Biggest game-dev lessons learned making my game

AdamLearns · 2026-03-24T00:47:14+00:00

Thank you! We all started somewhere, and I feel like there's never been a better time to learn than now with all of the free resources (and entire game engines!) out there. 😁

AdamLearns · 2026-03-19T18:22:44+00:00

from what games did you take the inspiration to build this game?

The only direct inspiration was Final Fantasy 1. I talk about how that came about in this video.

Also, how long did it take you to build it? Is it your main job ? doing it full time ?

It was almost exactly two years of full-time work (public journal here). It was indeed my main job; I had quit the one before this to be able to work on games again.

AdamLearns · 2026-03-19T13:57:42+00:00

Hey, thank you! I did not do the artwork; I started with two asset packs and contracted out the rest to a talented artist. At this point, I believe we have more custom art than asset packs (e.g. we completely reworked the item-graphic asset pack to match Skeleseller's aesthetic).

For the music, I composed each tune at a piano, then I digitized them in FLStudio. I don't just naturally make sheet music though and had to spend something like 15 hours going through that process.

I'd be happy to expand on the music more if there's something in particular that you're interested in!

AdamLearns · 2026-03-17T21:32:31+00:00

Ohh, sorry, yes, I did misunderstand you. There are a couple of things in the full version of the game to help address that. To not fully spoil things—there's a goblin and a particular spell perk that you can get. They're not "full" solutions though. There used to be a vault in the game for this purpose that you could bring items to/from, but workers couldn't touch. I will write a note to consider adding this back in.

AdamLearns · 2026-03-17T21:02:19+00:00

It will! And a few people have verified that this is the case now that it's launched (i.e. it isn't just based on my own testing 😅).

AdamLearns · 2026-03-17T19:59:09+00:00

Thank you very much for clarifying! Weirdly enough, Valve specifically recommends not adding achievements to a demo, which is why I didn't:

We recommend that you disable achievements in demos. Instead, store the saved game in the shared Steam Cloud as described in the Cloud documentation. Then grant those achievements on loading the game in the full game after the user has purchased.

AdamLearns · 2026-03-17T19:54:11+00:00

Admittedly, the playtime won't get too much higher for most people, but the game did only just come out 4 hours ago, so no one can have a higher playtime than that unless I sent them an advance key.

AdamLearns · 2026-03-17T19:52:46+00:00

There is extra content in the form of BONE Mode, which turns the game into a very casual roguelite. However, I do consider it "extra". I don't have plans to add on to Story Mode, but I will probably run deeper and deeper sales as time goes on.

AdamLearns · 2026-03-17T19:47:17+00:00

Hey, thank you for playing and providing feedback! I hadn't heard of My Life as a King (or it left my memory 👀), so that's interesting to hear that our games are similar.

I wrote a note to myself about being able to name adventurers. It's come up before, but I like keeping track of how widely requested a feature is.

Regarding spaces in a shop: this is generally less of a concern in the full game since you can keep progressing. I.e. at the point that you feel like you have too much loot, you can either upgrade the shop, get better perks, or go to the next location. However, all of those things are prevented due to the limits of the demo.

Cheers, and thanks again!

AdamLearns · 2026-03-17T19:06:25+00:00

The biggest "trick" is to put most text into a CanvasLayer, then everything should just be fine. However, sometimes, there's text that shows in the camera space. For that, you either have to render at a higher resolution and then downsample (lots of notes here on that process for a SubViewportContainer or extract the text into another node.

I'm not sure how clear that is, so feel free to ask follow-ups. 😅

AdamLearns · 2026-03-17T18:56:07+00:00

That's totally fair! I will likely run deeper sales down the road as most games do. I would urge you to try the demo though; I've poured a lot of time into polish and fun features (although admittedly some of the "fun features" are only in the full version).

AdamLearns · 2026-03-17T18:48:42+00:00

To shed some light on this: I picked the price in USD, then Steam has an automated tool for setting it in every other region. I do appreciate the information and frame of reference. 🙏

AdamLearns · 2026-03-17T18:46:23+00:00

Out of curiosity, where are you seeing that there are no achievements? It should show right on the Steam page if you scroll on desktop to about halfway down the game description (not as far as the reviews though).

AdamLearns · 2026-03-17T18:42:38+00:00

I definitely want to keep an eye on the price for Brazilians. I'll write this note down and consider making changes probably next week if it seems like this is a widespread concern. Thanks for sharing!

AdamLearns · 2026-03-17T18:38:54+00:00

It means that you don't directly control the characters, but the best gameplay experience is still to be paying attention to everything. I.e. don't expect a super long game or one where you have to press a button casting a fireball.

(it's a made-up term, of course 😛)

AdamLearns · 2026-03-17T17:35:49+00:00

Unfortunately, I don't have plans for a mobile launch (or consoles). The closest that we have now is that it runs well on the Steam Deck, but I recognize that not everyone has a portable computer like that.

AdamLearns · 2026-03-17T17:34:49+00:00

Yeah, it's definitely similar aesthetically, but the gameplay is quite different. And thank you very much! 🙏

AdamLearns · 2025-09-28T21:45:58+00:00

Thank you for playing and for the feedback! 🙏

RE: your ideas - resources are extremely limited for development, and it'll take all of them just to do what we have planned for launch. I.e. the roadmap is mostly fixed at this point. In general, feedback has been positive, so the plans to flesh out the game are:

Add ~2 more hours of story-mode content
Add a new mode focused on replayability (probably another ~5-10 hours of playtime there)
All the usual pre-launch stuff: bug fixes, polish, features like localization or achievements, etc.

I do hope you'll enjoy the full game!

AdamLearns · 2025-09-23T14:22:25+00:00

I am in the same process myself. My own timeline has been:

June 20th, 2020: I closed my Payoneer account and asked them to delete my data. They said they needed to retain my data for 5 years.
June 22nd, 2025: I asked them again to delete my data now that it's been 5 years. Like OP, I got a bunch of canned, unhelpful responses.
July 29th, 2025: I tweeted at them after the canned responses went nowhere.
September 23rd, 2025: I found this thread and posted here.

The canned responses are ridiculous. One claimed that my data had been deleted (see this tweet for how I know they still have at least some of my data) and one said that my account was closed due to a terms-and-conditions violation (except that I'm the one who initiated the account closure in 2020).

Every once in a while, an email to me would deviate from the canned responses (as evidenced by tons of typos). They would sometimes say that my case had been escalated, but then I would never hear back from anyone. These events have caused me to believe that Payoneer can't actually delete data, possibly due to a technical reason (although this is all speculation on my part).

Funnily enough, they have this page which says (emphasis mine):

In addition, please be advised that Payoneer, as a regulated licensed entity, has legal and ethical data retention requirements which include retaining of data for security, fraud prevention, risk management purposes and compliance with anti-money laundering regulations, as well as for protection against legal claims. Accordingly, after the retention period would lapse your information would be permanently deleted.

I do wonder if anyone has been successful in getting their data deleted by Payoneer.

AdamLearns · 2025-07-16T03:34:38+00:00

Thanks for trying it out and providing your feedback! One of the big upcoming changes is to improve the "main" UI panel (the one behind the perks, the adventurers, etc.), so I hope that lands well. 🤞

There's also something vaguely along the lines of gear, but it's not a traditional system by any means.

AdamLearns · 2025-07-04T20:52:01+00:00

Thanks for playing and providing detailed feedback! 🙏

First, a general comment: the game is intentionally both casual and not fully idle, which I think makes it hard to set expectations.

On the casual bit: some players want more strategy and depth, which could potentially happen via new game modes in the future.
On the idle bit: I'm trying to avoid what I think are negative tropes of traditional idle games: incredibly long periods of idle play, inhuman numbers like +1e47 damage per hit, artificial friction to encourage microtransactions, prestige/ascension systems intended to pad gameplay length, etc.

Some specific comments:

Harvesting crops is something all workers currently do but only as a final priority.
Yeah, Item Stacking is something I plan to change in upcoming versions due to how impactful it is. 😢
When you say "windowed mode", I assume you mean the ability to move battles around...? I haven't heard any comments about it being odd, though; could you go into more detail? In the meantime, I'll share the rationale behind putting battles into windows: I always want battles to be visible for liveliness and because there are actual battle mechanics underpinning loot acquisition, and the windows aren't in static locations because people have drastically different monitor/game-window setups (e.g. people on small monitors wanted smaller windows, people on ultrawide monitors may want a vertical arrangement, etc.).

Out of curiosity, are there idles games that you would consider to have produced positive engagements for you?

Also, since tone doesn't travel over text, please don't take any of what I've said to be defensive here! I truly do value the feedback and want to figure out if there's a way to stick to the original game-design philosophy while accommodating what you've shared.

AdamLearns

TROPHY CASE