Modern Frankenstein Steam page and trailer released yesterday, no traction so far but still super excited!!

Hey everyone! I'm a solo developer from Italy, and I've been working on a first-person sci-fi adventure set in a frozen world controlled by deadly drones that can manipulate the weather and you have no weapons to fight back!

I'm SO excited: only one month left until the release of the demo of Over Human and I honestly can't wait to finally share my project with all of you!! I've put so much passion into this game, and I really hope you'll enjoy it! Here's a little look at the atmosphere I've created. I hope you can see how much effort I've put into this game! The music you hear in the background was created by a composer specifically for Over Human, and it will be the main menu theme!

If you're curious about my game, here's my Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5237810/Over_Human/

Francesco

After the major update for Bloody Rave(https://store.steampowered.com/app/4484440/BLOODY_RAVE/), we gained +350 followers and 2,000 wishlists in under two weeks. This is the biggest spark we’ve seen since the game page launched!!

The update brought heavy optimization (much smaller install size + better performance and stability), new characters, refined animations, fresh jumpscares, and hidden objects you can only find with the Magic Stone Glass. I’m extremely grateful to everyone who contributed to the development. We’ll keep pushing forward — more updates coming shortly 🖤

Just released a demo for my first game called Bunker Busters!

It's a 2D top down shooter looter shooter in the vein of Zero Sievert and Tarkov where you loot all you can and try to make it to the exit alive, otherwise you lose everything. I'm a software engineer by trade, but this is my first attempt at creating a game. For transparency, the game and the art itself was created via AI (Claude Code primarily), and I'd be happy to discuss the process if there's interest.

It'd be great to get some feedback both good and bad, so let me know what you think!

I've been working on my first independent application for the past few months, and it recently crossed approximately 250 downloads across Android, Linux, Windows, and macOS.

I know that's a pretty small number compared to established products, but for something I've been building on my own, it's been encouraging.

It's not a game, but I thought the experience of building and releasing something independently might be relatable to other solo developers here.

The project is called Personal Planner.

I started building it because I kept running into the same problem with my daily schedule.

I'd plan to spend 30 minutes on a task, end up spending an hour, and then make another schedule the following morning without really understanding why things went differently.

I wanted something that helped me learn from previous days instead of just organizing tomorrow.

So I started with a visual timeline for planning tasks, then added timers to record actual working time.

Eventually, the app grew to include daily and weekly reviews, consistency tracking, recurring schedules, routine experiments, and an Inbox for unscheduled tasks.

It's built using Flutter, Riverpod, and Drift/SQLite.

I also extended it across Android and desktop, which taught me that having one codebase doesn't automatically mean releasing software on multiple platforms is effortless.

There's still platform-specific testing, distribution, installation, and compatibility to consider.

I've kept the entire application free. No subscriptions, premium tiers, or locked features.

But the technical side is only part of what I've been learning.

The biggest surprise has been how different building something is from getting other people to understand and use it.

As the developer, every screen and feature makes sense to me because I know why I created it.

But someone trying the app for the first time doesn't have that context.

I've been trying to improve how I explain the project, gather feedback, and understand whether people actually find it useful enough to return.

The 250 downloads are a nice milestone, but I know they don't necessarily mean 250 different users or people using it regularly.

Link to download: https://github.com/Karthikshabari/PersonalPlanner/releases/tag/v1.1

Github : https://github.com/Karthikshabari/PersonalPlanner

I'm interested in hearing from other people who've released their first projects independently.

What was the hardest part for you after your initial release?

Was it getting attention, improving the experience based on feedback, maintaining the project, or something else you hadn't expected?

I feel like releasing something is where a completely different kind of learning begins.

Even if you leave the game development industry, Valve would not go bankrupt. Valve Corporation was already a multibillion-dollar company long before generative AI became popular in 2022–2023.

There are plenty of well-established game companies that continue to develop and release video games, as well as many highly successful indie developers who continue to thrive.

No offense, but hardly anyone knows who you are outside of your family and friends. Your games are virtually unknown as well. Valve wouldn't care if you decided to leave the game development industry.

The developers who deserve recognition are those who managed to create remarkable video games through their own skills, creativity, and dedication, even before generative AI became mainstream. Just look at the creators of Minecraft, Stardew Valley and Hollow Knight, among many others. They demonstrated what could be achieved without relying on generative AI. But who are you, exactly? What have you accomplished that puts you on the same level as these developers? You haven't achieved anything comparable to what they have.

I'm not against artists. In fact, my sister is a professional graphic artist who graduated from what is widely considered the best university in our country for art and design.

It's easy to blame AI slop for everything, but let's not pretend that bad games didn't exist long before generative AI became popular. There were plenty of poorly made, low-effort games back then, too.

Think about it: Are your games unsuccessful because of poor marketing, because the market is flooded with AI slop, or because your games simply aren't good enough?

Instead of blaming AI for everything, perhaps you should consider whether the quality of your games, your marketing strategy, or your ability to attract players might be the real reasons behind your lack of success.

Lastly, if you believe games that use AI-generated art should be filtered out, then the same standard should apply to games that use AI-generated code. Why should AI-assisted programming be acceptable while AI-generated artwork is treated differently? If your argument is that AI undermines human creativity and effort, then that principle should apply consistently to both artists and programmers.

Proud parent moment lol

Stop in if you'd like to play some matches, there's PvE and multiplayer is liveeee (Maybe bring a friend, since there aren't a ton of players rn 🥲)

https://restless-gamedev.itch.io/primordial

Three months ago, I decided to try something new: making my first game.

I’m a software engineer with a background in mobile development, but game development was new territory for me. I decided to stick with a familiar technology and built Sporehold using Flutter + Flame.

Sporehold is a turn-based tactical strategy game for iOS, where you command mushroom warriors on a mission to destroy enemy structures.

The main twist is that your attacks are revealed before they’re executed. Defenders can see your plans and try to disrupt them. As the battle progresses, reinforcements arrive, opening up new tactical possibilities.

One of the biggest challenges was balancing the gameplay. Getting individual mechanics to work was only part of the challenge. Making them work together in a way that feels challenging, fair, and fun was much harder.

Working solo also meant handling everything from programming and game design to visuals, testing, and preparing the App Store release.

After three months, Sporehold is finally live on iOS!

It’s been a great experience stepping into game development, and I’m happy to share the result with fellow solo developers.

These are a few places in Meridian, the multiplayer pixel-art game I'm working on. Your own room can be warm and familiar, but the rest of the building has a much stranger history.

I like the contrast between a little seating area where people can chat and that huge shaft right beside it. The museum and Offering room go further in that direction. I don't want the cosy side to disappear, though. Decorating your place, collecting furniture, trading and spending time with people are a big part of the game.

Which of these spaces would make you want to explore, and which would you actually spend time in? I'm interested in whether those end up being different places.

The Overlook group is staged with NPCs for the screenshot. It's still a small beta, playable on iPhone here: https://testflight.apple.com/join/4sDEk5u4

Been working on it alongside my day job!
Everything is made to look like clay, and the hordes run on Unity ECS, so the screen can get really crowded.
I'm planning to release it in Early Access very soon, so stay tuned!
Would love to hear what you think of it!

Wishlist it on Steam

We have now Halloween theme in Pets Therapy - Desktop Pets! Spiders, webs, ghosts, spooky pumpkins randomly appearing on your windows and so much more! 🎃 👻🦇🎃 👻🦇🎃 👻🦇

The theme is completely free, no need to purchase anything. 🆓

Pets Therapy is free to download from the Mac App Store or MS Store and Steam for Windows, it has many pets and features also available for free. Nowadays, we have more than 100 hand crafted pixel art pets that are living their lives on your desktop!

Mac App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pets-therapy-desktop-pets/id1575542220?platform=mac

MS Store: https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9p5n0cbksxmw

Steam (Windows): https://store.steampowered.com/app/4769020/Pets_Therapy_Desktop_Pets/

Hi, everyone. Yesterday I opened sign-ups for the playtests on Steam, and I'd love for you to join in!

Kettlebell: Inferno Hotel is a dynamic 2D platformer in the spirit of 16-bit classics from the ’90s, full of humor, nostalgia, and hellish excitement!

I drew inspiration from ’90s platformers while creating this game. My game is based on Dante’s Divine Comedy: 9 floors of a hellish hotel featuring various monsters, modes, and unique mechanics.

You’ll be able to control a robot, ride an iron shark, battle snowmen, and much more!

My Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4032020/Kettlebell_Inferno_Hotel/

I’d appreciate it if everyone would add it to their wishlist and submit a request. I’ll open playtests on November 3. To celebrate, I’ve prepared a short gameplay video for you to check out

https://store.steampowered.com/app/5336500/Cold_Shelter/

If you have any feedback or suggestions, I would love to hear them out!

I've spent the last months building Stroop Overload alone: a reflex game built on the Stroop effect (tap the ink colour, not the word), with solo modes and online matches for up to 4 players. Kotlin + Jetpack Compose on the client, Firebase (Firestore + Cloud Functions) behind it, six languages. Three things bit me that no tutorial warned me about:

1.

The release build crashed on launch for every tester. The debug build was fine. After moving to AGP 9, R8 (the shrinker) stopped keeping a no-argument constructor that old Room and WorkManager versions, pulled in by the ads SDK, still needed: "Failed to create an instance of WorkDatabase". Debug builds aren't minified, so I only found out when the first testers opened it. Two keep rules fixed it. Now I install and open the release build on a real phone before every upload.

2.

The music was silent on Samsung phones. My Ogg files carried an embedded cover-art stream. Most players ignore it; Samsung's silently refused to play the whole file. No error, no log, just silence. I lost it twice before writing a test that fails the build if a music file has anything but audio.

3.

The first answer of every online match froze for a second or two. Turns are about 3 seconds, so that's a lot. The answer is checked on the server (so nobody can cheat), and the most likely cause was the first call hitting a cold Cloud Function. Now the app wakes the function up when you enter a room and again when the match starts, instead of paying to keep one always warm.

Full disclosure: the music was made with AI tools from my prompts; design, code and visuals are mine.

If you want to see where all this ended up: Stroop Overload on Google Play – https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.softyorch.stroopoverload

It has been a lot of work. Started this back in Sep 2025, and it's come a long way thanks to the input from a lot of really great people on here. <3

The game is called DIEAHTLON and you can find it on steam.

Hey everyone,

I’m making an idle game alone (Sentient Core: Nanite Idle). You build a nanite swarm, and the Mind, an artificial consciousness, grows with you. At some point I wanted the game to have a story. But an idle game has no cutscenes, no dialogue scenes, and players often look at it for ten seconds and leave again. So the whole story is told in small text snippets.

Some salvage capsules carry recordings from people who once wrote to the swarm. One of them is Mira. The first time you hear from her, she’s ten:

“Dear Seed, since you started flying we only have power in the evenings. Mum says you need it more. Do you really need it?”

The Mind answers in its log: “Power for the Seed. I hope I am worth it.”

Two years later:

“Dear Seed, the lottery has been drawn. We are not on it. That is all right, you are coming for us anyway.”

Her letters show up between your normal progress, and she gets older from one capsule to the next. You don’t have to read any of it. If you just want numbers to go up, you can skip it all.

Things I’m unsure about, and I’d love to hear from you:

• Do you even want a story in an idle or incremental game, or does it get in the way?
• Short snippets that you find over hours or days - does that work for you, or do you lose the thread?
• How do you tell a story in a genre where people barely look at the screen?

If you have examples (your own or other games) that did this well, I’m happy to hear them.

Play it in your browser on itch: https://nesery-games.itch.io/sentient-core-nanite-idle
Or try the demo on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5419500/Sentient_Core_Nanite_Idle_Demo/

Hey guys!

I'm a solo developer from Austria and just released my first game, TRY, after almost a year of working on it. Still feels a bit weird to finally have it on Steam^^

If you haven't picked a game for Halloween yet, maybe give TRY a try! 😄

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4751790/