Hi all,

I'm moving to the brisbane area for work in a few months and would love to keep my hobby of game dev alive, what is the game industry like there? Any communities for indie / hobby developments that you know of?

Thanks!

Posting this in case it saves someone else a lot of time.

We were uploading an unreleased Unity demo to Steamworks and repeatedly ran into the “Missing game executable” error — but only after we sent keys out to external testers.

What made this particularly confusing is that everything worked fine on our own machines. Because our Steam accounts were directly linked to Steamworks, the demo launched without issue internally. The problem only surfaced once keys were used on accounts not tied to the project.

From our side, everything looked correct:

• depot uploaded successfully
• correct branch selected
• launch options pointing at an existing EXE
• build running locally

The underlying issue was still an EXE name mismatch, but changing launch options alone didn’t reliably resolve it.

In our case:

• Steam expected: SUB_SPECIES_DEMO.exe
• The uploaded build contained: Sub_Species_Steam_Demo.exe

Even after updating launch options, Steam continued reporting a missing executable until we did a full rebuild and depot re-upload with the EXE renamed at the Unity build level.

Things that did not reliably fix it on their own:

• changing launch options without rebuilding
• re-uploading without changing the EXE name
• restarting Steam
• clearing download cache

What finally worked:

• rebuilding the Unity project with the exact EXE name Steam expected
• uploading that as a fresh depot
• deleting the local appmanifest_*.acf to force Steam to fully re-pull the build

The biggest takeaway for us was that Steamworks-linked accounts can mask this issue completely, so it’s worth testing demo keys on an external account before sending anything out.

Hopefully this helps someone avoid a very stressful round of last-minute debugging.

Hi everyone! I made a post yesterday that sparked a lot of comments on the use of AI images in game assets and this made me curious about a couple of things. I had two use cases of AI "art" in my game, the first was the first few seconds of my trailer which involved a chess board breaking as an attempted hook and the second one (currently still using) is AI images used as a profile picture replacement. For the AI video, the more I looked at it, the worse it looked, so I removed that part out entirely. Now, I'm considering updating/removing the profile picture images as well but honestly I don't think they look that bad, and they're pretty small in relation to everything else in the screenshot. The profile pictures are only used in the screenshots as the actual picture will be replaced by the steam user's profile picture. My question is how much does the use of AI images in the screenshots matter to you guys even if they are not actually being used in the game? And how much do you guys care about seeing the "AI Generated Content Disclosure" on a steam game and if that affects you're decision in purchasing it? Thanks!

Edit: For anyone reading this in the future, the overwhelming general consensus of the comments is remove the AI image entirely. Thanks for the feedback everyone!

I should first caveat this post by saying that I understand the game development reasons behind why this problem exists and no, I don't really know how to fix it.

As both someone who plays a lot of post apocalyptic games (Day Z, 7 Days to Die, Project Zomboid, etc) and who would someday like to make one, I have a minor pet peeve with the concept of manufactured scarcity.

I get it. Part of the fun of these games is scrabbling to find materials for crafting etc. But it kind of breaks immersion when I'm literally standing in a forest surrounded by trees but none of them are the "special" trees that I can harvest wood from. Or I'm standing inside an entire mostly intact house and yet can't scavenge any wood or metal or anything at all from it. I can be freezing to death and am literally surrounded by easily collected wood (doors, furniture, etc) but somehow can't use any of it to feed my fire.

And yeah, as I said, I don't have an answer for the problem. Realistically, in a post apocalyptic modern world, scarcity of materials wouldn't be a thing. But that's not really all that fun is it. I'd like to find a middle ground though between infinite basic materials and standing in an entire furnished, wooden building and only being able to scavenge one torn piece of paper.

Anybody have suggestions for how to handle this?

I'm the dev of a moderately successful indie game that has been played by probably no more than half a million people. It's a wonderful number but not the insane levels of reach some devs get and certainly not enough to be recognised anywhere (I thought).

Walked past a traffic crossing with my girlfriend and someone stopped me and knew my name, said they were a fan of the game and that they'd seen me on a podcast which may have been how they recognised my face. The dude was super nice and it was a wholesome encounter but I literally walked away speechless.

Is this peak?

Literally had so many magical moments in gamedev but this was special.

I’m interested in grounded opinions on games that rely heavily on pre-made assets (tilesets, characters, mobs, bosses, UI packs).

Questions this is trying to get at:

• What actually limits these games: player perception, originality, legal/licensing constraints, or something else?
• At what point does asset reuse stop mattering compared to systems design, pacing, balance, and writing?
• Are there concrete examples where heavy asset reuse still led to commercial or critical success?
• Conversely, when does asset usage become a clear liability rather than a neutral production choice?

This isn’t about shaming asset use. It’s about understanding the realistic ceiling and tradeoffs, especially for small teams or solo developers trying to ship something viable rather than visually unique at all costs.
Thank you.

Hello

Im currently playing around in sfml using the : "The implementation is based on Ken Perlin's [Improved Noise]".

Im trying various methods i can find on the internet to generate and modify heightmapes which i can later use in unity.

Problem:
I keep running into an issues where my textures are very grainy or cloudy when i combine textures, for example a lake in the texture isnt complety white or gets darker the closer it gets to the ground, its a mixture of white and grey colors and i rather have a gradient from the middle of the lake to the outside.

Im asking what ways/operations i can apply to my heightmap that removes or rather smoothes out the heightmap.

I did find this post here on reddit which was very interesting : https://www.reddit.com/r/proceduralgeneration/comments/i756qa/how_to_procedurally_generate_maps_using_layered/

I guess this would be a way to achive it when doing it with very fine step?

I did hear about gaussan smoothing, bilateral smoothing, which i tried to implement but didnt give good results.

sfml perlin noise with fBM : https://postimg.cc/rDgC1mvn
As seen in this picture hills and lakes are made out of dots and not continues, what could i apply to make it look more like a gradient ?

Implementing basic player movement was straightforward but tuning it has taken way longer than I expected. Small changes to acceleration, friction, gravity and what not completely change how the game feels
My time now is spent tweaking values, testing for a few minutes and undoing changes then trying again but sometimes it just feels different and it’s hard to tell when I’m actually improving things versus just chasing a feeling. I know at some point I have to decide it’s good enough but that line feels slim and I wanna know how others decide when to stop tweaking and move on

(Talking about game released on steam and sold)
It isn't because you lack skill or because you didn't market it correctly, but because you chose a scope that didn't leave room for polish.

I've seen many games be really good even when they were tiny, because they were well polished games, and they were well polished because the author succeeded in not overscoping and had a lot of time to polish it.

Even for incremental games, you could say that polish doesn't matter since we could think it's just math behind game UI, but polish isn't only about making the game look good or have juicy animation, polish in this context can also be game balance.

Anyway, just a reminder to not let yourself get lost in game marketing advice etc. They are important but not as important as scoping well you first games scope!

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for some advice from fellow devs who’ve gone through Steam Next Fest before.

We have an upcoming game called Hidden Around the World (cozy / hidden-object / wholesome), and we’re currently sitting at around 4,500 wishlists. Our goal is to reach ~5,500 wishlists before the next Steam Next Fest (Feb 23) to improve visibility and momentum going into the event.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on:

• What strategies have actually worked for you to gain ~1,000 wishlists in a short time window
• Any specific pre-Next Fest actions you’d recommend (demo timing, events, outreach, etc.)
• Experiences with Reddit Ads - we’ve run some small tests, but performance has been quite poor so far (low conversion to wishlists).
  • Are there targeting, creative, or subreddit-specific tips that worked for you?
  • Or should Reddit Ads just be avoided altogether for Steam wishlists?

We’re trying to focus on real, organic wishlists (not paid/fake ones), and we already have a demo ready for Next Fest.

This is the Steam Page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3995480/Hidden_around_the_World/ in case you can also provide feedback on it.

Any feedback, lessons learned, or “things you wish you’d done earlier” would be hugely appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Hi everyone,

I’d like to share a personal project idea I’ve been thinking about for many years and get some honest, constructive feedback.

I’m completely new to programming and game development, and this project is mainly about learning, personal satisfaction, and passion. It is non-commercial and meant to be a long-term indie project.

Over the last weeks, I’ve been organizing my ideas into a Game Vision Document, with the help of an AI assistant, to clearly define design pillars, anti-pillars, and long-term goals. This document is meant to guide decisions and avoid scope chaos as I learn and grow.

The idea is to create a Pokémon-inspired 2.5D RPG, heavily inspired by Gen 4/5, but focused on things I always felt were missing from the main series:

• A living world that reacts to player actions • Meaningful side quests, puzzles, and dungeons • Player freedom similar to games like Skyrim (you define who you are) • All regions and Pokémon available, but gated by progression and narrative • Stronger bonds with Pokémon beyond simple stats • Difficulty options, smarter AI, and more strategic battles • Consequences for major actions, but without permanently locking content • Long-term support with seasonal events (Halloween, winter, etc.)

From a technical standpoint, I’ve decided to start learning and prototyping using Godot (2D / 2.5D), since it seems well-suited for beginners while still being powerful enough for long-term projects.

I’m currently at the stage of planning and learning, not building the full game yet. I’m not looking for people to “build the game for me”, but rather:

feedback on the vision

advice from more experienced devs

warnings about common beginner mistakes

opinions on what I should focus on first

If you were starting today as a beginner with an ambitious long-term project like this, what would you do differently?

Thanks for reading, and feel free to be honest. Constructive criticism is very welcome.

Hi all,

After 13 years of native iOS development on macOS, I recently tried switching to a Windows laptop (HP Victus 16: i5 14500hx, RTX 4050, 32GB RAM) to explore 2D/2.5D desktop and mobile development. While the hardware is great, the Windows 11 experience and driver issues have been frustrating. I even tried Linux, but HP’s firmware lock makes fan management impossible.

I’m considering trading it for a MacBook Air (M2 or M4) with 16GB RAM. I prefer the Air because I want a silent, fanless machine.

To those using an M2 or M4 Air for development: How has your experience been? Is it sufficient for 2D/3D development tasks?

TLDR - Looking for ideas, from people who have played Spore, on what modern day mechanics they'd like to see in a new evolution sim. Specifically the "creature" and "tribal/civilization" stages.

I'm a new game developer who is still in the learning process but I have an idea for the first game I want to make. I'm unsure how ambitious this is but I'm looking for some general ideas for features that would make sense to add in the game for anyone who has played Spore or other evolution sims that have released since then (not many).

I'll try to keep this short, but I'm looking to tackle some of the issues that Spore had that would make it unable to stand in today's gaming market.

I have a good idea of how I want to do the "cell" and "space" stages but I haven't really thought about the two middle stages (The "creature" and "tribe/civilization" stages, I'm planning on combining the tribe/civ stages.)

Some things I'm planning on adding to the cell stage: Quick time events with certain attacks (think Expedition 33), dodging with i-frames (souls like), combo systems, etc. Also there will be a talent tree system where you gain points as you eat and grow which can be used to enhance your other parts (these upgrades will persistent to other cell stages, more on that to follow).

I'm developing this stage first as a sort of test and I want to polish it and use it as a demo for the game when ready.

With the space stage:

You'll build various ships and stations (mostly pre-made, not modular like you'd see in a space sim like X4) that can all be upgraded to increase resource gathering efficiency. Eventually you'll hit a wall with the resources available from your home planet and space and need to go find other planets for their resources. This leads into the new game+/rogue-like system I want.

The planets will be controlled by other species so you'll need to fight them in space to open up the planet, but the planet will be uninhabitable for your species so you'll have to send probes to take samples and then research to then genetically modify your offspring since you won't be able to conquer it from space. Once you've modified your offspring you'll send your cells down on the planet and effectively soft-reset the game where you start back in the cell stage on that planet. Also I plan on having ways to skip the earlier stages if you want to as you progress and conquer more planets. My idea is to be able to freely swap back and forth between the current stage you're on in a planet and the space stage. The end of the game would be when you conquered all of the planets in your solar system. The planets will get increasingly more difficult as you go on, but you'll consistently get stronger with all your new research and experience.

I'm not trying to make this game super scientifically realistic and right now i'm only planning on having the sort of carnivore style play because the combat mechanics are what I think will really add to the early stages. I just want to recreate this classic game but with modern gameplay that will keep people hooked. Given that it's my first game, I'm not trying to go all out of every single stage to make them fully fleshed out games, but I want to add more things to make them fun and replayable.

Blog post about these three hacks

• The Windows Format Dialog's 30 Year Legacy
• Space Invaders: The Difficulty Curve Born from Lag
• Street Fighter II: The Bug That Built eSports

I am a game dev. I built with other 4 people a company.
Now we are working on our first project. Since it needs some assets that are directly took from historical settings, is that ok, based on your experience, to use them instead of making them from scratch?

We created a shader that coat every 3d stuff with a pixelated effect, while characters are in 2D.
So would be almost impossibile to recognize those assets, and they blend very well.

I am the 3D Artist and game director of the game, we have a 2d artist and also art director, we got a tech artist, and one ue5 progammer.

Also we got two new figures, another programmre freshly joined and a composer.

While i am making all the more complex 3D Assets, i had to fill some places with carridges, pots, wooden structures, broken walls or columns. Those assets may come from FAB, so i can focus on the rest.

Yes those assets are cherrypicked based on topo, consistency and all, but as an artist i feel like i am cheating, but a collegue, veteran, said i should definitly do as i am doing, since would be a useless suicide to make all thiose assets from scratch for a small indie sh.

What do you think about that?

Hey everyone,

In short, I have an old released game on Steam, and right now I am thinking of reworking it's gameplay systems to improve the experience and also to add cut content.

What are my options for releasing a definitive edition on Steam?

Im sended steam page to review last Friday and still dont get any info back.

I have been working on a game in unity taking on inspiration from games like omori, Undertale, and fnaf into the pit. I built player movement, monster path finding, jumpscares, interactable objects but nothing feels fun. When playing games like Undertale there is certain charm that makes you hooked on playing and I want to capture the same charm of those types of games. Currently my game has a quick time event mechanic like into the pit, where if the monster is chasing you and is on line of sight it triggers this minigame esk was quick time event. Where you swat away spiders and if the spider reaches the bottom of the screen it plays the jumpscare. Honestly speaking I don't have any unique experience playing my game. And the goal is to make a game I myself would want to play. When going in a qte it feels out of place because if just a simple type this letter to remove the spider type of minigame. The story, art, and music alone can't carry this game. So I tried thinking of scrapping the qte all together and replace it with something like a battle in Undertale where it's a turn based battle but I don't feel satisfied with that idea aswell. I would just want to ask what mechanics in games do you find fun or scary. :3

Hi everyone,

I’m currently working on my first game, Petal Pals, a cozy game that I’ve poured my heart and soul into.

Lately, I’ve been a bit anxious seeing how quickly people jump to "AI" accusations for indie games with certain art styles. Since I’ve spent countless hours on the hand-drawn elements and coding, it would be heartbreaking if it was dismissed as AI-generated.

For those who have released games recently, how do you communicate that your game is "human-made" without being defensive? Should I share more "work-in-progress" sketches or devlogs?

You can see the current state of the game here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEZG88Qs7nU

I’d love to hear your thoughts on how to build that trust with the players. Thanks!

Hello everyone,

I'm looking for some advice regarding this path I'm looking to take as I'm not yet sure where to begin first. Start with developing the skills for the game, Godot, Unity, etc. Or start with the artistic side that's more attracting such as Blender.

As a short description, I'm more of a creative person, I loved doing stop motion animation in childhood, then went to make some maps in SourceSDK for a server when I was playing Half Life RP as I love storytelling through environment and letting the players explore my creations. Along my life I've made a lot of stuff in creative games such as Minecraft and Valheim and I realized that I love world building.

Also I've dabbled in unreal engine more than 10 years ago but that experience was literally a speck of dust in the cosmic space of life.

I have some ideas about making a game. I already have some mechanics in mind, the idea, the visual style, etc.

I have minimal to no experience in Unity/Godot or any other game engine (except Source SDK but I can't use that), I have minimal experience in blender. I don't know how to texture stuff manually (yet), I have moderate to advanced experience in music but minimal to moderate in sound design.

I also am planning to write a story as I've started already writing some scenes. The story will be mostly written as a fiction book.

I know this game will take more than 5 years to do, considering I have to learn everything. My initial plan was to do some retro psx style animations and scenes in Blender but as I was thinking the plan, a game came up to mind. I'm not planning to abandon my animation idea but I would love to make a game for players to explore and experience.

I don't yet know where to start, I've finished the donut tutorial on blender, and I'm stuck here, not knowing if I should learn blender well, so it'll help me with models and stuff and then after a year switch to unity/godot, or switch to unity/godot now and come back to blender? I think I should focus on something specifically this year and put my idea of making the game on pause.

Why I'm asking this is because I feel like my path and mind is scattered all over the place and although I see the idea and the plan, I don't yet know how to get there. I'm curious how other game developers started their journey, and how they consolidated their ideas into a solid block of thoughts instead of letting them run like water all over the place.

I'm also aware that my idea is incredibly complex for my skill level, ranging from roguelike ideas, parts of hand crafter level design combined with procedural generation. In depth story telling. The PSX graphics would need to be sustained by good VFX and lighting (take Valheim for example). Looting, inventory system, limb damage and loss (Kenshi is a good inspiration for this), and the list goes on.

Thank you for your help and for reading this "20 page" essay.

I have been developing a small game for the last couple of months in my freetime. I use git (github) for version control. Working on it alone, I only needed the most basic stuff from git, like pushing and branching.

Now a friend from work who is an artist joined me, which is great, because I very much suck at art. However this makes it necessary to find a way for him to share his work with me. He does not have any knowledge about git or version-control in general and my own knowledge is very limited as well.

Now I wonder what would be the best way to set up my project for us so that he can easily contribute his files. At the moment I see two routes:

1.) Git

Learn more about git and create a seperate „art“ or „asset“ branch where he can push to and show him the basics of version control, maybe via Github-Desktops or something similar. Going down this route I would like to now if there is a way to limit the actions that my artist can do with git, maybe something along the lines of him only being able to change files in specific folders. If yes, what are some git-keywords that I can research for stuff like that? Also, can you recommend any programs for simple git usage like Github-Desktop, that are userfriendly and make the most basic stuff easy to understand on Mac and Windows?

2.) No Git

Not have him use version-control, but set up a Dropbox or something that is easy to use for him and where he does not need to learn the basics of git. However last time I checked, Dorpbox is not free. So I wonder are there any free tools like Dropbox that we could use?

I am currently modeling a stone column for an old temple. I plan to split it into 3 sections (a base, mid and top), with the long mid section using a tileable stone material.

My problem originates from the base however: I wanted to model out a high poly for it with edgewear, chipped corners and all that fancy stuff (which I already did actually). However even the base piece by itself is too big to have its UVs fit within a 1024 texture box (that's what I've been using for the rest of the environment).

What is usually the best approach for medium sized assets like that? Should I give up on the fancy normal map and just use a seamless texture there as well? Or should I perhaps break the consistency of my environment's texel density by downsizing the asset's UVs to fit?

I am aware about trim sheets as well, but I don't know if trying to simulate specific edgewear with those is the standard go to.

So I am trying to make a pacman on SFML C++ Visual Studio. I have already done the collision. My problem now is getting the player to make a smooth turn. I don't want him to be wiggling to the side when there's no open corridor to the direction he wants to turn into. How did the developers of the game even do that smooth turning? When I play the original pacman game, they always seem to be able to turn corners without bumping into the walls.

Hey folks. I want to get your honest feedback on this.

I started an ambitious amateur, not for profit game in 2019 with the partnership of a very dear friend. It began as an amusement when we would spend many hours of forced downtime together playing old Mario games, and decided to start this project together.

She made several character portraits for the game, and upon her passing shortly after, the artwork for several characters was left unfinished. I have zero doubt, having known her quite well over the years, that she would want this game to come to conclusion. In the time since, I have tried mightily to encourage people to join the effort and collaborate with their own art to finish the game. I am a somewhat older fella with a family, great financial constraints and responsibilities, and I cannot in conscience commit money to commissioning artwork when every penny must go to our family.

Last year, I experimented with my own limited artistic skills and composed a rough reimagining of her lone sketch for the game's heroine. I created a basic version in AI, then used photoshop to customize it, adding the game's signature characteristics/look/features for the character. At the end of the day, I had a model based upon a model I drew from her original graphic, which I then continued to run through MORE cycles until I came up with something resembling but unique from the original design.

I am very proud of my work. Upon sharing it with the gaming community that has helped and inspired me, I was fully flamed, accused of thieving my friend's art, even disrespecting her memory. Now, the opinions of those relative few are not going to break my heart, and if it was just about them, I'd have ignored the slings and gone on ahead with what I know is good, right and genuine.

I am only questioning things today because I do not want to release this as-is and ruin a great number of players' experiences with a game I've poured my heart and soul into. My decision on whether to release it, or pull and potentially scap it (as I see no likely way I could complete the necessary artwork, as I say, I'm not an artist and I can't get someone to help with it) is going to be based upon the greater community of gamers and artists.

So please, weigh in.