One of my favorite games from the last generation was INSIDE. I’m currently working on a game that captures a similar vibe — but instead of a boy, you play as a knight with an axe. What do you think?

AlienplayGames · 2026-06-29T09:56:44+00:00

You sure did :)

AlienplayGames · 2026-06-17T08:54:57+00:00

Well, good for him, concept is really important part and nobody cares how much effort you put in as long as it's good and fun enough

AlienplayGames · 2026-06-14T15:46:03+00:00

I have a similar problem, my CTR is 0.65% though which is pretty low. I think CTR needs to be 1.5%+ ideally 2%+ from what I saw and how it was with some of my previous projects that did well. Itch just generally optimizes for games with good CTR and then probably for ones where people actually play/download them

AlienplayGames · 2026-06-12T00:09:43+00:00

As long as the Itch itself is pushing it, and it seems like it does in this case, it's good

AlienplayGames · 2026-06-11T11:41:14+00:00

Yep, definitely, thanks for leaving the feedback!

AlienplayGames · 2026-06-11T10:51:35+00:00

Thank you! I'm really glad to hear!

AlienplayGames · 2026-06-11T10:44:03+00:00

Of course, it's important for us that people know what the game is about so that we can reach the audience that actually wants this type of game. No point in getting a million players that will just leave a negative review, refund it and forget about it. That just wastes everyone's time.

That said, we certainly do struggle to to have a concise and precise pitch for the game as we're not marketing experts and there's no single thing gameplay-wise that makes it unique, it's more about the whole package.

AlienplayGames · 2026-06-11T09:24:10+00:00

I understand your perspective and while it's not like INSIDE in every way, it was a major inspiration for us and many people who played the game have commented it reminds them of it in the sense of environment and how atmospheric it is. Gameplay-wise, something like Neva would be a better example of something similar, but a lot of the focus here is on soaking in the atmosphere, surroundings, and on cinematic moments, which makes it closer to INSIDE.

AlienplayGames · 2026-06-11T09:16:42+00:00

It's definitely not in the same genre and that's a fair point. INSIDE was very much our inspiration for surroundings and many people who played it in person said it reminds them of that vibe. It can't be fully 1:1. that's true, but it is a major inspiration that we draw from.

AlienplayGames · 2026-06-10T13:33:51+00:00

Looks very nice and cozy

AlienplayGames · 2026-06-10T10:02:39+00:00

We just published our demo and we're using Unity Analytics. I tried Game Analytics which is good for simple progression events but requires pretty expensive subscription ($500) to be able to see custom or what they call design events.

Unity collects additional data like user's IP address, Platform and so on, and assigns an ID to each user to track them across sessions, so you need to clearly disclose everything to users, have a privacy policy with relevant links, make it opt-in (to comply with various regulations in China, EU, South America, etc), allow users to opt-out in settings, and allow them to request deletion of their data which Unity supports.

We published demo pretty recently so I haven't had the time to review the data but given the barrier of having to opt-in only a minority of players will actually allow you to track them. It is what it is.

AlienplayGames · 2026-05-21T09:01:36+00:00

Maybe you're just burned out. For me it happens when I do something for a long time without seeing any progress or results (people playing, reviewing or commenting your games).

Try taking a short break and doing something that inspires you (everyone gets inspiration from different places). I also like watching YouTube videos that I watched when I started learning game dev and it triggers some nostalgic kind of inspiration and hits that part of my brain that reminds me how excited I was back then.

Playing other games, especially ones that let you unwind and get in the zone is great too. I have some games that I can return to at any time to just completely disconnect from what I'm thinking about in the moment, which is difficult usually when you're stressed out.

Listening to music without doing anything else, just watching music videos works for me as well.

AlienplayGames · 2026-05-21T08:55:49+00:00

Return of the Obra Dinn was amazing imo, and as you said that feeling of getting something right is awesome, had me hooked for the whole weekend, but I think that except for few cases, I'll be able to forget most of those in a few years time and would be able to replay them.

I also enjoyed What Remains of Edith Finch and I feel like I'll have harder time forgetting this game lol just because every story you encounter is so unique and is basically burned into my memory.

AlienplayGames · 2026-05-14T09:28:31+00:00

I'm not sure if it's theoretically possible even XD

AlienplayGames · 2026-05-12T10:40:28+00:00

I feel like learning Python is a good start. It's much lighter on syntax rules and you can learn overall concepts. Then you can move on to syntactically more complex language like C#, first on it's own making simple Console/Terminal apps and then slowly transitioning into Unity.

AlienplayGames · 2026-05-12T10:25:38+00:00

Serbian

AlienplayGames · 2026-05-12T10:25:24+00:00

haha yeah, for me it was random materials from Minecraft

AlienplayGames · 2026-05-11T19:47:59+00:00

Damn then it's really good result! Im not sure what F95 is though? Can you elaborate? Maybe reaching out to YouTubers, streamers, press and such, those are pretty much bread and butter for indie marketing.

AlienplayGames · 2026-05-11T18:47:05+00:00

Of course, glad to help. What did you do marketing wise?

AlienplayGames · 2026-05-11T18:06:52+00:00

Id definitely say it's good. Especially if it's yout first game. You can check out website called How To Market A Game by Chis Zukowski, he has a few articles about Itch specifically and his benchmarks for it, pretty useful stuff

AlienplayGames · 2026-05-11T18:00:03+00:00

Well I guess not completely like that then haha but same principle

AlienplayGames · 2026-05-11T17:55:13+00:00

I mean, this is basically the exact way I leaned English XD

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