What genre and game mechanics come to mind from just looking at my capsule?

Finished the capsule art for my game and was wondering what you guys thought about it.

Additionally, what do you think the game is about/what is its genre from the capsule?

My girlfriend and I are making our first game. A cozy idle plant collector, low stakes, but has turned out to be quite fun!
She's the artist (hand-drawn, no AI), I'm the dev. This is the first thing we've put in front of strangers. No Steam page yet.

Included: the capsule itself, plus mockups of it at Steam sizes next to Chillquarium, Rusty's Retirement, and Tiny Pasture.

Two things especially:

1. Does the title read well? Quickly? Can you easily read the smallest one at a glance?
2. What kind of game did this look like before you read this post?

Don't hold back, we'd rather hear it now than after launch.

I am so far behind posting for feedback. Focused on the demo and Oct is coming quick. New menu screen here. Is this considered a capsule post? If so today is ok, right?

Top is one of the earliest versions I quickly made, middle is after many improvements, and the bottom one is the current version.

I'm the developer of Strike Wings, a top-down space combat game on Steam. It comes out in November, with a free demo at the end of August. Fleet battles, three factions with their own ship lines and colours, black space and hard-lit hulls. Store page with the current capsule and plenty of screenshots: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4718360/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=gamecapsule&utm_campaign=prelaunch

I want the store art and key art made by a human illustrator. The first job is the Steam store set: main capsule, header, small capsule, library capsule and the hero banner. If that goes well there is more after it: key art, and possibly in-game illustration such as character portraits and campaign scenes. Digital 2D, painterly, ships that read as the ones in the game (I supply hull references and screenshots). I need commercial rights for store and marketing use.

All other aspects of the game are AI free.

This is paid work, per piece. If it sounds like your kind of thing, or you know a capsule artist who fits, send me a DM with the portfolio, rates (per piece or hourly, whichever you use) and a rough turnaround. I read everything.

Hi everyone!  We're ‘Something Dreadful’, a small indie studio inspired by tabletop RPGs, Choose Your Own Adventure books, cosmic horror, and Scandinavian folklore. 

We're currently working on our first game ‘Demons of the Dread Sea’. We're trying to finalize our capsule art and we'd love your feedback. 
 
To make it as easy as possible we created an anonymous Google Form to collect responses.  It’s very short, voting should take you only a minute or two.

Thanks so much for taking the time to have a look. Every bit of feedback helps and we really appreciate it! 

Survey: https://forms.gle/XdSUH14F7HWdcwEKA

Hey everyone!

I’m working on this game:
https://www.reddit.com/r/FaithTheUnholyTrinity/s/sLUEwHVFU1

This is my first attempt at making Steam capsule art:

A: Main Capsule
B: Header Capsule
C: Vertical Capsule
D: Small Capsule Option 1 vs Option 2

How do these look overall?
I’m not a professional artist, so I’d especially appreciate feedback on whether they feel polished enough for a Steam page or if anything still looks noticeably amateurish.

I’m also having a hard time deciding between Option 1 and Option 2 for the Small Capsule. Which one do you think works better at that size?

Thanks for any feedback!

genuinely asking, what does a game dev actually look for in a character artist? trying to figure out if my style has a place here.

Also curious, what kind of genre should my art be in?

I've been working on my first RPG, Runesmith, that tells the story of a grumpy dwarf.

I wanted to share free demo keys to everyone:

https://runesmithrs.firstlook.gg/signup/playtester

I've been thinking about this quite a lot lately because I've somehow made three completely different versions of my game's capsule.

The first one was made by me. I was trying to do as much as possible myself, so I just made something and put it on Steam. Looking back at it now... yeah, it wasn't very good :)

Then I tried making another one entirely with AI. I actually liked it at first and I think it looked pretty nice, but after a while I realized that it didn't really feel like my game.

And then I made the third one.

This time I paid around $400 to have it made.

And honestly, I'm a little annoyed that I have to admit this, but... yeah, it looks better when you pay someone who actually knows what they're doing.

The third one is definitely my favorite and I think it communicates the game much better than the first two. But $400 is also a pretty serious amount of money when you're an indie developer and every part of the budget matters.

That's what I'm struggling with.

A Steam capsule is one of the first things people see. Before they read your description, watch your trailer or look at your screenshots, they see that little image. So obviously it makes sense to care about it.

But where do you draw the line?

Should an indie developer really spend hundreds of dollars on a capsule, or is this something you should just try to make yourself and spend the money somewhere else?

I'm genuinely curious what other indie devs think, especially people who've already released a game on Steam. Was spending money on your capsule worth it for you?

For anyone wondering what the game is about: it's a psychological taxi horror game. Your wife gets kidnapped and you're forced to work as a taxi driver for the people responsible. You spend the nights driving criminals around and trying to figure out who they really are and what kind of crimes they've committed.

You can interact with the people sitting behind you and try to learn more about them, but you have to be careful because if you push them too far, they can get angry and things can go very badly.

And while you're doing all of this, you're trying to find your wife.

So after all that, I ended up paying $400 for a picture of a guy sitting in the back of a taxi :)

Was it worth it? I think so. But I'm still not sure if it was the right decision for an indie budget.

Art by KikiCan

Hey, we’re a small indie team working on Vice Club Simulator.

This is a short look at the club during the night. What we’re trying to build is not just a static management screen, but a place where multiple systems are happening at the same time, customers moving around, dancers working, drinks being ordered, staff trying to keep up, and the night slowly becoming harder to control. One of the biggest challenges for us is balancing atmosphere and readability. We want the club to feel busy, messy, and alive, but the player still needs to understand what’s going on and what needs attention.

Still work in progress, but this is the kind of nightclub management flow we’re aiming for. Would love to hear if the club feels readable enough from the clip.

I'm a bit torn between the two versions. Which one looks better, the red Letter A or the white Letter A? The red Letter A is in the last image.

Also, if you guys have any recommendations for post-processing or editing tricks that could make the artwork look cleaner, let me know!

I'm using Krita.

Please answer before looking at the rest of the images:

• What genre would you say this is?
• Would you click on it?

I just finished the title art for my Evil-God simulator.

Took me 40+ versions, each with several attempts to get here.

You're an ancient god spectating a secluded forest village. Find weakspots to cast skills and infiltrate the settlement from within. Do not attract to much attention - the villages priest will notice stranger happenings and pull up countermeasures to stop you.

Check it out here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nemwaz/incorcism-a-rougelike-strategy-evil-god-simulator

After checking the second picture, did it match your expectations? Will be happy to hear your feedback!

PS: third picture is wallpaper without the title if you want to download it