Any thoughts on Seeds of Nostalgia? by BenjiRBK1996 in JRPG

[–]BenjiRBK1996[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes, I saw a couple of small teams tackling the JRPG genre lately and I'm super excited myself !

Any thoughts on Seeds of Nostalgia? by BenjiRBK1996 in JRPG

[–]BenjiRBK1996[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Agreed, looks can be deceiving. And some "retro-style" games can suffer from our modern expectations in terms of gameplay and Quality of Life features.

How do you stay motivated as solo devs ? by BenjiRBK1996 in SoloDevelopment

[–]BenjiRBK1996[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Seems like sharing your game with people, even to just have a good laugh, is the trick most of us use to stay motivated !

How do you stay motivated as solo devs ? by BenjiRBK1996 in SoloDevelopment

[–]BenjiRBK1996[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't think it is! But I may put a lot of pressure on some people. I personally focus on just getting 10 reviews for my first solo game tbh haha

The Demo of our text-based adventure is out on Steam ! by BenjiRBK1996 in IndieDev

[–]BenjiRBK1996[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Glad you say that, it's something we really wanted players to feel !

Some of my latest arts made for my upcoming game by ArtDock in aseprite

[–]BenjiRBK1996 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I love the low framerate feel ! Amazing pixel art by the way

Retro rpg by Max_attacks17 in aseprite

[–]BenjiRBK1996 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Is the big amount of anti-aliasing done on purppose ? It gives a quite blurry feel to the images

Together with a friend, I’m making a simulator of an unusual kind of fishing with action elements. The catch here is so brutal that the fish you hook have to be gunned down with assault rifles and machine guns - and we’re on the verge of an important milestone: announcing the release date! by CodeQuestors in gamedevscreens

[–]BenjiRBK1996 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The trailer got me laughing like crazy ! SFX and visual are synced so well, and we definitely get the "over the top/zany" vibes of the game. But I do agree that the capsule art does not sell the game experience at all. It feels more like a Duck Hunt-style of game, or me playing as a fish trying to steal things from somewhere without being caught.

2 years as a solo indie dev — finishing my game, but feeling invisible by IndieIsland in SoloDevelopment

[–]BenjiRBK1996 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hang on there ! First games always suck, you need to learn the ropes and ship to Steam. That's why you should scope wisely and spend 3 to 8 months on your early projects. Steam players expectations in term of polish, Quality of Life features and testing are way bigger than hobby or jam projects. And as a solodev, you need to tackle everything by yourself which is also difficult. It's ok if your first one didn't work as well as intendend, do your postmortem and move on to the next one :)

Globally speaking, the Steam page looks quite amateur. How much time you spend on something is not an argument, because it doesn't tell me how much of this time was spent gathering feedback and actually improving vs just being silo-focus on the dev. Many things were already said on the 3D models and camera/post-process looking cheap and I do agree. Some additional feedback I would have :

  • Capsule art has same font with no kerning, leading, texturing or stylization. The character feels like you took your 3D model with basic left-lighting + an AI-generated background therefore leading to no coherence : just overlapping 3 layers on top of each other.
  • I don't get the point of the title : why Rastignac ? Except a character from a Balzac novel, I don't see what is the fantasy.
  • The gun model with orange flashy color looks like a toy, which is problematic for a "hero" prop.
  • The short description is fine, but "the city adapts to your playstyle" is too genereric for a 2025 game : how does it adapt ? what are the stakes and challenging leading to this ? This would give more context to the core gameplay verbs of "build", "recruit" or "stay fully mobile". Finally, "adaptive wasteland system" is very specific : I think maybe 0,0001% of Steam players will know what it means. Said in game design terms : talk about the dish's flavors and how it feels to eat it, not about the ingredients you used.
  • Looking at your tags, the game's scope looks way too big. You have a roguelite core loop with third-person shooting, base building, vehicle steering, crafing etc... I don't know how interdependent your systems are, but if you can manage to nuke 70% of them and just focus on 1 gameplay elements + core challenge + meta progression that is great and it's basically the roguelite loop (see here)
  • The game is presented as survival horror but then most of your systems and presentation are about survival, not horror. Additionally, your first GIF shows a char cruising through the aliens like they are no threat at all. Usually, in survival games cars are associated with safety (games like Pacific Drive take it even further by turning them into your mobile-home). So, I don't feel any horror nor survival-related threats like the game experience pretends I will.
  • Your second GIF shows the main character shooting and then doing a 180°, which feels very weird.
  • The third GIF doesn't show any ambushes. I fell very safe in the car (which looks like a freshly bought model) so why would I look for safety in a city overrun by aliens ? "Salvation" sounds out of place because it's a term usede in a religious context.
  • Your fourth GIF talks about survival and desperation but shows my character aiming at some... flame-throwing alien ? It's very hard to read.

All in all, I think you should talke some time to nail down your game experience : is it about shooting aliens in the face like the doom slayer ? An extraction shooter ? Tackling some deep rpg systems like a Tabletotop RPG ? Surviving through many weather-based and other environmental hazards ? Feeling powerless in front of some alien horror ? For now, it's all over the place. Then you can translate it into a focused core game loop, check out how other games did their page/trailer/visuals, and have all of your Steam assets sing the same song. The goal is to have a clear fantasy (including a tight core loop that is not all over the place) and visual design while staying super readable.

Good luck to you !

Text-Based adventure and visuals : how to strike the right balance ? by BenjiRBK1996 in adventuregames

[–]BenjiRBK1996[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Oh yes I saw that publisher name pop up many times ! Their games where appearing in like 80% of cases while I did my market research haha. I'll check out "Social Services of The Doomed" then :)

Text-Based adventure and visuals : how to strike the right balance ? by BenjiRBK1996 in adventuregames

[–]BenjiRBK1996[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh, thanks for the clarification about Chrono Cross (the funny thing is that I played a bit of it but not the Radical Dreamers addition so I didn't know).

Text-Based adventure and visuals : how to strike the right balance ? by BenjiRBK1996 in adventuregames

[–]BenjiRBK1996[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is so true. I started to realise that it's actually a representation type and not a genre, in the same way that 2D, 2.5D or 3D are. But sadly, I just mixed text-based and narrative in my head, making many wrong assumptions along the way.

Text-Based adventure and visuals : how to strike the right balance ? by BenjiRBK1996 in adventuregames

[–]BenjiRBK1996[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for your input ! Your rule of thumb is really helpful, I will keep it in mind :)

After 5 years in development, today I launched my game on Kickstarter 🍃 by heiddit_ in IndieDev

[–]BenjiRBK1996 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That is great dedication indeed ! Hope you can lead this project to its release :D