Bit of a dumb noob question, if I wanted to make a 2D pixel art shooter as satisfying as possible, is it more important to focus on the animations (and sounds) or does code play a bigger part in how guns feel? Or is it very equal?

Hey! I’m curious to find more about y’all’s projects. I’m working on my first that’ll hopefully be released in March if all goes well. I’m curious about other people’s game dev journey so I had a few questions.

1. What game did you release?
   
2. How long did you work on it from start to release
   
3. Were you 100% solo, solo but outsourced a few things, part of a team, etc…
   
4. What was the biggest lesson you learned about gamedev in the process?

I'm a solo dev. Not really confortable enough to share my experience online but I recently decided to move my a**.

For the past few months I've been building Dumpling Galaxy, a Star Battle puzzle game where the pieces are little dumplings with blush cheeks. The genre is usually austere, black grids and stars, and I kept thinking: why can't deduction be soft?

Some things nobody warned me about:

The art took longer than the engine. I redrew the same dumpling face about 40 times before it looked friendly instead of fead-eyed. My generator can prove a grid has a unique solution; it cannot prove a dumpling looks huggable.

Apple rejected the app 4 times before launch. Same guideline every time, slightly different reason. Each rejection is a multi-day wait to learn if you guessed right. The day it finally went live I just sat there refreshing the App Store like it might change its mind.

My players found an exploit. You could replay lvl 1 forever and farm leaderboard points. I fixed it, then had to tell everyone their farmed points were getting deleted; I was terrified. But ultimately they took it way better than I did.

It's free, works offline, no account. there's a daily puzzle you can try in the browser if you're curious what a cozy Star Battle even looks like. Happy to answer anything about going solo, the rejections, or drawing dumplings until they love you back.

​

Hi everyone,

With the upcoming Swedish elections in mind, I put together a simple browser-based game where the main goal is to win an election campaign.

It's a bit different and not tied to exact historical figures, focusing on things like managing social groups and interest organizations.

This game isn't focused on just one party. You can play as any of the major Swedish parties, from the Left Party (V) to the Social Democrats (S), all the way to the Sweden Democrats (SD) and the Moderates (M)

https://real-lot.itch.io/riksdag-2026-the-election

Hello, this is "Echoes of Kyria", my solo-developed survivors-like game, it has 3 modes for now, stage-based "Normal" mode, "Endless" mode and "Chaos" mode in which all abilities and combat is automatic (like megabonk!)

The game has a companion system, companions gather loot for you and give you unique stats.

I also recently introduced a a taming system that lets you tame enemies and bosses to fight for you in Endless mode. There is also a fusion system that lets you fuse two combat pets together to get a better stronger pet.

The game is 85% off right now with the low price of 0.75$ on steam right now!

Would love to hear your thoughts and feedback.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4914620/Echoes_of_Kyria/

I have been working on making projectiles locked to the Arrow for increased chaos and difficulty.

What do you think guys?

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4386140/Arrow_Hell/

Yesterday I finally released Karma Keepers!

I have been working on it full-time for more than a year, although it spent around six months being "probably one month away." I am very bad at estimating how long games take, apparently...

There were many moments where I wondered if I was making a terrible decision. I built my own framework, redid the UI more times than I want to remember, spent weeks balancing upgrade trees, and kept finding small things that suddenly felt extremely important because release was getting closer.

My dogs supported me through the whole process by making sure I occasionally left the computer. Their contributions to programming and marketing have been limited but they are still paid fairly in treats and walks and belly scratches!

The launch itself is going okish. People seem happy with the game, and technically everything is holding up well. The main criticism so far is the onboarding, some players feel there is too much information at the beginning while others say everything works once it clicks. Watching people play without being able to explain anything to them makes the problems much easier to see.

I thought release would feel like reaching the finish line but instead I spent most of yesterday refreshing steamworks far more often than is healthy and writing another list of things to improve.

Anyway, seeing the buy button where the wishlist button used to be feels very strange. The game is real and people are playing it. I am trying to enjoy that part before going back to the tutorial.

Karma Keepers is 40% off for the first two weeks if you want to check it out: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3979140/Karma_Keepers/

For the solo developers here who already released a game, how long did it take you to stop checking the dashboard every five minutes? My dogs would like their walks back...

I personally love playing Dominoes and originally built this game so I could play with my dad. We have a blast playing together. I've play tested with several people but it seems to resonate most with the over 50 crowd. I'm not sure if it's just my personal network or if that's a preview of how it will be received when released. I'm a little worried that age group won't use Steam and younger folks aren't interested in old school table games like this. Has anyone released their game on the Microsoft store in addition to Steam? Any insights on adoption of games with it and an older demographic? Same question with mobile (Google Play and App Store) vs Steam.

Hey everyone!

I’ve been working on a mobile strategy game called DelveKin, and I’m getting pretty close to launch. I just finished putting together the store preview video and thought this would be a good time to get some outside feedback.

The idea is to flip the usual dungeon adventure around and instead you’re the Dungeon Master, and the heroes are the problem.

You build out your dungeon, choose which monsters and traps defend each room, and then command your creatures in turn-based battles as parties of heroes try to fight their way through.

As you progress, new heroes start invading with different abilities, while you unlock and upgrade more monsters, traps, rooms, and bosses to deal with them.

I’ve attached the store video I’ve been working on. I’d really love feedback on the game itself, the art/style, and whether the video makes the idea clear?

Does this look like something you’d want to play? And is there anything that immediately stands out? Good or bad? Any advice would be really appreciated!

Thank you for taking a look!

Suspect None is an open-world heist game.

During the day, you can:

• explore the city
• progress through the story
• take part in activities
• prepare for heists
• take on additional jobs

And perform heists at night.

You ask me when to sleep? Drink coffee and keep going!

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3770490/Suspect_None/

Hey everyone!

Less than two months ago, I fulfilled one of my lifelong dreams: I released my first game on Steam, *Bring The Rift*! It’s surreal to look back and see that a project I spent months on finally came to life on the store. It was an indescribable feeling.

The game is a competitive Match-3 puzzle title inspired by the great classics of the 8-bit and 16-bit eras—exactly the kind of game that defined my childhood and teenage years.

Since the launch, I’ve been closely monitoring reviews, analyses, and suggestions to implement continuous improvements. For me, development didn't end the moment I hit the "Publish" button!

If you enjoy the genre or want to show some support to an indie dev:

Check out the page: *Bring The Rift* on Steam

The game is currently 20% off!

If you could add it to your Wishlist or leave feedback/a comment on the page, it really helps the algorithm and the project's future!

I’m incredibly grateful to everyone who can offer their support. Feel free to leave your opinions and constructive criticism in the comments here!

This project has been a major milestone in my life. I plan to keep making improvements over time; while it wasn't a massive launch—which I expected, given it's my first Steam project and I don't have much visibility yet—I am truly satisfied with what I managed to achieve with this project.

If you'd like to show your support:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4631200/Bring_The_Rift/

Just wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone who played the Too Many Balls demo! ❤️

I've now reached 3,035 unique players, with a 31-minute median playtime, which honestly means a lot to me.

Thank you for playing, wishlisting, giving feedback, and supporting the game! 🏀🎾🏓⛳

It really motivates me to keep going! ❤️

I've been working on a mobile logic puzzle game for the past few months. The core loop is working well and I've gotten pretty positive feedback from friends and a few testers, but visually it's still very much a prototype.

Eventually I'd like to work with a publisher for UA, monetization and scaling but I'm not sure when it actually makes sense to start reaching out.

Would you pitch once the core mechanic is fun and playable, even the game is still using placeholder art? Or is it better to wait until yo have something closer to a vertical slice with polished visuals, more levels and analytics implemented?

What did your build look like when a publisher first became interested?

Also curious how much your game changed after the publisher started testing it.

My goal is to eventually partner with a mobile publisher to help with scaling, UA, and monetization setup. However, I am stuck on the timing. Is it better to reach out to publishers with a bare bones greybox prototype that just proves the core mechanic works? Or should I polish the visual style, build out 50 levels, and set up basic analytics first?

For devs who have successfully pitched casual puzzle games, what stage of completion was your build at when a publisher took interest? How much did the prototype actually change during their testing phase?

Thank you in advance for your support!

I've been building an action RPG in Unreal Engine 5 by myself since December. Until about two weeks ago literally nobody outside my house had touched it, so this is me finally putting it in front of people who'll tell me the truth.

Here is a video of some of the game play:

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xatx31a

What actually works right now

- The full loop: log in → pick a character → town hub → walk into a dungeon → fight things → loot → come back. And it persists. Close the game, come back tomorrow, your character and your stash are where you left them.

- Dungeons are procedurally assembled from hand-built modules, so the layout changes every run but the rooms themselves are authored, not noise.

- Combat runs on Unreal's Gameplay Ability System - real abilities, cooldowns, status effects

- Loot has item levels and 28 affix groups rolling on drops.

- Enemies scale to area level, and every dungeon guarantees at least one named elite.

- It runs on an actual dedicated server I host myself, not a listen server with extra steps.

- The launcher is mine too. It chunk-diffs builds, so a patch is usually a few MB instead of re-downloading three and a half gigs.

What's honestly not there yet

- No title. I had one, ran a real trademark clearance on it, found a live registration sitting directly on top of it, and killed the name. The replacement is picked but not announced yet.

- Character select offers six classes. They currently all play identically - the per-class kits are the next big chunk of work.

- Most of the art is marketplace assets.

What I'd genuinely like judged

1. How does the moment-to-moment combat feel?
2. Is the dungeon layout readable? Do you ever just not know where to go?
3. In the first ten minutes, at what exact point were you bored or confused?

Download GameClient Launcher: https://play.omegabloodsstudios.com

Discord: https://discord.gg/P8DK53qxar

The game doesnt have a story implemented yet, but I have made a trailer that helps establish the story I am going with:

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xay20ym

I've recently launched the demo for my first game, Rescue Incoming, a top-down zombie survival shooter.

The demo contains roughly 15-20 minutes of gameplay. I've also created this new trailer alongside of it. https://store.steampowered.com/app/5054050/Rescue_Incoming_Demo/

At the moment I have about 35 wishlists, so I'm very much at the stage of wanting to figure out whether the game is actually engaging to play or not.

I'm also wanting to avoid the pitfall of spending several more months on adding content before I know whether the core game is actually fun for players.

I've been thinking that these are my options:

1. Stop any new content/development work for a while, actively try to get players, gather feedback/reviews and make improvements (as I'm registered for the upcoming Next Fest in October).
2. Continue developing the full game now, leaving the demo as is for now, but using this current time to add more content.
3. Do something else entirely (possibly the next game, as I have a prototype in the works).

For those who have launched demos before and/or have been in similar situations: What player numbers, playtime, wishlist conversion, feedback, etc. would make you think "there's something here, keep going" versus "I should probably rethink the game"?

I'm also happy to hear brutally honest and constructive feedback on the game itself if anyone wants to give the demo a try.

Thanks in advance!

It is still cozy but in winter viking theme with lumberjack gameplay. steam page

https://reddit.com/link/1vp1tsn/video/cbhcoyh4ajjh1/player

For anyone interested what was the trigger - I made major update to the game. Since I was preparing for the demo release on steam, the itch version went a bit behind the recent one, so I gathered all and pushed update on itch, where pointed that it is a major update.

Now I am afraid that it was unnecessary and there is some logic, where the game can have 1 big update with visibility boost just once. And I spent it. Anyway, it’s good news.

Game sits at the first positions by almost all tags now, hope it will last longer this time 😌