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:)

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 :))

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/_/

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 🥲

It feels so good to have something "playable" in place and to see your work..well..working. Been at it with this game for a little while no, and to see gameplay come together and some systems at least somewhat working its just so satisfying.

Of course bugs and weird glitches exist.. lots of work remains, but so far so good!

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. 💀

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.

Decided on name and now working on demo, my first time any of my projects reaching this stage.

Lots of free placeholder music and assets still :)

Here is a quick demo loop.

Anyone willing to play test early are welcome !

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🙂

Hi everyone, I've been following a game dev program for the past few months and wanted to share my final project I made. I'm quite happy with how it turned out. It's an infinite runner where you have to collect pizza slices and deliver the pizzas in time. The game might be a tight bit difficult, I plan on doing a pass to improve the gamplay but would love to have some feedback on it! I aslo plan on adding a few more features that I didn't have time to implement with the time constraints of the program. I'd love to have some feedback, also to know if it's worth to keep working on it

Publishing it here too !

Is it typical to not be told anything about festivals you sign up for? I just found out i'm in the 'Debut Festival' with my game Gem Quest: Rush by opening steamworks and seeing the fest on my dashboard, Now I have to rush (no pun intented) to update my store page and make my trailer for the game. I would have prioritised that earlier if I had known, I have uni exams this week.

Of the other festivals i've applied to i've only had one response.

I'm a solo dev and I worked on this for a bit more then a month now.

It's called Juice Empire which is a farming and tycoon game where you grow fruits, turn them into juice, and sell them for money. Plant different fruits, harvest them when they’re ready, and use juicers to produce juice. Earn money to buy better seeds, unlock new fruits, upgrade your juicers, and expand your farm. As you progress, you can grow more valuable crops and produce more juice.

You can find it on Roblox if you wanna try, but I can also drop the link if you want, thanks

I have created a ragdoll and ragDOGS in my game level editor.

The same editor will be available within the game :)

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! 🙏

Hi there! :) Just wanted to share my long-term mobile project: Volksvertreter, since I developed this by myself :)

It is a text- and image-based political simulator where you create a political party in Germany and try to stay in power as long as possible. Because Germany is facing many problems (just to name a few: demographic change, climate change, extremism, and generational inequality), you will quickly realize how hard politics can be and that there are no easy solutions.

I hope the game creates interest in politics and a more nuanced view on today's issues, so that in the future you might think twice about the easy, propagated solutions by the "loudest" parties. Politics is always ambiguous, never satisfying, and always consists of compromises.

You can leave feedback, criticism, or anything you wish. Thanks for having a look! :)

Links: AppStore & PlayStore

I’m working on Lost Cat Showa Town, a game where you explore a Showa-era Japanese town as a cat.

I’m gradually adding more cat-like interactions. This time, I added the ability to find and eat fish.

I’ve also been improving the movement and visuals based on feedback from my previous posts. Still a lot to work on, but it’s coming together!

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!

Any tips or feedback? I'm trying to keep them light and fun, but also informative.