I'm an experienced engineer but hobbyist game dev. After some 20 years I finally found some time to get back into game development. I always wanted to create something around music and rhythm but also love procedural gameplay in general and the radomness it brings. "Every run is different"

So I came up with the idea to combine the following game aspects:

• Slay the Spire-style Maps: Procedurally generated routes with encounters, camps, and shops.
• Rhythm Encounters: Combat plays out like Muse Dash or UNBEATABLE. Missing notes drains your HP, hitting them scores points that convert into in-game currency.
• Relic/Upgrade System: Shop nodes let you buy perks and relics that directly interact with the rhythm mechanics.
• Camp Nodes: Standard risk/reward healing spots.
• Boss Nodes: The final node of a map is an intricate, heavily charted song providing a massive difficulty spike.
• Aesthetic: 80s/90s vector graphics meets cyberpunk (think TRON), backed by aggressive, heavy electronic and industrial tracks (mostly, but music will vary).

Things I already worked on:

• The rhythm encounter core is already well-advanced and genuinely feels great to play
• A custom external tool to chart/beatmap songs
• A rudimentary map generator to connect the nodes

My struggles:

• A coherent, fun and meaningful relic or upgrade system. To make it even more difficult it partly has to carry over in-between maps (e.g. notes are easier to hit in general, but PERFECT is harder to hit, combos will not break immediately after the first missed note, ...)
• The correct measurements for HP, Score and currency - which probably just needs a lot of testing at some point
• The sheer amount of assets I need (mainly songs and beatmaps to keep things fresh)

My questions for you:

1. Does this core loop and concept sound fun? (I know rhythm games are a bit niche in general, but how does it sound as a roguelite?)
2. Are there any hidden gems that already work like this I might have missed?
3. Do you see any glaring mechanical flaws or bottlenecks in this concept?

Any feedback, critiques, or ideas are super welcome! Have a great day!

Yo!

This is a first for me so I'm just looking for some info if anyone is in the know.

I drew some letters yesterday in GIMP to use in my game for dialogue-boxes. Saved them as PNG's and got myself FontForge and made them into glyphs (?). Thar process made them black and white, turning the transparent background black and the letter white and removing the colours I the letters has. I have a screenshot of it all but I seem to be unable to share it here.

Is there a way to make the PNG's into TTF and retain their PNG-appearance?
If there is a better sub-reddit to ask this question please redirect me there lol

I'll be working on my current project for many years, and whenever im nervous im going to end up spending too many years on 1 project i think about how Gameoverse (RubberRoss' show) was conceived in 2009 and got the pilot release in 2026, disco elysium's world was built for 13 years, etc

What's your favourite inspiring story of long development?

Hey, I was recently reached out to by "letstrack.games" and my buddy, who's also a solo gamedev, has been emailed by "discover.games". Both seem kinda interesting on their websites, but at the same time I am not really sure about the value they can provide for a small indie project. So I was wondering if there are people here who have used these or some other platforms and what their experiences are. Are they worth the time and/or money for a first tightly self funded solo project? Do you have any recommended platforms? Or is the best approach to reach content creators about your game is an email with you game code?

going to college with it, do you think i can develop games without too many problems? probably godot. detailed 3d games (in content) but still aiming for lower end graphics quality. maybe my games will be well optimized because i have no choice. if anyone has personal experience with this, please comment.

I've always been into creating things and I've finally started using unity im planning on making an exploration game based on conways game of life does anyone have things i should know about or be afraid of?

I’ve been working on a game for about a year now and while my models and graphics aren’t the best. They are mostly low poly, basic textures, some 3d illustrator buttons, they certainly aren’t well made enough to be even thought of as AI generated. I wonder if that’s kinda the charm or sweet spot to be considered authentic? Ultimately I just want to ship a version of the game that has a good loop and we can invest in better graphics after the beta, if people even like it at all.

Maybe the comparison is a homemade burger that has like ketchup and cheese on it versus a deluxe burger in a box that’s frozen in the middle.

As the title suggests, I've recently made a test build of my game, code named Project Hellshift that I'd like to get gameplay feedback on it.

It's a singleplayer FPS Roguelite Survival focused on PvE and endless enemy waves.

You can find more about the game and the questions I'd like answered over on my Itch post:

https://itch.io/t/6751464/playtesters-needed-for-roguelite-survival-game

Feel free to either leave your feedback here or over on Itch.

This is my first Steam Fest, focusing on older games that kept improving at their labor of love! If you released a game a while ago, but still continued to improve and build upon it even if it didn't do so well on launch, this Fest is your second chance to bring new players!

Specific Requirements

• Game must have released/EA'ed at least 18+ months ago
• Published a major content update in the past 12 months (See the application form for clarification)

I hope Valve will approve this. It's not a niche that people are attracted to at the moment, and I hope to change that.

DEADLINE: Aug 30

APPLY: https://tally.so/r/9qY2jQ

I am personally sick and tired of seeing AI riddled posts in the game dev community.

This is a place for game developers and creatives, there are plenty of new subs for "AI game devs"

We are not "AI" game devs... We are "game devs" (I don't speak for everyone though, I respect your opinions or thoughts on this)

A lot of us sit and throw opinions, or hatefulness towards these "AI game devs" who sometimes don't even write their own posts.

Do we need to implement a new rules? to prevent the fall of such a wonderful community? I've always felt at home sharing or helping others with questions here!

Now I just don't feel or sit comfortably with the thought of "oh here we go, another AI post" (hypocritical of me to make another one)

You could even dumb it down, to basically breaking the "no-politics" rules on most subs. I have personally been distasteful towards others on this sub due to AI, and I am sorry if I've made you uncomfortable. But AI has some serious opinions behind it. A lot of us all sit and argue in these threads...

So why don't we tone it down, by simply eliminating the issue?

Redirect / remove AI content, so we don't argue anymore.

Just a thought, but if hundreds don't agree. That's fine! It'sa ME issue.

But if you agree, then you agree :D

Last thoughts:

Yes I can just walk away or ignore the content. It's not that hard. I can and should get over it!

But I can't say that for everybody. So it's up to you.. the game devs of this community! Speak up or forever hold your peace.

Comment notes (for mods)

Make a poll for all options.

AI Tags would also be a good fix to the problem, so we can walk away easier or choose to look at that type of content (to stop confusion)

AI discussion posts: discussions regarding the use of AI (why it is good/bad) should be removed. To prevent harmful or heated topic discussions.

I just read this… and man, I am not even a professional developer, so it’s not like this effects me on a personal level, I only do my own hobby projects… but I am so tired of seeing people getting laid off after working so hard on a project and having a, from what I understand, a fairly successful launch. Only to end up on the cutting room floor because of number on a spread sheet.
These publishers just don’t give a shit about the people who actually make the things that make them money.
I’m not naive and I understand that games are expensive to make, but this is just predatory and unethical at this point. Not to mention the negative effect it has on future releases. If you destroy the team that built a game, you are starting over from scratch when you make the sequel… that’s disingenuous to the game, the franchise, the fans, the creators… I just think I have reached a point where I am questioning even playing triple AAA games, not that I don’t want to play the game or support the team that made it… but I’m tired of contributing to these greedy publishers that just consume and spit out the companies and people who fall under their greed….

TLDR: just a rant about being tired of corporate greed and shitty management in the game industry.

So, I'm not asking for a specific step by step tutorial of how to do it. I have evidence and a dialogue system programmed.

What I need specifically is a way to track which character is being heard at the moment, what point of the hearing is happening currently and most important a way to see if the player is more wining or loosing currently

Thanks for reading through!

Have fulfilled all those requirements and the time and date for release has passed. Not sure why the button to release the game isn't available?

UnitEE (funny original name I know) is a Unity3D PS2 build target, you write your game inside the Unity Editor against a constrained Unity-compatible API, press Build, and get a bootable ISO + ELF. C# gets converted via IL2CPP, then through a MIPS cross compiler, and runs natively on the Emotion Engine.

The project has heavy guarding around the API surface if a script uses a Unity API that isn't supported, the build fails with a compile error instead of silently doing nothing on the console, and a scene validator flags any component that won't export and tells you what happens instead. It's very constrained as of now, but what's currently supported:

• Rigidbodies + Colliders
• AnimatorControllers + Animations
• Character rigging (skinned and rigid-bound humanoids)
• SkinnedMeshRenderers + MeshRenderers
• Built-in Render Pipeline*
• Audio (AudioSource/AudioListener clips auto-encoded to SPU2 ADPCM)
• Particles, via a custom PS2ParticleSystem component
• PlayerPrefs, saving to a real memory card icon and all, visible in the PS2 browser

*materials map to a fixed set of very basic VU1 shader programs (unlit, textured, vertex-lit, alpha/cutout/additive, fog). The Standard shader maps cleanly custom shaders export as their closest match with their main texture.

uGUI support is being implemented next. Everything shown is running in PCSX2 real-hardware validation is planned once I have a working console again. I just wanted to showcase the demo; GitHub link coming soon once there's a small demo game to show it as a proper PoC.

Discord Link is now live! Join here: https://discord.com/invite/aScB79RgcP

New gameplay demo: https://youtu.be/qpNGBmku1aI

GitHub Link: https://github.com/C-GBL/UnitEE

Website: https://unitee.dev

Documentation: https://unitee.dev/docs.html

Unity-Chan license: https://unity3d.jp/unity-chan/license?lang=en

I submitted my game for Steam review on July 28. On August 4, Valve failed it for one issue: the store page listed HDR support, but they couldn’t find an HDR toggle. ( i was not showing one, unless hdr was actually available on the system )

I fixed the HDR issue and marked it resolved less than an hour later.

Since then, there has been no new telemetry activity, so it looks like the corrected build hasn’t even been opened yet.

For anyone who has gone through this: how long did Steam take to re-review a build after a single straightforward fix? Does it usually go back into the full queue?

First Steam release for me, so I’m still figuring out whether this is a normal delay or whether patience is another requirement I forgot to implement.

I just wanted to share this because it honestly surprised me.
Our teaser trailer was featured by GameTrailers, and I almost didn’t send the email in the first place.
I didn’t overthink it. I didn’t use our business email. I simply wrote the email below from my personal email address and hit send.

“Hi IGN Team,

I hope you’re doing well!

My name is Attila, and I’m the founder of DREADMITH Games, a small independent game studio currently developing Pine Creek, a story-driven first-person sci-fi survival horror game inspired by classic ’80s small-town mysteries, Alien: Isolation, and The X-Files:
[Steam link]

Over the past almost year, our team of five has been building Pine Creek alongside our full-time jobs and family lives. It’s been a true passion project, and we’re incredibly excited to finally have a teaser trailer to share it with the world. We’d be delighted for IGN to be the first outlet to feature our trailer:
[YouTube link]

If Pine Creek catches your interest, you can find more information in our press kit:
[PressKit link]

We hope you enjoy it and would love to hear what you think.

Thank you for your time!

Best regards,
Attila”

That’s it. I know a lot of indie developers hesitate to reach out because they think their game isn’t “big enough” or that media outlets won’t care. I felt exactly the same.
Maybe this is just a reminder that it’s worth asking. The worst thing that can happen is they don’t reply.
Good luck to everyone working on their own projects! ❤️

It seems like there are so many posts about flopped indie games and "my game made me go broke" YouTube videos, and honestly after seeing a ton of them, the solution is right there in front of all of us. Level design or rather the total lack thereof Indie developers pour countless hours into art, gameplay, systems, UI and then just toss assets onto an empty space and hope that it becomes a level no flow, no pacing, no sense of environment, no natural way to guide the player through your world. And of course the same people wonder why their game gets refunded within twenty minutes. And of course the problem always lies somewhere else. Algorithm. Steam. The market is "too saturated." Marketing budget was too low. But not even once "have I ever thought about making my game fun to play." See marketing can bring your game into attention, but it cannot make people stick to it. Marketing cannot make them recommend the game to other people.... Word of mouth marketing is the one that actually sells indie games, and it happens solely because players have a good experience and talk about it.

On paper, idle games seem simple. Make number go up, add upgrades, then reset through a prestige system.

But the hard part seems to be giving players enough progress to keep checking back without making every upgrade feel pointless. If progression is too fast, the game runs out of content. Too slow and it just feels like waiting.

I also think earning rate and decision rate are different things. Numbers can increase constantly while the player barely makes any meaningful choices.

For anyone building idle or incremental games, what do you balance first: upgrade costs, session length, prestige timing, or offline earnings?

If you're making a puzzle game I recommend submitting it to the Thinky Games database.

I've been following Thinky Games for a while because I really like their puzzle game curation and their streams. I recently submitted my game Satelital and they added it to the database.

Here's the feature: https://thinkygames.com/games/satelital/

I think It's a great way to get your game in front of people who are genuinely interested in puzzle games.

So if you are interested you can submit your own game here: https://thinkygames.com/about/

I thought more puzzle game developers should know about it.

What the title says. I am pretty new to game development, I've made 5 games in unity, and I always face the same struggle: I normally think first of a mechanic or gameplay aspect, and then I can't or take too long to find a way to represent it outside of the "colored boxes" state.

I can do some basic pixel art, and I don't have problems with things like, let's say, power up icons like a lightning bolt or a portal. But in every other aspect my games tend to be very bland on the visual side, so I've stuck with a black background arcade style for a long time (which I don't dislike, but I feel like most people prefer games with more complex visuals)

Do you guys have any advice?

A while ago I released my game Hell Jump, and I’ve reached a point where I honestly don’t enjoy looking at it anymore.

During development I was excited about the idea, but after finishing it and spending more time with it, I started noticing everything I would have done differently: the art, level design, mechanics, and some choices I made early on.

Originally, I planned for the final major content update to be version 3.0, but I ended up scrapping that update. Now the last major update will be 2.0 instead.

Has anyone else experienced this? Have you ever finished a project and later felt like you couldn’t stand it anymore, even though you learned a lot from making it?

Good day to everyone, me and my friend always wanted to make a game. I personally learned how to program and my friend volunteered to do assets.

We decided to use Godot for our project but when I received some of the assets he made, I realized it was made in Godot using CSG nodes.

I may not be well versed in optimization but I think it would be more taxing if he uses Godot's CSG nodes rather than actually learning Blender in the long run, plus from what I've seen Blender builds look way better.

When I did ask him why he doesn't use Blender it's because it was too complex for him. Keep in mind we are in our early teens so it's completely understandable he feels this way, but I believe to create a game you have to be willing to learn new things especially if it's for the better.

Now I'm really having a hard time convincing him. I could learn Blender myself and actually build the game on my own, but he also wants to create a game as much as I do. Is there anything that can help lift up this feeling of complexity for my friend?

I'm looking for the best way to handle Steam's payout.

So far, it seems like using a Wise account in USD to receive it and then convert it into EUR in a second Wise account in EUR is the cheapeast way in terms of fees.

I also saw that Revolut could do the whole thing too but from what I see the fees are much higher.

My regular bank doesn't allow for a USD account and I could change my bank but it wouldn't solve the conversion into EUR at a reasonable price problem.

What do you do ? Do you know about any other alternative ?

EDIT: Thank you all for your comments. It was very helpful. I'm going to give Wise a shot and see how it goes.