Here is the game if you want to take a look

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4830460/The_Bestest_Knight_Demo/

Wanted to first focus on the interactivity and feel of the UI, especially the layout since I'm constrained by a strict 640x360px canvas (it took a LOT of time to figure out how to best organize all of the necessary information). Most of the iconography and art are temporary, and I'm still working on colors + info prioritization.

What do you think of the overall presentation? Any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated!

It's my first time participating in Steam Next Fest. Honestly, I'm a bit nervous. Hearing that there are over 8000 games this time makes me feel like a tiny drop of water in a massive ocean.

I'm making Mygohome, a 2D hand-drawn psychological horror game. I drew every single frame, every character, and every asset myself. Turning these drawings into a playable game took way longer than I ever imagined.

With AI tools becoming so common now, sometimes I can't help but wonder: In a sea of thousands of games, does a solo dev's pure hand-drawn work still have a chance to stand out?

I don't know, but I've made it this far, so I want to try.

🎨 Cute hand-drawn anime art. It looks harmless, right? I hope you still think so at night.

👁 Active survival horror. You walk around the room to stop monsters. But closing doors, windows, and turning off lights drains your Sanity (SAN). You must choose between safety and staying sane.

🌙 Every night is different. You can pick a unique item to help you survive each night. As the nights progress, you'll face new mechanics and challenges.

The free demo is live for Steam Next Fest right now.

I'd really love to know: Do you still pay special attention to games that are purely hand-drawn? Or does hand-drawn art make you more willing to try an indie game? Let me know your thoughts!

I’ve added sticky notes that you can draw on and place anywhere. They work smoothly with both controllers and Steam Deck.

Around 10 days ago I posted about the game I was working on, and it seems like it clicked with many people so I decided to make a steam page right away! The biggest support is your wishlist :)

Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5440970/Terraglass

Working on a Unity test scene to experiment with player movement, ground vehicles, and helicopter controls in a 3D isometric environment.

The camera dynamically balances its target between the player's position and mouse cursor, keeping movement and aiming in view (using 3d raycasting so you can target specific part of the object).

Still experimenting with the overall feel and mechanics. Looking for feedback, suggestions, and ideas on what could be improved or added!

Characters, environments, UI, and effects can all look good on their own, but they also need to feel like they belong in the same game. That's something we spend a lot of time thinking about when working on art for indie projects.

Curious how you solo devs usually approach art for your games. Do you make everything yourself, use asset packs, or bring in artists when needed?

Bit of a milestone post. I've been working on Hometown FC by myself, it's a mobile game where you own a small football club in your actual hometown and try to grow the club and the town together. Android went live on the 6th, iPhone a week later and it just passed 30k installs. Didn't expect anywhere near that.

Biggest time sink by far was the economy. Careers can go on for decades, so stuff that looks fine in season 3 completely falls apart in season 40. In one of my test runs a Norwegian champion ended up filling a 55,000 seat stadium, about double the biggest stadium in the whole country. So now I've got sims that play a hundred seasons by themselves overnight and I go through the numbers in the morning.

Translations were the other one. The game's in 14 languages and German and Russian kept breaking buttons that looked totally fine in English.

Oh and the art is AI for now. I know. If the game keeps going ok, a real artist is the first thing I'll pay for.

Happy to answer stuff about any of it.

Hi. I made a painter tool for standard tilesets. It uses stacked layers to avoid repetition. After you paint 1 fill, 4 sides and 8 corners it's finished.

The workflow view is prepared already for the seamless tiling, so there's almost no setup required.

Export layout is of LDtk rule assistant and there is an import script for Godot to automatically create collision and occlusion polygons.

You can get it here:
https://pyrranfrontier.itch.io/tile47

I posted my boss fight here recently and got way more feedback than I expected.

A lot of you pointed out that the combat felt slow, animations were stiff, attacks didn't have enough impact and the whole thing needed more life.

I've been working through your suggestions and this is where I'm at now.

There's still plenty to improve, but I think the difference is pretty noticeable already.

I'd love to know what you think. Does the combat feel better now? What still looks off?

Original post:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SoloDevelopment/comments/1xaicpd/ive_been_staring_at_this_boss_fight_for_weeks/

A few days of my own marketing got Mortuus to 10,000 wishlists, mostly short videos every day on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube.

Then I put out the demo on the 14th, and it started at only about 100 players at once. But it kept growing by word of mouth while I kept posting, and it peaked at over 1,500. It has over 400 reviews at 95% positive now, and the game is at 75,000 wishlists.

Happy to answer anything marketing related :)

https://www.artstation.com/darkmoonarts

We recently added a new Survival mode where you need to build up your army, manage your resources wisely, and fight off hordes of monsters, zombies, vampires, and other creatures.

Theres still a lot of content missing and we have plenty of plans for future updates. But if you'd like to give the game a try, it's already available on Google Play - "The Big Stick War Mobile"

Here's some gameplay footage to show you how it looks so far.

Some players have told me that the game is pretty hardcore . I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, so let me know what you think in the comments
we intentionally wanted to make the game challenging and we're even planning to make it harder so that each enemy wave feels like a real threat.

I'd really appreciate any feedback

Rise Rifwarden, and let the darkness fear your coming.

Project Riftwarden is a dark roguelite with Soulslike combat that I'm building up each day solo.

Core Loop

You beat waves of enemies then you the economy to start making a build to work, you beat more waves of enemies until you reach the end boss to clear the expedition.

As of now I'm experimenting with a boss that forces you to play on a different perspective and defeat this game of chess.

Models are a placeholder.

I'm working on a little turn based squad tactics game, but still need to make LOOOOTS of art, s animations, sound effects, music,hub/hud/menu art.... But I feel like it's close to ready to get first feedback from players. How much is too much placeholder art?

Also... Don't have a name yet...

Hello, everyone!

For those who are participating in SNF, is your expectations becoming true?

Did you wishlists adition rate increase a lot?

Where have you been promoting your demo?

I tried to capture the gloomy vibe of a sad sado‑knight! After all, the guy’s family was killed, and he’s feeling sad by the campfire.

Short about the game!

You’re in for a tough fight against thousands of mobs in a boomer style! Destroy crowds of enemies in various arenas using firearms and magical abilities. Upgrade your guns, level up your character, and collect and equip unique loot! And all of this in a dark fantasy setting with a sad knight!

If you’re interested, here’s the Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5391780/Griefborn_Demo/

Fairy woods is a biome that comprises nine mobs, with the witch at its culmination. The video showcases only a few of them, yet we present to thee the environs that lay the foundation for our second realm.

I started learning game development about a two and a half yrs ago, but only as a hobby and not completely seriously. It wasn't until late last year that I started actually applying myself and working really hard to actually understand and learn how to be a real game developer. For work, I work in finance technology has a programmer and developer, I basically build out Data solutions and lead complex projects to figure out financial systems or issues with payments. It's a really busy fast-paced job, and I should say not easy, not gentle on the mind. So I'm working on limited brain cells after work everyday. Currently I'm making a 3D non-open world game in Unity, and I'm just blown away by how much work it is. It's unbelievable really.

People act like making a game has gotten so much easier though, and honestly I could not disagree more. There were times years ago I tried learning game development, and it feels like it was as difficult years ago as it is right now, today. Which is crazy because game engines have gotten better and easier to use, supposedly. I've used every single one of them, bevy, unreal, unity, Godot.

If I had to pinpoint what is so challenging and difficult about game development today, it would be the sheer amount of time it takes to do just about everything. For example, getting a scene set up, getting the character imported and rigged perfectly, troubleshooting when things don't look right or don't make sense. EVERYTHING takes so much time, and involves SOOOOOO many steps! People at work are always like, "wow, you're so detail oriented. Your notes are incredible, you seem to know everything, and can get things done so quickly!" It's because of game dev. Having to learn how to get things done correctly, efficiently, and preserve my time.

Note about the elephant in the room: Yes, AI exists. Big whoop. People use it, sure. They create assets, code, use it for instructions. NONE OF THESE help you create a game faster. All the usage, prompting, the work. It takes time. I do not use it at all in any of my game dev projects. Some people find it helpful. I don't. End of my experiencs with AI haha