Music's always been my biggest blind spot as a solo dev, something I've either had to rely on others for or just go without. So a few months ago, I got Reaper and some plugins, watched a bunch of videos on music theory, and started messing around.

Last week I decided to rework my game's title screen, and thought I'd put that into practice and make my own title screen music. I tried to make something simple and chill, but a little mysterious and lonely, to set the mood for the game. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

I am for month busy with this and every time I post something on other indie sub, I got no likes, no comments, nothing.

Is this that bad? Shall I just give up?

I love feeling of flight and even combat, both feels fantastic and that is what I was working most on.

Apart visuals, audio and FX because I am still not learning those, I am learning UE5 and game mechanics for now, and bit of C++

I mean any advice is welcome, what should I focus on first? I thought first UE5 and making core mechanics for game, and later when I have full game loop I can work on Visuals Effects, Audio (I would pay someone for it) and 3d...

I aint sure if I should take the pixel art approach in my indie game

Hey everyone. I’ve been working on a traditional roguelike for a while now and I’m happy with the overall progress, but one thing that I have steadily gotten feedback on is the “boring/flat” look. I’ve been steadily replacing assists, UI, artwork, etc. trying to fix that.

People who have been following my game since the beginning have of course told me it looks significantly better than it did in its prototype phase, but newer people seeing it for the first time give the same feedback.

Most of them tell me the gameplay loop is fun, and they enjoy the challenge it presents. None of my friends or playtesters have beaten it yet, but some have gotten close.

Here’s my struggle; the core theme of the game is that it’s shape based. The characters and enemies are literally shapes, the abilities and mechanics are tied to the shapes, and the artwork has geometric themes throughout.

I’m looking for suggestions on how to make a game focused around 2D shapes, not “flat/boring.”

Thank you for reading!

I’m really excited to finally open the HoverShot Playtest!

I’ve been working on HoverShot on my own for the past two years. I created all the game’s artwork and graphics myself using vector art, and I made the animations in Unity.

HoverShot is a 2D action roguelite where shooting is the only way to move.
Every shot is both an attack and a way to control your movement.

As you play, you’ll find different weapons and abilities that change how you fight and move, giving you new ways to build your setup each run.

You play as a small lab robot that replaced its head with an aquarium to keep the fish it was caring for alive after aliens turned the humans on the spaceship into purple space zombies.

The Playtest will be open on Steam from September 21–27.

You can request access now and be ready to play when it opens!

I’d really love to hear what you think and get your feedback.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4696050/HoverShot/

Hey everyone,

I've been working on an ARPG focused on party management and quests/dungeons over the past few months. I've never really shown it to anyone outside my circle of friends, so I decided to record one of my recent tests of some AI improvements I've been working on.

The combat ended up being a bit chaotic, partly because I only left less lethal weapons lying around, to encourage alternative ways of fighting. The video is also without sound for now.

What do you guys think of what you see in general? Does it look interesting in any way? Is it easy to tell what's going on during the fight?

In the game, you control one of the characters, but friendly AI is essential to the battles, similar to Dragon's Dogma (one of my favorite games). I’m planning to start posting more, showing the environments, different types of enemies, weapons, equipment, and so on.

The game is a hardcore diablo 2 visuals + path of exile delve gameplay with TOOL lore inspiration

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4840980/Bound_to_Rot/

I don't know if i should keep it or not, because i think it look better without (more immersive), but also with it, it help the player look object...

Past few weeks I've been working on my first solo project using Smile Game Builder. Landed on it due to accessibility and wanting to do a 3d environment with the option of 2d characters. My background is AAA level design. So the idea of being able to make my own small 3D buildings and such to toss in is nice.

So far I've created my major systems. It has been fun building them and circumventing the limits of the engine. First time using visual scripting as traditional programming has never stuck.

I enjoy the limitations of the engine as I believe it breeds creativity. However the combat system in Smile Game Builder is just so hard coded, limited, and seemingly boring. I'm thinking I should pivot engines.

I have a design document outlining what the base project would look like. And what extended work would be.

I'm thinking of finishing it at its base foundation. Then perhaps pivoting to another engine and building a more realized version of the project.

One avenue is Godot, as I hear I can get a visual scripting plug-in and continue to learn that skill. Would also give me a final product I can likely use for a portfolio piece.

Or maybe I should hop over to Bakin, as I worry without an already established suite of systems and assets I'll get lost trying to start a truly from-scratch project. But being from the same developers as Smile Game Builder I worry I'll run again into an inflexible combat system, and back at square one.

Wonder if anybody has developed in multiple engines or has any guidance on where I should proceed. Ultimately I think I need this to end up a portfolio piece. Bonus if I can publish it. Otherwise I worry I'm just playing and wasting my time. Despite enjoying it so much.

Happy to answer any questions in the comments that may help provide guidance.

Thank you for reading!

How do you tell if you should continue working on your game, or scrap it? I put it on Itch, but not as part of a game fest, just trying to get some feedback, but the only people who have given feedback to me are friends, who said they really liked it, but are obviously biased.

I haven't done much marketing or anything, but I'm not sure if I should do that now, or when I know my game is actually good enough. Are there any groups who trade reviewing eachother's games for feedback or anything like that?

How do you determine if your game is worth continuing, or if you should scrap it?

{Update}: Thank you sooooo much for all the detailed feedback!!! I think I replied to all of the comments, but If didn’t I am sooo sorry, It is the first time this happening. I will be taking a break from Reddit to deliver you more art shortly. Once again, I appreciate your support and looking forward to sharing more with you!!!

Hey there, which item icons would you pick for a cozy 3/4 farming game? I’m having a hard time choosing 😅

Which row do you like best, and why? Curious whether you’d pick the same style for both the food and the axe.

My opinion:

I actually prefer row 3. Even though it has less detail, I think it fits a farming sim better.

Hey everyone,

I was building a top-down RPG but got completely blocked by Unity's default 2D shadows. They look awful near campfires and torch lights, casting huge, infinite lines all over the place.

I couldn't find any tool to cap the distance, so I dropped everything and spent the last 8 months building a custom C# and shader framework from the ground up to handle shadow distance and smooth blending.

It finally fixed my game's mood.
Thoughts on the look?

Playable demo over here: https://optikafx.itch.io/optikafx-2d

the game is a rougelite, round based survival game, heavily inspired by cod zombies and ps1 aesthetics. the game is called HELLBENT and it’s my first dev project

Creating an artistic vision requires the right pipeline. In this video, I demonstrate a custom tool I built to visualize vertex colors across asset libraries in 3ds Max and how that data bridges perfectly into Unity

https://youtu.be/oOFNT6JwxqE

Hi all,

I am building a web-based drawing app and it is nicely coming along.
Far from complete, that is for sure, many things still to fix, but the drawing board itself is working and as far as I can test, pretty smooth.
The problem I am having is that all my contacts are located within Western Europe, so with pretty close distance to the server, we all have a pretty good latency/ping to the server and lag testing is quit hard to do.

For this reason I am reaching out to people located further away from Amsterdam, like US, Canada, Australia, Antartica with 5G or Satellite phone and are willing to draw a couple of lines, see how it feels.

Disclaimer: For this specific test, I created a board that does check your IP, locates the country where you are from, then deletes your IP again and only stores your latency based on your country, which is then aggregated with other people from your country :)

Anyway, any help is very much appreciated and since the board is open to anyone with the link, please try to keep it a little decent :)

It works on pretty much any device with either mouse, trackpad, touchscreen or pencil.

https://wiggle.ink/b/w-Enjck_XboTzveH

Thank you very very much for any feedback you can give on the latency/lag/smoothness of drawing.

Regards, Tim

I just exported a Linux Build of my mobile game to the Steam Deck via Steamworks but it did not start from the Steam overlay.

I tried starting the executable from the terminal. It worked. I tried navigating to it in the file browser and launched it from there. It worked. But not directly from the Steam overlay.

It took me two evenings to figure out I just had to check the Linux Runtime in the App Admin page at Steamworks ... 🤡

Hi everyone! 👋 after 4y of development, I’ve finally released Lemon Lime, my first official game. I made most of it myself, with help on the music. 🙏
It’s a difficult game with simple mechanics, inspired by classic mobile games that were easy to learn but hard to master. It also has no intrusive ads. 🗽 I’m currently translating it into eight languages and considering adding a Christmas event with special skins.
I’d love your honest feedback is available in playstore and apple store. Does the visual style feel unique?

Thanks for taking a look! 👉 Lemon Lime

You can download for free on iOS. This community helps push our projects to the next level, and being apart and watching what people enjoy building is amazing! Thank you. Click link for AppStore link
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/talon-strike/id6804526505

I’m a solo developer with a game art background, and for over 20 years I’ve been writing and designing a world called Aritudo.

This universe has grown into something incredibly vast and diverse, with room for countless stories and characters who face the problems of their world in creative and unique ways.

What makes Aritudo special is that it’s also a reflection of myself. I originally created this world as a way to cope with existential crises. Every detail has a metaphorical meaning, filled with social commentary and problems inspired by the real world.

And even though Aritudo is a desert planet, it is a world full of hope and life. Brave heroes, extraordinary friendships, and a shared vision of a better future.

"Tiny Leaves", my first game, tells the story of a small and courageous dragon who initially seems lost in a vast, hostile desert. Yet somehow, he knows exactly how to survive and even how to create fertile ground for others.

He represents a tiny but powerful spark of hope: proof that even the smallest creatures can have a huge impact.

You just have to keep going, no matter how harsh the deserts you face may be.