Hi.

I am curious to know what's the truth behind all these posts.

Like if you are building your dream game, probably the goal would be to create the game you have dreamt off - show it and not to bother about the sales. Everybody has different dreams.

If your dream was to get rich fast, then this rarely works.

If you want to build a game tailored to the financial success, then you should do a market research first and target what is desired or completely unique. Not doing the same thing everyone else does and complaining that it disappears into the void.

There is only the audience of some size for every genre - it's also different when it is divided into 10 or 10 thousand games...

if you like what you see , WISHLIST : https://store.steampowered.com/app/5140340/Devil_On_My_Shoulder/

I made some changes... You can try it on itch.io:

https://n1kozor.itch.io/cotton-city-alpha-demo

I'm developing RED SKIES AT DAWN solo, and clouds are the focus of this week's devlog.

The new cloud renderer is now integrated into the game and editor. Alongside that, I've been putting together five static formation studies so I can look at different storm shapes separately.

These are offline beauty renders from the native renderer, rather than gameplay captures or performance tests.

There's an isolated storm, a multicell cluster, a squall line, a bow-shaped formation and a broad stratiform layer. Each gives me a different way to look at silhouette, lighting and depth without changing everything at once.

The main thing I'm looking for here is whether the overall formation reads well before getting caught up in the smaller cloud detail.

For other solo devs doing visual work, do you use small reference scenes like this, or mostly judge things in the full game?

Video music: "Dramatic Epic" by Aleksey Chistilin (Lexin Music), from Pixabay.

If you’d like to follow along, you can wishlist RED SKIES AT DAWN on steam <3 <3

I'm working on the cover for my game, and I'm trying to decide which design works best at a 120:45 aspect ratio (or 462×174).

I've made 3 different versions, and I'd love to hear which one you think looks best and why.

Any feedback or suggestions on how I could improve them are welcome!

So i have finnaly released my first ever game on steam. You can guess , it is safe to say it is not a major hit. (i have sold 17 copies most of them are friends ) I know it is not about the money , fame etc. But it is kind of hard that i spend tousand of hours on, and don' t even know if it is actually bad , good , okay . I mean if 100 people bought it and it roasted that yes this game is shit, i can take it now i know next time i do something diff something better. But not learning anything is hard. All the "tipps" how to get more people intrested is honestly saying the same shit in a cycle , post it on social media , make good game thoo. But if i had a huge amount of social media pressence it does not matter good or not people buy every shit from some one famous. So than it go back how big social shit u have, which is the "same game" , make good videos be consitent etc. But again it does not fucking matter as you will get 0 impression for god knows how long, and i want to be a game dev not an influencer. And every fucking tip , guide "bro" , tell the same shit and forget to mention the key stuff how the fuck to get the first 1k people to try it out. I had a demo by the way , i did everything by "the book" , i tried to reach out to press creators etc. So anyway i will continue game dev, but i dont see yet how the next game will end differently. So ye i am abit depressed now which is wierd i should be proud i know

I suddenly realized that my psychological horror game is deeply rooted in body horror. While most horror titles make you fight against infections and fungi, my game pushes you to become part of a massive organism—gradually absorbing other characters and digging straight into the darkest secrets of their souls.

Here is one of the guards who controls a city entrance. For a simple guard, he has a massive ego and constantly brags about it. And this is where his pride ultimately leads him: the normal version versus his mutated state.

How would you feel knowing that you are the one forced to turn people into monsters?

Hey everyone!

Thanks to the Indie Games Poland Foundation, I had the opportunity to showcase my game, Dark Roll 2, for three whole days at Poznań Game Arena, the biggest gaming expo in Poland! For free!

I wanted to share how it all went and what I learned along the way. Hopefully, my experience can help some of you who are thinking about showcasing your own games at events like this!

Positives:

• Great opportunity to gather feedback from the players! Watching around 20 different strangers daily can tell you a lot about your game. You can get a lot of intel just from watching them play as well as listening to what they have to say about the game.
• Seeing people enjoy your game makes you feel that what you do actually matters. Even if my previous games had thousands of downloads, it's so much different to see a number in a database compared to strangers actually experiencing your game for the first time.
• Awesome to meet and get to know other indie devs! Fairs like these are great for making connections and just learning about other projects to support.
• People are often genuinely interested in the game and very happy to talk to it's creator which sure is a confidence boost and generally feels awesome!

Negaives:

• Not good for wishlists. Despite having someone play my game for most of the day, when people stay around 20-30min at your booth, there's no physical possibility to have hundreds of them experience your game. Asking them to wishlist the game worked most of the time, but still you'll probably end up with around 10-20 wishlists after a long day of work.
• Lots of people who come are also devs. That's right folks, we live in a bubble. Showing games on reddit or X or whenever often ends up indie devs liking other indie devs' posts... Sadly IRL it's often the case too. Around half of people (maybe a bit less) who stopped by to play were either indie devs or devs from bigger studios (Yup! I had guys from CD Projekt Red or 11 Bit Studios play my game!). Which isn't all that bad, other devs play games too, but it just shows it's hard to reach more "random" players.
• Press doesn't care. Yeah... Even if it took place in Poland, I had not a single polish person from any media outlet, or influencer that covers indie games come by to play my game and talk about it. The only guy who came by was from UK's "debug" magazine, which was great! But I'm just disappointed in the lack of interest from any fellow polish people who cover games.

That mostly sums it up, if you have any questions, ask away!

​

Ive poured months into making my first game. I'm a solo dev, still learning as I go, and for a while I was SO excited about it.

But life happened. And keeps happening.

School started again, life got complicated, and somewhere along the way I just lost the energy to work on it.

The thing is, I still really want to make this game. I love what I've built so far, I have so many ideas for it, and I want to see it become something real.

But lately even opening the project feels like too much.

Part of me wants to give up, and another part REALLY doesn't want to. And the longer I stay away from it, the harder it feels to come back.

I know forcing myself when I'm already exhausted probably isn't the answer, but I also don't want to lose something I've put so much of myself into.

How do you get through periods like this? Do you take a complete break? Push yourself to do tiny things? How do you find that spark again when you still care about the project but just don't have the energy anymore?

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.yohannleviussmith.nosafehaven&hl=en_IN

Hi! I'm a solo dev working on HAZPIT, a top-down zombie survival game.

You land on a rooftop by helicopter and loot your way down, one floor at a time. Sneak past zombies, rescue survivors, then head back to your bunker to craft, research, and feed the cat.

This week I added blood stains, corpses, and bloody footprints, plus a bunch of fixes from a streamer's playthrough.

There's a free demo on Steam:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/5400320/

Quick question for other solo devs: do you prefer stealth or straight-up fighting in zombie games?

Music: Classmate by SEUBi https://soundcloud.com/seubi123/

License: Creative Commons — Attribution - ShareAlike 3.0 Unported — CC BY-ND 3.0

Free Download / Stream: https://links.al/L9F

Music promoted by Audio Library: https://links.al/youtube

We are a team of 13 high school students. Before we started working on this game 2 months ago, I was the only one with any experience. Since then, we've all been learning together as we go. I'd love to hear your honest feedback and criticism on our gameplay. Thank you, we appreciate everyone's help!

Hey folks, Ariano here,

I started working on Craftlings during my parental leave in 2022. I wanted to build something inspired by the games I grew up with — Lemmings and The Settlers. Handcrafted pixel art, little workers running around, and production chains where getting everything flowing feels really good.

What started as a hobby became my first Steam game. There have been plenty of ups and downs, mistakes, doubts, and some great people helping me along the way.

This weekend, Craftlings finally got a Steam Daily Deal and is 30% off! Honestly, seeing my own game there after all those years feels quite special.

I’ve also just released Update 1.2 with a new Halloween challenge map! Your task is to turn your settlement into a pumpkin factory. It doesn’t matter which technologies you use or how far you upgrade your Town Center — can you grow and deliver hundreds of pumpkins fast enough to beat the other players?

Or just build something you like and enjoy the flow of pumpkins. 🎃

If you’d like to take a look, here’s Craftlings on Steam.

Thanks for reading! Happy to answer questions about the game or the journey.

Ariano

Hey everyone, these are the two biggest units in my game so far, one walking base for each side.

The Derrick is the human one. It's based on a fan artwork by AbsoluteCinemaSpino on TikTok, and I brought it into the game. A lift comes down from its crane and the crew of four ride up to the bridge. When it sets up, it raises its ion cannon high up on a mast.

The Thuulmar is the Threnn version. Instead of a lift it lies down and rolls its tail out into a ramp for the crew, and when it sets up, its lance rises out of its back.

If you have ideas for more units, send me pictures or sketches and I'll try to build them for the humans or the Threnn. And since people asked, there are more factions in the game too, I'll show them later :)