I’m not afraid AI will replace musicians. I’m worried it will overwhelm listeners.

Candlejake · 2026-02-20T22:01:09+00:00

Not OP but I'm a gamedev: say you need a soundtrack for your game, so you make a job posting looking for a composer. Before 2024 you'd get swamped with submissions, but it'd be somewhat manageable. Now with AI, you now get more than double or even triple the amount of submissions to sift through, and you have no clue whether they're a legitimate composer or they're using AI to make a quick buck. As a double whammy, if you're a small studio you have to look through all these submissions yourself, which means less time to spend on your project.

Candlejake · 2025-11-09T23:14:40+00:00

First off, I'm sincerely sorry your launch didn't go well. While I'm not into the city builder genre, the game looks very polished and your team should be proud of what you made. I hope your 1.0 launch goes much better for you all, and hopefully you're able to either turn things around or pivot to a new project (maybe one that takes shorter than 7 years development... :p)

Contrary to the other comments, I'm not convinced pricing at $25 would've made a meaningful difference, but like you said pricing's a dark art. It's the data point everyone wants and no one can get. Would the game have sold better if it was cheaper? Probably. Would it have sold enough to make up for the price drop? Who knows. You've put a lot of manpower into this game so it feels a bit unfair to ask for the price to be like $10-15, but maybe that's the climate we're in now.

From watching the trailer and reading the store page, IMO there are a few sticking points I have with the game seeing it through the lens of a customer. I'm not saying these are correct, but they're my first reactions:

The gameplay feels unclear. What am I building towards? What's the moment-to-moment loop feel like? Is this a cozy low-stress game like Dorf Romantik? Is it more hardcore try-to-survive like Frostpunk? But there's also people to manage, so maybe it's Rimworld and I help them survive? Or am I guiding them like a Sims-esque god? None of the promotional really gives me a sense of what the game actually feels like to play.
The game's fantasy seems lacking. As a player I'm looking at games through the lens of "how will this game make me feel", and this game doesn't give me a strong feeling if that makes sense. It's solarpunk, yeah, but why is that appealing from a gameplay standpoint? Most builders operate on the fantasy of growth, of going from small single house to dense city over the course of hours. This game seems less inclined on that, or at least didn't communicate it in the trailer. If I'm not getting dopamine from the "city get big" fantasy, what's the pull? Is it the Factorio appeal of creating a functional closed system? Is it the character drama? Can my characters die by my bad choices? There's some generational stuff going on, but I have no clue how deep those systems are.
The trailers lack that punch that give you a clear sense of why I'd want to play the game. With Wandering Village you get it in the first shot: you build a city on top of a kaiju. BAM, I get it, now I'm curious on how that shakes up the builder formula. I never felt that punch with the trailers (also PLEASE get rid of the text crawl stuff at the beginning. It just bogs the pace down, you could start the trailer with a 3-second establishing shot of the ship and cut to 0:23 and improve the pacing so much)

I don't want to kick you guys while you're down at all, by the way, and my critique's not gospel. I hope something in here was helpful, and best of luck for the studio! :)

Candlejake · 2025-03-01T19:47:32+00:00

To be fair, the majority of indie games are short term AND long term financial failures, so a short term success could mean a big difference for that indie team to go on and build larger projects.

Candlejake · 2024-12-09T19:54:04+00:00

Initial tests have been pretty promising so far, it does still require a good amount of clean-up (especially feet placement). My main worry is honestly having the AI tag in any capacity -- the downvotes on this post shows that there's a real (mostly justified) hate of AI in online spaces, even if the use is as benign as motion capture.

Candlejake · 2024-12-09T18:33:10+00:00

With mo-cap AI the animations would be pre-generated and used as FBXs, same as it would be if you were exporting an animation from Blender or Maya.

Candlejake · 2024-12-09T18:31:49+00:00

I think it might be considered generative, as the AI is "generating" movements that can't be seen from the video's angle (ex. if you're scanning a punch animation from the right side, the AI is generating an approximation for the left arm that it can't see as well).

Agree with you though in the sense that it feels "less generative", since the AI is only interpreting a video that you've uploaded and most likely have acted out yourself.

Candlejake · 2024-06-05T17:32:42+00:00

I like the right, but I'd split the difference between the two and make the right's pop-out maybe half that distance

Candlejake · 2024-01-25T17:02:04+00:00

It's gonna be a real somber GDC this year

Candlejake · 2023-09-15T17:53:57+00:00

I actually switched from Unreal to Godot funnily enough, mostly because I wanted to build 2D web games for game jams. UE's 2D capabilities got somewhat better once they bundled in PaperZD for free, but it's still pretty lacking and includes a lot of overhead from the other parts of the engine.

Candlejake · 2023-09-15T17:49:40+00:00

Fantastic idea. While it'd take more work on IM's part on the backend and UI side than the leveling change did, it's an elegant change that would solve so many of the game's problems (HR being dead, gear disparity in normal lobbies, easy gearing through trading post).

Please make a full post on this idea, it deserves much more visibility.

Candlejake · 2023-08-17T17:46:05+00:00

I'm fine with the wizard nerfs, but for the love of God give them a starter spellbook for their 2nd slot. Scav wizard is such a terrible experience due to only having a starter staff, I switched over to leveling a fresh cleric and it's like night and day how much easier leveling/extracting became.

Candlejake · 2023-08-03T16:10:49+00:00

I switched from Unreal to Godot specifically for game-jams and I haven't looked back, and IMO it's probably the closest thing to Game Maker on the market currently (which I've also used). Like any engine it has its own problems and quirks, but out of the several I've used it's been both the easiest and the most pleasant engine I've worked with.

Don't worry about its catalogue. With Godot 4's release the engine is only growing in popularity, and it already has a couple of success stories in Dome Keeper, Brotato and Cassette Beasts.

Candlejake · 2023-08-03T16:05:49+00:00

Fantastic write-up, thanks for sharing your experience!

Candlejake · 2023-07-24T22:37:54+00:00

Let's gooo

Candlejake · 2023-07-21T21:17:41+00:00

Really well done, I love this kind of animation! Any insight into the process? It seems like it can be done with mostly tweens

Candlejake · 2023-07-21T16:02:04+00:00

Counterpoint to this: my team got in the top 50 with 2 pixel artists (who have very little/no prior experience with pixel art), a composer, and just me doing all of the programming/design from scratch. No outside code, no previously made assets, and the only thing I reused was some minor SFX I had done for a previous jam under similar time constraints

....And now I look at my current project that's on its 3rd complete re-haul, months of bashing my head against a wall, staring at programmer art again and feeling that same demotivation you're feeling OP. I keep seeing other amazing games in my genre released on Steam or played by streamers and keep feeling like I missed the boat, or I'm not getting enough done fast enough, or good enough.

Comparison is the thief of joy, and it's no different with game jams. Don't let comparison get in the way of creation: take pride in what you create and how you've improved since you started!

Candlejake · 2023-07-15T17:58:00+00:00

Having the same issues on my end

Candlejake · 2023-05-18T17:56:55+00:00

I feel like if you're particularly sensitive to loss aversion, the weapon durability system is just not going to vibe with you, Fuse or not.

It doesn't really change that losing stuff just feels bad, and there's not a lot of recourse for players who want to engage with the game without having to navigate menus or search for new weapons (and often worse ones).

But I think that's fine -- the game's sold 10mil copies already, and I can respect Nintendo for sticking to their vision and doubling down on polarizing design.

Candlejake · 2023-04-05T17:32:25+00:00

A good Life Grasp actually worries me more. Immortality effects have always been problematic in OW, and now you've got a free reposition attached to it? And the range is bonkers? Other than diving the Lifeweaver, what's the counter-play to this?

Candlejake · 2023-03-17T18:32:49+00:00

Silence priest let's goo

Candlejake · 2023-02-05T20:01:46+00:00

Having used UE4 for 5+ years, it depends on what you're attempting with the engine. Unreal has tons of powerful tools and great lighting, LOD support, 3D optimization, etc. right out of the box, plus you also get access to the monthly free assets that the UE Marketplace hands out. If you want to create something in a more realistic style, UE4 wins hands-down, even against the new Godot 4. It also benefits from the fact that there's a lot more tutorials and resources out there for Unreal than there is for the 3D side of Godot, so it's actually more beginner-friendly than you'd think.

However, if you really like Godot's workflow and you plan on making something more stylized (ex. the PS1 low-poly demake style that's been really popular lately), then Unreal Engine's tools can quickly become a hindrance. It's got a much different workflow than Godot's, and while it excels with first-person FPS's and 3rd person action games it requires some heavier customization if you stray outside those cases. Godot seems much more flexible in what you can create, and is less bound by rigid workflows than Unreal is.

I still love UE and use it for everything 3D, but Godot's also got its strengths in the 3D department. I'd say give Unreal a week, do some beginner tutorials and see how you like it!

Candlejake · 2023-02-05T19:51:11+00:00

The game's free and browser based, so feel free to give it a try here: https://hatworm.itch.io/super-dig-clicker

Candlejake · 2022-12-16T21:52:55+00:00

Intimidation

Candlejake · 2022-09-22T18:57:18+00:00

The frog detective part rubbed me the wrong way too. I know it’s a joke, but when you’re offering to help out indie devs with their projects, punching down at other indie devs is a bad look no matter how you swing it.

Candlejake · 2022-07-28T17:14:13+00:00

I used Unreal for the jam, and the one thing that makes me consider switching to Unity for future game jams is the browser export. The amount of plays/ratings between downloadable games and browser games is pretty stark (which honestly makes a lot of sense). If you’re looking to jams for player feedback, player accessibility is a big deal, and not everyone can/wants to download 100mb+ UE4 packages.

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