Hey, I am working on a Roguelite Factory Defense game called Nomad. Early in the project, I used Meshy to make placeholder belts when the project was still Nordic-themed. They worked fine for basic testing, but the mesh has 8783 polygons.

After deciding on a new artstyle (80s synthwave) I made a new belt model from scratch which brought the polygon count down to 260! Especially for a entity like the belt which could be present up to 1000x on the screen at once this is a big optimization.

I also added arrows along the texture so the belt direction is more readable for the player. The animation is handled directly in a custom shader by scrolling the UVs,

Full devlog with notes on the update: https://www.daviddiener.de/Blog/Nomad-0.6.0

Just had a video clip of my surfing game go somewhat viral on Instagram (326,995 reach). Less than a week later a competitor released an extremely similar level, indoor wave pool, string lights, etc. Just blatant. I was a bit freaked out at first but after some thought I'm not worried. Here's why:

Most of the competition popping up is from idea people who have this new coding capability and they're creating bare minimum tech demos. I'm also seeing what appear to be reverse engineered games from 20 years ago. They will move on to the next shiny thing when they have to set up an LLC, or get through the Steam onboarding and launch prep.

The direct clones using things like "Reverse Engineer Anything" are a bigger concern. I'm not releasing a demo as a precaution. But here are my concentric moats:

• Technical innovation - Deliver something truly new that pushes technical boundaries. In my case I'm creating the first surfing game that uses real CFD to simulate the waves. This has to manifest visually because nobody cares about fancy new algorithms if it doesn't directly impact gameplay or the look.
• Offline Asset Pipeline - All of my CFD tooling used to generate the wave assets lives only on my machines. All of the work I put into customizing this cannot be duplicated easily. They can reverse engineer the assets but they can't see how I modified and configured the CFD program, etc.
• Continue innovating - It's probably a matter of time before competitors catch up, even with the above approach. So my plan is to keep pushing updates post-launch. This doesn't fit with the "I only buy games on disc" crowd but I think it's necessary in this day and age. The idea that you can invent a game like Monopoly and license it out for 70 years without changes is dead and buried.
• Launch on multiple platforms. If you release on iOS only someone will launch the same thing on Android a week later. So cover the bases. If you're launching on Steam, consider a light weight mobile version as a placeholder for those app stores.
• If you're serious (and in the US), consider an LLC and trademarks. There are so many frivolus (slop?) lawsuits around asset use that I don't want to roll the dice and put my family at risk. Most of the clones are created by individuals, not buisnesses. So they have to put their name and address in the Steam profile if they want to launch it legitimately. It's easier to deter them if they get a cease and desist from a business with a lawer instead one person.

Regarding AI. I won't use it for art, music, etc. for personal reasons. If you're not using it to crank out boiler plate code the big AAA game studios will eat your lunch. Our advantage is that we move fast, we're not designing by committee, and we're not stuck with old tools our studio licensed five years ago. Hand crafting code feels like capitulation if you want to make a living in this game. If you aren't trying to sell games, and just doing it for yourself, or for artistic reasons, VIM awaits.

I keep seeing the same format: "After 4 years of work…", plus a cat or a desk photo if you're lucky. And honestly, it seems to work.

Is it the effort that gets people? The relatability? Or do we just all really like cats?

As for me: no cat (not even a stuffed one), and no desk photo, since I'd have to clean my desk first. But I did make a forensic mystery game, Bone to Pick, and it's joining Steam Next Fest.

Not judging. Just curious what makes it click for people.

This is what happened if the Werewolf get their claws to the gals, what would you do...

Hey everyone! Quick introduction, I have been developing games on the side for almost 8 years now with 3 releases and soon to be a fourth in Q1 2027. I had this idea after seeing some posts. I want to start doing an in-depth review of your Steam store page and your gameplay. I am currently only looking at games that are on Steam, whether they are in pre-release, demo, or already released; I'm open to all!

What I hope to get out of it is some feedback as well, currently I have been working on a passion project, one that I want to be perfect before release, skipping the Early Access hole most indie games fall into.

For My Review Of Your Game:

• I would like to post my feedback directly to your comment, allowing others to see changes they might also want to make to their projects, so please tell me all about your project! 💡
• Will look at your Steam store page and any associated links from there (Discord, YouTube, Instagram, etc...) and give you feedback and a score 💯
• If you provide me with a key or your game is already playable, I will give you my "First impressions": things that irritate me, things I really love, and feedback as well in the perspective of a "Casual gamer," as not everything that makes sense to you and me will make sense to a customer. 👾
• A general overview of the project with my 8 years of experience developing, marketing, community management, and more. If you tell me what your goal with your project is, I can help guide you on how to get there! ✨

So let me know about your game; give me the 10-second spiel, give me a link! After that, if it requires me to have a Steam key; send that to me in DM's after you post here! I hope to see some amazing projects, and I'm glad I can help anybody looking for genuine feedback to improve!

RoboSquare: Recharged 🤖
Here is the project I have been working on for the past 2 years:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/4088870/RoboSquare_Recharged

After telling me about your game, let me know how you feel about mine! I'm looking for REAL nitpicks as well!

Thanks in advance!

Slowly replacing my AI placeholders with my own art has been a real journey... Only 50 cards left to do :/

Hey everyone!

We are developing a physics platformer inspired by unforgiving climbing games like Getting Over It. Every step counts, and one wrong move can send you tumbling down.

The journey is going to be (very) hard, but the reward at the end would be absolutely worth it for those who dare to climb.

Wishlist Flailathon on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5261490/Flailathon/

Discord(join for exclusive updates and playtests): https://discord.gg/zUCWdeZyHP

We'd love to hear what you think of the teaser or answer any questions about the game. Thank you!

So just to be clear i'm not against AI in principle - i've used it myself and i know a lot of devs are finding it hugely liberating - but:

Basic economics of supply & demand shows that when you flood the market ( dramatically increase supply ) it drives the price of goods and services through the floor.. It's already competitive out there with 200+ games released per day on Steam, and this is now starting to increase not just in quantity massively but also in overall quality - the only result of this in a competitive market economy can be a race to the bottom in pricing..

Doesn't this completely destroy the incentive to make games? If there's essentially no money to be made and success becomes a slot-machine.. Traditional funding and investment looks for returns, if there's virtually zero chance of return there's zero investment which hurts in particular studios, it just rug pulls the whole industry and all of the jobs with it..

Fortnite and Roblox are a canary in the coalmine for this - initially people are jumping on board and even building teams around the opportunity to build fast and execute quickly - the barrier to entry was lowered or removed entirely.. But before long the marketplace becomes oversaturated, the chance of getting any kind of visibility shrink to near-zero, and only the handful of whales survive. I've seen folks set up whole teams around the Fortnite creative ecosystem and announce six months or a year later it's just not possible or viable to run a business in that environment and shut up shop.

Isn't this inevitable for games more broadly, we were practically already there trying to compete on Steam and that was before AI 'democratized' game and software development.

So i'm just looking for pushback here. I try to stay positive and not be a doomer but i can't see a macro economic case for how this goes any other way.. A bit like when Spotify came along and destroyed the ability for musicians to make any money through distribution, now it's cents on the dollar and only the very top of the tree can actually make a living from it, meanwhile Spotify absorb 99.9% of the profit.

Posted the same on X here but i don't have a huge following there, if anybody wants to engage:
https://x.com/cow_midnight/status/2111784580281725439?s=20

So ... my games community isn't large. In fact it is very small. But I was getting the odd discord join every couple of days or so, but when I went to check out the members list it was always the same number, I thought the server was too bland, too dead, or people just didn't care to stick around. I think I found the issue and wanted to share my mistake so others don't make it.

When creating invite links in discord, there is a little checkbox that says "grant temporary membership" ... I thought: hey that just means people that want to be temporary members have that option ... Boy was I wrong.

After chatting to someone who joined and 'left' said he thought he was kicked. Turns out this temporary membership means if there is no role assigned to that person and they disconnect they are removed from the server!!!

Intuitively this is worded wrong. But if you are also wondering why people don't seem to stick around then check your invites and maybe make a new one :')

If anyone wants to come and join my server to double check my theory:
https://discord.com/invite/nYHtkGYKzm

We are all creatives, engineers and craftspeople, but not all hats in game development fit just right. For me social media coordination and marketing is the heaviest and most itchy hat of them all.

EDIT: For users more well versed than I in discord servers, or people who don't see how this mistake can be made, the wording tripped me up:

GRANT temporary membership, to me sounds like you are allowing the user to make the choice, NOT restricting the membership to only one type of membership (temporary)

So in the back Iof my head I wanted to offer as many choices to people as possible, I didn't think this option meant ONLY temporary memberships, even the explanation, "temporary members are automatically kicked ..." in my head meant for those who chose a temporary membership

Since I was a pretty shitty artist 5 years ago, I made a pixelation tool called Ditherdragon to help me create weird mashup/photobashed pixelart sprites. And a lot of other people liked it enough to give me money haha
Over the years, a lot of stuff has changed, the best techniques have gotten more effective and most importantly I got a lot better at writing software :P

Now over the past few weeks I remade Ditherdragon entirely to be more performant and to have tons more SOTA features. The most important thing for me, is its muuuch improved detail retention when pixelating. Fine elements now carry over into the final image instead of disappearing.
Ditherdragon does NOT use GenAI, its all good ol' algorithms.

And its free for whoever owns the original Ditherdragon!

I think the best thing is some sort of way to poison all the code and assets so that it cannot be scrapped so easily. I don't know of anything available like that personally, but it would be awesome if a game development engine provided this option for devs.

And for the sea of ai slop making discover-ability impossible, we need alternate stores that heavily vet each game to make sure it's not ai. The purpose of these stores and platforms would be to help people find human made games again.

Ultimately we need to have a real economic force that prioritizes human made games over ai ones.

What are your thoughts on these issues?

What can I do against this? We've discovered they have the EXACT same website copy pasted under a different name as well. My friend inspected the "game" download and it's some WPF app that's not a game. We're assuming it's some infostealer. It's blatantly obvious they're targeting my players because they put "a 2D sandbox MMO" in their description, which is exactly what my game is. I don't have the name trademarked but I've been publicly using it since 2024 and I've owned a domain for it.

What can I do against this? I wouldnt really care if it weren't the 3rd result on Google right below my website and my steam page. Has anyone here experienced anything similar?

So I recently posted about a prototype for this game and got roasted about it being an AI slop, so yes I am coding with AI assistance but got some good feedbacks as well and wanted to keep getting some more to keep improving it, here are the recent changes:

- Fixed water blocky texture

- changed UI style

- added more player animations when turning, crashing etc..

- added Power flamingos, you need to pass on the right direction or get penalized similar to Wave Race 64

- changed the depressed AI voice narrator

- added more elements in general to the map

- added crowds, people on the beach , tunnels

-added a drift like booster inspired on mario kart

What do you think?

I wanna try this again, and this time make sure I get across what the server is and isn't cause I feel I failed to do this in the last post I made: I have made a Discord server to try and give people who are tired of hearing about A.I. and the community I wish to form is simply one where we can just talk about game dev the same way we did back before all this A.I. this and A.I. that was a thing. I want a place where we can just pretend it doesn't exist for a while, we share stuff we're working on, ask questions get feedback and help. And in order to protect the ideals of the community there is an application system active in the server, it will just ask you a few questions with the most prominent one to share something about your game (whatever stage it may be in), ideally something that can prove or at least give some assurance that you yourself don't use A.I. to make your game.

I'm not saying is a perfect safe haven.... but I hope it can be a place to catch your breath in a sea of vibe coders and A.I. "artists" a place to *actually* help you improve *your* skills in making games.

Right now the server is small: just me and three other devs, along with one artist who's agreed to be in the server to offer any sort of drawing services (such as capsule art, for example).

The rules will be tweaked as things progress to try and create a positive environment for game devs who simply just wish to make their games themselves without someone chiming in with "well A.I. can just do it faster"

if this is something that interests you then please come and join us :)

https://discord.gg/2RytwCWd4D

Only one part of that sentence is true. Unfortunately, it's the 3 years.

The rest is the kind of completely deranged backstory you can give your character in my game, Lore & Legends Maker.

Create your own adventurer, give them an unhinged past, create some ridiculous abilities, and send them into a fantasy world where you can try impossible plans and deal with the consequences.

Want to start a cult of Cthulhu, romance up Hobgoblins, or escape to a world with lower gas prices?

https://www.llmsaga.com

A while back I shared my monster card game, Beast Snap, and got a lot of backlash for the AI-generated card art. Fair enough. A lot of it looked generic and "AI-ish," and I heard that loud and clear.

So I've been experimenting with a different direction: pixel art.

Left: the original painted AI art

Right: the new pixel art version of the same card, shown full size and on the actual battlefield

Brutal honesty welcome. I'd rather hear it now than after launch.

(to be clear i paid an artist for only 1 image)

Ezalm : Magic's Memory is a fantasy action RPG featuring complex combat mechanics inspired by MMOs.

The combats are a lot of fun, but it's sometimes hard to figure out *why* you die (with all the different enemy spells, your own spells, and passive abilities...).

I was getting frustrated when watching people play my game because I felt like the game wasn't doing a good job at explaining the mechanics. On the other hand, I didn't want players to get overwhelmed with many tutorials and read walls of text... What I really wanted was the game to give them specific advice *when* the players needed it.

That's how I got the idea to create a rule-based AI that would record metrics during the combat, and then use specific rules to determine what the player could have done better to win the fight. Some examples of those include analysis about your dodge timing, which enemy was the most dangerous in the fight, the balance of the combat style you build, ...

The funny thing is that it also changed my vision of the game's balancing, since this system made me realize some flaws in my playstyle. In the end, I feel like the design of my game changed to give the player more freedom (instead of requiring them to approach a fight with specific spells, they can play as they like as long as their playstyle "makes sense").

If you want to try the game for yourself, the demo is available on Steam as part of the October Steam fest (19-26 October).

Link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3744470/Ezalm__Magics_Memory/

And if you have any questions about the system, I'd be happy to answer them (and advocate for more games to incorporate those kinds of systems 😇).

Hey all!

I'm Nick, a solo developer from Cambridge, UK.

For the past year I've been building Luminids alongside working full-time. It's a peaceful little voxel world where you build colonies, explore, farm, fish, craft and look after these tiny creatures that have their own personalities, memories and relationships.

I wanted to make something that felt cozy, warm and inviting. Somewhere you could build a home, watch your little community grow and just enjoy being there. It's about stillness and calm vibes.

I'm proud of what I've made so far, and very close to a public demo.

Unfortunately, life hasn't been particularly kind recently. My work contract was ended early, and I'm now facing the very real possibility of losing my home. It's hard for me to ask for help, but I'm putting my best foot forward in the hope that more kind souls will continue to support this project.

So this Kickstarter means an awful lot to me, both for the game and personally.

I'm trying to raise £12,000 to help bring Luminids to the world in February 2027.

If it's your sort of game, I'd be incredibly grateful if you'd consider backing it. Even a small pledge helps, and there are reward tiers too.

And if you can't, sharing it with someone who might enjoy it would mean a lot.

Thanks for taking a look. ❤️

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/luminids/luminids-a-calm-colony-building-journey

We're excited to share that Coldline: Disconnect is participating in Steam Next Fest, and our demo is officially LIVE! 🎉

We're a small indie team developing a Cold War-inspired mystery game where you repair electronic devices, intercept communications, and uncover secrets hidden beneath seemingly ordinary tasks.

Over the past few weeks, we've been improving the game based on feedback from our playtesters, refining mechanics, polishing interactions, and working on the overall experience.

Now that our demo is available to everyone, we really need your feedback!

As fellow developers and players, we'd especially love to hear your thoughts on:

• Gameplay mechanics: Are the repair and communication systems engaging and satisfying?
• Atmosphere: Does the sound design and visual presentation build tension and curiosity?
• Pacing: Does the experience keep you interested in uncovering the story?
• User experience: Are there any confusing, frustrating, or repetitive interactions?

We're actively collecting feedback and making improvements throughout Steam Next Fest, so your suggestions could genuinely help shape the game.

If you get a chance to play the demo, we'd love to hear what worked, what didn't, and what you'd like to see improved.

Thank you for supporting small indie developers! ❤️

Feel free to ask us anything about the development process, too!

With AI, there's obviously been an influx of posts on this page, with almost all comments just hating on AI usage.

AI tools are not going anywhere.. so the game dev community should think about defining what an Indie Dev is.

Is it how long someone takes to make something?

Is it using AI things other than code?

Anyone who thinks AI code means something is slop immediately loses all credibility.

I would propose projects using AI art and music should be considered slop, and therefore NOT be allowed in this community.

But the devil's advocate is that games are simply easier to make than they were even last year.

We should not gatekeep game development, but instead provide foundations for those who are learning how to make games.

I have no authority other than access to the Internet to make this post, but anything that matches slop (as I defined it with AI music/art) should be taken down.

Personally I really enjoy using AI for coding, architecture planning, etc. so I am really put off by anyone saying any project using AI is inherently bad or in bad taste.

But I'm curious what people think because AI isn't going anywhere, and it's incredibly powerful at enabling solo devs to create projects that they enjoy.

Edit: What's funny is I can't tell if the downvotes are from AI vibecoders, or game devs purists

Available on Google Play and App Store:

• Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.szdigital.football_connections
• iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/footmates-football-puzzle/id6807923946