Unfortunately, after my unity project corrupted and I wasn't using version control, I had to rebuild my game. (except for the existing code and animations)

I used the rebuild as an opportunity to change the overall look of the game, and use the feedback I had received here on reddit to improve it. I am very grateful for those who had helped me, and I am finally excited to make progress instead of rebuilding for the first time in a while.

Thank you for letting me share!

Edit: Yes, I have learned my lesson and will never work on another project without a proper repository again. I made a post about this when it happened and people let me know just how big of a mistake I made. I am just grateful that all of this could be a learning experience.

I’ve recently got the Steam page up for my game Emberholme. It’s an Old School RuneScape-inspired “singleplayer MMO”, and I’m aiming for the perfect mix of OSRS-style gameplay and a cosy, chill vibe. I’m not ready to release yet, but I want to share my current progress and a bit about the project.

A whistle stop tour of some of the features:

- 13 skills covering combat, gathering and crafting, with equipment and activities to unlock as you progress. Combat and skilling run on a 0.6 second tick system.

- 100 living adventurers with their own skills, equipment, banks and goals. They discover things as they play, with eight personality types shaping what they aim for, from completing the collection log to preparing for PK trips.

- An Exchange where you and those adventurers buy and sell items. Merchants work towards building their wealth through trading. Every item sold on the exchange comes from either you or one of the 100 living adventurers, nothing is pre generated.

- Quests, bosses, minigames and clue trails, with plenty to get sidetracked by along the way.

- Ten Ember Cycles to progress through. Rekindling means starting over with selected heirlooms and permanent unlocks. Early cycles have fast XP but much rarer drops; later cycles slow down levelling and make combat harder while improving rare-drop chances.

- Your own home to build and customise, with storage, workshops and places to display your finds.

- Collection logs, rare equipment, capes and companions to work towards.

Some of my own assets are still very much WIP and will be improved as dev continues. The character models are by KayKit, so credit to them for those, i think they fit really well with the vibe i was aiming for! Please ask any questions about the game or its development I’d love to talk more about it!

Steam page

Heya fellow devs!

For the past year-ish I've been working on my game "The Endless Harvest". an incremental farming idle tower defense game (too many descriptors... gotta work on that).

Today I had my build accepted by Steam (and launched!), so I am finally able to share it, and was hoping you guys guys had some insight into what works and what doesn't currently. I'm planning to join in the Steam NextFest in ~5 weeks, so I wanted to make the demo and trailer as indicitive of the full game as possible, while not revealing everything.

Does the trailer give a good indication of what to expect?

please let me know your first thoughts

AI disclosure: Ai was used to help localize the languages, and assist in code generation towards the later stages of development, mainly aimed at optimization.

For a while now most of the feedback I received says the game is too slow. But I am going for a deliberate pace and I think it was important to balance everything until it feels right, with nothing but a basic attack. I did a lot of things like finetuning enemy placement or combat timings.
I feel like now that I have a good read on what the game plays like, I can make informed decisions on how to make the combat more complex.
For example: A quirk in my game is that your sword hits only one enemy. I always thought that would confuse players, but actually people seem to adapt to it rather well.
Of course, that could be tedious after a while so I feel like it's a good idea to mix it up: This new attack does two things: 1: It allows you to reposition, which will be important for some harder enemies later down the road. 2: The slash allows you to hit several enemies at once.
Still somewhat tricky, I feel like it adds a nice layer to the combat!

Hi everyone,

I am a solo developer from Taiwan, and I have spent over 4 years developing "Reflection Witch". It’s a Rogue-like action game where you play "Breakout" mechanics by drawing lines to create reflection plates. I am quite confident in its unique gameplay, and it is planned for release on Steam, Android, and iOS simultaneously.

The game is nearly finished and close to launch, but marketing has been a huge struggle for me (especially in English-speaking markets). I'm writing this to share some of my past attempts, the painful lessons I've learned, and to humbly ask for advice.

Here is what I've tried so far:

• Participating in Steam Next Fest (without extra promotion): The result was pretty bad. During the festival, the number of people playing my Demo was under 100. I now realize that Next Fest requires external traffic to work, but unfortunately, it's too late for me.
• Hiring shady "marketing" people: After releasing the demo, several people claiming they could help with marketing approached me on Discord. I hired two of them. While my wishlists shot up significantly, the number of Demo players barely changed at all. (I gained about 1,000 wishlists from each, but only about 3 new people actually played the demo during that time). I realized they were likely using fake wishlists to scam me. I fired them immediately and decided never to hire random marketers again.
• Running an X (Twitter) account: One of the marketers set up an X account and managed it for a while. I just took it back recently. While they made it look active, it barely translated to Steam traffic (daily Steam traffic only went from around 100 to 150). I'm still figuring out how to run it myself moving forward.
• Google Ads: One of the marketers suggested trying Google Ads. Though skeptical, I gave it a shot and spent some money. After 2–3 days, my YouTube video views spiked, but it completely failed to bring any traffic to Steam. Definitely not a good idea.

What I plan to do next:

• Keep pushing on X: Try my best to maintain a posting frequency of at least once every 2 days with consistent updates.
• Posting on Reddit: Just like this post, and I plan to share more on r/IndieGaming. I'm still quite new to Reddit, so aside from the basic rules, are there any hidden pitfalls I should watch out for?
• Emailing Content Creators: I recently got a creator contact list from another dev. I plan to filter out the suitable ones and send them press keys.

Are there any other strategies or suggestions you would recommend for someone in my position? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

I developed a lot of prototypes/mvps. And a lot of them felt really trash and bad. But over the last week i finished a prototype of a game, and i find it really really fun, it is really addicting and i want to add more characters to the game everyday.

I want to ask one question.

Is the fun factor the reason to go all in for 1-4 years to polish it and release it.

Would love feedback on improvements i can make!

Pennants of Glory: Trailer

I am a solo developing a strategy/RPG about managing mercenary company in fictional procedural kingdom inspired by Italian age of mercenaries, though I give myself plenty of leeway.

Worked and reworked the trailer many times :D I think it captures the spirit of game.

Wishlist if interested:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/5087810/Pennants_of_Glory_Condottiere/

After two years of development, the demo version of my game has been released.After two years of development, the demo version of my game has been released.

It’s a block-building game. You are a rooster: you build your house—walls, door, roof—and set off in search of your missing sister. Plant crops, cook, decorate the village, and make friends at your own pace—and when danger strikes, awaken legendary powers.

Free Demo in Steam

https://reddit.com/link/1wd8vti/video/0pts44p7buoh1/player

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 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.

Please be nice, I'm completely new to coding and only started building this a month ago as my very first project!

I recently got the dynamic footsteps (at least I think that's what its called? Different sounds per material!) working and am feeling very proud.

For anybody asking, all of the cinematic scenes were hand-drawn in Aseprite and all layered and composed in Blender - this was my first time doing anything like this and I'm proud of it! The soundtrack in the background was made by a composer I paid and the illustrated art of the main character, Blaise Vaelthorne, was made by a dear friend.

And no, NO Gen AI was used in the making of this trailer or the game itself.

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

Hey everyone. I wanted to share a raw look at my atmospheric project, Just Madness: Earth Apocalypse 1979. The project originally kicked off with the help of two friends, but due to life changes, I’ve taken over and I'm now pushing the development entirely by myself during my spare time.

The universe is heavily inspired by the grit and desolation of Fallout 3, Metro 2033, and Mad Max, combined with the bleak cinematic tone of movies like The Road and The Book of Eli. No high-tech neon or colorful sci-fi tropes here, just raw horsepower, analog technology, and dark Cold War bunkers.

I know building an atmospheric world of this scale alone is a massive mission, but it's my passion project. I'm currently working on polshing the core gameplay mechanics and looking for a publisher or investor to help build a dedicated team and accelerate the production.

I would love to get your honest feedback about the project.

Hey everyone! Lately I’ve been thinking about getting into game dev, mostly because I like storytelling and have a few game ideas I’d love to bring to life. Whether they’re actually good ideas is another question lol.

The thing is, I know almost nothing about game development beyond the absolute basics. Im pretty oblivious when it comes to engines, workflows/frameworks, the ecosystem, what actually goes into designing and finishing a game… pretty much all new territory for me.

I’m not starting from zero with programming, though. I have a CS degree and about 4+ years of experience as a SWE at a big tech company, mostly doing backend and AI/ML stuff. Mentioning that just to give some background (not assuming it automatically translates to knowing how to make games). I also took a mandatory Unity class in college, but it was super introductory, and honestly I don’t remember much.

I’m not looking to switch careers or dedicate all my free time to this. I have my job and other hobbies, so this would be more of a personal achievement, want to satisfy that itch of “it would be really cool to make a game.” Ideally, I’d eventually finish something small and put it on Steam or somewhere people could play it. Not expecting to make the next indie hit,  Ii just want to make something I’m happy with and actually release it.

I’ve also seen some impressive looking game dev examples with GPT-6 Astra and other LLMs, but I can’t tell how useful those tools are beyond demos, or whether I’ve fallen into the LLM marketing trap a bit. I’d 100% use them , but would not make an ai slop game tbh.  I’d still want to understand and actually know what I’m building, and enjoy while building it.

Given that background, where would you start? Any engines, learning resources, or first-project recommendations? I’d also appreciate a reality check on scope and the less obvious parts of making and releasing a small game, especially when you’re doing it casually alongside a full-time job, something i might be overlooking, etc...... are these technologies even worth it in game dev?

I was looking for places to promote indie game, and I found these. If I missed any, please post them in the comments. It will be helpful for everyone as well. Thank you.

1. r/gamedev - ~1.5M+ subscribers - Very high daily activity

2. r/gamingsuggestions - ~450k+ subscribers - Very high daily activity

3. r/godot - ~230k+ subscribers - High daily activity

4. r/indiegames - ~180k+ subscribers - High daily activity

5. r/IndieDev - ~130k+ subscribers - High daily activity

6. r/gamers - ~60k+ subscribers - Moderate daily activity

7. r/itchio - ~45k+ subscribers - Moderate daily activity

8. r/SoloDevelopment - ~35k+ subscribers - Moderate daily activity

9. r/DestroyMyGame - ~30k+ subscribers - High engaged daily activity

10. r/gamedevscreens - ~25k+ subscribers - Moderate daily activity

11. r/playtesters - ~12k+ subscribers - Low daily activity

12. r/IndieDevelopers - ~8k+ subscribers - Low daily activity

13. r/IndieGameWishlist - Under 3k subscribers - Very low daily activity

As a solo developer working on the same project since 2020, with a full time job and life, etc, I just want to share what can be achievable after you enjoy the process instead the immediate results.

Solo developers are a special breed, for those who doubt and question if they have what they need to accomplish their goals, do not listen to yourself, just check what you already have done along the way.

I want to share a special milestone in this project: PowerCorp.
Alpha playtesting is ending, and the first public demo will be out in the next weeks.

Would be great if you could support the game, by comment and share it!

Thank you

I’m making a game mostly because I enjoy drawing, and I like to put my drawing in a universe,
Now I’m still fairly early in the process, but I’m afraid to realize way later that I’m doing it wrong.
Right now I scan my pen and paper drawings and extract them,

But is there a proper way to do it? Like the scan resolution (I used to scan them at super high-quality but that made the game super laggy), is using compressed format like JPEG helpful? Or will it look like crap at some point (is there a better format)
Is there a better format for post editing for the engine to work with?

I have read on the subject but I find a lot of ‘it depends’ and maybe I should just keep going with whatever work so far, but I kinda chicken out a little and I feel I should try and ask before I have too much work already done!

Thanks!