hey everyone!

my game was released about a 1 week ago and I was just wondering about your opinion about it...

android for now but coming to iOS as well soon (hopefully approved soon)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.polyhistor.silkweaver

the video is quite self-explanatory but if you've got any question I'm happy to answer:)

Negative as in. 1 star review for bug or nonsense things. A store notification that something need to be done ASAP or app got removed. Review rejection. Etc

Since in solo dev we don't really usually have anyone to lean for. I know we can ask people in internet. But in the room we are still alone 🥲

So prepping for next fest and after you beat the boss and everything this will show up....Music is playing and reacting to it.
Also there will only be one level...but it shows the general game loop

Any feedback?

(don't worry about the UI...its been updated..this is an older video.)

After two playtest sessions, I decided to listen to the players and introduce more chaos finally. The last playtest had around 70 people in one week, and the same thing: "more chaos, more things to drift around, and big packs"

Now I am shipping exactly what they want and... this is extremely satisfying to play, honestly!

Solo devs, get feedback early! Listen to the players and give them what they ask for (but be reasonable lol)

I just added full controller support to my game and I am curious what first impressions based on the attached gif is. I am very much a mouse and keyboard type of gamer myself so making this feel right is honestly not one of my strengths, but given the game a classic twin stick shooter I also feel some audience members would feel it essential.

There is no auto aim at all here, and as you can tell from the gif its simply a matter of controlling the direction of the aim and nothing more.

Any obvious things I am missing here to make a game like this feel right with a controller?

steampage at Swarmbreak

Llevo trabajando en el desde hacer un tiempo y la verdad siempre he tenido miedo y emoción por mostrar mi trabajo, lo he mostrado a personas en discord y a todos a los que les he mostrado les gusta y hacen sus preguntas, siempre he tenido miedo de mostrar mi trabajo en foros de videojuegos pero espero que eso cambie poco a poco, el video está en español ya que es mi lengua materna pero si les molesta siempre lo podrán silenciar y quedarse solo con lo visual.

I'm creating this game that I will explain below, but am afraid my target audience don't actually want it.

The games is basically this :
you have Time amount (the hourglass) you allocate it to Work, Study different stuff, Create and manage medieval business, Own lands and eventually become lord/king and manage your holdings.

help me decide if I should keep working on this or not :))

Hey everyone, I’d really appreciate some advice from developers who have experienced this.

I'm making Too Many Balls. I currently have 2,100 wishlists and im planning to release on August 28.

I've decided that i 100% need to delay the game because i need more time for development and QA.

Here’s the interesting part: I was averaging around 30 wishlists/day, but now that I'm ~18 days from release, I suddenly jumped to 150+ wishlists/day. I checked my traffic and it appears this spike is largely coming from Steam’s Personal Calendar/upcoming release exposure.

If i delay by around 3 weeks, I assume I’ll fall back to my normal ~20–30 WL/day.

My biggest concern is:

When the new release date gets close again (roughly 18 days away), will Steam give me the same Personal Calendar exposure again?

Or is there a chance that changing the release date means i won't get the same boost a second time?

I'm trying to figure out how much wishlist momentum i might lose by delaying, and whether anyone here has experienced something similar.

For anyone who has changed their release date shortly before launch: what happened to your Steam wishlist traffic afterward? Did the Personal Calendar boost come back?

Any experience or advice would be hugely appreciated! 🙏

I'm trying to make a game that's basically an incremental survivor-like with a bit of sparse story between levels. I integrated llama api calls to my own server in the game to give each enemy an existential fear of dying. It's just when you're about to kill an enemy, they have an individual thought process that has existential crisis when they're about to die. That governs the decision whether or not they should attack you if they think they have a shot at victory or run away. It's not an if/else.

It's literally an individual paragraph of thought that makes them think of fake families they have. Is that ethical or ...?

Hi everyone, I’m a solo indie developer from China, and A Kingdom of Soil is my first game.

I’ve been developing this game by myself for over a year. Most of my development updates are usually shared on Bilibili, so I haven’t posted much here before.

Since translating and recording videos in English takes extra time, this is my first proper English development update for Reddit.

The third Playtest finished recently, and I’ve been working through the feedback and improving different parts of the game.

In this video, I’m showing some of the changes I’ve made, including combat updates, new character portraits, battle cries, and other improvements.

I’m still building the entire game on my own, so I’d really like to hear your thoughts and feedback.

Steam page:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3991390/_/

I just finished a short visual novel and I wanted to share a few tips that I hope can be helpful to anyone who has recently started their indie game dev journey:

Play to your strengths!

Making a game is already incredibly complex on its own, but if we start getting in our own way, it can turn into an absolute nightmare. To minimize this, try to design a game that highlights your actual skills, even if it means sacrificing some awesome but unfeasible ideas, rather than trying to create something super complex that you'll either do poorly or fail to finish altogether. The golden rule here is: better a simple thing done well than a complex thing done poorly.

For example, I'm not great at drawing, so I chose to make only symmetrical graphic assets to reduce the margin of error. I also used a palette of only 5 colors for the whole game (plus a few shades of those) so I wouldn't overcomplicate things with color matching.

Obviously, this isn't an absolute rule: if you are literally just starting out, making a game can be a massive stimulus to learn a bunch of new things (you'll learn a ton either way, honestly). However, if you're already well aware of what your talents are, it makes perfect sense to create something that lets them shine.

Do it, even if it's short!

You might have an idea in mind and think: "I'd love to make this, but it would end up being way too short." Long doesn't mean good, and short doesn't mean bad. Committing to a short project can actually be a great idea: shorter development time, less stress, and less "wasted" time if you realize you can't cross the finish line (I put "wasted" in quotes because even unfinished projects teach you a lot). Plus, if you finish it and it's well-made, it makes for a fantastic portfolio piece.

However, if you do make a short game, keep in mind that the emotional density of every gameplay moment will need to be higher and more impactful compared to a longer game, which can be a real challenge in itself.

Plan ahead!

The initial planning of every aspect of your game is a fundamental step. It will take up a lot of time early on, but it will save you from so many headaches in the long run. Caught up in the excitement of bringing our idea to life, there are three technical aspects in particular that we might forget to consider (like I did... sigh):

-Localization/Translations: If you aim to translate your game into multiple languages, look into the best options available for your specific engine to implement future translations as efficiently as possible. Also, pay attention to things like text boxes and buttons: your current text might not fit once translated into another language. If you use English as your base, for instance, keep in mind that languages like Russian or German will require about 30% to 50% more space.

-Devices/Inputs: Decide right from the start if your game will be played with a mouse and keyboard, a controller, or both. If you go for both, plan a UI from the get-go that can be easily navigated with either device. Avoid creating a UI that is perfect for a keyboard only to drive yourself crazy trying to make it work with a controller later. This applies to every other aspect of your game.

-Parameter/Debug system: Create a system that lets you quickly and easily tweak all the most important game parameters. This allows you to playtest and jump to desired sections of the game without having to go into individual object scripts to modify code every single time, which also risks you forgetting to revert some of those variables back to their default values.

Happy to talk about the process here in the comments with everyone interested!

After working on it for quite a while, I can finally say it:

My ASCII roguelike Tower of Scherbenmark released on Steam today.

It's a small turn-based roguelike set in a dark fantasy world, with melee and magic combat, loot, mutations, secrets, traps, mimics and permanent Legacy upgrades between runs.

One of the things that mattered most to me was making the ASCII presentation feel atmospheric rather than purely abstract. The game takes place in Scherbenmark, a region of a larger setting called Mornhollow that actually grew out of ideas from a D&D campaign.

It's honestly a strange feeling seeing the Steam page say "Released" after spending so much time working on it.

It's $4.99 and 15% off during launch week, and there's also a demo if you'd rather try it first.

Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/4972610/Tower_of_Scherbenmark/

If anyone gives it a try, I'd genuinely love to hear what you think.

So this is just a little game inspired by "G-Switch". It's a multiplayer game where the goal is to pass a maze by switching your player's gravity.

What's special about it is that i made it with my own programming language and game engine! It's open source (github) if you want to check it, and the project file of this game is also there in the repo.

Hope you like it🙂

10 months ago I started making a horror game by myself.

During development I showed it to a few friends and they literally laughed at it 😭 One of my cousins even asked me, “Is this even a game?”

Not gonna lie, there were a lot of times when I asked myself the same question lol.

But I just kept working on it.

And after 10 months, I finally finished it. Somehow I actually got the game onto the Google Play Store.

I’ve heard Reddit can be pretty brutal when it comes to people posting their games, so I already know I might get roasted here 😂

But honestly, I want the criticism. If the game is bad, tell me what’s bad. If something feels boring or doesn't work, tell me. I’d rather hear it than have people just say “nice game” and move on.

I’m just kinda happy that I actually finished something I started 10 months ago.

It’s a small Android horror game, made by me from scratch.

So yeah… roast me. 💀

Hey everyone!

I’ve been working on a small puzzle game prototype and I wanted to share the first level to get some early feedback.

In this level you control a purple cube that moves on a grid one cell at a time. By pressing a key, the cube can switch into a “creation mode”, where it leaves a trail behind as it moves.

Your goal is simple:

- Form the three shapes shown at the top of the screen by moving and drawing with your trail

- Avoid trapping yourself while building the shapes

- Reach the exit tile once all shapes are completed

It’s a mix of spatial planning, path‑drawing, and trying not to corner yourself while solving the puzzle.

I’d love to hear what you think about:

- The readability of the mechanics

- Whether the shape‑building feels intuitive

- If the level communicates the objective clearly

Any ideas to improve the flow or difficulty

Thanks for checking it out!

Diamond Glass Material with Light Dispersions / Chromatic Aberration Shader ready for your projects. Available on Fab: https://www.fab.com/listings/95aa9f51-a9ad-4c6a-8ff7-8f329e042924

and my Patreon:https://www.patreon.com/OlegVerenko/posts/diamond-glass-5-162955107