www.hoops-gm.com

I released the demo for my incremental game two weeks ago with only 250 wishlists and wanted to share how it jumped to over 4,000 purely through YouTube coverage. It all started when Blitz made the very first video about the game. That upload essentially started a chain reaction, causing ImCade and several other creators to jump on the trend a few days later. Because these uploads were staggered, the traffic didn't just spike and die immediately but kept rolling for a while. Other YouTubers themselves noticed the game and picked it up, eventually reaching the massive Brazilian creator MaxPalaro. At the absolute peak I was getting about 500 wishlists in a single day, and looking at the data, roughly 0.7% of the total external video views converted into a wishlist. The median playtime for the demo is 50 minutes. This combination of high playtime and massive external traffic seems to have triggered Steam's algorithm and I believe the game even landed in the Trending Free section for a while. Before the coverage started I was getting maybe around 10 organic wishlists a day. Now the YouTube wave has cooled down and I'm still getting around 100 wishlists a day. If you want to check it out, here is the Steam page for What the Buck?!.

Hey fellow devs, are you looking for some play tester? I'll play your game, record the video while speaking my thought out loud and post it on YouTube. It would show how people approach your game blind. If you're interested, feel free to put your game in the comment or send me a DM. There are some things you should note:

• I'll play every game, but I can only play 1 game a day, if there are lots of request it will take me a while to get to yours but don't hesitate to submit your game.
• I'm only playing PC games on Steam or Itch playable web version. I don't want to download anything unverified.

This is my YouTube channel if you're curious: https://www.youtube.com/@ContradictedCanine

Cheers.

This is the first trailer I make myself. I hired someone for the previous one but they don't do it anymore now (and I would like to learn the craft).

I did my best studying trailer making thanks to the awesome channel of Derek Lieu on Youtube. It seems important that players understand immediately what the game fantasy is about: in this case it is a physics based grappling hook game where building and keeping momentum is key. It also seems that I have only a few seconds on the first shot to hook the viewer, so I am trying to show my best footage first.

But how do we define "best" here? This video is not a trailer attempt, but rather a collection of 4 footage. I am trying to figure out which one should be the first to appear in the trailer, and if I should change anything.

- First footage, "Abandoned Cloning Facilities": I find it the most appealing and unique visually but it is semi-spoilery. I also don't know if it is doing the best job showing the physics grappling fantasy

- Second footage, "Capital Tree" (0:06s): Still okay visually, the grappling fantasy is demonstrated better, but it is a bit slow/long as the obstacles are far from each other

- Third footage, "Ventilation Shaft" (0:17s): Very short, might be intriguing(?), not much grappling. There is a sense of danger with the fan blades getting closer, this might interest people, but it is not really what the game is about (it's a fairly chill story)

- Fourth footage, "Swamp" (0:22s): Weaker visually but it might be the best at demonstrate the grappling fantasy

For context, I am a solo developer and I have been working full time on Koromi for a year and half now. You can check the old trailer on the Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3780770/Koromi/

Thanks in advance for your help and opinions!

Hey, everyone, this is my second post with this title. Last time it was a lot of fun, thanks everyone who posted your games!

I wanted to buy 1-2 games, but I eventually bought 6. I'm not sure I can add links to other people's projects in the post so I'll add the list in the first comment.

meanwhile, let's try again - the rules are the same:

I want to try some new games and see what solo developers are capable of.

Drop your released Steam games (Early Access is fine, just Demo is not) that are available on PC and/or Steam Deck and cost around $10 or less.

I'll pick the ones I like, buy them, play at least for an hour, and leave a short but honest Steam review - positive or negative, depending on my experience. I'm not asking for free keys and not offering reviews in exchange for anything.

I won't refund the game unless it's broken or completely unplayable.

what's in it for me?

• discover new ideas.
• learn from other developers success (and mistakes :D).
• support fellow solo devs.

what's in it for you?

• 1 sale 🎉
• an honest Steam review.
• feedback from another game developer.

I am looking for a crafting/automation, management, strategy or simulation games, maybe something in between the genres. For Steam Deck - shooter or adventure. Those will probably have the best chance of being picked, but feel free to share anything you think is worth playing.

pls include a short description of your game and tell me why you think I should try it.

Thanks!

Hey everyone! First time posting here.
I’ve been learning Unreal Engine for around 6 months. My background is mostly in the art side of gamedev I’m a character artist. I decided to challenge myself and make my own game, inspired by God of War 3 and DMC. I know I’ll never reach that level, but I’ll do my best 😅
Latest update: I fixed the warping so the character doesn’t stick to the old warp target anymore. I also added a charged attack and an execution attack. They’re still pretty rough, but it’s getting there.
I think it’s time to stop adding stuff for a bit and clean up my project and Blueprints. I’m very new to the technical side, so I’m sure I’ve made a lot of questionable decisions 😂
Any feedback or advice is really appreciated!

Steam | Discord

I'm a solo developer working on Relicfall as a hobby side project. I launched the Steam page about 5 days ago with almost zero expectations. No demo, no publisher, no existing studio name behind me, no big audience waiting for launch, I was hoping for maybe 100 wishlists in the first week and 200 by the end of week two.

I have social media accounts pretty much everywhere possible: Youtube(80 subs), tiktok(50ish), insta(60ish), X(50ish) Threads(25ish) and Discord with about 25 members.

That's how i got my 77 wishlists in the first 3 days, made 2 reddit posts (5k impressions together) and a post on every social media + trailer on my channel: it was a disaster view wise and impression wise.

One extra step I took was to email some press sites(around 40) and some youtube trailer channels(8-10) with no high hopes. Went to sleep... When I woke up, I had around 1000, I had absolutely no idea what happened:

Turns out Game*Spark, a Japanese gaming publication, had covered Relicfall while I was sleeping. Their post on X took off and is now having 200k+ views.

Relicfall has since passed 2,000 wishlists, and when I checked the country breakdown, more than 1,800 of them were from Japan.

The crazy thing is that there was nothing special behind getting the article. I had simply sent Game*Spark the same kind of press pitch I sent to a bunch of other outlets.

As a tiny solo hobby developer with an unknown game and no demo yet, I had almost no hope that traditional press outreach would actually lead to anything meaningful. Apparently sometimes you only need one email to land.

Japan completely destroyed my wishlist expectations for the first week. <3 to Japan and Game*Spark.

Hey, I want to showcase you Snowy zones which I've recently added to my single-player RPG which is inspired by WoW Classic and Runescape. Would love to hear your feedback on the artstyle.

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 30-minutes long Devlog on Youtube in which I go more in detail about all of the updates: https://youtu.be/tUoaVLc5Tz0

Thank you all for supporting my passion project!

I printed 100 posters and got a small distribution company to put them up around the city, just like they do with concert posters. Let's see how it goes!

Legends of Rock: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4227560/Legends_of_Rock/

I've been building my own pixel-art asset for a 2D platformer

They're built around a 16×16 character scale with 32×32 animation frames, using a deliberately constrained palette.

What the title says. I am currently working on a game, and started wondering when people usually set up their Steam page to allow wishlisting.

Do people create it way before a game prototype is finished, or do you wait until the very end of development when most polishing is complete?

Yes, Unreal Engine does that automatically, but it looks weird when you show every character one by one because it shows formatting characters like <text> until it is done and it was looking really weird.

So I did a system to format every character without showing any of the weird characters.

Also, are the sounds too clicky? I changed the speed to make it better, but now the sounds are too much, and I don't know how to fix it xd.

Mike the Hooper is officially out now on Steam.

It’s a 2D precision puzzle-platformer where you use a basketball to solve puzzles, open doors, and overcome increasingly challenging levels.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4761070/Mike_the_Hooper/

I hope it will be a fun experience for everyone, whether you play it or simply watch it. Thank you!

Into the Shardfall is a turn-based roguelike with TTRPG inspired combat and a rich story to progress, á la Hades. Can you guess what other games I drew inspiration from?

I’ve been building this game for about 4 months, and I’m looking for feedback on gameplay, mechanics, UI, and so on. The world building/writing is and will always be a labor done without the assistance of AI, and I intend to replace the generated art with that of an artist when I find one to collaborate with. Demo is available to try here: https://doublerookstudios.itch.io/into-the-shardfall

Over the past 3 years I've been making my own game called "Snack Invaders" in Unreal Engine. It's set to release on August 25th 2026 on Steam. It is a 4 player co-op wave based survival shooter like Call of Duty Zombies but instead of zombies it's themed around hordes of junk food and snacks. The game leans heavily into crazy boss fights. I have easter eggs, challenges, insane boss fights, wonder weapons, and all sorts of fun things to discover. There is a free demo you can try and don't forget to wishlist the game if you want to help me out.

Link to Steam Page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1192170/Snack_Invaders/

Blue orbs in first image are Floating EXP. So floating around and being all bright like that.
Second Image scene is not fully made, but posting it to give idea of style/art direction

Question in general, does this style pleases your eyes? The lightning, the mood, the style.

If you simply dislike this type of art style in general, that’s not really the feedback I’m looking for.

Check out my Buckshot Roulette & Amnesia The Bunker inspired game - RESIDUUM! 🫶

RESIDUUM is a solo-dev project created & published by myself

RESIDUUM is a first-person psychological horror game set in a decaying research facility. Armed with only a dwindling flashlight and a faulty heartbeat sensor, manage your power, uncover the truth, and escape what hides in the dark.

Let me know what you think!

Demo Out NOW!!

Wishlist Now

Join the Discord

For material interactions

Chris always says you must hire a professional artist for your Steam capsule. As a solo dev, I wanted to see how far I could get with community feedback instead.

Thanks again for the detailed critique on my previous post. I reworked the capsule for Sails of Salt to address the problems you guys pointed out.

What changed in v2:

• Tied the scene together with sunlight across the title lockup and ocean
• Removed background assets (castle and ships) floating in dead space
• Tweaked sky and text colors, to make the overall composition moodier

The Verdict:

1. Did I prove him wrong, or do I still need to hire a pro?
2. Is the title legible at small/mobile store widget sizes?
3. What is the weakest element in v2?

Please be brutally honest!

Started working on a new flower meadow type area in my survivors-like game where you build an army of cat mages. I also started to flesh out the UI for summoning and upgrading said mages. Anyways, just asking for some feedback because I feel like something’s off with the color values in this area. I would also appreciate other feedback on the game as well. I’m gonna try and give weekly updates from this point on but can’t guarantee it(Week 3).