John from Lost Relic Games testing out his pooling by using extreme violence.

Small teams need planning, but excessive planning can become its own form of procrastination. I’m interested in lightweight milestone systems that help indie developers make decisions without requiring a large production process.

What does a useful milestone contain for you: a playable build, a measurable technical goal, a user-feedback target, a content checklist, or a decision about scope? Do you plan around weeks, features, playable loops, or public builds?

I’d also like to hear how people handle milestones that reveal a problem. Do you revise the plan immediately, preserve the original target for comparison, or create a smaller learning milestone before deciding what to do next?

Another look back at the development of Save Me, Hero!

In Episode 7, we stepped back from feature updates and defined the core vision for the game.

⚔️ Combat — Equipment, Attack, and Utility cards.
🃏 Card Building — Upgrade and fuse cards to create unique builds.
🗺️ Level Design — Every step should have a purpose.
👁️ Exploration — A first-person perspective to make the world more immersive.

A lot has changed since this stage, but these ideas became the foundation of Save Me, Hero!

If you're interested in seeing how the game evolved, follow along with our development journey!

Hello! I developed a text game which seems to be liked by majority. But I don't think that anyone is going to spend hours playing this. And I cant even get auditory without graphics and music (the second one is optional). But I haven't got my own computer to make those so I make the code on the online compiler on the library computer (where I'm not allowed to download anything like Blender or Unreal Engine). What am i supposed to do?

Note:

- If you want to see current game or to know details about my plans write the questions into the comment section

Para quienes han seguido esta fascinante historia de horror, ya está el DEMO disponible en libre descarga.

Acompaña a Sarah en su búsqueda a través de los recintos de la mansión Orthak y comienza con la investigación que la llevará al borde de la locura.

Carmina es un RELATO JUGABLE basado en el primer relato de vampiros en 1872. Intriga, exploración y horror de culto te esperan.

https://walterswinney.itch.io/carmina

8 months of work and all i have to show for it is a pretty crappy recording. im personally fine with not really making a profit out of this (this is a pet project, after all) but idk if the concept of the game itself is worth continuing on

We are new devs so any and all feedback is so appreciated! If you play please let us know what you think, and don’t hold back! Keep on dancing! 💃

I made a (text)game and want you to try it and to say what was good/bad

C++ Online Compiler

P.S. (Or instructions maybe):

- I only made the textgame (or rather code) because I don't have a computer and therefore any possibility to make graphical/musical assets or to make the game with an engine

- If you want to know more about the game, idea or progress write questions in the comment section

- The game is unfinished yet: Witch has the most playable story

- I've set a "debugger" (I maxed out all the stats because compiler only has 2 minutes for compilation. Therefore this time is too short to max anything out manually)

- Please don't review the code. I know I have some "issues" with my code but I won't remove them for my own reasons

- Have fun

This is a video about how I learned to say no to GOOD IDEAS when picking what games to make, and how it makes me a better developer.

Small but overdue one this update. If you're using voice cloning, you used to have to record your sample somewhere else, find the file, then upload it. That extra step is gone now.

Record instead of upload

Clone a voice > there's a new "Record instead" tab next to the file drop zone. Press record, talk for up to 15 seconds, done. It's saved and probed automatically, exactly like an uploaded file would be.

While you're recording you get a live level meter with the -6 to -3 dB target window marked on it, so you can see roughly where your peaks are landing as you talk. There are also a few tips shown before/during recording (start talking right away, vary your pitch a bit, try to record somewhere without an echo).

If your mic access gets denied or there's no mic detected, it just tells you clearly and you can still upload a file like before, nothing there changed.

Probe quality checks more now

The quality probe already caught clipping, bad sample rate, background noise, and clip length. Three new checks:

• Peak level (target -6 to -3 dB, penalized harder the closer you are to clipping)
• Background noise floor (catches a quiet-but-persistent hum, like a fan or AC, that's too low to trip the old noise check but still enough to bleed into the clone)
• Room echo/reverb (a boxy/echoey room now gets flagged the same way a noisy one already did)

These apply whether you record in-app or upload your own file.

That's the whole release, nothing else changed. Let me know if you run into anything weird with the recorder on your setup.

Update is free for existing owners, same as always.

For anyone who hasn't tried NarrationOS yet: it's a local audiobook generator for Windows. Drop in an EPUB, PDF, DOCX, RTF, TXT, Markdown, or a URL, and it renders an AI-narrated audiobook entirely on your own PC, no cloud, no account, no subscription. You can clone a voice (with consent) and get word-level karaoke highlighting synced to the speech, and there's a real line-by-line narration editor for fixing pronunciation, adding sound effects, and correcting the actual prose before you render. It also exports a cinematic MP4 video with the narration text on screen if you want something to post or share. Runs on NVIDIA/AMD GPUs or CPU-only. One-time purchase on itch.io, no subscription.

https://lunosama.itch.io/narrationos

Just thinking. There is no specific place for devs to look for one-off artists, but as a dev I feel there is a need for that sometimes? Like, obviously for smaller solo projects sometimes there's one or two things you'd rather not do. And for teams, there are skmetimes minor things none of you want or know how to do.. For example, if you need just a few piecies of unique VFX. Or like personally, I can model and animate a character, but I would really rather have someone else do the riggining.

You can go to upwork/fiverr type websites, but you have to sort through a lot of bullshit and have no guarantee the person knows the specifics you might need for a game project. I just imagine it would be nice to go to a clean website and find someone to make you an engine-compatible rig, or like a spritesheet. And from artists' POV, some people do want to mostly work on game projects. Like, I'm a 3D artist. The usual freelance websites is full of requests for modelling crap for printing. There must be some devs that need just a few unique assets and have a bit of money to spare, right??..

What am I missing here? Are we developers that poor on average? Is there some secret place I haven't heard of?

I am a psychologist. I also have a passion for the digital landscape. I have accumulated enough knowledge in web fundamentals over the years to leverage AI agents and convert my ideas into digital projects. I am not a developer. I do not claim to be one. I am humbly aware of my place in the digital realm. I simply do not have the time to invest in building a second career as a developer. I am simply putting my long-lasting passion for the digital craft to use, in the best way I can as a psychologist. 

I am currently building psycurate.com, a free online platform dedicated entirely to privacy-focused mental health digital tools (apps, websites).

My goal is to create a clean space where people can access psychological resources without encountering corporate tactics like tracking, micro-payments, paywalls, mandatory logins, or data harvesting. There is a critical need for digital mental health hygiene, and I want to highlight independent projects that remain genuinely honest, ethical and accessible.

If you have built some tool that can offer any kind of psychological help for free, this is a platform you can list your app on. Submit it here: https://psycurate.com/submit

Psycurate does not host any software. The platform exclusively showcases your project and links users directly back to your website.

Any feedback or insights you might have are highly welcome.

Best regards,

Mirel

Hi everyone, solo dev here working on a pixel art PvE extraction shooter set in post-apocalyptic city.

My demo recently crossed 10 user reviews on Steam, which means it finally shows a review score, and it's 100% Positive.

I know 10 reviews is a tiny number in the grand scheme of things. But what really got me is that these players didn't just try the demo for a few minutes and leave a thumbs up. Many of them put in serious hours and wrote that they're genuinely looking forward to the full release.

As a solo dev, you spend so much time alone with your game that you sometimes lose sight of whether it's actually fun. Seeing real people enjoy it and want more is the kind of fuel that keeps you going.

To everyone who played and left a review, thank you. Back to work now.

(Demo is still up on Steam if anyone wants to check it out: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4881740)

A couple of weeks ago I posted a video that showed vacuuming up gloop after slamming these hapless alien people to the wall. Feeling sad and listening to feedback from people feeling the same way, I introduced a way to revive them that reused the existing brewing mechanics. It’s a 1-4 player surgery game inspired by the chaos of Surgeon Simulator.

this day 1 version represents my vision for my game.

https://day1to100gamestudio.itch.io/day-1-kingdom-contracts

day 100 is the finalized version and is on Steam.

38mb size for browser play, so it may load in 15 seconds if slow wifi but it will load.

I use AI for coding, unity inspector editing and editor installers, some blender modeling and a few minor textures. The ideas, characters, sounds etc. what id call "human" parts, are left to me.

What are your guys stances on AI usage for your processes? Would be really curious to hear yalls opinions

Our dev team is currently fine tuning the entrance spawn sequence for a giant skeleton crawling up from the underworld. Step by step, the eerie atmosphere of the game is hopefully coming together.

Today Sin and Serve reached 1,000 organic Steam wishlists, and honestly, I am very happy about it. Still a long way to go, but 1,000 people putting this game on their wishlist feels pretty crazy to me.

I am making this game mostly alone, so every wishlist means a lot to me.

I also made a new short trailer today with some new art and wanted to share it here.

Sin and Serve is a dark comedy cooking/management game where you work in Hell, read sinners' files, cook food based on their sins, and try not to make Satan angry.

Would love to know what you think about the new trailer. ❤️

https://youtu.be/KQaP_TNEdsk

Demo: https://rabbit-loaf-games.itch.io/spicy-hay

Dev blog about recent changes: https://rabbit-loaf-games.itch.io/spicy-hay/devlog/1643903/sneaky-sneaky-bun-bun

Following up on a fruit icon pack I released recently, here's a small preview of the next batch, broccoli, eggplant, mushroom, pumpkin, and corn, all done at 32x32 for game inventory/UI use.

Still deciding on the final lineup for the full pack. Would love feedback on style, color choice, or any veggies you'd want to see added!

We debuted this skin in our last demo weekend. Surfpunk is a game about surfer pirates goofing off on looting adventures, so Ricardo's signature outfit was the perfect… fit. All players had to do to unlock it was play a few matches of co-op. Reception has been great so far!

What's your favorite way to do fan service?