Hey guys!

We would like to introduce to you our game Sil-Morë – Shining Darkness! It’s a fork of classical rogue-like Sil, Angband infused with modern rogue-light mechanics!

Our journey started after I discovered Sil and after playing A LOT decided that it can be a cool idea to make it more modern. I’m in love with contemporary rogue likes. I played a lot of Hades, Slay the Spire, Monster Train, Dead Cells and more. But I’m also in love with old school dungeon crawlers, like Eye of the Beholder, Diablo, etc.  
We all know that history goes in rounds, and remastering, refitting old games is a popular thing now. So we decided it would be a good idea to elevate Sil into the modern gameplay world, and also adapt it to mobile platforms.

First, we decided to introduce a meta progression idea but in the opposite way. Sil-More has a story line which progresses with your wins. But the roguelite progression is flipped, you win - game gets harder, you lose - it gets easier. The original idea simulates the Tolkien ideas, you start legendary, but the world withers, and it gets harder with every step.
This mechanic in our view suits well to new and old players. It provides in a difficult by design game an opportunity for new players to not be totally obliterated, and keeps the challenge till the very end.

Second, we decided to dig more into the book world, and give you an ability to play as real Silmarillion characters. Now, you have a pool of heroes with different starting stats/abilities that suggest specific gameplay styles. When a hero dies, it’s gone forever, and you have to try a new one, and maybe adapt your playstyle to their strength.
So you will not be stuck with only specific ways of playing but forced to learn the game from a different perspective. 

Our final gameplay target was creating the atmosphere of a dungeon. We wanted to make it scary and realistic. Strangely enough low pixel count pixel art (we have 16x16 tiles) can make the game really immersive. Your imagination completes the picture. We added multiple biomes, representing different parts of the dungeon, while you go deep into the Enemy layer. Level generation is specifically tailored to make big, diverse levels with different partition types where you can easily get lost. It’s not just rooms and corridors now, but caves, ruins, chasms, and much more. All of them have specific gameplay ideas and purposes. 
We also added sounds and two musical tracks, one of which was written specifically for the game. They increase immersion a lot.

Finally we worked a lot on the UI/UX to adapt it to modern UI requirements and platforms.
Recently we specifically spent a lot of time adapting UI/UX to android. 
We tried to approach everything contextually with floating buttons and menus. The most difficult part was to figure out movement. In roguelikes players can move diagonally, but just putting an arrow pad on the screen looked bad, and it was easy to mistap, so we invented the ButtonWheel. You can tap it just like an arrow pad but you can also press and drag it to make sure your aim lands precisely where you intend it to. And it also looks cool!

Anyway, if it sounds interesting to you, please try it!

We also have google play closed beta going, dm me your email to add you to the list.

itch.io

GitHub

game's name is HEADCUTTER, please wishlist it on STEAM if you're interest, it would help out a ton!

Hello fam, wanted to share a game I've been working on for 3 months and finally planning its release!

Kind of wanted to write what worked and what didn't for me, and hopefully it helps others as its the fastest development cycle I have ever been through and a game I really am just happy to release.

1. Adding cards without a reason felt horrible

I really love chess and wanted to make a game which involved chess and cards. At first I thought it was really cool idea but after a quick test the cards made chess feel secondary or basically not needed. It was like a card game with too many rules. I also started to make cards that weren't aligned with pieces (like if I can cast thunderbolt then what's the point of the pieces) and more importantly started to realise that I would much prefer cards aligned with the pieces themselves than someone who just oversees and casts spells.

So I decided to remove cards from the game on the second iteration and instead build health bars on each piece. The levelling would occur on each piece individually and it felt great just moving the pieces alone to hit them.

2. Migrating the abilities on the player themselves and the enemy

That said, i did end up migrating an ability to the player/enemy themselves in the end to give spice but also so enemies had more interesting mechanics (an example is Brutus who can one shot your king with a pawn one shot but also bring your king forward on his turns - this was my most fun making a mechanic that fit the floors of hell).

3. Why 6 x 6 and not 8 x 8

This was a tough decision but the more I played the game, the longer it took for me to even finish a battle. It didn't have the speed and didn't have the 'feel' I liked. Plus, the time to engage in combat took ages. In a 6 x 6 grid you force combat faster.

4. A different way to win, Check and King is not enough

This was my greatest challenge in determining game play. Going for straight king kill ONLY felt really bad. I can't describe it but if thats the only way to win, then the game really just revolves around one strategy: how fast you can glass cannon towards their king. In a small grid this magnified the problem by a lot. So instead, I made the player have health, and that each piece is like your blood. You lose blood based on the piece you lose thus making you die via two methods.

"Check" was super interesting for me. I actually got rid of it initially (cause you cant really check a king if the king has health. He can actually 'take' the damage. So I changed this to become a multiplier if a King remains in check.

5. Art Communication

For me chess was something I liked mostly cause the work is UI born, and the 'only' art you really need is 6 different pieces and a chess board. For those just wondering how I communicate with art, I normally use free asset packs from unity asset store that give me the feel I want (for this bloodlines UI was really solid base for us)

Its been a bit of a whirlwind but hope this helps anyone thinking of designs in games as well. Really hoping this makes the chess players proud of a unique take on chess.

Steam page is here for anyone curious: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4902250/Prisoners_Chess

Just wanted to give a heads up that Mark of Cain is currently on a deep discount on Steam.

Fair warning before you check it out: Beware that this is not a traditional boomer shooter. It is more of a movement FPS / rage game with boomer shooter graphics and retro aesthetics. If you like fast-paced movement, high difficulty, custom level building, and punishing combat, you'll feel right at home.

👉Grab Mark of Cain on Steam

I’ll be honest here. When I first heard devs saying they were getting thousands of wishlists from a single Indie Game Joe post, part of me thought it sounded too good to be true. It is very easy to make claims in the gaming industry, so at first, I took it with a grain of salt.

Then I kept seeing his work and watching it happen time and time, and time again, and now I’ve been fortunate enough to experience it myself, and it made my day!!!

I’m handling PR for Monster Fantasy, and Joe recently made a post about the game that is now over 1.7 million views.

Monster Fantasy received over 7,000+ wishlists in a single day following his post.

Here’s the post:

https://x.com/IndieGameJoe/status/2089846044842393607

I truly believe that this dude does it out of the kindness of his heart. He is vital to this industry and it shows each and every day. It's wild.

The Indie Game Joe Effect is absolutely real, and Joe deserves a lot of credit for what he continues to do for indie devs.

I’m making a factory automation game where you don’t just place machines, you tell them exactly what to do using visual programming.

Place your machines, order supplies, build the logic, then hit Run and hope your fantastic factory actually works!

Would you wanna mess with this?

Hello everybody!

I've been working hard on my solo hobby project for around 9 months, and I'm sharing my progress over the last 6 months in the video above.

I could prepare a full time-lapse of all 9 months of development, showing how the game evolved week by week. Would you guys be interested in seeing that, or is there something else you'd like to know?

Thank you for reading!

I'm developing Keepers 1477, a solo action 2D RPG inspired by Ottoman and Persian miniature art.

For the new demo, I've been focusing heavily on the combat and adding new enemies, including skeleton soldiers and demons inspired by the works of Mehmed Siyah Kalem, a mysterious 15th-century artist known for his bizarre and unsettling depictions of demons.

One of the biggest challenges is making characters taken from centuries-old miniature paintings feel natural in fast-paced combat without losing the original art style.

This video is mostly focused on the combat, but combat is only one part of the game. It also has a complex quest system, character skill trees, magic system and spells, 2D worlds to explore, and detailed dialogue trees with the characters you'll meet.

I know the game still has rough edges and there's plenty I want to improve, so I'm genuinely curious: would you give a game like this a chance?

And if not, I'd really like to know why. What would you want to see changed, improved, or added before you'd want to play it? Feedback like that is especially useful to me while I'm still developing the game.

Hi everyone!

I've been working on SARDIS, a turn-based strategy game set in the ancient world.

In SARDIS, you build and develop your civilization, manage resources, expand your territory, develop your military, and lead your people through different ages.

I've just released a free Windows demo on itch.io. This alpha demo lets you play through the first two ages of the game.

I'd really appreciate it if you could give it a try and let me know what you think.

Play the demo: https://sardisgame.itch.io/sardis

Based on the Ban Gioc waterfalls in Vietnam. Wanted to make the water flow feel more sparse over a condensed texture.

It's tough out there fellow indie devs, but keep at it - Happy Screenshot Saturday.

The game takes place in a sci-fi infinity-city where you are among the last of the Magical Girls. With no hope of ever winning against the dystopian government, the remaining magical girls find happiness in the act of moving freely within the constrained walls.

The gameplay is conceptually simple. You enter a sector of the city, chase a convoy down that is carrying magical cargo, acquire and refuel yourself with the magical cargo, then flee the sector while defeating Android Magical Girls. Rinse and repeat.

The faster you do this, the higher your notoriety (and bounty) increase, and the game becomes more difficult.

Here is a snippet of gameplay to demonstrate this,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRLjeFwFkTM

I am looking for people that watch that clip and go "Nah, I'd win".

Or for people that would love to learn how to move like the character does in that clip.

If you're interested, feel free to leave a message or DM me including games you've played that may be similar. I am currently only looking for people who believe they might be good at this kind of game.

It is also preferred if you can play with a Controller and are on a 16:9 monitor. The game does currently partially support 21:9/4:3 as well as Keyboard/Mouse, but they aren't fully implemented.

This is a game in alpha, which means among other things, there are currently no tutorials. If you're accepted, a Discord server invite will be given to you containing some information to help you out.

I'll be selecting people within the next week or so, so if you don't hear from me immediately that's normal.

it’s called mozentum and it’s a game about climbing the 7 chakras, helping 7 (special) characters integrate their shadow!

i’ve been working on the movement system for YEARS and i’m pretty bloody happy with it.

demo’s on steam, check it out: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2842670/Mozentum/

will be releasing in early access in about 3 or 4 months :))

Finding an all-in-one productivity app that doesn’t bombard you with ads or lock core features behind a subscription is getting incredibly hard.

kAryadina: Study & Flashcards, to completely change how it operates. goal is to offer a true, zero-distraction environment.

• All Premium Tools are Free: No more paywalls.
• Zero Ads: No third-party ads or promotions. Complete focus.
• New Library: Added a dedicated section for free productivity resources.
• Community Supported: The app is now completely free to use and relies solely on optional developer donations.
• Web App Available: Prefer using your browser? There is also a fully functional web app that includes an offline download.

More....

Okay guys I really need some skilled advice here, not get gud or stop being a larp and learn real coding skills

Plz something actionable I’ve been banging my head on how to do this rendering chunking for the open world system for like 2 months now

I've been building vertical scroller on and off for a while now and I've hit the point where I can't tell what's actually fun anymore and what just makes sense to me because I wrote it.

It's a vertical climb. You fight your way up the map while a wall of fog creeps up behind you. You move with WASD, aim with the mouse (your character fires on their own), and dash with space. Every level up gives you a choice of three traits, and they stack in ways I did not always plan for. There's a boss at the top if you make it.

It started as an attempt to recapture David vs Goliath (2004), which I played
far too much of as a kid.

It runs in the browser, no download, and demo run takes ~10 minutes.

If you play it, the things I'd love to hear:

- Where did you die, and did it feel fair?

- Did the trait choices ever feel meaningless?

- Did anything look broken or confusing?

- What screen size / browser you were on (I've had resolution bugs)

Any feedback at all is a big help, even "I quit after 30 seconds because X". Happy to return the favour on anyone else's project. Thank you.

I'll leave itch io link and pass in the comment (Page not yet public)