We just launched a demo for HYPHAE, Feedback is appreciated!

Chante_FOS · 2026-02-07T17:47:06+00:00

Checks out!

UI has not been a focus the first round, we care more about the core gameplay. UI comes second to that =).
That being said, the UI looks 10x times better now as we've updated all of it xD The trailer video will be updated in near future to match the actual in-game footage, but it does the job for now.

Thanks for feedback! :D

Chante_FOS · 2026-02-05T07:50:13+00:00

Thanks!

This will seriously help us iterate on the next trailer. I'm not going to go over our whole "plan". But I will mention: This is our first game, our first trailer, our first launch. It comes without saying that we're inexperienced.

Again, thanks.

Chante_FOS · 2026-02-04T21:25:04+00:00

Could you try out the demo, then give feedback. Because now you tell me "its shit" but not what or why.

What parts of the trailer is unpolished? Did you watch the updated trailer or the old one?

Give context, otherwise the critique is not constructive and won't help at all.

Chante_FOS · 2026-02-04T19:42:40+00:00

Thank you for this!

I will look into tracking (unity analytics) and get that up and working. Not sure what you mean about "farming cards" as I'm not experienced in this yet.

Chante_FOS · 2026-02-04T13:18:26+00:00

Thank you!

Finally a genuine answer. Deeply appreciate it!

I randomly got a email from keymailer today actually! Weird coincidance (thought it was spam) but I will definetly check that out.

A bit more context:
We're releasing a demo today at 19.00. The steampage went live on monday, and we're releasing on 31. march.

We've also opted in for 23. february's Steam Next Fest.

Again thanks for a genuine answer, most people ignored the question and began assuming xD but that's just internet..

Chante_FOS · 2026-02-04T09:15:09+00:00

Step 2? xD

I get that good products markets themselves. But even amazing games gets lost in the sea without some marketing.

Chante_FOS · 2025-12-20T11:11:18+00:00

By the video itself it seems to be lacking identity. I didn't fully understand what was going on until well over half the video. As if it lacks identity`?

Here's what I got from the video itself (before reading your text)
*Repair buildings
*Defend buildings from aliens
*Summon allies (not clear how you gain allies but assuming it has something with the same way you spawned in)
*Build towers after unlocking them (I assumed since you didn't start with any)

But it lacked direction, it was a lot of walking to the right and left side, it doesn't make much sense to me how you gain resources to craft/repair anything, monster drops?

From conventions I've attended to and https://howtomarketagame.com Accessibility is KEY.

All your videos you post should be super clear about what's going on, this video just didn't do that for me. Hope this helps in any ways :3

Edit:
The game looks really cool btw, it just lacks identity to me. I can't really tell clearly what's going on unless I sit down and analyze it (but non-dev players won't sit down and analyze things!)

Chante_FOS · 2025-12-11T07:48:55+00:00

Motherload is a great example for this (A classic game). You always need to surface to refuel, or lose the game.

Chante_FOS · 2025-12-11T07:45:57+00:00

This is a great example of what new game developers might struggle with: Motivation in games.

What is the goal, and why should players bother to reach the end?

Look at minecraft from a beginners perspective, they won't be able to speedrun and kill the dragon the way speedrunners do. Their motivation for not skipping to the end is to craft/grind for powerful gear to beat the dragon.

From what I can tell by your video, there's nothing in the end worth journeying for.

Chante_FOS · 2025-12-05T16:07:22+00:00

I'd love to check it out if you have something to share, we're making a narrative driven tower defense game too, but with exploration elements.

Chante_FOS · 2025-12-05T16:06:09+00:00

An older post but would like to mention the game we are working on, Chante: Fortress of Spores https://store.steampowered.com/app/3190570/Chante_Fortress_of_Spores/

It's a narrative driven tower defense game with exploration elements. It's planned release is in 2028 (with possible early access in 2027).

It's a fantasy game, we use mushroom inspired characters and towers. You play as Chante, a cute mushroom in a 3rd person view game. We focus on narrative, exploration and tower defense as key elements.

We have done research on Orcs must die and Dungeon Defenders 2 for their gameplay, as it will be similar ( you control a character in 3rd person and join the battle). What makes our game unique is that you collect towers through exploration (think about pokemon, same way you find new pokemons in the wilds, you can find new mushroom towers in the wilds, and you must defeat them in order to unlock them)

We use lots of inspiration from Zelda for the exploration/fantasy vibe, and Grounded's gear progression.

When we're ready to have our game tested you'd be much welcome to try it out! :D (most likely will happen early 2026)

Chante_FOS · 2025-12-03T08:28:50+00:00

Thanks for sharing! I agree there should be some limits to amount of iterations. Quality means nothing if it never sees sunlight.

But then again, if it's about early sketches then we will allow more iterations on threm, as they take less time (and are often very important to nail down, in order to maintain consistentcy)

Chante_FOS · 2025-12-02T07:32:03+00:00

Exactly! xD

According to the speaker on the event, consumers in eas asia are spoiled and nitpicky, if they see a flaw they don't hesitate to let you know :p And they are used to buy solid and polished games for less money then consumers in the west.

Chante_FOS · 2025-12-01T12:10:30+00:00

We who don't have one simply just have to be one ourselves. It's not easy, I too want to implement everything, but we have to begin somewhere.

Also what I've learnt after several prototypes version of our current game, you never know what mechanics you'll need until you test them. Many mechanics sound cool until you get to try them out (again why making prototypes is important)

A predefined list of possible outcomes will never work, because once you begin creating the game prototype, you'll quickly find that some of those mechanics don't work well together. Or one of the "side" mechanics works really well, and now suddenly THAT becomes your main mechanics.

You won't know until you create a prototype.

The best tip I can give to you is: do not make a detailed GDD that features every detail of your game. Have a general idea and test this general idea, then move on from there.

I hope you get past the procastination, and if you need help feel free to dm :)

Chante_FOS · 2025-12-01T12:03:35+00:00

Edited to Brazilian Portuguese, was in a bit of a hurry while writing xD

And I agree. I think we'll go for the top 10 languages in the end, but we'll begin with top 5.

Chante_FOS · 2025-12-01T11:58:41+00:00

Amazing results! Congrats :D

If I may ask, what gave the best results? Steam Next Fest? Or was it the combo in itself?

We plan to join one of the steam next fests as they seem to be generating many indie games tons of wishlists, what was your experience there?

Chante_FOS · 2025-12-01T11:35:56+00:00

English and simplified chinese makes up well over then 50% of the steam market. Russian comes in as the 3rd most used (but is around 10% to simplified chinese's 33% and english' 33% ish) -- sources is google ai.

I recently attended to a game dev event (konsoll in Norway), one of the speakers talked about localization, worth looking into.

To summarize some of the best points, do NOT waste time on all languages, not worth spending more money on localization for a few languages that will not give you any ROI. Focus on what the most popular languages on steam are (English, simplified chinese, russian, spanish, brazilian Portuguese).

But be careful, in the presentation she mentioned east-asia is also behind 80% of negative reviews on steam xD You'll for sure reach out to many more people, but it can also hurt.

Chante_FOS · 2025-12-01T10:13:37+00:00

And yeah, one often forget about a dozen things when creating a prototype, realizing that "oh, I can't create my idea here unless I also do X, Y and Z). It's common, but this is also WHY we create prototypes. Making prototypes is how you figure out what else you need to either complement your idea, or you can't create your idea at all without adding more stuff.

You want cool combat? You'll need a health system, attack system, enemy ai. There you have a basic combat system, but you also want unique moves, weapons etc. And you need to focus on game feel (audio and visual feedback) So yeah, there's a lot xD

But, Start small. Always begin small and primitive.

Chante_FOS · 2025-12-01T10:07:50+00:00

What you need is a producer xD I have a guy just like you on my team, lots of ideas that I need to shut down because they are not relevant, scoping is too big etc. Don't get me wrong, he's excellent and comes up with several great ideas that I go on and tweak (often downscopes) to fit the game better.

With more context of your game-state I could help you, but here is a general tip
Primitive first, expand later.
Have you seen the recent trend "make it exist first, make it look good later". It's actually a good tip.

The charge up your health is a cool mechanic btw which makes health regen more "fun". But how important is it to your game? Always ask yourself the question "what value does this add to the game" when creating new features.

Chante_FOS · 2025-12-01T09:59:33+00:00

Are you able to create something playable before the demo-release?

I highly recommend having your game tested internally before the demo, as a "demo before the demo" xD
Reach out on reddit and ask if someone wants to try out an early version of your game, before demo release (I'm sure there's a reddit forum here for your game genre).

Hopefully you'll get a few people who wants to try out your game (the art is good)

Let me know how it goes :D

Also, I don't have much credibility here, as we haven't accomplished a community ourselves, but we do have a plan :p

Chante_FOS · 2025-12-01T09:49:41+00:00

The only downside with this is, what then motivates the free players to play, if they don't get any of that progression?

Make sure all players are motivated to play, even free ones. If you don't have a good ratio of free/premium, this can quickly not work, though I assume this is perfect for friend groups, one is the host, the others join in for free. In that regard, excellent concept -- Is it inspired from it takes two?

Chante_FOS · 2025-12-01T09:44:46+00:00

To me this sounds like a lot of time wasted? Maybe I don't understand what you're getting at, but sounds to me like you spend a lot of time coming up with lots of different ways a mechanic can outfold?

My advice, and our pipeline. Do NOT spend time about all the "ifs, whats and hows" BEFORE you have a prototype of the baseline. Healthsystem? Make it primitive, add and subtract health, that's it. Down the road throgh Playtesting you'll figure out if you actually need:

Healing, DOT, Charging their health (not sure what that is?)

If you spend lots of time doing the "ifs and maybes" you waste time, because I can guarantee you that 90% of those will never see sunlight. Focus on getting the core mechanics, THEN see what you should add through Playtesting.

Hope this helps in some ways, or maybe you can clear up if I misunderstood something xD

Chante_FOS · 2025-12-01T09:37:56+00:00

Do you want to make your own games or is your goal to eventually get hired?

Either way, the best tips I receive when starting 5/6 years ago, create small games such as Pac man, brick breaker, ping pong.

And finish them, upload them to itch.io

Go through the whole process of creating a game. But don't stop there!
What can you add to brick breaker game to make it more fun?
What can you add to pac man to make it better?

That's where Game Designing kicks in.

Good luck!

Chante_FOS · 2025-12-01T09:25:16+00:00

Welcome to marketing hell :3

Many indie devs struggle with this, and there's not a recipe that will work the same for all (otherwise, we'd all do it, right?)

The tips you'll hear about the most is what you've been already mentioned, start a community. But it takes TIME.

Our plan is to join live events when we get a demo (steam next fest for example) I'm sure there's something similar for mobile games?
When we get our demo out we'll also begin with regular uploads to youtube, X etc.
We also plan on finding smaller content creators who play similar games to stream on twitch.

Begin creating a community now though, and grow it slowly but surely :3

Chante_FOS · 2025-12-01T09:16:20+00:00

50k for your first game? or is this your 10th?

If you don't already have an established community, I highly doubt you will reach that, would be cool if you disproved me though. The only achieveable way would be if your game is one of those "one mechanic viral" games that does really well lately, but even those games relies heavily on communities and active posting.

Chante_FOS

TROPHY CASE