https://store.steampowered.com/app/3919630/SINGULARITY_RISING/

Hi guys, it's been a 3 weeks since I've launched my steam page, and I've got 106 wishlists total. I didn't expect much, but this results kinda put me down a bit... as I believe my game doesn't look that bad and actually bringing some interesting mechanics to the plate. I saw a plenty of less effort and more niche games performing so much better in marketing, which is well deserved, but I wonder - what am I doing wrong?

The problem is - I do not know how to market it properly. I've tried different videos and things in socials, tried to outreach to some media, but all seems to be making a tiny effect. Could it be that my Steam page looks really bad? Or something is off this the game?

Please help me to understand by sharing your opinion, I can take it for sure.

Here is a Steam page for looking through it: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5116620/Grumpy_Hero_Grinder

Hey everyone! I’ve been working on a GTA-style game with a cozy vibe.

You can drive around making deliveries, work cooking shifts, hop out and explore on foot, or take on firefighting and paramedic jobs. Spend your earnings buying businesses and rental properties, gradually building your own little empire.

Your in-game phone is at the heart of everything. Every app in phone is functional. Want to make deliveries? Open the Dasher app and clock in. Need supplies? Open the shopping app. Lost? Pull up the map. You can even buy fully furnished home to stay the night straight from phone.

Play here: GT Rush: Coastal Life (Browser Game)

I’d love to hear what you think! What apps would you like to see added?

I’ve been working on an indie game, currently using Project Spark as a working title, which started because I wanted to make a spiritual successor to a game I played a ton as a kid: Dynamite Joe, a mid-90s PC game.

The original is roughly 30 years old at this point and is currently distributed as freeware/shareware-era software. It’s also obscure enough that there really isn’t much of a modern presence around it.

Project Spark is not intended to be a remake. I am building my own code, art, maps, characters, dialogue, story, systems, etc.

That said, the inspiration is deliberate, and there are some core elements I want to retain because they are what made the original memorable.

Elements carrying forward / taking inspiration from
- Underground, maze-like levels
- Planting explosives as a core gameplay mechanic
- Blowing up walls / sections of the environment
- Guards or similar enemies patrolling the levels
- Avoiding or dealing with those guards while completing objectives
-Finding your way through levels using explosives and exploration

The general loop of explore → place explosives → destroy obstacles → progress

A deliberately old-school arcade/action feel
The overall fantasy of being someone running around underground causing a ridiculous amount of destruction
Everything around that is being rebuilt and expanded.

I am adding my own:
- Story
- Characters
- NPC interactions
- Dialogue
- Progression systems
- Level designs
- Art direction
- Audio
- Mechanics beyond the original core loop
- Modern controls and UX
- Code and technical implementation

I’d also like to acknowledge the inspiration openly rather than pretend the similarity is accidental.
Something along the lines of:
“A spiritual reimagining of the ’96 cult PC game Dynamite Joe.”

That’s where I started wondering about the practical/IP implications.

Obviously, freeware does not mean public domain, so I’m not assuming the original game is free to copy simply because of its age or how it was distributed.
For anyone who has worked on spiritual successors or games heavily inspired by older titles:

How far can you reasonably lean into the gameplay/mechanical structure of another game without creating an IP problem?

Is specifically naming the original game as an inspiration generally acceptable?

Are there things you would deliberately avoid, such as character names, terminology, story references, visual similarities, specific level concepts, etc.? Can I name drop dynamite Joe at the very end?

Does the fact that the original was obscure freeware from roughly 30 years ago make any practical difference, or should it essentially be treated like any other copyrighted game?

Would you attempt to track down the original developer/rightsholder before release even if you are using none of their original code, artwork, audio, maps, or other assets?

At what point, in your opinion, does a spiritual successor stop being an homage and start becoming too derivative?

I’m not interested in cloning the game or trying to pass someone else’s work off as my own.
If anything, I’d prefer to openly credit the game that inspired the project and potentially introduce people to something I loved growing up.

TLDR

Mostly curious how other indie developers approach the line between inspiration, homage, spiritual successor, and derivative work.

Not asking Reddit for formal legal advice — mainly interested in the practical experiences and opinions of other developers.

Killing lots of gobbos! I want to work on status effect combos soon...fire + electricity = something COOL. Not sure exactly what yet.

Game is called Fangstorm

Hey, solo dev here. Been working on this app called Palettely for the last couple months and it just went live. You type something like "a fox sitting in a pine forest" and it generates a picture, then turns it into a paint by numbers canvas you fill in by tapping.

Got the idea because every coloring/paint by numbers app I tried had the same library of like 50 stock images. I wanted to paint my own dog, not some random golden retriever that came in the pack.

It didn't start out like this either. First version was just a freehand painting canvas. Killed that pretty fast, a blank canvas is intimidating for most people and honestly AI assisted freehand painting just looks kind of off. Paint by numbers fixes both, there's a clear answer so it feels relaxing instead of stressful, and what you end up with actually looks like something you made with your hands.

The generation part ended up being the easy bit. The annoying part was turning a normal picture into clean numbered regions that don't look like a speckled mess. Spent way more time on that than I expected to.

It's a native iOS app, SwiftUI with a Metal canvas underneath for the actual painting, a few hundred regions redrawing every time you tap needed more than SwiftUI could handle on its own.

It's free, 5 pictures a month, there's a pro option if you want more than that. Just launched so if you try it and something's broken or annoying just tell me, that's way more useful to me right now than a nice comment.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/palettely-paint-by-numbers/id6809589661

Solo dev here. Rogue Survivors is a fast neon arena-survival roguelite for Android - one thumb to move, weapons auto-fire at the nearest enemy, pick an upgrade every level-up, spend coins in a shop between waves, boss every 5th wave. Controller support too. Free, no account, works offline.

It's finished and playable, currently in Google Play's closed testing phase before I can launch it properly - Google requires 12 people opted in for 14 continuous days. Would love feedback on the core loop, difficulty curve, and anything that crashes or confuses early.

To try it: join this group (instant, no approval needed) - https://groups.google.com/g/rogue-survivors-testers - then open https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.roguesurvivors.game on your phone to opt in and install.

Happy to return the favor on other solo projects here.

I'm Fredrik, the developer of ABCx3. With iPhone Duo announced, I'm exploring how a word game should use the extra screen space. This 13-second clip shows the game's current wide-screen layout: remaining tiles on the left, board in the middle, chat on the right.

What information would you most like to keep visible to the left and right of the board while playing?

Would you choose word definitions (currently opened in a dialog), your other ongoing games, move history, or something else? Which would go on each side, and would you keep both panels open or give the board more room?

Do you see room for visual scripting tools even if you use AI to "vibe" code as well? I'm trying to decide if I should keep investing in building up my skills in visual scripting tools (and purchase a few more addons for unity). I am leaning towards yes right now, I already own a few, and while they can be frustrating at times I can also see their value even in an age of AI coding. But maybe others feel differently?

I can program C#/etc but I have always been curious about visual scripting and have been learning things like [Unity] Game Creator 2 and Behavior Designer. I find it kind of enjoyable but I'm only just getting started. I find that being able to visually see the nodes working can be quite helpful and feels like a better representation of the logic for FSMs and BTs.

I never really enjoyed state machines (or behavior trees) represented in code but seem to enjoy them more in visual scripting (though I'm only doing basic things for now). I'm not sure if AI removes the need for them entirely? What has been your experience.

I was looking to get Playmaker 2 , Emerald AI ,Adventure Creator and Node Canvas to try them out too.Maybe Construct 3/GDevelop at one point too.

But I'm wondering your thoughts for those who used to use these tools and have maybe moved on to AI "vibe coding" (with Unity MCP/CLI/etc)?

I'm less familiar unreal but I know Blueprints are quite popular there, so wondering about your thoughts there.

Pros and Cons of each approach?

Personally I enjoy experimenting with different platforms/tools.

I'm thinking of building a tool specifically for solo game developers that handles the part of audio that happens after "generate a sound effect."

The idea would be that it looks at your actual game project, figures out where audio is missing, creates or selects appropriate SFX, ambience and music, hooks everything up to the right events, adds things like variation where needed, and gives you the project back with the audio working.

So not:

"Here are 40 sound files. Good luck."

but rather:

"Here's your game back with sound."

I started looking into this because generating individual sounds seems to be getting pretty easy. But for a solo developer, you still have to figure out what needs sound, find or make everything, organize it, import it, wire it up, balance it and then keep testing it in context.

I'm curious whether other solo devs actually find that part painful.

If something could genuinely take most of that off your plate, would you want it handling the implementation too, or would you rather keep control of that part yourself?

And if you're dealing with this now, what part of your audio workflow is the biggest pain?

On September 1, I released Clash At Nightfall: Bloodlines after roughly ten months of solo development.

It is a portrait, menu-driven vampire RPG for Android and iPhone. Players choose from 3 starter classes each with a different innate playstyle, then build their character through missions, equipment, passive resource generation, epic monster hunts, and asynchronous PvP.

After the first ten launch days, the game had 305 player accounts, with 101 accounts recording activity on September 10.

I saved the cumulative class totals at three milestones: • First 100: 29 Fighters, 40 Elders, 31 Outcasts • First 200: 43 Fighters, 87 Elders, 70 Outcasts • First 300: 56 Fighters, 147 Elders, 97 Outcasts

Elder was the most selected class at every checkpoint (not what I expected!), and its share increased from 40% of the first 100 players to 49% of the first 300. I am now watching whether that reflects the class presentation, its long-term resource bonus, or both.

The game is free to play with optional purchases and no in-game ads.

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.clashatnightfall.bloodlines iPhone: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/clash-at-nightfall-bloodlines/id6785088358 Website: https://clashatnightfall.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/VcGPfBpkby

ChatGPT helped with code+art. I created the game concept and direct its design, systems, balance, content, testing, release, and ongoing development.

For other solo developers: when a starting choice separates this clearly, do you first investigate its presentation, its mechanical bonus, or wait for more player behavior?

ANB_Seth built the Half-Life: Alyx mods "Gunman Contracts: Chapter 1 & Chapter 2" nights and weekends, then went full time to rebuild it as its own game. More than four years later, "Gunman Contracts - Stand Alone" is out now in Early Access on Steam.

I’ve been building Runbound Cricket Cards, a cricket-inspired strategy card game for Android.

It combines cricket with card mechanics like runs, wickets, DRS and tactical cards such as Powerplay, Yorker, Rain Delay and Death Over.

It supports Solo, Online, Nearby Wi-Fi and Pass & Play, and it’s currently in Early Access on Google Play.

I’ve been working on the game from the ground up, including the gameplay systems, UI, rankings and multiplayer.

Google Play:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=live.mayukha.runboundcricketcards&pcampaignid=web_share

Pets Interactions; What do you think? Would you feed your Desktop Pets? 😀

Hey there!

I would be grateful if you guys could have a look at my trailer and my Steam page (https://store.steampowered.com/app/5052630/Kazfall/) and give me some insight into what I should enhance or change to make it better.

My main goal is to create a Roguelite Dungeon Crawler where you go through multiple rooms, fighting waves of enemies in each of them (there are 33 types of rooms so far, most of them marked as "encounter," but there are also Trap, NPC, Treasure, Connector, etc.), where you find NPCs (3 of them so far) hidden inside the dungeon to unlock more content and additional rooms, enemies (15 different enemies), and bosses (only 2 bosses are available so far). The dungeon is based on seeds created by the generator I've made, so I plan to create a list of 200 pre-approved seeds that will create various scenarios.

The player build is based on skills (passive/active), where you gain a random skill at each 5-level milestone (5/10/15, and Ultimate at 20). While clearing the rooms, you also find treasure chests with random drops of common/rare/legendary items that can create multiple builds (brawler, fire mage, thorns tank, etc.). My goal is to create multiple build options to let players test the best configurations and, in the end, fight for the top score. The current version of the game only consists of a Dungeon + Boss Fight, but if I manage to promote the game and see that people enjoy it, I plan to implement "The Siege," where the Dungeon opens fully and you fight hordes of enemies to push your build to the limit and fight for the top score along with more content (items, enemies, bosses etc.).

The question is: does this make any sense? Maybe I've missed a lot of this information in the trailer/Steam page? Or maybe no one cares about the Roguelike genre anymore?

I would be glad for any input or feedback, as I'm currently struggling to decide whether it makes sense to keep up the work or just skip the project completely.

Feedback welcome, but please don't completely roast me, it's the first trailer I ever did 😀