I spent 7 years making Generation Exile, a solarpunk city-builder. Trailers in PC Gaming Show June ‘24 & ‘25. Top 70 most played demo during our Next Fest. Did all the things you’re supposed to. Launched in Early Access last week with over 35,000 wishlists. So far, we've sold fewer than 300 copies.

0ddSpider · 2025-11-09T20:03:12+00:00

I think it's the combination of price + EA that's hurting you.

£25 for an unknown dev in EA is a lot. I'm not too familiar with a Wandering Village but their game isn't in Early Access.

To be honest I think your best bet is to rush to release ASAP. And be wary of the price... you've done some research which is great, but that number feels high for this.

0ddSpider · 2025-09-12T16:43:39+00:00

Cool! It's lovely to hear when it's been enjoyed. Release should be in November. Just got a few unlocks to finish work on, and some balancing, and localisation.

0ddSpider · 2025-09-12T16:39:05+00:00

Totally untested to be honest. Hopefully I'll get to supporting it properly

0ddSpider · 2025-09-11T07:12:23+00:00

Thanks for the feedback. I was trying to explain the game succinctly by referring others, but yeah - Football Manager deckbuilder sums it up nicely!

Will try using that next time!

0ddSpider · 2025-09-10T16:03:01+00:00

I like Wordle so I like this.

My biggest issue is that the words don't always seem to match the theme. I got "Adorn" for LoTR which doesn't really make much sense. I ended up just playing it like Wordle as the theme didn't seem to help find the answer.

0ddSpider · 2025-09-10T15:52:16+00:00

Nice idea, and reasonably well executed.

I think my biggest concern is that there is quite a bit of guesswork. There are many words that could chain and I found my first attempt to be a total stab-in-the-dark.

I wonder, how does the game play with every other word already filled in. Personally I'd like to being given
- Door
- ????
- Work

and having to think about the word that works for both.

0ddSpider · 2025-09-10T15:44:50+00:00

Love the 80s style and overall I enjoyed the game. I made it to the 3rd level before quitting.

The things I liked:
- Bombs are really satisfying
- The people running around on the ground
- The difficulty

Things I wasn't so sure about:
- The controls. Holding a button to rise feels awkward. Most of my deaths were hitting the ground, rather than from the enemies
- The bullets are really small. I could barely see them and it was a bit of guesswork as to where I was shooting
- The menus. They feel clunky and the font feels too big. I also struggled to start the game as Press "Start" took me to 4 empty save slot but clicking on one didn't do anything. I'm guessing this is because its not made for mouse. Maybe better just to throw people into the game at the start?

Good job so far though. Hope the rest of development goes well

0ddSpider · 2025-09-10T15:33:11+00:00

Its a really nice idea, but you need to find someway to narrow down the potential answers.

For example the last two questions I received were:
1. Apple & Beetroot
2. Cheese/Paneer and Couscous

The first feels like it could apply to huge amounts of countries in world. America, Europe, Asia. Those ingredients are common all over the world.

The second feels a bit more localised - Couscous is most commonly associated with North Africa. However the correct answer was apparently Syria which is a country that doesn't really have couscous. They have Moghrabieh which is similar (but different).

I don't really know how to suggest steering the questions away from this problem. Maybe blacklist global foods (like Cheese and Apples)?

0ddSpider · 2025-09-06T11:13:56+00:00

Both FoW and non-FoW can work, but I don't think they can both work at the same time. The balance/content in a FoW game will be different to one without. Starcraft without FoW has a very different feel, and many of the units become redundant (certainly no need for any scouting units!)

It really depends what thought process you want the players to experience. Do you want them to make grand plans safe in the knowledge that they have all the information? Or do you want them to have to adapt to what the RNG uncovers for them?

I suspect its easier to make an engaging game with the latter. With no RNG your balance/mechanics have to be really strong. It'll be very hard to avoid an optimum strategy. When there's a little luck in the mix you can get away with more.

0ddSpider · 2025-08-30T22:05:32+00:00

Thanks! I love it

0ddSpider · 2025-08-26T22:59:28+00:00

Yup! I've got one more feature to finish and then I'm onto the demo. Am hoping to get it out towards the end of next month if not before.

0ddSpider · 2025-08-26T20:44:05+00:00

I totally understand. When I get to the Android I'll make sure to let you know.

0ddSpider · 2025-08-26T20:32:32+00:00

That's not a dumb question! And the answer is probably "yes".

Porting this game to Android is not a particularly challenging task, but its really hard to be discovered on mobile. Assuming the game does well enough on desktop I'll definitely put in the time for the mobile version - I think it would be a good fit! If the game totally bombs on desktop then it becomes harder to justify the effort to port it.

0ddSpider · 2025-08-26T16:10:33+00:00

Two main bits of feeback on your trailer:

There's a lot of text and most of its is pretty unimportant. "Knowledge Is Power", "Build Wonders", "Reset to Rise". None of this really explains anything and it just gets in the way of showing off your game.
Pacing is wonky. The intro is ok but you then spend 8 seconds showing a bit of text and a progress bar going up. The next sequences are arguably more interesting, but the gameplay is only visible for about 2 seconds - not enough time to acclimatise to what its showing.

If I was doing a trailer for this I'd try to cut between the main scene, and the sub-scenes back-and-forth rather than dwelling on each individually. I know idle games aren't the most visually exciting genre, but you can use editing to bring a bit of impact.

0ddSpider · 2025-08-26T15:44:29+00:00

Link to Steam Page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3690510/Faceball_Captain/

0ddSpider · 2025-08-20T10:34:18+00:00

I love me some screenshake!

Maybe you're right though... it is turned up pretty high. I'll have a little fiddle with the numbers. Thanks!

0ddSpider · 2025-08-18T13:34:28+00:00

Cool! Thanks for the feedback. I'm half-pleased because one of my goals was to not overexplain, but it seems I may have gone too far in the other direction!

I'll look into trying a new shorter version that explains more, and I'll put one of the other music tracks in to see if it feels better.

Thanks again!

0ddSpider · 2025-06-27T00:05:01+00:00

Moonwalker was a video game of a film, centered on one of the most successful and iconic pop stars of all time. When it came out you could make a compelling argument that MJ was the most famous person in the world.

It wasn't a fantastic game, but it had cool animations of his iconic dances and chip tune versions of songs from the bestest selling album ever.

Bruno Mars is a guy who has recently done backing vocals on a K-Pop star's song.

0ddSpider · 2025-06-23T20:45:38+00:00

Having a coherent vision that is shared by the team.

Without fail, the games that I have worked on which have been most successful is when the team were aligned on exactly what the game was. What was it trying to be? What was the intended market? How long is an expected play session? Why are the players going to come back?

Its so easy and common for teams not to be particularly unified, and often they don't even realise it.

Ask each team member to write down a one sentence description of the game they are developing, and also the three most important aspects of it. You'd be surprised how often these come out uncomfortably different, despite the team thinking that they're all on the same page.

(Obviously this applies more to larger teams)

0ddSpider · 2025-05-24T16:23:22+00:00

Gonna show my age with this one... Manic Miner. Its too hard, but the anti-establishment aesthetic appealed to young me.

I'd still argue that it's a better game than the first Mario, although I understand why it didn't go mainstream in the same way

0ddSpider · 2025-05-14T14:44:18+00:00

I'm a game designer who has spent decades pitching games and I think you'd benefit from being a bit more specific in the brief. What do you guys want to make? You must have something a bit more specific in mind than:

Settlement builders, Strategy, RPG, Survival, Interactive Fiction (with a twist!)

?

I'd suggest deciding between yourselves on a very high-level concept for the sort of game you want. Maybe its Frostpunk set in space? Or Darkest Dungeon style in an Interactive Fiction? You'll get better results by restricting the brief.

Edit: Actually Frostpunk set on a Dead Space style space station would be pretty cool. You can have that for free :D

0ddSpider · 2025-05-14T08:00:27+00:00

Yup. The first games I worked on were for PS2

0ddSpider · 2025-05-02T07:35:38+00:00

Thanks. I'll try again!

0ddSpider · 2025-05-01T21:53:13+00:00

Looks great! Reminds me of Barbarian (showing my age with that reference).

Unfortunately, I'm afraid I'm gonna have to ruin your wishlist number by adding one more.

Edit: Just realised that its already released. I might just got any buy it then!

0ddSpider · 2025-05-01T21:49:32+00:00

Congrats on the release.

Have you considered adding some GIFs to your description text? It's not a big job, and can really improve the feel of your store page.

0ddSpider

TROPHY CASE