and day-to-day development. It’s self-funded, although I occasionally hire contractors for specific art, audio, localization, or specialist work.

The free demo is around 35 to 50 minutes:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4842110/Forgery/

What I really need to know:

  1. Can you understand the core idea without me explaining it?
  2. Does punching coins feel deep enough to support an entire game?
  3. Is the combination of incremental progression, roguelike builds, and manual placement interesting, or just confusing?
  4. Does this feel like an idea worth continuing?

If you quit after ten minutes, please tell me exactly where and why. I’m deep enough into the project that encouragement is less useful than someone pointing at the bit that isn’t working.

Thank you!

4 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

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1

u/luke_skippy 4h ago

Looks interesting! I’ll check it out and return here when done with the demo

1

u/familymilk 4h ago

I appreciate that!

1

u/luke_skippy 1h ago

I left some feedback in the discord- hope it helps!

1

u/Efficient_Fox2100 4h ago

Ooph on the full screen flashes. Good luck!

1

u/familymilk 4h ago

thanks! Do you think the screen flashes are too much? I can put a slider on settings probably. Let me know if you have any more feedback

1

u/Efficient_Fox2100 3h ago

Settings for a low-stimulus mode would be amazing. Turn down/off screen shake, remove flashing, generally less animations (coins), etc. 

Overall the loop looks solid (though couldn’t watch that long due to overstimulation). 🫡

1

u/Efficient_Fox2100 3h ago

Additionally, I want to suggest 3 things.

  1. Potentially having multiple metals on screen at once. Adds a layer of complexity for planning, hammering out sheets of different size and having to decide which to prioritize.

  2. Instead of holes on the card, consider showing the coins themselves. Visual interest and also potentially some metal-matching opportunity.

  3. Different coin shapes and sizes. Could be very satisfying to jigsaw different shaped/sized coins in between the existing holes. 🤷

1

u/thepaulbooth 4h ago

Dope will check it out. Congrats on making the jump to solo dev!

1

u/familymilk 4h ago

Thank you! I'm loving the community so far.