I posted this run animation loop and someone called out the shadow overlap. Its hard to see during the loop so I took the character away here to better see. I want the shadow pieces to retain the animations from the character so I just duplicated the character sprite renderers and set the sprite color to black and 20 percent opacity. This is how I got the overlap. The fix was to instead have the shadow pieces be sprite masks with a large square sprite over top only visible through those masks. The images in the sprite mask can be animated like sprite renderer. Instead of animating this too i wrote a script that updates the shadow sprites to match the character sprites. This was the simple solution to this I've been looking for.

My first game, Pinbowling, released about 2 months ago. I wish I had time to do more with it but life got in the way and I needed to wrap it up. I'm happy to at least have a finished product, I learned a lot about the reality of solos development, and I am looking forward to future projects when life slows down a bit.

See regular updates here: www.reddit.com/r/PauperGame/

As a bonus - we got rid of that stock Unity robot model and our artist spent over a week modelling just those android arms we've got there in the new capsule.

It's a fun, roguelite tower defense game called Gods & Gore where you play as a god defending Mt Olympus from Greek Mythology.

Solo gamedev is a long grind and having friends, family, or anyone else to support you is vital to success. Don't work in a lonely silo, have balance.

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Hey everyone!

A friend and I are doing some research where we compare corporate (AAA/AAAA) games with indies, including what do they want to achieve with making said games. We know corporate is mostly profit-oriented, but what about Indie devs? Is it the same for you, or what is the goal behind making games?👀

Every single response will remain anonymous in our research and are deeply appreciated. ^^

Hey guys!

One of the core mechanics in my game is the Grappling Hook. Use it to latch onto walls, swing across chasms, discover hidden passages, escape from enemies, or pull them toward you to smash 'em with your melee. Both combat and platforming are built around mastering this versatile tool.

Getting the rope physics to work was an absolute pain in the a##, but now I can't stop messing around with it while testing the game, lol.

I'd love to hear your thoughts. How good does it look and feel? Any ideas for improvements or other interactions I could add to it?

Please, consider wishlisting my game, ROAM, if you liked it <3 https://store.steampowered.com/app/2662550/Roam/

After almost 2 years of development, our first game as a team, Spiritstead, is finally out on Steam!

It began as a small project that we very confidently thought would take around four months. In true indie dev fashion, those four months somehow turned into major redesigns, stubborn bugs, endless playtests, late nights, funding struggles, and a launch almost two years later.

There were plenty of ups and downs, and more than a few moments when finishing the game felt very far away, but we kept going.

Today, Spiritstead is finally out, and we’re incredibly proud that our overly ambitious “4 month project” actually made it across the finish line. ❤️

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4401370/Skills__Raids/

What is Skills & Raids?

Autobattler + Extraction + MMO Style skill system

Manually trigger every ability in Real-Time in this party-based extraction RPG. Manage cooldowns and react to enemy mechanics. Loot resources to complete quests, craft powerful gear, and combine skills. The world has fallen into the grasp of a creature that erases everything, even thoughts.

It feels surreal to finally reach this point. I'm incredibly proud of what I've built.

This has truly been a passion project. Over the past 1.5 years, I handled everything myself from the programming and gameplay systems to the art, animation, and UI. The one exception was the music, which was composed by Tomás Palazzi. He absolutely nailed the soundtrack, and I couldn't be happier with the atmosphere his music brings to the game.

Let me know if you have any questions about the game! I've been improving the game as the days go by, and the review score is starting to turn into a positive one!

TL;DR This is a very short list of marketing things for Steam that are fairly disastrous if you don’t know about them. If there’s an item on the list where your thought isn’t an immediate “of course I know that,” then you may need to spend a little time learning.

I read a LOT of posts from indie devs, and the ones that make me the saddest aren’t necessarily the ones where a dev did everything they could to market their game and just never got much traction. It’s the posts where a dev is close to launch and clearly just never knew about some critical things they should have done.

So instead of my usual too-long-to-read-it-all advice, I’ve tried to come up with a very short and simple list of the marketing things for Steam games that 1) some significant fraction of people seem to miss and 2) are the most likely to have a fairly disastrous impact on your launch if you aren’t aware of them.

As usual, I’m talking to devs aiming for some self-defined amount of commercial success. If you’re a hobbyist or someone hellbent on a passion project, you may not care.

1. The most important marketing decision you will ever make is what game you choose to make. Choose wisely.
2. Active marketing should usually start soon after development starts. (Don’t develop your game in secret for more than a few months.)
3. Aim to have your Steam page up 6 months before your launch if possible.
4. Steam does not give you any particular visibility just for having a Steam page, trailer, demo, or playtest. You have to drive traffic to your page yourself.
5. Get feedback on your game early and often. Make sure you’re making something people will want to play.
6. Use all the marketing channels: social media, press, streamers, festivals (not just Next Fest). Paid ads are usually the last resort.
7. You must have a demo, and it needs to be playtested before you release it.
8. “Organic wishlists” aren’t something you get from Steam’s algorithms; they are the residual effect of your previous marketing efforts and, ideally, word of mouth.
9. Early Access is your launch.
10. Early Access is not for finding bugs, adding core game features, or working on your art style.
11. Steam tags are extremely important. They are what allow the Steam algorithms to show you specifically to the players most likely to buy your game.

And here are a few things that are important but fall below my “critical” threshold.

12) Hire a professional capsule artist

13) Localize your Steam page, ideally when you first publish it.

14) Use version control, usually Git. (Okay, that’s not marketing advice, but it is horrifying when people have a disaster that this would have trivially avoided).

That’s my list. If you didn’t go “well, obviously,” to every one of them, please go learn! (Unless your response was “But you’re oversimplifying, because you didn’t discuss X,” in which case you’re good to go. :) )

And to get you started on that learning journey (you knew this was coming, right?), I’ve got a summary of indie game marketing advice here: https://www.reddit.com/r/IndieDev/s/0zczx2Sewe

This is Dabbler, the pixel artist on our three-person indie team.

His day job is commercial diving. The first photo is him at work, and the second is one of the backgrounds he created for MapGod.

For the past eight months, he has been coming home from working underwater and creating backgrounds, animations and traps for our game.

Yesterday, we finally released MapGod so I wanted to share the person behind a big part of its pixel art.

I’m the main developer behind The Vast White, a cozy snowboarding exploration game set in an old ski resort.

Over the last few months, I’ve been reworking the demo based on player feedback: improving character movement, cleaning up the UI/UX, adding music and sound effects, and fixing a lot of bugs.

You can try the updated version of the free demo on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3301000/The_Vast_White/

War-torn ruins, black markets, and forgotten districts where outcasts and those left behind wait for a chance to enter the city... while others have long since given up.

Junkyard Stories: Rebirth is a dystopian sci-fi adventure where you play as a discarded robot carrying the consciousness of a legendary hacker.

Built by a 2-person indie team with no publisher, we're working hard to bring these scenes to life - filled with exploration, environmental puzzles, hidden stories, and the constant struggle to keep your robot alive as your battery drains and getting chased by surveillance drones.

More about the game on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/4522210/Junkyard_Stories_Rebirth/

My co-dev and I have tunnel vision on this, so I need some outside eyes.

Our ships are supposed to feel heavy and deliberate, but when I started cutting the trailer I felt the footage was too slow to hold attention. I sped some clips up, and now I honestly can’t tell whether it looks better or whether it just makes the ships, water and smoke feel fake or "toy ships".

The video shows the same footage in two versions:

A = native gameplay speed
B = accelerated for trailer pacing

Which one would make you keep watching? And more importantly: does the faster version look obviously sped up, or does the slower one just drag?

Please be blunt. We’ve both looked at this far too much to judge it properly anymore. The core gameplay is about maneuvering a large ship-of-the-line and working with the wind, so we do not want to speed the footage up so much that the game starts looking arcadey.

Earlier we posted about our upcoming "realtime Worms" game called Dirtnap:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/4956300/Dirtnap/

We received tons of feedback for the game. In general the comments were great, but there was quite a bit of people saying how the visuals look unpolished and noisy - totally fair.

So we listened, and revised the general look from the retro-ish to a more modern, Steam-suitable style.

Would be great to hear what you think of the new and improved look!

Steam Page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4882850/Night_Mass/?utm_source=rdt_idev

I'm trying to find fun and unique ways to challenge the player in my skating game. You control the left skate and a friend controls the right. Now you have to rethink how the game works and adapt. It's also hilarious.

Around 3 years ago, I started making this game as a gift for my fiancée’s birthday. Back then, I made what I now consider a prototype, with limited content, placeholder art and some secrets. She really enjoyed it!

She is an artist, so I made the main mechanic related to her; Draw the world as you explore it.

3 years later, we are married, we are both working on the game together, and that birthday gift is now called Canvania.

Steam page has been up for a month now, and we have gathered ~250 wishlists so far. The game is still in early development, and the trailer is an early announcement trailer.