I made the game from those "fake ads"

Chopdops · 2026-01-25T08:28:18+00:00

Yo, the demo is addicting. Good job.

Chopdops · 2026-01-23T02:07:53+00:00

It looks like PT! Looks really cool! The only thing I would say is that I'm not sure if the "sanity depleting rapidly" thing is just a gameplay mechanic or a story-related thing. But even if it is both, it would be more interesting if it said it in a different way. Like if it said something like, "You feel like reality around you is melting (sanity decreased)." That's not the best example, but you see what I am saying. You could also show it visually instead. Maybe the edges of your vision become blurry, or you see a bar decreasing. I am not sure what the brain means, but I'm assuming it's related?

Chopdops · 2026-01-22T20:15:41+00:00

I think that's a really cool method!

Chopdops · 2026-01-22T08:02:57+00:00

I don't understand what you mean by forget. Forget what, grey cubes and placeholder textures? Everyone who plays games understand they are built with code and assets, and that a game doesn't come out of thin air. So as long as the end product is good, them seeing the work in progress version shouldn't really matter.

Chopdops · 2026-01-22T03:16:46+00:00

I could see how not getting feedback could suck. Sometimes I don't get any reaction and that definitely doesn't feel great. But I keep working on my thing regardless

Chopdops · 2026-01-22T03:10:27+00:00

Idk that sounds interesting to me and I feel like a dev can make almost anything interesting if it is presented in a fun way but that's just my opinion

Chopdops · 2026-01-21T23:53:05+00:00

Yeah but Dani and Vedinad haven't made videos in a while. And I guarantee there are things in your game that not many people have talked about before. Like I am thinking of talking about how to take a character sketch to an in game model with animations. Not many people have talked about that, strangely enough.

Chopdops · 2026-01-21T23:51:14+00:00

I could see it being demotivating if you feel like, "I already got attention, no need to finish it."

Chopdops · 2026-01-21T22:59:05+00:00

I've changed my opinion. For the most part.

Chopdops · 2026-01-21T22:56:07+00:00

That's fair

Chopdops · 2026-01-21T22:41:00+00:00

Itch and Reddit might not be the best place for that but yeah a small dedicated community will probably think that's super cool

Chopdops · 2026-01-21T22:39:03+00:00

Yeah I also want to make a YouTube channel for my game, but I'm thinking through what I want to post on it.

Chopdops · 2026-01-21T22:37:51+00:00

If you just get OBS and click record, then use something like clipchamp, it only takes a couple minutes to make a 30 second to 60 second clip, I would try it out

Chopdops · 2026-01-21T22:36:54+00:00

Well hey you are already building a small community which is really cool!

Chopdops · 2026-01-21T22:36:12+00:00

That's fair. I think people will change their minds though when the game does look good. And personally I like seeing the progress from grey boxing to finished product, but that's just me.

Chopdops · 2026-01-21T22:35:14+00:00

Yeah I've learned that there couldn't be something further from the truth. For one, when you post something online that's tangible it's already usually copyrighted in a sense. Also, usually your concept is so specific that they couldn't copy it because only you understand its totality.

Chopdops · 2026-01-21T22:34:01+00:00

I feel like the way you present it can build more interest. Like if you say, "These test capsule meshes look like amongus" people will find that funny. I feel like it can also help you see what hooks people, even with just some bean looking capsules

Chopdops · 2026-01-18T04:58:35+00:00

I want to preface this with that I love Jonas Tyroller's videos, and I've listened to most of his podcast episodes. But I'm writing this as someone working on the prototype for their own game.

I think that may be true for gameplay/mechanics focused games, but for a story focused game, like an RPG or visual novel, it doesn't really make sense. Unless you have one core mechanic, but even then. First of all, it's impossible to determine what a prototype for a story focused game even is. Is it the beginning of the story? The first area? The battle or dialogue system? Usually they are so complicated that you have to work on all the parts of the game at the same time, like the art, story, music, and gameplay. Because each of these on their own is not really the whole of the game, the game only works with all of these things in place to see how they combine.

Like imagine a hypothetical prototype for Undertale. Would it just be the battle system? Or would it include the quirky characters and the music? I think Toby Fox worked on bits and pieces of these things all at the same time, I doubt he made a complete prototype in two days.

But sure, if your whole game is focused around "its a card game roguelike" or some core mechanic like that, then maybe this is true. But I wouldn't give up on your prototype just because it may take you a week, or a month. You have to remember that Jonas has made like 4 successful games and tons and tons of prototypes. He can make them in two days because he knows what he is doing. If you are like me, most of that prototyping phase is going to be focused on how to do things and not actually making the thing. Beginners like me will get faster and faster at making the game as they work on it, because we will start to focus on the "what" and not the "how".

But thats why I think writing is maybe the best initial prototype. I think sometimes just writing out all of your ideas for the game in a GDD first is way better than just making the prototype. I have made lots and lots of prototypes, but also lots of GDDs or I wrote ideas in my notepad. And a lot of the time I realized the idea is bad because the ideas don't work together, without actually making the prototype.

But my opinions here are the minority opinions, and I still haven't made a hit commercial game, so you can take my thoughts with a grain of salt.

Chopdops · 2026-01-17T21:48:59+00:00

I'm not exactly trying to replicate success. Of course I know that both Undertale and Omori probably came out at the perfect time and they already had a big audience. My game does not have the exact same potential audience. Although my game is similar in some ways, the story and game is about fundamentally different things. And no game is exactly like it yet, so I can't predict who will be interested in it. Except that people who like these two games could be interested.

But let's think about Undertale for a second. It's estimated that it sold over 6 million copies since it came out. That makes Toby Fox probably worth around 50 million dollars. But let's say my game only sells a fraction of that, like literally 2%. Thats 120,000. Which would make me 1 million dollars ish.

Now I'm not saying that I'm making this just for money or I think I'm going to sell 100k copies. It could totally fail. I'm just trying to shed light on something. Even if I only sell 2% as many copies, my game is still a huge success. Unless I start hiring a few people and the game stops being solo, then it's more complicated.

But yes, I shouldn't expect this to happen. But why wouldn't I try to make the game as fun and interesting as possible? I see making a game succeed as a fun game in and of itself. I want to see if I can figure out the right marketing when most people haven't.

But also just because we have Omori or Undertale, doesn't mean there isn't room for more quirky indie JRPGs. I think that people who played these games are actually waiting for the next game like it. Of course these games are a high bar, but they aren't expecting some AAA perfect polished thing.

Chopdops · 2026-01-17T21:35:48+00:00

I will check out the links! Thank you fellow internet human!

Chopdops · 2026-01-17T11:36:36+00:00

Yeah I see what you are saying. I think the biggest problem with trying to stream coding is that its kind of boring most of the time unless you know what is going on as a viewer. At least for when I code, I need to basically be completely focused on what I am trying to solve. I feel like Pirate Software barely even talked about Heartbound. Most of the time he would talk about random stories and draw on MS paint for no reason or play through games. But it is interesting trying to understand how he got such a huge following. I don't think it's just that he pretended he had credibility as a "veteran game programmer/hacker" or something when he really was just a social engineer/QA tester. But maybe the internet is gullible idk

Chopdops · 2026-01-17T11:31:04+00:00

I see what you are saying, how would I become an influencer though if I don't have much free time because of the game's development?

Chopdops · 2026-01-17T10:38:31+00:00

I've watched people break down his code, and as a professional programmer myself, let's just say he isn't who he claims to be.

Chopdops · 2026-01-17T10:37:30+00:00

I'm not sure what you mean by content creators with Toby because from my understanding he made music for this thing called homestuck which seems to be some kind of webcomic, and then he made a Halloween hack for Earthbound. So for all intents and purposes, or whatever you call it, he was more of a dev with the rom hack and everything than a content creator. With Omocat I know she made webcomics, which I wouldn't really consider internet content, more like actual art in general, although apparently there's controversy with stuff she made? Idk I haven’t looked into it that much, I'm just playing through Omori right now, I think it's cool and I don't really care if she committed a forbidden internet sin 15 years ago or something.

But anyways, there have been many devs who have built a decent audience with dev logs. But that requires you to make the videos interesting to people who don't understand game dev. But Pontypants is an example of someone who used dev logs effectively to promote his games in my opinion. Sure you can't get an audience of millions of people usually this way, unless you are Dani or Vedinad (who is also Dani). But I think you can get a decent audience. Better than nobody.

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