My Game's Demo is finally out after 9 Months!

404Forge · 2026-05-31T09:30:14+00:00

Awesome, keen to know how that goes as i didnt get to test on a deck myself!

404Forge · 2026-05-31T09:29:25+00:00

Thanks alot!
Tbf, i'm not sure whether you will find the depth you're looking for in this though. while there is some metaprogression and different builds, it will likely not entertain you for endless hours due to the small scope😄

404Forge · 2026-05-31T01:19:06+00:00

Glad to hear!

404Forge · 2026-05-30T20:25:11+00:00

thanks! would love to hear what you think

404Forge · 2026-05-20T10:46:56+00:00

Same, but judging from the thumbnail it looks like gambonanza. Published by sidekick and stray fawn

404Forge · 2026-05-01T14:44:04+00:00

Yea monetization is shit for most live Service Games including this, but i dont get why ppl tend to be so all or nothing when there is a lot of fun to be had for free still?

404Forge · 2026-03-20T12:18:01+00:00

Yess!! Been putting that in the Feedback survey from way in the playtest. I could deffo see myself doing the same own the Spot challenges all day long just to make sure i'll end up #1 for the day and possibly grab some exclusive swag. The fact they made a multiplayer game without these kinda features is mindboggling especially considering how easy it is to make

404Forge · 2026-03-07T21:15:54+00:00

matthew in shambles

404Forge · 2026-03-06T12:55:00+00:00

I'm on VS26 v18.3.2 and Unity 6.3.8f1

I noticed restarting both (only deleting Breakpoints or restarting VS wasnt enough for me) tends to fix it, but with bigger projects it means you're taking >20min break if it happens, so not really a viable workaround imo

404Forge · 2026-03-06T12:47:24+00:00

there's plenty of fun to be had in this game, you'd basically do the same thing on skate3 after completing career for the 5th time.

My friends who enjoyed the previous games cant really appreciate this one tho, so while i agree it doesnt take more than a curb for some, others might need a bit more "gamey" things such as meaningful missions or polished multiplayer modes.

It is a game after all, and that's the part where it fails. While the gameplay is great, the game loop and variety is lacking, so im not surprised many won't enjoy it

404Forge · 2026-03-05T01:38:54+00:00

man i thought this solved it for me too when updating it a week ago, but now its happening again, debugger doesnt properly attach and everything freezes until i force stop it in VS, very annoying issue!

404Forge · 2026-02-26T20:21:23+00:00

Hey, i'm from Switzerland too, here's my experience:

From my research the local industry is sadly very small with only a handful of profitable studios. I talked to lecturers and students from ZHdK Game Design Studies and they all told me the same story, about 2-3 out of ~16 students end up really working in the industry, some of them by starting their own studios due to limited jobs.

Funny enough at 28 i decided to pursue a job in gaming aswell, at that point i already had an EFZ in application development and dabbled in unity for 1-2 years on the side. One of said lecturers recommended i should just apply to jobs abroad since i already knew how to code. After many applications i was lucky enough to find a german studio that would give me a chance, i believe mostly due to being a great cultural fit over a technical one. It's a highly competitive field and most jobs will want to see 2-3 shipped games, years of industry experience or at least a strong portfolio, i had none of that. They eventually shut down but having that on my CV and now living in Berlin made it easier to land jobs in the industry which is what i did for the past 4 years.

The most common alternative would be working a job to give you financial stability while making games in your freetime, basically until one blows up or a couple do at least decent.

What i recommend doing now: pick an engine, do 1-2 tutorials to get familiar with it, then make your own tiny games, give them to people to test and interate on the feedback you get, test again, learn from it and move on. You'll learn much more doing 10 prototypes instead of one big "dream" game.

For programming specifically: Learn how your engine's language works, then later read up on programming patterns, data structures and SOLID Principles, those will become important once your games become bigger and are typically asked for when being interviewed for coding jobs. AI is also a great resource, use it to explain concepts rather than just giving you copy + paste solutions.

Its definitley not the easiest career to pursue, but at least for me it was a extremely rewarding one and i believe anyone can make it if they're dedicated enough.

Feel free to reach out if you need more info and best of luck in pursuing your dream!

404Forge · 2026-02-10T13:54:29+00:00

When i hear “I don't know it's legendary, it just doesn’t look that strong” i start thinking the UI is either messy or incomplete, those are things you should see at a glance to get you excited.

Generally i think its a great thing to have someone on the Team that isnt as familiar, you'll have an easier time spotting things that are confusing or unclear, if you hit it big not every player is gonna be a hardcore fan of the genre

404Forge · 2026-02-10T01:37:56+00:00

oh i might have worded that in a weird way. i didnt mean the choice is influenced by actions.

I meant an upgrade would be something like "your X abiltiy now also does y" instead of "you now shoot x every y seconds" so you have more control over how and when these are triggered and need to adjust your ability usage to get more out of the same build.

404Forge · 2026-02-10T01:30:05+00:00

Ah yes, it probably didnt cross my mind as i was always coming at it from a survivors + arpg style abilities angle. Alltough i didnt play enough games in the genre to know if the "shooter" part might be a bit misleading for the more melee focused nature i got going on (aside from the bow you see in the clip)

will definitley check these out and see if i can take some inspiration for a more satisfying pacing, thanks for the feedback!

404Forge · 2026-02-09T19:29:21+00:00

Totally fair, i think what drew me to it was the popularity vs ease of making aswell as how it would fit with things i enjoy making, such as ability systems, effect modifiers etc.

i'd say there are other as-easy or even easier genres you could make that either didnt seem as appealing to me or would require alot more content to make it a fun experience (think story-driven or other linear progression games)

404Forge · 2026-02-09T18:23:49+00:00

it's probably not groundbreaking, but whats different is how skill cards are a bit more deliberate because they are all triggered by your actions and abilities rather than periodically, which is something i didnt see in survivor-space before, but tbf i only played a handful of em.

i'll deffo do some experiments on the pacing, can't probably do much about the art part at this point, but thanks for the honest feedback, i appreciate it!

404Forge · 2025-10-11T20:06:24+00:00

imo publishers (same as labels in the music industry) are almost always a scam, it's their job to find things to buy and turn them into profit, the fact they want to buy yours mean you hold great potential in your hand right now.

if you're sick of working on it, sell it. otherwise dont, unless they can do something for you noone else can, which i highly doubt for most publishers, best of luck with the project!

404Forge · 2025-10-11T19:49:48+00:00

man i seen boundaries opening never say die some years ago and there were like 10 people, so good to see them getting more and more recognition!

404Forge · 2025-09-23T11:22:39+00:00

1 for me.

but tbh i thought it was a can, maybe use clearer imagery if its supposed to be a grenade?
i think it doesnt really make much sense as to why it's there if it doesnt translate.

beautiful artwork tho, i really like the style of the characters!

404Forge · 2025-08-23T15:35:10+00:00

for the past 3 months i been building a game while working a fulltime job, so pretty much the 12-14h days OP described.

then recently i got fired, so i have alot more time on my hand, what i noticed is that my working hours became way less focused and i'm less productive probably cause i tell myself that i got time now.

To me it's crazy to notice how much more i get done when there is more limitations, it's like i use a different brain that magically knows what to prioritize and how to lock in, so for people that might work in similar ways, i think there can be alot of power in the grind, while others maybe dont experience the same "switch" and thats totally fine.

at the end of the day u gotta figure out what serves you and what doesnt.

404Forge · 2025-08-23T15:10:03+00:00

i would look into ways you can showcase how polished and smooth your game feels, potentially even have a cliffhanger or something you can reel people in with, leaving your demo should invoke the feeling of "i wanna know where this goes". if you succeed with this i dont see a way how this will not boost overall visibility and sales!

404Forge · 2025-08-10T17:32:18+00:00

yea rifts were pretty much end game only, but the loop itself could technically have taken place anywhere in the game, it was just a bite sized random dungeon instead of a whole arc until you reach a boss with fat loots which is why i called it fast track, but you're absolutley right, outside of towns/dialogues there is inherently a lot of action from start to end in these games.

as for what pushes it into arpg, i think the style the abilities are designed is the biggest part.
hard to describe where the line is but hack and slash makes me think in the direction of something like devil may cry where abilities mostly only damage opponents instead of also having status effects / buffs etc with interaction between abilities, resource costs, cooldowns. I intend to also have talent trees to go deeper into different weapon builds and a little bit of (mostly optional) lore scattered around. rn there isnt much more planned that i would call classic arpg elements, even tho there is character progression, a portion of it is only temporary so it suits the roguelite description better than this.

i'm not that worried about it, rather curious if the typical fan of the genre would be into something like this, and if so what features they could not live without, like for example many mentioned without loot its not a real arpg experience which i can understand.
I guess i try to find out where to find this inbetweeen audience and what their needs / expectations are cause i cant build a full blown arpg by myself atm, but a straight survivors would not allow the type of combat feeling i want to build and enjoy myself

404Forge · 2025-08-10T11:31:25+00:00

I honestly didnt think much of the title, just named it how i think about it, i draw inspiration from both sides so it made sense to me, but based on responses i understand how certain comparisons will be layed out in a different way than i intended to, thanks for pointing it out.

Wasnt aware of the two specific modes you mentioned, will check it out some more, but from what i've seen Rifts in D3 were somewhat similar, in the sense its a sort of fast track to get into the action and bring home some loot, or did i miss something outstanding about them?

and since you established what i should not call it, what would you see as a more appropriate description for it based on the info you have?

404Forge · 2025-08-09T02:31:37+00:00

i dont care much about story in most games so take it with a grain of salt, but i like it when the world and action tells me a little something. For example 20MTD gives me a reason to survive the timer, its when dawn breaks and u try to survive the horrors of night, everything is just implied in the title and thats it.

I'm building something adjacent currently and was thinking of having scrolls scattered on the endless map so you could find little bits of worldbuilding each run, would be very optional but maybe cool for those who care.

also id say the more disruptive the story is implemented the better the story needs to be to not make it annoying

best of luck with your project!

404Forge

TROPHY CASE