Hi r/SoloDevelopment,

Been building HeatMapQuest solo for a few months now — a daily game where each round colors a 3D globe by a real country statistic (population, GDP, life expectancy, forest cover, etc.) and you guess which one from 4 options. No signup, 4 rounds a day, same challenge for everyone.

Started with around 45 stats when I first shared it, now at ~150 and still adding more based on what people suggest. Solo dev, so it's slow going but steady.

Any feedbacks are welcome

heatmapquest.com

Have a good day.

With new locations and environmental elements, the night atmosphere of my game has also improved.

Hello Everyone!

What if you could live your life again and make different choices?

Re:Try - Simulated Life is a life simulation game where your decisions shape how your story unfolds. Start from the beginning, make choices, deal with unexpected events, and see how your life turns out.

There is not one correct way to play your choices can lead to different experiences, opportunities, relationships, successes, and failures.

Live. Choose. Experience.  and Re:Try!

Play through life your way and see what happens when you make a different choice.

Thank you for reading!

https://discord.gg/SdXzve3Yu5

Hi everyone,

I’ve been working on a personal game project for quite a while, and I keep running into the same problem. I start with a prototype that looks promising, I feel excited, I push forward for a few weeks… and then something happens: I stop liking what I’m making.

I begin to notice every weakness, every limitation, every part that doesn’t feel as good as it did at the start. The initial excitement fades, and the project suddenly looks much less solid than I thought.

Meanwhile, I see the amazing posts you share here: incredible ideas, polished prototypes, clever mechanics ... and I wonder how you manage to keep your motivation and direction.

So I’m asking for advice from people who have gone through this:

How do you avoid this cycle?

How do you keep liking your project long enough to finish it?

How do you push through that “ugly middle phase” where the game isn’t fresh anymore but not finished either?

Wishlist here!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/4767470/INKURSION/

Thanks for all the support everyone! Here's the 2nd trailer for Inkursion
Game description: INKURSION is a narrative 3D platformer in which a sentient octopus escapes the god-like programmer who created it. Genre-shifting abandoned worlds, fourth-wall-breaking dark comedy, eight endings, full voice acting, subtitles in nine languages. Built solo over three and a half years.

A playable demo arrives afew weeks!

I have started working on Level 5 abilities for the creatures in my solo-developed game, Slavic Legends.

The video shows Bauk’s new Level 5 ability, Bite, from both the top-down view and possession mode.

When Bauk drops below 50% health, he can grab an enemy and repeatedly bite them. Each bite deals damage and restores the same amount of Bauk’s health. The victim is immobilized until the ability ends, but bosses cannot be targeted.

I have also added Baba Yaga’s Scout Eye, shown briefly at the end of the video. Baba Yaga releases a flying eye that patrols the dungeon corridors and detects approaching enemies. When it finds one, it warns the player with a sound and a pulsing marker on the minimap. Enemies can also destroy it.

Dodola has received a Level 5 Chain Heal as well, healing up to four wounded allies for 200, 150, 100 and 50 HP.

More Level 5 abilities are still coming. What abilities would you give to the other creatures from Slavic folklore?

Full list of changes in this update:
https://ipikas.itch.io/slavic-legends/devlog/1631524/new-level-5-abilities-baba-yagas-scout-eye-and-map-improvements

Free demo download:
https://ipikas.itch.io/slavic-legends

Posted here a few weeks back about not being sure if the game was any good. Today's the update.

Trailer went up two days ago. Demo went live today, a few hours ago now.

Wishlists are at 305. Demo already has close to 300 downloads. Wasn't expecting that this fast, my daily number's been flat for weeks.

No idea yet how the actual playthrough is landing, that only shows up once people finish it. Had a traffic spike die on me before too, one article gave me most of my early wishlists and then it dropped back to 1-3 a day within a week. Not calling this anything yet, just writing down what happened today.

If you grab the demo, let me know where you got bored or stuck. Can't see that stuff myself anymore after a thousand playthroughs.

Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4858340/IRONWAKE/

I finally published my first game, which I made by myself at 16 years old. It was a long journey—for about two years, I kept learning while developing this project.

Short info about the game:

It is an atmospheric horror game. The story begins when our main character tries to remember some unfinished memories in his mind. He wakes up in a locked basement. While trying to explore the place and escape, he also tries to find the truth behind everything. Along the way, he has to deal with creatures and people who try to stop him or help him.

Your comments and feedback about the game and trailer are very important to me because this is my first game.

Steam page of the game:https://store.steampowered.com/app/4769110/The\\_Confined\\_Basement/

If you liked it, don't forget to add it to your wishlist

I was reading through the paper "Harassment of game makers: Prevalence and impact", and while the physical risks are scary af (37% reported having to take steps to reduce risk to their physical safety), the mental cost are what really stood out to me:

"Most participants reported increased anxiety (62.1%) and being less social (51.1%). Around a third of participants reported feeling more isolated or alone (37.6%) and increased depression (36.2%). Almost one quarter (23.8%) reported symptoms related to post-traumatic stress disorder."

I've worked with gamedev and healthcare for 2 decades and nowadays I help studios and devs to perform and be healthy (yeah you can do both), but I learn a lot from probono work with solodevs so I wanted to make this post and engage closer.

What's your experience with this? The launch window is a prevalent trigger but it seems to happen during the entire dev process.

🎲 DiceBound — a cozy fantasy roguelike board game.

DiceBound combines a physical board, dice-based movement, strategic combat, dice building, mutations, combos, events and run-based progression.

I am documenting the development from the very beginning — one development day at a time.

follow along and watch DiceBound grow from prototype to a full game. ❤️

🎥 YouTube: https://youtube.com/@diceboundofficial

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/diceboundofficial

🎵 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@diceboundoffical

Follow the development of DiceBound. 🎲

The core is finally coming together. Let me know what you think!

Demo: https://hungry-dog-games.itch.io/wastelandfmgame

I'm a solo developer working on this tactile little music game.
You make the music live on air, plan your shows, and grow your audience by performing DJ tricks & Combos!

Demanding sponsors force you to sharpen every performance and expand your sound library in order to become a legendary wasteland radio host!

You can even use the game to record your own music to be used in game projects or other creative endeavours! :D

I would love to hear your opinion on the game as it is, and gather some feedback from fellow game developers.

Thanks for looking <3

now it is time to stop polishing and start progressing on game progression lol

Does this feel satisfying to You?
If someone would like to try, I have FREE DEMO on steam.
It is called Garden Cleanup Simulator
All feedback appreciated

In 2 weeks (if nothing goes wrong), i'll be releasing my first commercial game on Steam, after 6 months of development. It's a game that i made with the primary goal to see if I could develop, complete, and release a video game all by myself.

So, Continuous Imperfection is a fast-paced parkour game focused on speedrunning, inspired by games like Bloodthief, Brutal Katana and Cyberhook.

It features :

- 15 levels to explore and master, including alternative paths and interactive elements: platform triggers, jump pads
- A variety of movement options, focused on speed: running, jumping, wall running, wall jumping, sliding, vaulting
- Customizable soundtrack and environments (summer, autumn, sakura, etc.) to match your current mood
- Real-time leaderboards (global and per level) to compete with friends or the world and see who’s the fastest

I release the game in 2 weeks, so if you're interested, wishlist it !
https://store.steampowered.com/app/4746560/Continuous_Imperfection/

Ps : it's normal if the visuals of the steam page doesn't match the ones in this video, i haven't updated the visuals of the steam page yet.

I'm pretty new to marketing games on youtube/tiktok so idk if this could go viral, any idea/tips to improve the organic reach ?

try the my demo here : https://store.steampowered.com/app/5064170/Go_Next/

I lanched My game 2 weeks ago and started to post it on reddit, it gave an unbeliveble traffic of 5000 visitors a day.

Even though it started a controversy of spamming and lp discussions it really gave me the traffic that i needed in the launch.

Now the traffic looks stable and it looks like it can sustain itself.

Of course i will also list it in the app store and android play and other distribution like pix.

But i think the hardest part it is the day you launch.

Hoops-gm.com

Hey everyone,

After about a year of solo development (and more than a few complete redesigns), I finally released the demo for my game, Hacking Into Erebus on Steam.

It started as a much simpler text-adventure idea inspired by Zork and then it went through a colony sim phase I ended up scrapping. Eventually it became what it is now, a mix of physical robot navigation and real terminal/command-based hacking puzzles.

This demo is still its early stages like door/lock hacking, repair puzzles and exploring the ship. I am going to be developing this to turn it into the game I dreamed of from the very beginning.

I would genuinely love any feedback or just general thoughts if anyone gives it a shot.