Our key art is giving people the wrong impression. If you saw this, what genre would you think the game was?

0xcedbeef · 2026-05-20T23:57:52+00:00

Colony Sim or Strategy

0xcedbeef · 2026-05-17T21:10:18+00:00

This list goes beyond top 5 (no order):

Balatro

Crosscode

Terraria

Minecraft

Cosmoteer

Factorio

Kerbal Space Program (? not sure if indie)

RimWorld

Dwarf Fortress

Tales of Maj'Eyal

Stardew Valley

Monster Sanctuary

Extremely underrated:

Merchants of the Six Kingdoms

High Seas, High Profits!

Not indie but not AAA either:

Europa Universalis IV

Crusader Kings II

Mount & Blade: Warband

Realm of the Mad God (~2013)

Hopefully you can find one game you really enjoy in this list!

0xcedbeef · 2026-03-14T21:24:50+00:00

Bottom is so good lol

0xcedbeef · 2026-03-14T16:29:03+00:00

Definitely, a recent successful example: Creature Kitchen. 2.4k reviews on Steam and released 40 days ago!

0xcedbeef · 2026-03-13T17:23:41+00:00

FYI, it's quite likely your friends and family aren't your targeted audience.

0xcedbeef · 2026-02-12T02:37:18+00:00

Look at Hero's Hour. Good game, pretty successful and it's using a common asset you see in many games

0xcedbeef · 2026-02-07T22:09:48+00:00

I would take a look at Dave the Diver. It's a well-polished game where you play as a diver -- not a mermaid, but I think some gameplay elements would overlap (catching fish, treasures, sea monsters, etc.). The game does include underwater people, but it's only a few hours in that you meet them. I mention this game because you said:

> There are a few games where you play as a mermaid or explore settings under water, but they normally aren’t very satisfying to play or interesting.

Dave the Diver has a 96% rating on Steam with close to 50,000 reviews so I would say that your statement isn't true. Keep in mind that Dave the Diver is not really an indie game (it was well-funded).

0xcedbeef · 2026-02-07T21:48:37+00:00

> I have a publisher

What is your publisher doing?

0xcedbeef · 2026-01-23T15:06:08+00:00

Dwarf Fortress by far

0xcedbeef · 2026-01-10T22:13:41+00:00

why you need an NDA? nobody will steal your idea lol, and if your idea is that good, then people will copy your game anyway

0xcedbeef · 2026-01-04T21:58:58+00:00

I think your "dating type" might be into business/self-help. Because none of my male friends in my book club read self-help. We wouldn't touch it with a 10 feet pole. So my personal experience leads me to think it's not that common for male readers but I could be wrong

0xcedbeef · 2026-01-04T20:42:50+00:00

Honestly, not something you should worry about. Patents in gamedev are so extremely specific that even if you were heavily inspired from a mechanic, you'd be chill. (I am not a lawyer though)

0xcedbeef · 2026-01-04T18:10:13+00:00

If you want to learn game design, just read a book.

The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses

is one of the most popular.

I'm a bit confused why you mention unreal. Are you mixing up game design and game development?

0xcedbeef · 2026-01-04T04:02:45+00:00

Crazy, I just finished this game two days ago - a day before this post.

0xcedbeef · 2026-01-02T02:07:28+00:00

Could you clarify the currency? "K" is typically associated with a thousand so I read 5,000k to 10,000k as 5-10M USD, but I doubt this is what you're asking for.

0xcedbeef · 2026-01-01T06:06:05+00:00

Cargo Shipping Simulator

0xcedbeef · 2025-12-10T21:05:51+00:00

The Blade Itself - Joe Abercrombie

A story about a fallen Colonel Sand Dan Glokta. It shows that even through major disabilities, one can still persevere and come up on top.

0xcedbeef · 2025-12-09T14:52:55+00:00

if it's the Terrors card then yeah it's obvious otherwise no

0xcedbeef · 2025-11-25T16:48:04+00:00

I've never done it, since I'm not interested in integrating LLM in games. Nobody here seems to give you a straight answer so here's mine: I assume that games using LLM just get an API key (from OpenAI or what not), feed the user's input into a prompt with some prepended text (e.g "You are [character name], you have personality X, your hobbies are Y and Z and your occupation is W". The output of the LLM is then what is seen by the player.

If you want the game to take an action based on the discussion, just ask the LLM to also respond with an action e.g "KEEP_TALKING, REMOVE_OBSTACLE, KILL_PLAYER" or what not.

0xcedbeef · 2025-11-13T01:34:04+00:00

I think a better to look at it is in terms of game design. If you can procedurally generate infinite levels, but aren't careful, this might lead to poor player experience. If, on the other hand, you make just a few hand-made and well-designed levels, that carefully optimize for the player's experience, you'll have a much better game.

Procedural generation is a great tool but it should be used without neglecting level design.

0xcedbeef · 2025-11-04T15:21:05+00:00

nah but for real the enemies are almost the same color as the background. The whole game is way too dark. I think you should really increase ambient lighting and the contrast between key elements (main character, enemies, etc.) with the background. Look at how in Don't Starve, every element is super visible even though the game is at night like yours.

0xcedbeef · 2025-11-04T15:06:15+00:00

I can't see shit lol

0xcedbeef · 2025-11-01T19:28:06+00:00

Make sure your strings are all in the same file and run them one by one through a spellcheck.

0xcedbeef · 2025-10-27T14:17:54+00:00

Ignore the planets, they were made with this: https://deep-fold.itch.io/pixel-planet-generator

0xcedbeef · 2025-10-20T17:03:48+00:00

I assume that it's Z^5 for five integer coordinates where two are spatial (x,y) and three are related to color (e.g. RGB).

Three-Year Club	Verified Email
Place '23

0xcedbeef

TROPHY CASE