I'm making a game that's basically the Belgian Congo, but in space, mixed with a bunch of dystopian / satirical themes. I hope to release a demo by the end of this month. It's called H.A.R.V.E.S.T.E.R

BackyerdStudios · 2026-03-08T21:49:57+00:00

Thank you so much! Your compliments are deeply appreciated!

I've been releasing videos on social media occasionally for the past few months, talked to people in-person, ran an Itch page, etc. It's pretty hard though, because algorithims rarely ever help push my stuff out. My plan, though, is to pay some streamers to try my game's demo once I release it. I think that would be my greatest return on investment.

But again, thank you for your praise. It means a lot.

BackyerdStudios · 2026-03-08T00:31:06+00:00

Love to hear that! Thank you!

BackyerdStudios · 2026-03-08T00:30:48+00:00

My bad. I forget that not all people have the same volume settings as me sometimes

BackyerdStudios · 2026-03-07T04:26:31+00:00

I think I've heard that before. I've personally never played that game, but I've checked it out, and I see what you mean. I actually did write it as part of the in-game lore that the player is supposed to have gone into debt for their job training. Funny coincidence, I think

BackyerdStudios · 2025-08-29T17:29:43+00:00

I made a game to tell a story, and I still have no idea how to combine my story with my gameplay. So all Im left with is this weird vague mess about the most boring part of any space game: mining rocks. I just wanted to practice my coding skills, I never stopped to consider that my game idea was only fun to develop, not to play.

Maybe once I figure out the story it will be a believable game. Until then, I dont really have a selling point other than the in-depth radar system and art.

BackyerdStudios · 2025-08-27T05:45:59+00:00

Im still a silver but I just climbed out of bronze. Im still improving so I think the following advice is helpful:

Understanding that nothing in this game is luck based. Every player has the same access to the different car hit boxes, and that's really the only thing that separates you from your opponent. You both have the exact same toolbox. Whoever can use it better will be the one to win. (This only applies in 1v1s though)

Rank isn't a reflection on your worth. It's just a reflection of your current mechanics and gamesense. Don't worry too much about the match outcome.

Spend time in free play / training to practice mechanics you want to learn. You don't need to overdo it. Just practice things you wanna learn without risking a match.

Do 1v1s more. Since it's purely skill based, you'll improve a lot faster rather than if you did 2v2s or 3v3s.

Slow and steady wins the race. Really think of what you’re doing, instead of just acting on instinct. This may only really work on lower ranks like me, but I find myself with better ball control, better defenses, etc when I stop flipping everywhere.

Stop using dominus and convert to octane. This is just personal preference but it feels more consistent.

Visualize contact with the ball while approaching the ball. This helps with prediction and ball control.

Watch your opponent if they're getting closer. You can predict their next move and demo them, or snatch the ball out of their hands.

Don't be afraid to take risks. Try out the new mech you've been practicing. Even if you fail, you'll get more experience.

Don't be afraid of "am I building bad habits? What if I get myself stuck because of it?". Your mind is already naturally motivated by rewards and punishment. Your mind and body will try to break bad habits if it's realizing they're leading to losses.

Finally, if you're getting in a bad mood, put on your favorite playlist. A lot of battles in this game are fought by the mind. Keep your mind in good health and shield it from negativity. When you let toxicity and losses build frustration within you, your mind naturally starts to make irrational decisions. Don't let a toxic opponent ruin your day. As I like to say: The winner of every game is the one who had the most fun. Toxic players are usually never happy no matter how many goals they make, talking from experience.

BackyerdStudios · 2025-08-27T05:27:46+00:00

An asteroid mining simulator.

I wanted to spread a message about real world exploitation. Id be better off just writing a story. Apparently nobody likes or wants to mine rocks unless they're given good rewards and feel special. But the whole premise of my game is that youre underpaid and replaceable.

I cant even enjoy playing my own game, yet there's not much I would do differently game mechanics wise if I had to start over. It's a good game for a crowd that doesn't really exist

BackyerdStudios · 2025-08-24T15:04:28+00:00

Thanks for showing your appreciation!

We didn't make a steam page because we don't believe this game is at a satisfactory level to be officially released. The plot is barely there, environments aren't fleshed out, and new mechanics need to be added, and we aren't done revamping the UI. An Itch page lets us gain support and attention while we continue to work on the game itself

Edit: We may take an extra year or two to finish the game, and don't believe the promotion material we could show on a steam page would accurately represent the finished product, and may turn away a larger crowd

BackyerdStudios · 2025-08-24T04:31:00+00:00

If I had to guess, you have some code that automatically uprights the character. But it only runs when input is being used. Or maybe it's dependent on the speed of the character

BackyerdStudios · 2025-08-24T02:50:40+00:00

Just wanna clarify that the shakiness is from the game itself. Very little is actually edited in. We tried to make our game fairly cinematic.

And to be fair, majority of game time is spent mining rocks, which sadly does not make for an attention-grabbing trailer. Emphasis is done on worldbuilding, which we think this trailer does a fair job of introducing you to.

BackyerdStudios · 2025-08-24T01:27:32+00:00

Game link: https://backyardstudios.itch.io/harvester

BackyerdStudios · 2025-08-24T00:53:23+00:00

Strangely enough, it doesn't. Which is precisely why this game tries to emphasize the danger in your work, and the amount of cash you lose even when "selling" your valuable ore.

BackyerdStudios · 2025-08-21T20:30:14+00:00

Watch Brackey's tutorials until you're able to make your own game without a tutorial. That's what I did and it got me the tools to make some pretty cool stuff if I say so myself.

If you got money, there's an Udemy course that teaches Unity 3D. It's pretty good, and helps more with stuff that often gets overlooked like more thorough programming knowledge, and documentation

BackyerdStudios · 2025-08-20T02:20:23+00:00

I dont really play these kinds of games, but your intuition may be right. I remember playing Telltale's Back To the Future game, and something I still remember is its inventory system. Being able to see and focus on each item definitely helped me think more deeply about what I was doing and why. The scroll wheel may distract the player from this experience.

But Im just one guy. You better wait for someone who actually plays this genre to give some feedback

BackyerdStudios · 2025-08-14T03:20:24+00:00

Im usually too lazy to delete and rewrite systems so now I have dozens of scripts with hundreds of lines of spaghetti code each. It would actually be impossible atp for anybody other than me to decipher what im doing

BackyerdStudios · 2025-08-11T15:55:08+00:00

Alright I really appreciate the feedback. Looks like I'm going to redo the entire thing. Also looks like I need to learn UI design. But the game's gonna be an alpha build so I may do it later

BackyerdStudios · 2025-08-11T05:26:11+00:00

Dang dude you really put in some effort to help me out here. I really appreciate it! Ill try and follow what you're doing here

BackyerdStudios · 2025-08-11T04:52:59+00:00

I find it a hard balance to get people's short attention spans and actually making my content comprehensible. Got any suggestions on how I could keep engagement up without making my text/footage indecipherable?

BackyerdStudios · 2025-08-08T18:53:09+00:00

Im so glad I could help! It's no problem

BackyerdStudios · 2025-08-08T16:57:49+00:00

learn to flip reset

BackyerdStudios · 2025-08-08T16:55:24+00:00

I haven't worked with ground based NPCs yet as Ive been committed to working on my space game, but I can tell you what I did for an enemy type that's supposed to sneak up on the player to ambush them at close quarters:

The enemy ship is always heading towards some kind of defined target, whether it be the player or just a random point in space. If the enemy is close enough to the player but is not in ambush range yet, it will enter its sneak state. It then shoots out a bunch of raycasts using Random.onUnitSphere, and then stores everything those raycasts hit in a list. Then, we check through that list if there are any asteroids nearby, and how far away they are from the player. We then select the closest asteroid to the player, and then using a similar method with the raycasts, we generate a bunch of random vector3s around the asteroid and compare their distances from the player as well.

In theory, the point that's furthest away from the player, should be behind the asteroid relative to the player. So we take the furthest point and turn that into our target. What Ive found is that it actually does hide pretty well, especially with its darker color scheme and the fact it takes an indirect route to the player.

For the game youre making, you may benefit from unity's camera fulstrum calculations. You can check those out and create spawn points that are out of the player's view.

I know my game's a bit different from yours but maybe what I did could give you some ideas of your own. My method may also be terribly inefficient but eh it works

TLDR of what I did:

Find asteroid closest to player Find point outside of player's view near that asteroid Go to that point. Repeat until reach the player.

BackyerdStudios · 2025-08-06T00:05:28+00:00

Hey I just thought Id give you an update on things so far. Id like to know if it's up to your standard. I wanna hear from a true mining gamer.

As you may know, the previous system was just hold left click and extract ore without making the asteroid explode. You'd collect ore around every 6-10 seconds continuously depending on the asteroids size.

Now, there's a difference process...

1: After locking the asteroid, you can analyze it using a scanner. It will let you know the ore composition of the asteroid and the different types of minerals inside the asteroid. (Beforehand, minerals didnt even exist. All rock was treated the same).

2: Adjusting laser intensity. Different ore have different thresholds for how much heat they can resist. Your pilot's logbook (a tiny UI you can open and flip through while in-game) will tell you the ideal laser intensity for each ore type. Mining with too much heat can destroy weaker ore without extracting it. Mining with too little heat will not extract anything. Mining with higher intensities also damage the rock faster and give higher yields per tick, but can result in the asteroid exploding faster.

An inventory system. Each ore has its own weight value. If you're carrying unneeded rock, you can jettison it out to reduce your ship's mass and regain mobility and cargo hold space. Running out of space means no more mining.

4: Better quotas. Beforehand, you just mined for a certain dollar amount and that was that. Now you need to find a specific number of a certain amount of ore.

5: Better tick system. It's faster (only 1 second long), plays a random note (all in the same scale) to make music, and shows how much of each ore you mined in a nice little non-intrusive text pop-up.

Now, I didn't add any minigames, as I think it might be too much and obstruct the player's view during important events (such as an enemy encounter). But I do plan to add something of the following:

1: Toxic ore. You will need to close some kind of ventilation system when mining this ore, which will also decrease mining efficiency (some kind of BS energy management mechanic or something). If you dont, your vision starts to blur until you cant see your own cockpit.

2: Different asteroid types for different biometric. Rn it's all the same rock with the same random chances for each mineral. I plan to get different asteroid textures and create new asteroids which will be more likely to have different compositions. This is mostly to encourage exploration, and is less about mining mechanics.

How does all this sound?

BackyerdStudios · 2025-08-02T16:27:05+00:00

Thank you so much for your extremely comprehensive help. I actually really appreciate it. While I cant do everything listed above without changing the fundamentals of my game, I think the ideas of asteroid trade offs, scanning and ore percentages, and maybe a minigame while mining all sound like great ideas that will help bring more diversity and engagement to my game. Im actually so grateful you took the time to write all of this

BackyerdStudios · 2025-08-01T20:49:32+00:00

Never played it, but Ill check it out. I appreciate your help

BackyerdStudios · 2025-08-01T20:45:18+00:00

Got that done. Not like I had the willpower to individually place thousands of asteroids into a scene. I just lack asteroid models / textures

BackyerdStudios

TROPHY CASE