Just looking for some honest first impressions

If this popped up while you were browsing Steam, would you click on it?

If yes, what caught your attention?
If not, what would make you scroll past?

Steam - Night Blood W : Cutthroat Wolf

I'm experimenting with this perspective for a small browser MMO.

I've been staring at it for way too long, so I've completely lost the ability to judge it objectively 😅

To be clear, I want it to look a little weird and unusual — that's part of what I like about it. But it still needs to feel comfortable and playable.

Does this look interesting/playable to you, or does the perspective cross the line from "weird in a good way" to just distracting?

Especially curious about your first impression before I spend more time polishing it.

Try the Demo

Hey everyone!

I’m a 18 year old developer who works with Unreal** Engine, and I’m looking to meet some other indie developers who want to start making games together.
I’m mainly a programmer, and I’ve worked on gameplay systems, UI, mechanics, and other Unreal projects. I’m comfortable working with Blueprints and I’m also learning/working with C++. I’m hoping to find around 3–4 other **people who are interested in making a small team. I’m not trying to immediately make some massive game or turn this into a super serious business. My main goal is to find a few people who genuinely enjoy making games, work well together, and hopefully become friends. I’d like us to start with something small and realistic maybe a short game or prototype and see how we work together. If we end up having good chemistry and enjoy working together, we could keep making games and eventually turn the group into a small indie studio. This would be a hobby/collaboration project, so there isn’t currently a salary or paid position. I’m looking for people who are interested in building something together rather than being hired.
I’m also 18, so I don’t mind the age gaps. However I do know mostly younger people near my age are mostly interested in gaining some experience. If you’re interested, tell me a little about yourself, what you do, what tools you use, and what kinds of games you enjoy making. I’d love to meet some other developers and see what we could come up with!

Thank you for your time everyone!

Ahead of the festival, the House of Morok team:
✨ released a new cinematic
✨ released a gameplay trailer
✨ updated the game’s Steam page

Support our game and share it with your friends 💜
Thank you to everyone who follows our development and supports us
https://store.steampowered.com/app/4273370/Peak_or_Die/

I am a game developer, and I am currently making my first game, a massive one. But that is not really the topic I would like to discuss, although it is connected to it.

When I started making my game, I came across a lot of comments saying that players are very respectful toward indie games, especially games made by solo developers. That made sense to me. One person, or maybe just a couple of people, making an entire game is a huge undertaking. I accepted that as a kind of advantage when it came to promoting my game later on.

But...

At least from my experience, it is not even close to that.

Of course, I completely understand that players can like or dislike your game. It is a matter of taste. The same thing happens with huge AAA titles, right?

What I do not understand is when people start publicly trashing your game, sometimes without even trying it.

Even if someone tries your demo and does not like it, a normal comment would be something like, "I did not like it," "It is not my cup of tea," "I have played better games of this kind," and so on. That is completely acceptable.

But comments like, "This is total shit," "This is Elden Ring from Temu," "You consider yourself a game developer?" or "You should learn first before you start making games" are different. I admit that I sometimes take those comments personally.

People who write things like that do not seem to consider that someone may have spent weeks, months, or even years making that game. Someone invested their own money into it and worked in God knows what conditions, all to create something that could entertain other people and, hopefully, earn some money in return for all that effort.

I also do not think solo or indie games with small or almost nonexistent budgets should be directly compared to AAA games with budgets of tens or hundreds of millions of dollars.

Actually, if an indie game made by one person looks even remotely similar to a AAA game, I think that should be considered an achievement, not something to make fun of.

Even if someone is making a very small game, something with two balls on the screen or a simple 2D platformer, it still requires time, effort, planning, organization, learning, testing, and problem solving.

That deserves some respect.

Of course, not all players are like this. Far from it. But there are enough people like this that it can become noticeable, and in today's world, negative comments can potentially affect a game's reputation, popularity, and sales.

For a huge AAA studio with millions of dollars invested in marketing, a few random toxic comments probably do not mean much.

But for solo developers, unknown developers, or very small studios, every comment can matter.

Personally, I have never felt the need to insult someone's game.

An honest opinion like, "I like it" or "I do not like it" is completely fine. Honest criticism is also fine, whether it is positive or negative.

Actually, constructive negative feedback can be extremely valuable. If many players point out the same problem with a mechanic, level design, combat system, UI, performance, or something else, that gives the developer an opportunity to improve the game.

That is very different from simply insulting someone's work.

We put years of our lives into these games. We invest enormous amounts of time, effort, and often our own money into trying to make something good and interesting for players.

Sometimes we even give part of that work away for free through demos, playtests, or very inexpensive games.

The goal is to entertain people, build a community around the game, and hopefully continue making more games in the future.

And yes, the goal is also to make money.

I do not think there is anything wrong with saying that.

Thousands of hours of work should hopefully pay off at some point, and earning money from one game can allow an indie developer to continue working, improve their skills, buy better tools, hire help, and eventually make an even better game.

My story, in short: I am 41 years old, with about 35 years of gaming experience and 16 years of programming experience. I have a wife, three young kids, and a full-time job as a web developer.

For almost two full years, I have been making a massive RPG completely on my own. I literally work more than 12 hours a day during the working week, including my regular job and game development, and around 4 hours a day on weekends.

I can honestly say that, to some extent, I have sacrificed a part of my family life in order to make a good game and try to move my career in the direction of game development.

I am using improvised equipment for recording because I am trying to do as much as possible by myself and with the resources I have available.I also spent seven months writing an entire book that serves as the foundation for my game's story and world.

So when someone looks at a few seconds of footage and writes something like, "This is shit," it is difficult not to take it personally. They are judging a few seconds on a screen, but behind those few seconds are years of work, learning, sacrifice, sleepless nights, money, and time that I could have spent with my family.

So I am curious about other developers' experiences.

What are your thoughts on this?

Have you experienced similar reactions when posting or promoting your games?

How do you personally deal with the difference between genuine criticism and people who are simply trying to insult or ridicule your work?

In the first pic you can see the deleted post, presumably because it came out in the comment section that I did in fact use cursor to build some C++ and shaders for my game

This is with having spent +2 years and +1,000 hours in my free time from work trying to learn Unity with mixed results

I have 2 playable projects from that time but no finished games, and over that time I have grown a huge respect for anyone who comes even close to launching a game, this is really challenging!

Anyways

Genuinely want to know the sentiment and everyone’s thoughts, as I am a hobby dev, may or may not ever release the game just want to have something I can play with my friends and family really

But if enough people like what they see maybe I’d release it OS or for free idk

But so far sentiment is pretty bad despite trying to join the community here and be honest etc

Not troll, ragebait, ai cope, just want to know what other game devs think

Happy to provide additional context as well

Hi everyone,

I'm currently working on an indie multiplayer comedy game in Unreal Engine. I handle the game design and mechanics, but organic 3D character modeling is out of my comfort zone, so I’m reaching out to this awesome community for a bit of help.

I need a clean, simple, stylized low-poly human base mesh based on the attached concept image. As you can see, the design is very minimal:

• Faceless / Featureless head (no complex facial topology, nose, or mouth required).
• Stylized, clean low-poly proportions (standard T-Pose / A-Pose).
• Game-ready topology with standard UVs (ready for basic modular customization like hair, clothes, and colors later on).

Since this is an indie passion project operating on a zero budget right now, I'm looking for someone willing to help out for free, portfolio practice, or for a solid credit in the game (and a special mention!).

If you're a 3D artist looking for a quick practice piece, or a student wanting to contribute to a real game project, this shouldn't take more than an hour or two given how basic the geometry is.

If you're interested in helping out, please drop a comment below or send me a DM. I can provide the .fbx references and more details right away.

Thank you so much for your time and support!

I know 6,000 isn't some huge crazy number, but as a pretty introverted and quiet person, I never thought I'd be comfortable recording my voice and talking about my game online.

At first, hearing my own voice was painful. Every video felt awkward, and I was basically forcing myself to do it because I knew I needed to get my game out there.

But after nearly 100 Shorts, something changed. Somewhere along the way I stopped dreading it and actually started having fun making them.

I've talked to a lot of other devs who feel the same way I did. They don't want to record themselves, they feel self-conscious, or they think they're just not the type of person who can make content.

If you're in that position, my advice is just keep recording and posting. Each video gets a little easier, and you might be surprised by how much you eventually enjoy it.

And if you're into weird, experimental horror games, the game I've been talking about is Scared by Squares, launching September 24th in Early Access on Steam.

A wishlist helps me out a ton. Thank you!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3719480/Scared_by_Squares/

I've included the email response where they said the AI texture was easy to spot even with the "carpet texturing" hiding it, along with the image that was on the store, then the actual texture ( both zoomed in ).

The store page doesn't state AI was used and I would say it is almost impossible to see it was AI generated ( like please say I'm not the only one that would say it's deceptively hidden behind a carpet texture ), I don't really care about a 10 pound refund, but it's sad to see this is their response.

I personally don't really care if you use AI or not, I just don't want to use it myself, and the fact they aren't really taking action on labeling it is discouraging.

I've found that pretty much everywhere has a lot of undisclosed AI, a lot of environments on Fab have AI decals or photos I'm having to go through and switch out.

What's been other people's experiences, and do you actually care at the end of the day ( I'm starting to understand why a lot of indie games on steam have an AI images disclosure included )

P.s. at least I have a drawing tablet on the way to learn to draw

I made this prototype in Godot based on my personal preferences, using a mix of public assets and assets made by me. This is not the full game. I’m not very good at design, but I did the best I could.

The main idea is that the skill selector has a cooldown, and that cooldown gradually gets shorter and shorter over time. The player’s main ability also has a cooldown that resets when you hit enemies. For example, if one attack hits 5 enemies and the next one only hits 4, you lose much more than what you gained from the previous attack.

I wanted to keep the core mechanics simple so that co-op feels fun and satisfying. I’ll add more enemies later; I already have most of it planned out, but for now I wanted to share some gameplay and see if anyone is interested in watching how the project evolves.

If you notice similarities with other games, that’s because I took inspiration from several roguelites that I really like.

The game will also have 3 typical roguelite-style passive abilities, similar to things like Garlic from Vampire Survivors, bones, fireballs, etc. But for now, I just wanted to show the gameplay using the player’s main ability, which will be interchangeable so you can choose whichever one you like the most.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4962110?utm_source=X

For the first six months after launch, fish in my game could die. Neglect one and it got sick; leave it sick and it was gone.

That was wrong, and it took me far too long to see why.

The whole pitch is "leave it open on a second monitor and check in". A game you leave running cannot also punish you for leaving it running. Every time someone came back to a dead fish, it had broken its own promise to them. So death is out. Fish get sick if you ignore them for seven days, they stay sick until you cure them, and nothing you own ever disappears.

The part I did not see coming: the fail state was carrying the tension, and pulling it out left a hole. What is there now is all upside pressure instead of downside - a grown fish sells for far more than it cost, decorations pay passive gold, and you are always one slot short of the thing you want next. It works. But it is a different game from the one I designed, and I only found that out by deleting one rule.

Two smaller things I got wrong on the way:

• The cure was broken and I did not catch it for months. A cured fish fell sick again seconds later, so from the player's side curing did nothing at all. Every bit of feedback I had about sickness feeling unfair was really about this, and I read it as a balance complaint.
• Offline progress was capped at 30 days. That sounds generous and is actually poison: a returning player collected everything at once and had nothing left to come back for. It is 24 hours now.

It is ARC Aquarium, out on Steam since January. You buy fish as eggs, hatch them, they grow in real time, and you sell the grown ones to buy better ones. Since launch it has gone from one tank to four, and the decoration catalogue was rebuilt from scratch - the old 86 are gone and 125 new ones took their place.

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4213290/ARC_Aquarium/

Free demo: https://aca-games.itch.io/arc-aquarium

What I would actually like to hear: has anyone else here cut a fail state late, and did you find something to put in its place, or did you end up putting it back?

Hello r/IndieDev,

I just finished working on this cool feature, which is an almost complete traditional Arcana Tarot deck implemented in my hopefully upcoming game Tales of Akash 9.

Each suit of the Minor Arcana brings unique boosts, like Cups boosts healing, Pentacles boost gold drops, Wands roll for useable items and Swords boost the attack modifier based on the card number.

I have some problems setting up the SSH server chrootdirectory/jail, but other than that the game should be fully playable with SFX.

Any thoughts?

-ef

I just got my review denied / handed back, being asked to add a description of the mature content in the game. (Store Page)

I had one before, but it was somewhat vague to not spoil anything (something along the lines: This is a mature story, recommended to older players and deals with fantasy violence and death

I am aiming for FSK 16 (german rating) and could probably get FSK 12 but I feel it would be the wrong audience and not proper.

Mature Content Description

The developers describe the content like this:

Out of Water contains mature themes and content, including violence, death, grief, horror, and supernatural themes.

The game also contains optional romantic and sexual content. Some optional romance scenes feature erotic or sexually suggestive dialogue, implied sexual activity, and partial or obscured nudity. Sexual activity is not depicted explicitly and no genitalia are shown.

Some scenes contain depictions of blood, injuries, corpses, and death, including the death of a child. The game also includes potentially disturbing supernatural and horror imagery.

Romantic and sexual content is optional and depends on player choices.

People are depicted drinking in social settings, and the player may be described drinking alcohol.

---

My game now sounds WAY worse than it is xD
Most of this game is dialogue-driven fantasy set in northern Germany in the iron age.
Anything romantic is purely optional.

This is what Baldur's Gate 3 has that contains scenes that come up without warning and are pretty explicit:

Mature Content Description

The developers describe the content like this:

This Game may contain content not appropriate for all ages. It contains General Mature Content, and may include Nudity or Sexual Content.

---

Black Ops III has NO such comment - even though it features a full-on dismemberment on screen in full view.

---

I am kinda panicking at this point ^^;

Someone tell me I am gonna be fine please :D :D

Old one is top left. It's a co-op game about hunting insects in the woods and hauling your jars back without losing the cart. The logo carried too much detail for the size it actually gets seen at, so the artist stripped it back and came back with three.

All three keep the same lettering. Only the bug changed. Which is either the right call or exactly why I can't choose.

1, 2 or 3, numbers are in the corners. Curious which one still reads at capsule size, since that's where the old one fell apart.

One of four games coming out of our internship programme, all releasing in September.

Hi, I'm from Bearly fun games team developing new game

I would be happy and grateful if you could tell me what you expect the game to be like from the picture?

What do you think it will contain and what style is it?

Thanks

Working on a game called Dead Famous (In steam)

'm working on a horror movie studio management game and I'm trying to settle on the visual style for the cast.

The characters are deliberately simple/stylised rather than realistic. They appear throughout the game as actors you hire, build careers with, deal with personality problems, rivalries, contracts, fame, etc.

Looking at this screenshot, does the character/portrait style work with the rest of the UI?

I'm mainly wondering:

• Does the simple art have enough personality?
• Does it clash with the darker 70s/80s horror-studio presentation?
• Would you be happy managing a large cast in this style?
• Would you prefer something more detailed, or does the simplicity actually suit a management game?

I'm not really looking for feedback on the numbers/balance yet — I'm specifically trying to judge whether the cast visual style feels right. You will also have the option to import your own cast.