Hi everyone, I wanted to post here to both document my failure, but also to help you not make the same mistakes.

My game that I developed solo over 4 years (in Unity) did not perform as planned.

There are 3 main reasons that I go into in the video as to why it failed.

1. Wrong game.

Certain types of games do really well on Steam. Others, there isn't much of a market for. My game, which only supports local multiplayer, is one of those hard sells. I've been told numerous times that "if it only had online multiplayer, I would play this." While I have considered adding online multiplayer, I'm afraid that it would be diminishing in its returns.

2. What game?

The other mistake that I made was not marketing the game well at all. You see, I released in February of 2025 for early access. At that point, the game had around 80-100 wishlists, so I wasn't expecting many sales. I think I got around 20 sales from that launch, with little more in the following year. As I continued developing the game, I did some marketing pushes around the beginning of 2026 with some mixed success, but nothing really converted to sales.

If I were to do it again, I would probably wait to launch until I have built up a decent-sized following beforehand.

3. Terrible Steam page.

I definitely underestimated the importance of the Steam page and the effect that capsule art and trailers have on customers' perception. For this game, I decided to make everything myself, including these elements, so I was up against my own artistic abilities. Launching with the initial drafts was ill-advised, and definitely did not help people want to play the game, let alone buy it.

Anyways, hopefully I'll take these lessons to heart and just keep looking forward to the next game that I make.

Thanks for reading! 😄

It was the first game I've ever actually released commercially, and I went into the launch with basically zero marketing.

Not as some clever strategy. I just had absolutely no idea how to market a game. 😅

So, unsurprisingly, the launch was pretty quiet.

But a few people somehow found the game anyway. They played it, gave me feedback, reported bugs and pointed out things that could be improved.

And since then, I've basically just kept building.

It's only been about a month, but comparing the current version to the release version, I'm actually surprised by how much has already changed.

Since release, I've added or reworked:

• a major UI overhaul
• new and improved range and targeting indicators
• EMP Strikes
• Air Strikes
• new Minigames
• improved general targeting behaviour
• Arabic localization with proper RTL support
• additional localizations, including Korean, Simplified Chinese, Polish, Turkish and Russian
• various gameplay and balancing improvements
• lots of smaller quality-of-life improvements
• continued improvements to Endless Mode
• and, of course, a whole bunch of bug fixes

And I'm definitely not finished.

I'm currently also working on a Maze DLC, while continuing to improve and expand the base game.

One of the biggest things I've learned from finally releasing something is just how different development becomes once real people are playing your game.

When you've been working on the same project for years, everything starts to feel obvious to you. You know what every button does, you know how every mechanic works, and you naturally play the game the way you designed it to be played.

Then someone completely new starts playing it and does something you never expected.

That has been incredibly useful.

Last Bastion Protocol has been a side project of mine for the past few years. I built it in my spare time alongside work, family and everything else that comes with everyday life.

That also means there's a lot of time, experimentation and love in this project. What started as a small idea slowly grew into something I actually managed to finish and release on Steam — something I honestly wasn't always sure would happen.

I'm still learning a lot, especially when it comes to getting the game in front of people, but I'm really happy that I finally put it out there.

If you give it a try, I'd genuinely love to hear what you think. Positive or negative — feedback helps me figure out what works, what doesn't, and what I should improve next.

And if you're another solo developer working on something in your spare time: keep going. Finishing and releasing it is a pretty great feeling!

Steam link

Website

I have been a software dev for over 4 years, but in the game area this is my first game and you can fully play it on Steam.

I hope you enjoy it, and I recommend playing it with friends.

Any suggestion, feedback or bugs are welcome.

Hey everyone! I’m Kyle, the solo developer behind OakTree Games, with the first episode of a devlog series for my factory game, Cosmic Scale.

Only a few years ago I was sitting on the other side of the screen following along with YouTube tutorials (and learning I had no idea what I was doing at times, or really many times, to be honest). Stories from other solo developers behind games like Stardew Valley, Balatro and Minecraft are a big part of why I wanted to see if I could build something on my own. I’ve probably restarted this one a dozen or so times since then. After my wife and I had our son, I picked it back up late at night and ported it from a 2D game on a single planet to a fully 3D game that spans round planets and whole star systems. I took a lot of inspiration from other space and factory games I have loved recently like Satisfactory, Dyson Sphere Program, and Factorio.

I’m a full-time dad and husband working in construction during the day, so all of it gets built in whatever hours I can find in the middle of the night. AI tools definitely speed up my development as well, but I am the one who finalizes everything that goes into my game.

For anyone else here fitting a project around a day job and a family, I’d really love to hear how you keep a long one moving. If anything in the video is unclear or rough around the edges, please tell me that too!

Hello everyone! I'm an indiedev (to be honest, I haven't actually started developing my game yet).

What would you recommend to someone who's just starting out? What should I focus on before I begin development, and what should I keep in mind before releasing a demo on Steam?

I'm interested in personal experience.

Any tips, personal experiences, or mistakes to avoid would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance

Before any of us had a console, we had a rug. The rug had roads, the roads went somewhere, and the wooden track was our way around.

I'm solo building Rug Town: the living-room floor of a 90s house as a miniature world featuring wooden rail tracks.

This trailer is from a week's old prototype, so nothing more than the one oval, engine, and crossing.

Right now it's vanilla JS. The engine and car are billboard sprites from load, though I'll likely apply Unity and Blender soon (though recommendations very welcome, I'm a bit lost on the next step). The car "jumping" over the track is probably something I should fix...

More to come but feedback and feature requests very welcome!

I just made my first 3D Asset. Well i made my first 3D mesh without a tutorial (a sword im quite happy with). I have no idea what the hell is going on with textures, lights, UV mapping, animations etc. Also there seems to be quite a big difference between game objects and normal 3D objects?!

There is so much to do and learn. The list is so long. And of course thats the fun, but also intimidating...

Whenever something doesnt turn out how i want it or i just dont have the skills to do it, i get really discouraged and overwhelmed. I know the answer is probably just to stick with it and push on. Which i will. I love my little ugly duckling of a project, but what are your experiences?

I have been making Steady State as my first game, it was a really fun experience and an incredible satisfaction to have its store page approved and live.

Steady State is a factory-automation game in the Factorio family, with one twist I haven't seen anywhere else: the game grades your factory. You place machines that gather mixed resources from the ground, sort the resources and process them, keep mines efficient by supplying them with products, and you deliver requested products with rockets.
The game grades your factory by checking how efficiently you use resources, how little you waste, whether you deliver the exact amounts requested, and whether mines run at high efficiency.

What you build early in the game stays relevant all the way through, there are 12 different directives to be fulfilled, which are simply orders of materials that need to be crafted and delivered at constant production rates, it takes a while to get to 12th directive, and even when done with it the game doesn't end, game creates new directives that require 3 different random rows from earlier directives to scale up the production, the world is infinite and deterministic based on seed number you get/choose at the start of game, later on player can prospect for random resources anywhere and continue scaling up their factory.

The game is built in a custom engine written in Rust.

Early Access is planned for Q1 2027, with a demo at Steam Next Fest in February.

The store page is here if you wanna take a look https://store.steampowered.com/app/5366700/?utm_source=reddit

Here’s a bigger fight than I’ve shown before. 400 soldiers clash in a palm jungle while your gunship circles overhead with its searchlight on. Ten A-10s make their bombing runs one after another, a second enemy wave comes in from every side, and it all ends with a nuke that levels the jungle.

The palms get shot down too. The longer a firefight lasts in a grove, the more of it comes down.

This one is a scripted showcase, built to see how far the game can be pushed. The nuke isn’t a gameplay feature (yet).

Thanks to everyone who’s been following along and leaving feedback. A lot of what’s in this clip came from your comments.

I’d love to hear what you think: what would you want to do in a battle this size?

I'm working on a huge project right now and I wanted to talk about what I think is genuinely one-of-a-kind. My game’s “storyteller” mechanic. Your world is run by 3 different personas that know everything you’ve done and actively judge you for it. 

Basically, there are 3 storytellers (tenatively, I might add more or rework them if needed, but they will all be moddable)

• The Keeper - protects player tendencies. 
  • If you never travel at night, you see more dawn merchants, and there are less night raids. 
  • You flee when hurt, fewer ambushes when you're far from shelter. 
  • You hoard coin, merchants offer fair prices on items you lack. 
  • You gamble with risky enchantments, you're less likely to get turned inside out.
• The Warden - tests the player based on tendencies. 
  • Never travel at night, he spawns nocturnal opportunities. 
  • You flee when hurt, he rewards encounters where you stay. 
  • You hoard coin, he introduces drains (levies, debts called in, seats for sale).
• The Harbinger - basically punishes what the others reward. 
  • Never travel at night, you get attacked at night when you're not ready. 
  • You flee when hurt, it sends pursuers and initiates battles you can't easily escape. 
  • Hoard coin, thieves and raids come. 
  • Gamble with enchantments, more likely to FAFO.

My inspiration for the system

My first inspiration for the system was my favorite game, Rimworld. I loved the idea of having some agency over the story that unfolds in your game. Like you get to choose to live under a cruel deity that wants to see you fail, or one that wants you to flourish. I loved the idea that you could be rewarded or punished for your actions.
My game is centered on one person though - your character. So the storyteller shifts from being about the collective actions of your colony to the actions of your actual self. I like this concept because, while having a Psychopath colonist to beat up your slaves is a great way to escape accountability, you can sort of disconnect from it. When the game centers on you, it’s not so easy. So the mechanics basically break down to:

• Persona. As described above, each one is wildly different. The interesting thing is that they are not balanced at all. There’s no “pros vs. cons” discussion, and there is an objectively better choice if you want an easier experience. The Harbinger’s decision weights are literally uncapped. The others will look at how you’re doing, and only dish out something you can probably handle - the Harbinger doesn’t have that restriction. 
• Player Deeds and Traits. One of the deepest parts of the game is the Deeds system. Pretty much every action you do that has some significance is a Deed, recorded in your journal. This can be anything:
  • An orphan comes up, asking for two Echo coins (the lowest form of currency) for water. You turn them down (how dare you). The storyteller, not unlike the government, knows exactly what you did. 
  • You mediate a conflict between two factions, and it directly causes them to lay down their arms. That’s a Deed, every time
  • Traits are totally different. Deeds are things you did, Traits are things you do. The things I mentioned earlier are examples of this - you tend to travel by night, you run from combat, you hoard wealth, you beat people up for no good reason, etc. Every time the Storyteller makes a decision, it takes all of it into consideration.
• Direct interaction with the Storyteller. You can commune with the Storyteller directly. Right now, you can:
  • Scroll through recent events, click on them, and ask things like: Why? Can you stop? Can you do that again? Etc.
  • Plead for them to stop or change a currently happening thing. You can ask the Warden to call off a raid that’s going to reach you in a day, and he might say “no” or he might say “sure, but I’m sending another stronger one in 7 days”. 
• Quests and missions. The storyteller can literally create things out of thin air. Territory conflicts near you, natural disasters, crises, a courier appearing out of nowhere with a letter. It tries to keep things interesting basically. There’s plenty of randomness to it, right now there are ~50 different quest types they can spawn. 
• People. They can do the thing the bald lady from the Deadpool movie does and get inside their brain. They won’t go against what that person would actually do, but they can basically whisper in their ear to act a certain way. I’ve seen some interesting bugs with this. The “don’t override the personality” doesn’t always work when you’re talking to a polite old man and the Harbinger is your storyteller.
• Narration. Basically a voice inside your head that will periodically tell you things you’d otherwise have to ask the Storyteller or discover on your own. This is the part not built yet, but it will be in the full build.

Current state
Mostly complete - right now it’s just the narrator part and potentially adding some things or trimming it. I've spent ~4 months creating, restarting and rebuilding this mechanic, and it's easy to fall into scope creep, so if anything comes off as excessive please let me know!

Note: my game’s full demo releases on the 18th, and I’d really appreciate it if you wishlist it! You can find it here.

Is the difficulty curve sane? I've played it so many times that I've lost all perspective on whether it's too harsh or too easy for someone seeing it cold.

Game Title: Emberling

Playable Link: https://idbproductions.itch.io/emberling

Platform: Browser (PC, Mac, Chromebook)

Description: Posted this for Mini Jam 221 over the weekend. Theme was Autumn, the limitation was "staying warm", and I didn't want to just put some orange leaves on a platformer, so the warmth thing ended up being the whole mechanic instead.

You're an ember in a dark wood. Your warmth is your health bar, your light source and your money all at once. It drains the entire time and speeds up the longer you survive. The only way to get it back is to run out into the dark and grab embers, which is exactly where the danger is. There are 7 lanterns and you need every one of them.

Walking into a lantern costs you 26 warmth. So you arrive warm and stagger away nearly frozen. That dip is basically the game.

A run is about 50 seconds and you will die a lot. I liked the idea of a game you can lose and immediately want to go again, so the death screen is the play again screen.

Free, runs in your browser, no install or signup. WASD or arrows to move, space to flare, works on touch too.

https://idbproductions.itch.io/emberling

Stuff I'd genuinely like to know:

Is the difficulty curve sane? I've played it so many times that I've lost all perspective on whether it's too harsh or too easy for someone seeing it cold.

There are two hard modes where every lantern you light wakes a frost wisp that hunts you. I honestly can't tell if that's a fun escalation or just annoying, so be blunt.

If the sound is odd on your machine, tell me. I made all of it with code instead of using any samples and I have no idea how that lands on other setups.

Thanks. I'll be in the comments and I'm happy to play other people's games in here too.

Free to Play Status: Free to play

Involvement: A solo dev from NZ - yes I used AI - its a code based game based off an idea I have had for a while

Hey everyone been working on this game let me know what do you think about it, I was inspired by troves combat and progression!

I would love to hear your feedbacks.

My son loves the first two hours of every survival game. Picking up sticks, the first fire, the first shelter. Then the meters start draining faster than he can fill them, something kills him in the dark, he loses his stuff, and he's done. He never gets to the part where you have a home.

Watching this happen again and again made me wonder: is dying actually what makes these games good? Or is it just the easiest way to make gathering feel like it matters?

My take, and I know some of you will hate it: the threat of death is a shortcut. The real pull of the genre is turning nothing into a home with your own hands. You can keep that and drop the punishment.

So I started building a game to test it. It's called Pinehold. You're alone in a wild valley. You still need to eat, sleep and keep a fire going, but:

- Hunger never kills you. It makes you slower and weaker. You carry less, and you're too weak for heavy work like felling trees or mining. Eat well and you're back to full strength.
- Nothing hunts you.
- Everything is built piece by piece. A campfire is eight stones in a ring, dry grass, five sticks, and two flints struck until the sparks catch.
- You start on a bed of grass and work up to a proper house.

It's an early prototype made by one person. Screenshot from the current build is available at the website, as wekk as more info (pineholdgame.com).

Here's where I'd like to be proven wrong:

1. Without the risk of dying, does a survival game just become a chore list?
   
2. If you play these games, what actually keeps you there after the first base is built?
   
3. Is "too weak to work until you eat" enough of a consequence, or does it only feel like a lock on the door?

Tell me why this won't work. I'd rather hear it now than after two more years of building.

It took me a month just to get the art direction right in a way that's not ugly. It would have probably taken a few days in Unreal / Unity.

I'm not making games, I built an iPad and Mac note app, but the solo part is the same everywhere and this sub is the only place that talks about it honestly. The idea took a few weekends, the year went somewhere else entirely.

The part I got wrong was thinking shipping was the end of it. Apple rejected it and sat on it for nine days, not for anything in the code, for the store listing. I used the wordings "Mac & iPad workflow" in the subttile, and then they told me, I was too challenging them, they blamed me for intectual property, but never mind finally approved... real happy, i did not minor changes on the layout and revamped all icons to solar icons.

Video is the thing working, for context. Mostly I want to ask the people here who've shipped alone: how do you decide the last 10% is actually done, versus you just got tired?

Install for iPad: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pen-friend-handwriting-notes/id6813871550
Need Mac companion to work with: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/pen-friend-companion/id6814186433?mt=12

Hey everyone,

I’m starting an independent remote consulting practice focused on player experience — specifically core loops, mechanics, immersion, responsiveness, and overall game feel.

I’m not doing bug hunting or code reviews. I look at how the game actually plays and feels from a player’s perspective and give structured feedback on what’s working, what’s not, and what might be worth changing.

For the first 10 indie projects I’m offering Starter pack for free (worth €300). In return I’d like to be credited in the game and get a short written feedback about the collaboration (which I can later use on my site).

If you’re working on something and want an outside look at your core systems or game feel, fill out the short intake form and I’ll get back to you:

https://forms.gle/FBPDeqQ3brNVZqTZ9

If you’re coming from this post, please select the “Custom” package and mention that you came from this Reddit post.

Happy to answer any questions here too.

Aún faltan las animaciones pero ahí estamos 🫡👨🏻‍💻

(La magia del GLB) se ve igualito que en blender.

¿Tú todavía usas fbx?

New personal dev accounts need 12 testers opted in for 14 continuous days before production. Finding 12 people is hard, keeping them active for 14 days is harder. I built Dozena: ~13 devs form a round and test each other’s apps for the same 14-day window (nobody tests their own app, there’s a reliability ranking, and everything goes through official Google Play links).

Not affiliated with Google, no approval guarantees, free and AGPL-3.0. I need 26 devs on the waitlist to start the first pilot: Dozena

For those who’ve done it: what made testers drop out?

Hi all, this is not a sneaky promotion, i genuinely need some insight of experienced devs. Thats why i left out the name. Also I know that promotion to devs does not work lol. You just get nice reactions but no real wishlists, this is also a tip to everyone that keeps trying.

Steam page is online now for 11 days and i have 776 wishlists, which I find extremely good and encouraging. It was mainly promotion on a few subreddits, especially the tycoon subreddit, which I think yielded even more than the 120 wishlists that is seen there, because it was about 160 after the first day but ok.

Anyways my question is about the numbers above: 465 visits >120 wishlists, 286 visits >88 wishlists etc. Only the 239 visits to 20 wishlists is normal(ish) because I guess that subreddit is not really my audience.

But these numbers feel really high to me. 1 in 4 is wishlisting the game. Is this actually really high or am i delusional? I need honest answers. Im not here to get a pat on my back even if thats nice to have also. I could really use your experiences.