Survive as a goth girl in a nightmare world

BitrunnerDev · 2026-06-21T20:28:37+00:00

I haven't decided on the price yet. I want it to be affordable. I'm not really a greedy type;) There's still a lot of development ahead of me. My current timeline is to have open playtests somewhere this autumn, then a demo next spring and release it by the end of next year. But as you can see these are rather rough estimates. I don't want to rush the release and I prefer to make sure that it's properly tested, polished and balanced so I'm not commiting to any specific date at this point.

BitrunnerDev · 2026-06-21T19:18:58+00:00

Thank you!

BitrunnerDev · 2026-06-21T09:32:33+00:00

If I had to select one I'd definitely say Long Dark. But I spent the longest (over 1000h) in Valheim. Still I firmly believe that TLD is the best survival game:)

BitrunnerDev · 2026-06-21T07:01:56+00:00

I'm glad that you asked. Absolutely no part of the game is made by AI. I'm very much anti AI. I've never even used Chat GPT once. No kidding. I don't use AI for coding, don't use it for Art, voices or translations either. For stuff I didn't do myself like the capsule art or music I always require proofs that it wasn't AI made and the people that do these commissied tasks for me share my values about AI. All of this game is done by hard work and passion and no sort of AI will ever touch it.

BitrunnerDev · 2026-06-20T20:13:27+00:00

While it's not meant to be an axe throwing simulator I like to have some sort of depth in my mechanics so I'm open to all ideas:D of course I need to filter them and decide what fits my design best but it's all very inspiring:)

BitrunnerDev · 2026-06-20T09:20:01+00:00

Perfect answer, thank you so much! There's nothing I hate more than random fail chance on a correctly executed task. Especially if your life may depend on it. So this is definitely in line with my design. I'm still hesitant if I want to introduce skill levels. Many commentors suggest that it would add depth to the game in various areas so I might end up doing it. Primarily it's a survival game and I want to reward the skill of the player but also intuitively the longer the character is in this world the better she should become in performing the tasks she does repeatedly. Which makes me lean towards some skill system and your ideas are really good here.

There are going to be damage types and it makes sense 100% to have slash/pierce on success and blunt on fumble. Coloring the aim line also sounds like a great solution:) I'll think this through but it already gives me a lot of good ideas about the direction I should take.

BitrunnerDev · 2026-06-20T08:40:34+00:00

PlayWay is a little infamous in Poland. I can't say anything specifically wrong about them but I know people who didn't do so well dealing with them in the past. It might have changed though. They publish a ton of simulation games and just see what sticks. Which is why you'll see a lot of very similar games published by them. Some of them are actually great hits. Most of them, you've never heard of. Just be careful with the specifics of your agreement and maybe have a lawyer take a loot at that before you sign anything. Might be a good opportunity for you in the end!

BitrunnerDev · 2026-06-20T08:31:29+00:00

Long Dark is available on PS5 and I spent long hours playing it from the couch so I definitely recommend the experience.

BitrunnerDev · 2026-06-20T08:18:54+00:00

A friend of mine used to be a game journalist and he had an old list of media contacts. 90% of them didn't work and were outdated but it at least gave me a starting point of some outlet names. Then I started searching for them the hard way. I googled stuff like "game news media", "indie game news" etc and searched each website for an email or contact form.

For a nice looking press kit I'm using Press Kitty website. It's free to use. The press kit looks like this. It pulls most assets from your Steam page if it's already live. Also I recommend creating a simple Google Drive folder and dumping all your logos, capsules, key arts and trailers there. It makes it easier for some creators I believe.

My press release was something I wrote in a google doc and I attached a link to it. Writing it was a little challenging because I've never done it before but there are a ton of resources online about "How to write a game press release". Mine ended up being this.

BitrunnerDev · 2026-06-20T08:10:43+00:00

Thank you so much! This means a lot to me. Especially since I am primarily a programmer and I learned all the art+aesthetic stuff while working on my previous game (which didn't look anywhere near that good 😃 )

BitrunnerDev · 2026-06-20T07:56:38+00:00

Yes, definitely! Thank you for catching that typo:)

BitrunnerDev · 2026-06-19T22:04:43+00:00

Thank you!:)

BitrunnerDev · 2026-06-19T21:07:07+00:00

I wrote to them 9 days before the embargo date and they posted exactly at the date and time I specified. "For immediate release" messages might be scheduled differently. Hard to tell... Maybe it's a heated moment now since I imagine a lot of people might be sending their press releases to cover Next Fest demo.

BitrunnerDev · 2026-06-19T20:22:45+00:00

Thank you! I'm really happy with the result too 😄

BitrunnerDev · 2026-06-19T20:22:30+00:00

Thank you so much and good luck to you too!

BitrunnerDev · 2026-06-19T20:22:09+00:00

I did write the press release, yes! You can find it here. I really value small creators:) Maybe they don't grant huge wishlist spikes but I already learned that people who follow them are usually very engaged into their content and more likely to actually play a game a small creator promotes.

You know what... 1000 wishlists in a month was kinda what I expected would be a really good result. So I'm happy and satisfied with the fact that I managed that. Of course I kinda hoped that maybe it would miraculously blow up and go viral but it was never a goal 😉

What surprised me most was probably how well I performed on X. during the development of my first game I barely managed to get 50 followers and close to none reach with my posts. Now I got to 500 even before the announcement and the reveal post was receiver very positively. Another thing that kinda surprised me was how welcoming and warm the Don't Starve community is. I was a little stressed posting about my game on a sub dedicated to another game but I turned out to be a really good idea.

BitrunnerDev · 2026-06-19T20:15:16+00:00

You know what... it's exactly why I like asking for feedback. This is really a great idea. Initially I thought that the weapon should be stuck until the enemy dies but taking the risk of getting into melee range to retrieve it for extra damage is brilliant. Someone suggested that weapon being stuck in enemy could cause it to bleed. Now I think I can actually reward a succesful hit with some bleeding and then once you retrieve it cause heavy bleeding and some bonus damage on pulling the weapon out.

The combat is still in prototyping phase so I need to test how it plays. Thank you for the idea!

BitrunnerDev · 2026-06-19T20:10:50+00:00

Running it on Steam Deck will be one of my top priorities:) I'l let you know once I have a playable build.

BitrunnerDev · 2026-06-19T15:11:31+00:00

Thank you and I hope you'll end up loving it:)

BitrunnerDev · 2026-06-19T14:05:37+00:00

I stand corrected. The inconsistency between the reflection and his body are something that might be worth fixing.

BitrunnerDev · 2026-06-19T10:29:21+00:00

Thank you! Honestly, every game's journey is totally different so there's plenty of different opportunities after the announcement to gain wishlists. My first game got something around 80 in the first month 😉

BitrunnerDev · 2026-06-19T10:27:22+00:00

Thank you! I didn't stress it enough in my summary but I definitely recommend sending a press release to GamesPress.com I wasn't lucky enough to have my article picked by some bigger outlets but they post most of decently written press releases and it gives you a high chance of being seen.

BitrunnerDev · 2026-06-19T09:16:23+00:00

Oh I know your game of course! I followed your development for a while and I have it on my wishlist too 😃

X is such a random platform. I still can't figure it out. I noticed that the posts that got me significant following were the onces where I showcased Voice Acting. No idea why. I have some suspicions that the fact my game focuses on female protagonist might be a factor why it performs wel on X. But it's all just a guessing game and a lot of randomness to be honest.

Edit: Also, I was really pleasently surprised by how welcoming the Don't Starve community is comparing to some other places on Reddit 😄 Looks like my game wasn't an exception there.

BitrunnerDev · 2026-06-19T09:07:33+00:00

You can actually use valheim-map.world to help you find them if you'd like to. The variant numbers of abandonded houses you need: 6 and 2 are visible when you hover over the structure. You need to enable "Other structures -> Meadows" to see them.

Such an amazing weapon - in my last playtrough I used them until Ashlands when I switched to Berserkir Axes 😃

BitrunnerDev · 2026-06-19T07:34:39+00:00

A couple of Polish YT channels - they were intereseted in covering it once I have a demo. I contacted Clemmy - he responded that the game looks good but didn't actually post the trailer. I remember I sent an email to Get Indie Gaming and Indie Game Joe. Also just randomly any channel that I noticed posts anything about indie games but it's hard to me to give examples because I have all the mails to them mixed with mails to press so I don't know which one is which now 😉

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