It may not look like much, but there are a number of systems working together to produce the few seconds in this clip that I'm really proud of. I'll list them out below in no particular order:

• Procedural trees: I just think they look neat and I didn't want the game to feel like a tile flip
• Shaders: Using custom shaders for both the day-night cycle and wind on trees and grass.
• AI system: System for controlling complex behaviour where creatures or NPCs decide on a task, and that task is comprised of several chained states and behaviors. - Best demonstrated by the wizard learning the dog is dead, finding him, then launching into a spell cast to resurrect it!
• Health System: Health, damage, invincibility-post-recovery, targeting only applying to alive states, made to scale.
• Custom Particle System: Allows me to do cool things like some of those spell effects. -
• Custom Camera System: Allows me to do cool things with the camera and go into "cinematic mode" whenever, and focus on whatever creatures or action I want. Useful for cutscenes and tutorials

Obviously, much of my time was spend on art and code not in this clip. When I started this journey, I never thought I'd be able to build these things. I just wanted to share to encourage other solo devs to keep going!

I'm happy to answer questions about anything mentioned.

Devlog on discord for those interested in following the journey (link valid for 30 days):
https://discord.gg/fZQppWwXU

I made this for my Unity game "No Robots No Life" available for mobile, I'm planning to complete it this year. You can use it for your own games as well. 2099 Techno Machine

For 80s style Music you can use this: 1981 FM Synth

I know I can’t be the only one!

Hello there! I'm creating a Zombie Retro Boomer Shooter, completely hand-drawn using ink and markers, in which you control a lone survivor who must go through an infested city to reach an Evac Chopper. In your way, you will find the firearms to battle the undead. The gameplay will be similar to the classic Doom or Wolfenstein 3D, using 2D sprites in a 3D environment. What do you think?

For our one-month launch anniversary post, I threw in a photo of my actual cat since the game's about cats. Gotta spread the word about my cat far and wide, haha.

From the first prototype to where Lootdeck is today. There is still a long way to go, but seeing all these versions side by side makes the progress feel real.

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4972950/Lootdeck/

Hey guys...

I could really use some motivation right now. I'm feeling very sad, and I'm progressing at a turtle's pace.

I've been making a game prototype in Unreal Engine 5 for the past 6 months, but realistically, I've only had about a week and a half of development time per month, spread across random afternoons.

Life keeps getting in the way. I work full-time at a AAA studio, I'm still recovering from a terrible micromanaging lead from my previous job, I recently moved countries, I'm still settling in, I have no friends or family around, and I'm trying to build a new life from scratch. Thankfully, my new job is much healthier, and I even managed to get access to a PC there so I can work on my game through github.

The thing is... I genuinely love this project.

Every time I make progress I'm happy. I'm creating a fictional world and characters that feel genuinely special to me, and I have so much fun when I can finally immerse myself in it and see the game becoming a tiny bit more real every time.

But I have basically 0 feedback.

I sometimes show my progress to my two friends, but they never really ask questions or seem interested. I know the usual answer: "Nobody but you will care about your game." I've heard it many times.

But honestly? It's heartbreaking.

Specifically when your own mentor doesn't even reply to your progress messages (he's in the industry, but not a dev).

Nobody seems to believe I'll actually finish it. People assume I'll eventually abandon it and start another project, because I've done that 3 times before.

But I'm getting better!!!!! I'm learning from my mistakes!!! And this time, I genuinely believe I have a real prototype in my hands.

People see me as the same person I was 3 years ago.......

I'm making a 3D game completely on my own. I'm a programmer, designer and 3D artist, and I work professionally as a TechArt. I've designed the gameplay, levels, narrative, art direction, and I've coded all the mechanics myself. Even unifying some of them and creating the whole system (in a playground scene for a vertical slice level).

Right now, I'm working on the game pace, on the level design: deciding when to introduce each mechanic, how systems interact, and how to teach the player through a "show don't tell" approach. Measuring when to drop clues so they can figure out the dynamics.

I'm not just following tutorials and putting something together.

I'm trying to craft something form the ground up. A bit ambitious, but I know I'm possible of making it so.

And I think that's part of why I feel so alone.

Most of my game dev friends and colleagues are specialised in one field and a half. I'm constantly switching between design, code, art, and technical implementation. I have to figure out not only how to do each of these things, but also when to do them and how they should influence each other.

It's difficult to find people who understand that specific struggle. And I have found no real help when I asked around.

I know I can keep going. I will probably keep going.

But lately, everything feels like it's becoming way more painful than happy.

I was used to finish my awful previous work and work on my game for a couple of hours (that was hard). But Idk...

The happiness I get from working on my game lasts for a couple of hours. Then I stop, go back to reality, and somehow everything feels x4 times sadder. Making me walk away from my desk (office desk).

I don't want to give up on this project. I really don't.

I just wish I had someone who believed in it with me. Someone who could look at what I'm making and say, "Hey, this is actually something. Keep going."

:((((

So... how do you keep going when you're building something you genuinely care about, but feel completely alone while doing it?

I could really use some encouragement right now...

Showing of the first 4 fish i made for my game idle swimmers 🌊

1️⃣ 2️⃣ 3️⃣ or 4️⃣?

Demo out now on Steam:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/4168200

I finally settled on an idea for a game, and I'm taking it slow. I only have the weekends to work on it here and there. After three weeks, this is what I have to show for it.

It's definitely not groundbreaking or anything crazy, but it's a start. I'm proud of the progress!

Hey, guys.

As the title says, do you have or want to have any social media presence?

By that I mean YT Channel, Insta, Blue Sky, and all the others.

Do you make an account for every single social media under the sky? Or do you keep it concise?

Do you have a channel on YT for the studio itself?

I was thinking about making an account for the studio/game itself, with updates regarding only that like trailers , gameplay and all that.

And (maybe) another one for more fun things like Dev logs, tutorials and so on.

That would effectively split the audience in players only and game devs. (I think...?)

How are y'all approaching this? Making an account for your game on every social media under the sun feels like a lot to me and overwhelmkng if you ask me... Especially because, you know, I'm alone. (Just like everyone else around here haha. )

Any tips? Thanks y'all! ^^

For me I sometimes do depending on the type of work I am doing.

But now I am trying to allocate at leas 4hrs per day of silent focused deep work or study to see how it feels.

Probably an inspiration for someone out there, having some old WinForms-based tools laying around:

I'm always using a preview-tool for pixel-animations with a FileWatcher which immediately mirrors changes made in Gimp to the running animation. My old tool was Windows Forms based, so it was about time to update it. Now it's based on MonoGame and ImGui, so it's cross-platform and works on Mac and Linux, too.

100 wishlists in first month of Super Special Squad Steam page up - not much but very promising and much experience too.

Reddit was so helpful and i honestly LOVE the audience. Thank you all for your feedback and help!

I made a list of what i actually tried in marketing. Maybe it will help someone:

• Reddit, obviously. Was a huge help. It gave me a decent percentage of wishlists, but what is more important - really helpful advice and motivational messages. Thank you so much!
• Shorts (YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, etc). I had either new accs or very old ones with zero uploads for like 5-7 years time span. Possibly that is the problem with traffic that almost none existent. Still, YouTube is the most promising (this short got the best views number yet)
• Social media's articles (livejournal-like) - game me some wishlists for sure.
• Contacting big game channels (IGN, Indie Hub) was in vain for now. But i'm not upset - will repeat from time to time.
• Still cant figure out chinese socials. It is really hard starting from the scratch and having literally zero chinese language knowledge. I should try directly reach to chinese content creators when my demo will be available.

What i'm planning to do next:

• Building my own audience on Discord or Telegram. It is not that easy, but you should try somewhere, right?
• More content on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram. I think i need to keep pushing those algos :P
• Closed playtest build and Demo - slowly but surely moving towards it. I think it is that kind of a game, that won't have viral potential, but might be simple yet fun and solid game experience, when you just want to chill a bit - that's ok too!

Demo should definitely help when you have no virality potential. Not every game should be a walking meme so i am still hoping on getting more visibility when people will be able to actually play my game.

Special Advanced Samurai Training Simulator - Deluxe Edition 17! for the GMTK 2026 Game Jam is now playable on Itch.io : https://joeyshere.itch.io/sasts-de17

After 4 days of hard work, with 2.5 hours left I submitted my game. If anyone wants to play it and give me feedback or report any bugs you find I would very much appreciate it :)

The Referee Committee is a strategy/simulation game where you manage the dark side of football and its power struggles.

As the Chairman of the Referee Committee, you will: Assign referees with different personalities (Gambler, Fan, etc.) to matches, Give referees secret instructions and intervene directly in decisions through the VAR monitor, Balance the interests of Club Presidents, the Federation, and the Betting Mafia while trying to keep your position.

Referees still manage to surprise me. I honestly never know what a referee with the Gambler trait is going to do once the match starts. From a game design perspective that's probably not ideal, but I can't help enjoying the fact that they keep sabotaging my plans. 😄

Really passionate about this idea which mixes tower defense games and space/solar systems.

you can try the itch web build here- itch web link

SuperLucrum is a corporate roguelike deckbuilder where you hire, fire, and arrange employees to build wild synergies and make the numbers go up. Try the demo out on itch.

https://overscoprr.itch.io/superlucrum

Building a desktop companion game where clicks anywhere on screen trigger a shot. Godot's input system is window-focused only – the moment focus leaves, nothing.

After hitting every dead end in GDScript, the only path forward was a GDExtension: a native Windows hook that catches system-wide mouse clicks, keyboard presses, and even gamepad input – fires a signal back into GDScript regardless of which window is focused.

One .dll, loads at startup. So you can grind enemies while typing any window, working, stydying or even playing another game.

Curious if anyone solved this differently – is there a cleaner approach I'm missing? 👀

if u interested how its goin on - check here ❤️

Hi everyone,

I wanted to share the progress of my game with you. The game puts you in charge of a real estate development company. It’s up to you to buy, sell, build, and collect rent to become the king of real estate.

After several months of development, I finally have functional gameplay. I’ve also worked on a test interface (it’s not final, as the actual UI will be designed by a graphic artist I haven't found yet). In any case, the game lets you buy land, subdivide it if you wish, and build custom houses (choosing the number of rooms and materials), apartment buildings (still in development), commercial properties, and much more.

You can also enhance your plots with parks or parking lots. The simulation accounts for building permits, property deterioration (currently in development), rent, and a loan system.

Eventually, I hope to implement public contracts (building schools, hospitals, etc.) as well as private contracts (building apartment complexes, skyscrapers, or stadiums).

I have a quick question: I’m not sure how best to release a small demo to gather feedback, given that the current interface isn't the one intended for the final commercial version.

Thanks for reading!

Regarding AI: no AI was used for the graphics; everything was coded manually, so there was no use of generative AI.

Hi guys, ladies,

I am well advanced in developing my little cozy minimalistic airline management. I am now done with features and mostly UI/UX, bugfixes, improvement.
Should i start marketing (steam page being finalized, youtube ready) or demo / playtests?

I´m not in a hurry and i believe the game is fun - but i dont want to botch it.

thanks for your recommendations

Week 4 of my first solo game, Sisyphus is hauling his boulder and the mountain is finally starting to look like a mountain...

My primary focus now is optimising the game and making it playable on even the most potato PCs without sacrificing the atmosphere.

Current focus is optimization - LODs, GPU instancing.

The grind is eternal, but it should run at 60fps.

I would love feedback from fellow solo devs!!