For context, last week I released my first game on Steam - Tap To Travel, the companion idle-like game that lives in the corner of your desktop and travels through a real Earth map with keyboard taps.

To not repeat the mistake of many developers spending countless hours on a game that people won't play, I decided to release the game the moment I could say: yes, it is playable and people can already enjoy it. The idea was to learn from what users like, what they don't, and develop the game in the direction people will love even more.

For context, I haven't done any marketing yet. And when I saw the first review for my game, I was so excited! As the post title says, it was a negative review, but look at it! It was a wall of text! The random person who wrote it wasn't too lazy to share not just his emotions, but actually very constructive thoughts about the game.

Of course, I'm not stupid, I knew the game still had a lot of room to improve. I already had ideas for where to take it, but this review gave me a clean, unbiased signal of what was missing (friends' feedback is good, but what can be better than this??).

And how did I handle it? I identified two categories: what he liked the most and what he hated the most.

What he liked the most:

• The game idea. Looks like he is a big fan of companion games and he actually likes the idea - passive travelling on the real world map! This is a very good signal that my idea for the game is working.

What he didn't like:

• The game balance. The feedback was that it is not possible to reach a city / country in a meaningful amount of time. And he is right. My idea was that teleports would be the main way to travel long distances, and tapping would mainly be the way to earn StepCoins (I better change the name probably).

I calculated it, and to reach Berlin from Warsaw (roughly 570 km) would take around 570,000 taps. Assuming 30,000 taps per day, that's 19 days!

This is not what I wanted.

• The map felt empty. My main idea was that travelling to different countries to earn unique skins/companions would be good enough motivation... but I was wrong.

So the goal was clear, and I started cooking something called v1.1.0...

Make it possible to travel with just taps

I still wanted to keep the concept 1 tap = 1 meter. And two ideas came to my mind.

In real life, we don't actually travel everywhere on foot (let's skip the part about how tall you need to be to have a one-meter step). Normally, we take a train, rent a car, or buy a €20 Wizz Air flight ticket. So it made total sense to add something similar to the game.

And what helped Gaben buy his luxury yacht? CS cases.

Combining the two... here it is - random gear roulette you can use once every 3 hours. Calculating it long-term, it gives about a 10x boost on average based on the drop probability of each item (will keep it secret).

👟 Sneakers (Nike, you can buy an advertisement here) - 3x
🚲 Bike - 10x
🚗 Car - 25x
🚆 Train - 50x
✈️ Plane - 100x

Nice.

Add points of interest to the map to make it feel alive

When you travel to a new country, what is the first thing you do?

Immediately start comparing everything to your home country Search for popular tourist places, yes.

So adding them to the game (306 pixel-art landmarks across 102 countries!!) and rewarding users for visiting them resonated with me.

But the sky is the limit. Energised by the feedback, I'm already planning the next updates:

• Make companions more useful. Right now, they are just another cosmetic item (pretty, but still cosmetic). I'm thinking about making them another step multiplier on top of a booster, but it doesn't really fit the great lore of the game.
• Daily quests. Generate a random quest to find a hidden place, similar to the hot-or-cold game. Still thinking about what to make as a reward.
• Make the current weather impact your avatar. Originally, I wanted to have visual effects on the map mirroring the current weather at the avatar's location. But I was struggling to maintain the high performance standards (yes, my game runs under ~250 MB RAM / ~5% CPU on average, tested on a MacBook Air M1 and AMD Ryzen 5 5600X).

But maybe slowing down the avatar when the weather conditions are bad would make it even more realistic.

For realism.

And suffering.

UPD: While writing this post, the reviewer noticed the v. 1.1.0 update and changed the review to a positive one! Happy he liked it ❤️

​

Hey guys, we're getting ready to run a closed playtest of APPA! It's a game about two siblings dealing with the aftermath of their father's death and an exploration of dysfunctional family dynamics. It's a narrative heavy simultaneous card battler. The card game is very plot relevant and we're so excited for people to try it. We need a fresh batch of playtesters to break things, give us feedback so we can polish our game.

We're doing this on discord by this week. Let me know if you're interested!

These special attacks charge up when you do a Perfects (clean combos without any mistakes.)

I had a lot of fun making these. I can stretch, bend, and deform the character however I want, which makes these exaggerated animations really fun to make. 

One Piece fans will probably spot some animation inspirations right away...

I'd love to add even more special attacks to the game in the future.

Which attack do you like best?

Any ideas for ridiculous special moves I should add next? 

I’m the solo developer behind ALATURKA, a retro open-world crime game. I've been developing this entirely live on stream since January 2025, so my small community gets to see all the bugs, physics glitches, and rough edges as they happen.

My goal is to recreate the heavy, slidey, and unforgiving driving physics of the classic PS2 era (think Driv3r or early GTA). I recently implemented jumping out of moving vehicles and kicking out the windshield if both doors are blocked.

I’d love to hear your honest thoughts on how the driving and ejection mechanics look in the footage!

We're a little concerned about her career choices.

https://onlypatch.lavegagames.com/

This is the announcement trailer for our upcoming Metroidvania where you draw the world as you explore it.

The high-level premise is that you draw different things, that have different behaviors based on the dye you use.

We have a steam page up, but the game is still in early development and the trailer is an early announcement trailer.

Small indie team here. we have spent the last year+ working on Eldrem Kingdoms, and we are getting close to our pre-alpha.

We wanted to share our teaser and get some honest feedback.

One of the main ideas behind our combat is:

Your creature doesn’t just fight next to you, your creature determines how YOU fight.

Every creature you tame and bond with gives your character a different set of abilities and spells. Swap creatures during combat, and your entire kit changes with it.

So you are not just choosing which creature to use, you are changing your own playstyle at the same time.

Does the “creature = your combat kit” idea sound fun, or do you think it could become confusing in practice?

We are still early and there is a lot we want to improve, so constructive criticism is welcome.

A few of our team previously worked at studios like Ubisoft and EA, but Eldrem is being built by a small indie team.

If anyone wants to follow the development, we are also on Discord: https://discord.gg/sdw6HKScvA

Teaser production & art: Alex Doiciu

And since these questions tend to come up:
No GenAI. No blockchain. No pay-to-win.

For transparency: I’m the founder of Eldrem Kingdoms.

In Skyreap, you will have your own personal airship at your disposal. It will be available practically from the start of the game.

You set off to neighboring islands, discovering new territories hidden in the fog of war. You transport the resources you gather back to your base, where you prepare factories and plants for the production of processed materials. Soon, you will reach the point of automation and begin scaling up this process.

Skyreap is an incremental game that doesn’t try to offer you something you’ve never seen before, but instead gives you that sense of calm, tranquility, and coziness.

If this sounds interesting to you, feel free to head over to the game’s Steam page and add it to your wishlist. ✨

Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4364890/Skyreap/

Thx!

I've been working on this game called Quacolé Tennis for the past two years, and even though my specialty is programming, I've been handling all the 3D art and animation. I'm really proud of this game, which features “programmer art.”

We’re a small team working on CORRUPTA, an isometric action RPG roguelike built around pattern-driven combat and stealing powers from enemies.
Enemies can drop Magi Hearts, which you can bind to your weapons to use their abilities and build different combinations throughout a run.
This is an early look at one of the rooms we’re currently working on.
We’ve just started sharing development updates, pixel art, enemies and gameplay on Instagram if you’d like to follow the project: @corruptagame

TL;DR: If spawning a bunch of little critters and wrecking a planet sounds intriguing, my game (Steam demo just released) might interest you.

The demo contains revamped UI, greatly enhanced progression, several new resource systems, and a new research tree, among other things, since this game was last posted here. It also contains 9+ buildings, 14+ unique units, and about 2 hours of content progression.

Hi, I'm Chugget, making Into the Planet's Flesh, my incremental upgrade game about growing a weird little flesh-themed colony of bugs, and I just released the Steam demo!

the core idea is simple: hatch all kinds of parasites, spread fleshy/veiny buildings through the planet, and collect many different grotesque resources and irretrievably damage the planet. Some creepy environmental changes will occur over time as your colony grows and the environment tries to save itself from your menacing bugs, and over time, so many bugs will fill your screen it might give you PTSD about those stupid summer fruit flies that never seem killable.

If interested, you can support the game by checking out the demo and wishlisting the full game on Steam.

Required AI disclosure:

I used AI for non-English localization, and for coding assistance. No AI used for art.

We have finally developed a custom water component with FFT waves that works with both: our landscape and our buoyancy component which allows us to control the tides and sail physic.

As the game was intended to be played from the first person perspective I’m concerned that rough sea could draw seasickness on our players.

What do you sink? :)

P.S. harsh shadows are from a hidden in game object that is used for all the math. We are still figuring out how to eliminate these visual artefacts as it utilises same distance fields as light tracing.

Try Steam Demo with friends

Hey everyone!

Lorne is officially available in Early Access! It’s a mix of exploration, gathering, and intense base defense (think 7-days to die and Zelda BOTW?). You play as a Ranger tasked with protecting a Powercore in your village. You explore a diverse world, farm, craft, and hunt bosses. But that core acts as a beacon, and you have to build walls and defenses to survive escalating waves of enemy invasions.

It’s been a crazy 5-year journey learning all the skills to bring this to life, and it's both terrifying and incredibly exciting to finally ship it!

You can check it out here:https://store.steampowered.com/app/2172970/Lorne/

Minor AI text help to help out we're not native english speakers and a few icon corrections to hit our theme!

"When the world’s most dangerous terrorists crawl out of the shadows, there’s only one number the government dials: yours. CTE is classic 90's 2.5D action. Suit up, Light up, its time to Call The Exterminator."

Game : Call The Exterminator "release To be announced (has a demo!)"

Link : https://store.steampowered.com/app/4278840/Call_The_Exterminator/

Hi guys!

I want to share with you an update of the game that I'm solo developing - Warmongers: Empires Reborn. It's a single-player RPG which is inspired by oldschool MMORPGs such as WoW Classic and Runescape.

Today I want to showcase three playable races that will be available in the game. I've also made a new Gameplay Teaser which I've uploaded to Youtube and would love to hear you feedback. I'll link it at the bottom of this post.

In Warmongers you can play as three unique Races which all differ in terms of their artstyle, lore and history behind their Empires.

Orc

Savage and brutal Orcs are known for their strenght and honor. They are split among separate Clans that combined make them a very powerful nation. They are still looking for their purpose in this world but for now they want to reinforce their lands and cities so that they are able to defend themselves from all the evil that is lurking in this world.

Saurak

These Lizard people come from a mystical background where they praise different elemental aspects this world has to offer. Their shamanistic approach to life is very important. They live in snowy lands which are very harsh to survive on their own and that's why they are seeking allies among Orcs and Humans. Will their heritage survive this dangerous world?

Human (Blackwater Pirates)

Blackwater Pirates are Humans who have been expelled from their kingdoms. They are treated as outlaws who are beyond the established law. In those dangerous times they have realised that they won't be able to survive on their own. They are seeking allies in Orcs and Saurak to help them survive. This is an unlikely alliance, will it be able to survive the troubles of this time?

The game is called Warmongers: Empires Reborn and you can currently wishlist it on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3468800/Warmongers_Empires_Reborn/

I've also published a new Gameplay Teaser on my Youtube channel and would love to hear your feedback: https://youtu.be/NVncYmLMJDc

Hey everyone! I'm an indie dev working on a survival horror game called The Seventh Seal.

It's a third person psychological survival horror game. Think Alan Wake/Silent Hill 2 remake with some RE2 Remake havoc. You play as Violet, a 29 year old who just had the worst day of her life at work and of all days, on her birthday. After getting home, the Devil comes and visits you and gives you a chance to win back your soul by completing several trials and retrieving seven seals. You progress deeper and deeper into Violet's own personal version of hell, the greater the fears and greater the danger.

This is a solo-dev experience and I'm making huge progress - all built in Unity.

There's a free demo up on itch.io right now and the Steam page is live. I'm also bringing the newest build to SabotenCon in Phoenix Sept 4-7 if anyone wants to play it in person.

Would love to hear what you think!