Commercial Self Promotion
I spent $1400 to build My PermaDeath ARPG with AI and now have over 17.000 players
A month ago, Aestra: The Last Wish was just the game I wanted to play. I had no idea how to code, but I started building it anyway.
Today, over 17,000 people have played it. And while that number is wild to me, what really gets me is opening the game and seeing the minimap full of players.
People trading in the main city, dueling, finding groups and heading out to do content together. Seeing people actually spend time in this world, meet each other and come back to play more… it’s hard to describe how good that feels.
For anyone who missed my first post, Aestra is a real-time pixel action RPG with permadeath. You pick a class, quest, find gear, explore dungeons and take on raids. And then you get a little too confident, die, and start getting attached to a new character.
The first version cost me around $100 to build over a weekend. Since then, I’ve spent about $1,400 in total expanding it, with 9 classes, levels 1–100, talent trees, professions, world bosses and raids over the course of around 3-4 weeks.
I still have a list of probably 50 things I want to add. But seeing the game alive like this is already something I never really imagined. To everyone who’s played, shared feedback, brought a friend or lost a character to permadeath: thank you ❤️
If you’ve played, I’d love to hear your favorite moment so far. Or the story of how you lost your best character :)
This guy keeps posting the same posts, i spend this much for this game. It's like he makes 2 games a week. It's just a advertisements channel for tesana.
"this guy keeps posting about his game he made" haha are you well dude. I'm showcasing what I make with AI. isn't that the purpose of AI Game Dev? Play the game and let me know if you like it instead of being a salty hater.
Have you atleast figured out what references you're using for your artwork this time? Have you figured out you gotta say more than "the model the game is hosted on by the website"
This dudes a liar, he's just making shit up, the entire thing is an add for the website which he's a developer / owner of, he's posted multiple times in other subreddits like playmygame where he didn't even know what level cap the game had and made a competition where if you killed the last boss first you got pinned on the thread (??), there's ingame leader boards that show it was already done like 3 days before the post, October 10th iirc
I don't get it, why lie about it? Are you frustrated that no one plays it?
The numbers are clearly off and the world is just stale, buggy and boring. The combat system is basically spamming attack. The art is all over the place and in some places not even recognizable.
I'm not angry I just don't understand your marketing And I'm beeing direct.
The other comments here say enough?
You have a game maker platform and somehow you have to earn money. Why not be transparent about the whole thing?
Maybe you spent only a hundred bugs on the game, but you spent thousands on the game maker before. In my eyes that's false advertisement.
As you can see from the other reactions, that's not something people on Reddit like.
How many people actually come back to play the game regularly? How many ingame sales?
This reads like this game is your passion project, but t on your sites there a many games as a showcase for your game maker. That feels dishonest.
Maybe I got things wrong and I'm happy to get enlightened
Note: nothing of my previous comment is in any way directed at your person. It's just an observation from the game that I played and the post that I read. I'm direct, yes. To some people thats unfriendly, for me it's just honest and direct feedback, no fuzz.
After reading up on the pricing you didn't want to mention that for your number of players you would need to spend 180€ to keep it running? Who owns the code? Can I just download the game and run on my own servers?
While checking, the player number went up for 500 players while only 10 being online and the city completely empty?
Ever heard of concurrent player? There's been closer to 30+ online most of the day. If 10 people leave and 10 new comes in. That's 20 players but just 10 online :)
Idk what your on about. I vibe code games on Tesana. I wish I was the owner but I'm not. I'm just happy to make games and post about them. Seeing hundreds/thousands of players play your game is a feeling you cant describe. If people tried it they might actually understand why I'm so hyped and happy to show my game. Just today I have gotten 1500+ players and a few that seems to love it.
I disclose everything in my post. I got my first version of the game for a lower amount but kept building and ended up on $1400. If you actually play the game or look at it it's not strange. There's TONS of content that's super balanced. Try making it yourself for less and show me what it would cost.
People are so negative and suspicious. Everything isn't a psyop. If you don't like it, go to the next sub lol. I'm here to get feedback for my game.
Keep it up OP! Im happy that you built something you like, and that other people play! I built recently one game too with ai, and people play it aswell. All these negative comments, are just ragebait bots. Either Software bots or human bots 🤣🤣
So ignore all bad comments, but still kinda reply to them since it drives the engagement for the algorithm 😉
I don't get it, why lie about it? Are you frustrated that no one plays it?
The numbers are clearly off and the world is just stale, buggy and boring. The combat system is basically spamming attack. The art is all over the place and in some places not even recognizable.
What's wrong about sharing in different subs? And I'm not lying it's the same text more or less in all of them. Both Astra & Opus was involved in making this.
Spamming an advertisement under the guise of it being 'sub related' is scummy and you know it.
Lying about what tool you use in the title is scummy and you know it.
Straight up lying about your player count is scummy and you know it.
I'm sure multiple agents could have been used, but then your game wasn't 'made with Astra' was it? It was made using a ton of AI tools, of which Astra was a small part. Same with Opus. Same with any other tool and sub you're presenting this to as if it's relevant to the capabilities of that model, when it absolutely isn't.
The only reason you've done that is because you know the Astra sub doesn't give a crap about a game made in Opus, and the ad would be removed from the sub - and vice versa.
So, it's very similar to RotMG? I love that. Did you get inspired by it? Or you came to the same idea by your own? It will be very interesting to know what was behind it.
I played a lot of Rotmg during the years and it always nice to have something similar. Is it a bullet hell right? I will definitely check your game later, looks really good
Also you can try to get users from that community, may be it would be helpful and good luck 👍
And my fallen heroes I don't remember the classes but...
Level 9, 11, 12, 18, 11, 59 (oof this one hurt), 24
Overall the game is pretty fun! It has some quirks for sure which I shared with the OP. Yesterday there was a new update which is cool. It has a short play through time. It's easier if you play with others. Crafted gear is too OP (hard to not abuse).
The bosses are fun and mostly have unique mechanics.
I am not a big story person, haven't really followed that too much.
The trick is to lie to other developers.
Tell the ChatGPT users you're using Astra.
Tell the Claude users its Opus.
Tell everyone you have 17000 players.
Pretend this post isn't just an attempt at marketing.
When I move, I notice the terrain shaking a little. My screen also shakes when enemies attack me. :D I don’t really like that, but overall, I like the idea. Good job!
I'm re-iterating here, this game is awesome for some reason I can't pinpoint. This is the first time I play a random indie game off reddit for this long (over 5 mins now and still re-rolling chars after dying)
What is going on with people in this sub? Your attacking OP for making a great game with AI in a AI game dev sub? And so if he’s advertising? Don’t be so jealous because of the successful campaign OPs running, instead take care of your own sh*t
So right now I have 3 classes that cost $1 to unlock and that has started bringing in some decent money. Right now I'm just happy to see so many people enjoying. Havn't really decided what the exact long term plan is yet.
How did you get such nice art? I’m working on a pixelart-based mmorpg and while I use PixelLab, I need a lot of passes and retooling with aseprite to make things look passably decent. In a month for you to get that, did you get some packs on itch?
Thank you, I love the art of my game! I made the game on Tesana, they handle all asset generation, sprites, animations, sound etc. I just had really good prompts and image references to get it like I wanted.
Nothing to say about the UI clipping through itself? Something one of the 19500+ players playing your game might have noticed?
This is all untested one prompt bs made the most lazy way possible. The fact that you need to lie and invent metrics about the features of the game proves this. You're a very funny person :)
You're the first one that brought it up actually. Think the others were focused on enjoying the game :) It depends on your resolution. It's perfect on mobile and most desktops.
What lies? All the numbers are available on the website lol
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u/Wooden_Plant7504 21h ago
This is disingenuous.
OP seems to be coming out of Y-combinator and running a game hosting startup in San Francisco...
So the real message is: "Come to my platform to make and host games and you may also get 17000 users".
None of the claims are reliable (costs, tools, team, number of actual players,...) so unfortunately this post is time wasting.
This is a shame though. There is nothing wrong with being honest about this.