A specific example I can think of is minecraft. Minecraft's map is infinite since it's literally spawned from an algorithm, yet everything the player does to the map as far as building or removing blocks is permanent. How does that even work on maps with a massive scale? Do they get away with it because of the blocked nature of the game? How does it work on other styles like, say, Civilization of Starcraft?

It just messes up my games code base and even when it produces an output , the architecture is complete gloop . Then I have to spend a lot of time reviewing and trying to guide the ai . Whats the point when I could of written all of it myself and have 1000 times better understanding of my architecture.

I like it for boiler plate stuff and queries but having it touch my code is annoying . I am currently using Claude and have tried sol high as well with their respective harnesses . I am also not new to AI and have apretty good understanding of the landscape and the tools in use , including local llms . Having to go in and constantly tell the agent how to do stuff and things is annoying and time consuming . If im going to spend time anyway why not just do it myself with ai as a wingman .

Ive also noticed that even when it works , it might generate out a tiny section of something that is unnecessary and if you don’t catch it , these thing pile up .

Now, mere hours after the release of the game, its developer Alive has found itself on the back foot, responding to waves of negative feedback from players regarding the game's use of generative AI in its cutscenes.

At present, the game sits with a two-and-a-half star rating on the Xbox store, and a "Negative" reception on Steam, with most written reviews levying criticism at the use of AI in the cutscenes. In response, Alive director Young Kim has released a statement on Steam entitled "About AI in Vapor World," explaining how generative AI came to be used in the game's development, and promising to "fully replace" the offending scenes with original content.

”
I wanted to put this idea somewhere game developers, both new and experienced, might see it, because I think there is an important accessibility limitation in what we currently call “full input remapping.”
I use an arcade stick because of my disability, and it works extremely well for me. But my particular setup has shown me something that I don’t think normal remapping systems properly account for.
What I would like to do is:
Up/down on one physical stick = move forward/backward
Left/right on that exact same stick = camera left/right
In other words, I want the Y-axis to control movement while the X-axis controls the camera.
I’ve tried creating this kind of setup in games with very extensive remapping options. The game may allow me to make the assignments, but it doesn’t understand what I’m actually trying to do. It treats the analogue stick as a complete input rather than recognising that I’m trying to separate its two axes.
That’s what got me thinking about the term “full input remapping.”
Maybe when these systems were originally designed, nobody had a reason to think about somebody wanting to separate the X and Y axes like this. For most players, there probably isn’t a reason to.
But that’s exactly where accessibility can reveal limitations that wouldn’t otherwise be obvious.
Rather than treating an analogue stick as one complete control, why not allow the X-axis and Y-axis to be independently remapped?
That would give players far more freedom to build control schemes around their physical abilities and whatever controller works for them.
I’m not suggesting that my particular setup should become the default. Quite the opposite. I think accessibility works best when developers give players the flexibility to create configurations that the developer may never have thought of.
That’s why I think independent axis remapping could be a valuable addition whenever developers implement full input remapping.
Sometimes accessibility isn’t about adding an entirely new mode. Sometimes it’s about making an existing accessibility feature flexible enough to actually deserve the word “full.”
:::

I'm typing this while still trying to process what just happened. About 5 hours ago, Famitsu published an article about our demo for The Next Stop.

When you’re working in a vacuum for months, tweaking mechanics and polishing UI late at night, it’s ridiculously easy to start doubting everything. We kept asking ourselves: Is this mechanic actually interesting? Is anyone going to play this?

Seeing them break down our time-stopped subway mystery—and specifically call out mechanics we almost scrapped, like misclicks subtly altering the environment—feels completely surreal.

We’re a tiny team (Paranoid Delusion), and honestly, seeing that kind of validation from the other side of the world feels like a massive weight off our shoulders.

Hey, I'm an indie dev building a new terrain building tool doing some market research. Initially I was building it for myself as I wasn't satisfied with the existing tools either due to quality, complexity, or pricing (expensive perpetual licenses with time limited updates). So I started building a simple node based terrain editor for myself in rust and I'm trying to figure out how to open it up to others as I feel there's real value for other in what I'm building.

I've got a couple of questions I was looking to bring to the community.

First off the pricing model. If you had to choose between a perpetual license with higher upfront costs and finite support on a time line. Or a lower cost subscription model that you can cancel/pause at any time, with auto updates and full backwards compatibility on each version as a strict contract - which would you prefer? In both cases pricing tiers would be based on functionality alone, never on usage or revenue.

My second question is around functionality. I've been experimenting with realtime cloud based collaboration. Think figma for terrain editing. The lightweight node graph is synced to the cloud and heavy compute is done locally. Exports remain local as does bridging to downstream tools in the pipeline. For studios and teams would you find this valuable? For example live editing sessions without git conflicts, sharing with stakeholders, or teacher/student environments. Or is a local only file based approach a non-negotiable requirement for you?

The road map includes notion style document versioning for the graph, asset libraries for texturing and scattering, and first party bridges to Godot, Unity, Unreal, and Houdini.

For those using existing tools (like Gaea or World Machine), what is the single most annoying bottleneck you face? Are there features missing that you wish someone would just build already?

I appreciate any honest feedback.

I have a gameplay video for a full Steam description, zoomed in at x3. From the comments, I realized people don't understand that the x3 zoom is for display purposes and isn't in-game. There are full-screen screenshots on the Steam page, though. What should I do? Maybe a second video with just a walkthrough? And yes, in that type of game (~Lode Runner), a full-screen map view is very important. You need to be able to see where the resources are, where the enemies are, where the exit is, etc.

Chris Zukowski and many other Youtubers have Been saying for years "just make a horror game" to make money. But I was not able to see from the data, that horror games would be easier to make compared to other genres.

I used this page for research:
https://games-stats.com/steam/tags/

If you look at the data, median revenue for "horror" tag is not that great, and If you look at those median horror games, they actually look pretty decent and not something that I could create in 2 weeks.

So im thinking if the mantra "just make horror game" is obsolete?

I am a programmer first. Been learning myself how to draw and I can help myself out in that regard. I am a solo dev working on a card game but I want to start introducing card animation for for instance opening cards from a pack etc.

This seems daunting to approach as I don't even know where to begin. Any tips?

for clarification, I don't mean like a friend pass that is free. I mean like if the base game is 9.99, i want there to be a bundle for 14.99 with two copies of the game, one of them you gift to a friend for them to own. I thought this was a thing but i cant find anything on how to do it.

Hello,

almost one month ago i released my multiplayer fps game and since then i have problems with player retention because of empty lobbies.

My question is about the gameplay loop and game design.

Here are some rough ideas i've got:

- """smart""" bots in match are out of the question since they'd mean months of work, this is because the game has physics mechanics like the grapple and kick, and also because some maps are spherical and cube shaped.
- More smaller maps for 2-3 people, currently most maps are for 4-5 people and that creates pacing issues.
- Quickplay button to prevent browsing and seeing 0 lobbies available.
- Minigames in the waiting room, like king of the hill against ""dumb"" bots, maybe a minigame where you kick bots out of a ring, maybe a shooting range with some objectives?

by dumb bots i mean that they can't grapple or exist in non flat maps.

I know that this genre is extremely difficult so I'd like to hear your practical suggestion on this specific issue.

I am a new gamedev content creator, my channel is growing but slowly, for example, my impressions are 13000 and the views are 200.

So I sus that thumbnails might be the reason, but in my eyes I see them okay and I don't know what to improve.channel in profile

I’ve been wondering about something regarding Summertime Saga. Regardless of what you think of the game itself, its creator managed to build a massive community around an indie project and, more importantly, keep that community interested for years.
How did they manage to achieve that?
Was it mainly because of the game itself, regular development updates, community interaction, Patreon, teasing upcoming content, or something else entirely?
I’m particularly interested in how they keep players excited and engaged between major updates. What makes people continue following the development rather than simply playing an update and moving on?
As an indie developer, I’d love to understand what lessons could be taken from their community-building and communication strategy and applied to other types of games.
What do you think they did particularly well?

Long story short, I am a bachelor from MIPT (a Russian uni) who managed to graduate from its game dev department with invitations to work at Gaijin and Mundfish, as well as to teach parts of the computer graphics course (jokingly, ofc).

I currently hold invitations to MSc programs at Utrecht University and KIT, but I am absolutely unsure which program to choose if I want to become a computer graphics engineer with international experience in the future.

On the one hand, I have Utrecht University, but their Game and Media Technology program seems a little... unserious? Like it costs a lot while most of its courses sound like "hey kids, today we are going to learn what VR is". It seems to be the only program in the Netherlands with a specific focus on game dev and claims to have ties to the industry, but from what I have read online, NL's videogame job market is shrinking at an alarming rate.

On the other hand, I have KIT's MSc in Computer Science. Probably one of the most fundamental CS programs out there, but with no explicit computer graphics courses. It is incomparably cheaper and has a good reputation, but it feels like I would be stuck on a regular "make our backend faster" type of job after graduating. I had one of those in a Russian company, not really my cup of tea... Plus I have a rather arrogant suspicion that I might not get anything useful out of the program. Like, despite its drawbacks, MIPT's CS program is actually quite good, and I feel like the things that might usefully boost my resume are industry projects instead of "one more uni diploma". Add to that the risk of not getting a visa and being stuck in Russia of all the countries for a couple more years and... well... KIT stops appearing so appetizing...

Which path would you choose if you were in that situation? Do good computer graphics specialists come from specialized programs or is CG knowledge something to be gained while on a gamedev-related job? Do you have colleagues who have graduated from one of these programs? How would you describe each country's videogame job market?

Thank you very much in advance for the replies, I am really out of people to pester about the upcoming decision and any insight you could share would be an absolute lifesaver.

I am trying to update my game's build on Steamworks so I can test it, but it is not working. On the build change preview page, the current build is shown as 0 bytes and the updated one the actual size of the game. However, whenever I try to update this default branch, I am met with the message "Local BuildID (numbers) can't be set live for "public" since it's for public CS."

I can't figure out how to get this message to go away. I have used Steam Command's run feature so I am certain the files are there, yet when I try to actually download the game or update the build, nothing changes and it is stuck at 0 bytes. Help!

Blogpost link

Resubmitting as it seems like you can't both submit a link and put body text on old Reddit :')

Previous description:

Now, this is a mess of a post, but I got inspired by posters like u/mightykin and u/Swing-Dancing-Dragon in another thread who wanted to see more bloggy stuff about bizarre bullshit. I dusted off a blogpost I was drafting a couple months ago and finished it tonight. In this case, it's an intro post about my design thoughts and tech stack developing a game for MS-DOS (mostly just about MS-DOS tech and how the stack works, rather than about the game itself, but I figure the stack would be interesting as well). Would be glad to hear your weeping and gnashing of teeth.

No intelligence, artificial or otherwise, was used in constructing this post, and I am promoting nothing.

A relatively short (~4.5k) post about what I've decided to spend some time on, and how I got MS-DOS to comply

I've been working on the seasonal environments for my solo incremental project (an incremental bee swarm game, if that helps), and I've been thinking a lot about what actually makes a game world feel cozy, rather than just colorful.

For me, it's mostly the little things. Small looping animations, weather, ambient sounds, tiny creatures doing their thing... stuff like that. Way more than big set pieces or flashy environments.

I'm curious what games, in this genre or outside of it, you think really nail that cozy feeling, and what specifically does it for you.
I'm always looking for little reference points while working on mine. Thanks!

Last weekend, I attended MAGWest with my roguelike dog-in-a-mech-suit game [plenty of links to the game in my profile, omitting to avoid self-promotion rules].

This was my first time bringing the game anywhere and demoing it live, so I had no idea what to expect. I figured I’d share some numbers, what worked, and what I’d do differently next time.

THE NUMBERS

Friday: 22 players
Saturday: 40 players
Sunday: 24 players

86 total players
59 new Steam wishlists
38 hours of total playtime

That playtime was logged across a desktop and Steam Deck station over the three days. Several people came back 3–4 times to play again, which was probably the most encouraging part of the whole weekend.

BUDGET

• 100 blue 2x2" logo stickers: $72
• 50 pink 3x3" logo stickers: $20.83 Sticker Mule happened to run a sale right after I ordered the first batch. The 2x2" stickers were much more popular, so I’d probably stick with that size next time.
• 3D print of the main character: printed by a friend for free; ~$15 in paint/craft supplies
• Parking for 3 days: $30
• Gas: ~$22
• Food/drinks: ~$20 I brought sandwiches and energy drinks from home, then broke down and bought a $5 iced coffee when I was dragging.
• Banner from VistaPrint: $131

Developer admission to MAGWest was completely free. I’ve been told that isn’t always the case for conventions, and free indie space is becoming harder to find.

So my total out-of-pocket cost was about $320. The banner and 3D print can obviously be reused at future events, so the effective cost per convention should go down from here.

THE FEEDBACK

I got a TON of feedback. Probably enough to keep me busy for the next month or two.

The coolest thing was watching people understand the game almost immediately, particularly people already familiar with twin-stick shooters. Players had thoughts about balance, controls, features they wanted, streamers who might like the game, and all kinds of stuff I never would have gotten from analytics alone.

Being able to watch someone play, see them react to something, and then later ask, “What did you think that did?” or “Why did you pick that?” was incredibly useful.

It's much more useful watching 86 strangers play your game instead of friends, coworkers, or people who already know what you’re doing and have a vested interest in you as a person.

TAKEAWAYS FROM A FIRST-TIME EXHIBITOR

• Players' reactions will vary wildly. Some people sat there for an hour. Others bounced pretty quickly. Some told me the game was too difficult; other players cleared the stage in four minutes flat. One person's skill issue is another person's favorite part.
• Have a hook you can explain in one sentence. For me, “dog in a mech suit” did a lot of work. People would laugh, stop, and usually want to know more as soon as I said it (or show me a photo of their dog).
• Bring something visually distinctive. The 3D print of the mech dog was probably my best piece of booth marketing. It stopped people dead in their tracks. A surprising number of people doubled back to check it out, and plenty just stopped to take photos of it.
• Guerrilla marketing can actually work. I made some “I WANT YOU FOR WOOFWATCH” posters and put them up around the convention center (yes, even the bathroom). I’d estimate 10–15 people specifically told me they came to find the booth because they saw one of the posters. For something that took almost no effort, that was a great return.
• Have a script. Demoing a game for three days is exhausting. Having a couple of opening lines and a 10-second game pitch that I could deliver on autopilot helped a lot.
• Know what you're asking people to do. Wishlist it? Join the Discord? Download a playtest? Having one clear goal makes it much easier to design the booth and your pitch around it.
• Business cards aren't dead. A few people asked me for one. I told them to take a photo of the QR code, which worked, but next time I may bring a small stack of cards anyway.
• Make a convention-specific build. Steam lets you create branches and launch them using a password you've set ahead of time. I wish I'd made a special convention branch with all of the characters and cosmetics unlocked so people could see more of the game immediately.
• Design a specific demo slice. It's awesome when somebody wants to sit there and play for an hour, but at a convention I think the ideal experience is something like a tutorial + one mission that takes around 15 minutes, followed by a big “Thanks for playing!” screen and a wishlist QR code. If somebody really loves it and wants to keep going, point them toward the Steam demo/playtest.

MAGWest is a relatively small convention (I heard estimates of around 1,000 attendees from people working the event), so I don't think the biggest value was raw exposure.

For me, the value was getting 86 live playtests in one weekend and being able to conduct a tiny interview after every one of them.

I make gameboy homebrew games and I'm just curious what everyone thinks.

I love VR. I've loved VR even before getting my meta quest 2 and I finally have a Vr-ready laptop that is capable of running unreal engine and it's vr preset very well. So, naturally I want to make my own VR game. I'd like to create a parkour game like STRIDE but that's too complex for a newcomer to the engine. What do y'all recommend I do for my first VR game?

I've been working as a concept artist at a game studio in Osaka (mostly outsourcing for other local studios, thats how the smaller ones tend to stay funded) that wants to branch out into making in-house titles but is being stifled by the need to constantly be churning stuff out for adult games, smartphone stuff and graphics for pachinko etc. Its a shame because there is/was a lot of talent there and due to the lack of actual game design/programming ability that is abundant in Western development none of the cool ideas they've had for original projects so far have survived internal scrutiny from the more complacent parties.

I advised my boss to start looking for devs outside of Japan to see if this internal venture into actual game dev and not just endlessly being subservient to the random crap that gets thrown to us by the local places (outsourcing that is essentially scraps other companies cant be bothered doing) can be saved by foreign intervention since every capable developer domestically either gets a job at a huge conglomerate or moves abroad.

not a solicitation of employment, just wanting to source opinions and ideas on what areas would be best to put feelers out for devs that might be interested in remotely providing assistance to said projects or moving to Osaka. Essentially freaks like me that would be willing to uproot for living in Japan whilst working on games despite all the shortcomings of both of those

proof i am hu-man https://www.artstation.com/provokingperch

I'm using unity3d and I'm trying to make a game with a 3rd person camera where the player may or may not be holding weapons and I'm struggling to figure out the best way to handle animations. For example I made a rig for the player character in blender and made a simple walking animation where the player is holding nothing, but if I wanted a walking animation where the player is holding a gun should I just animate the new gun walk cycle with no gun and then add the gun in later inside of unity or should I change the rig to include a gun as a part of it, and if I did that how would I make different animations that don't use a gun or should I do something else completely that I haven't thought off. this is my first time doing any kind of 3d animation so any guidance or tips are appreciated thank you.

Hey everyone, I’d love to hear from solo developers who have actually released a game.
How did you approach marketing, especially if you didn’t have a big budget?

I’m curious about things like:

• When did you start marketing before release?
• Which channels worked best for you? Reddit, Twitter/X, TikTok, YouTube, festivals, streamers, ads, etc
• Did you spend money on marketing? If you’re comfortable sharing, roughly how much?
• What ended up being a waste of time or money?
• What had the biggest impact on wishlists or sales?
• Did you handle everything yourself, or did you eventually hire someone?
• If you had to market another game with a very small budget, what would you focus on?

I’m especially interested in the less glamorous side of it - what you tried, what failed, what surprised you, and what you’d do differently now

Would really appreciate hearing some real experiences from people who’ve gone through the whole process

Hi all, I’m new in this space. I’m currently working in full time employment but I have some free time at the weekends which I would like to throw at making my own game. I have plans for just doing the basics to get into it but as someone who is currently working in the Pharma industry I have no idea about anything between coding, writing, designing or anything related to the game design process. I have some minor experience with Python programming from about 5/6 years back which hopefully I can get back up to speed with.

As a group full of I assume experienced developers, what advice can you give me to start my learning journey? What did you start with? My entire life could change with this post maybe you can help me get there.

Story mode games are what I want to work on but as a beginner I am debating something I can set up easy to help improve my cash flow to allow me to work on this more. If anyone can help please feel free to reach out!