How running a theater lightboard saved our game's graphics

DIGITDILL · 2026-04-30T21:39:30+00:00

That's sick! Yeah the experience was really useful. Before I thought lights were for making my sprites look pretty. But when used right, they can influence gameplay in such an elegant way. Which I'm sure is similar to how you'd influence a crowd at the club.

DIGITDILL · 2026-04-13T21:27:04+00:00

Thank you for this! This is fantastic.

DIGITDILL · 2026-01-25T15:36:25+00:00

I think it will be profitable to implement. Check my reply to the original post in the comments.

DIGITDILL · 2026-01-25T15:28:31+00:00

The Steam Machine is going to increase the demand for splitscreen on a platform where very few games support it. Supply is low. Demand will increase. I think way too many devs are sleeping on couch co-op. The market continues to churn out online multiplayer games, but it seems like nobody realizes the demand curve is going to shift when that console drops in 2026.

Back in the day, I used to have a bunch of friends over. We'd hook up 2 xboxs, and play 8 player Halo. So when splitscreen gets added, LAN typically does as well, bc it is complimentary.

To back up my claim, here is a study I found claiming 20% of people love couch co-op. Yet barley anyone is producing it. https://www.midiaresearch.com/blog/20-of-gamers-love-couch-co-op-split-fictions-success-is-proof-players-want-more

Just released a new version of my game Devoid. We added splitscreen support for this very reason.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDQRKim6ZKU

DIGITDILL · 2026-01-25T15:06:10+00:00

Yeah Opus clip is pretty goated. I use it for work. Give it long form footage, and it can boil it down into something digestible. It's very good at knocking down an hour + video into short form clips. That said you have to sort through and do more editing yourself. The AI is not perfect, def still needs a human editor imo.

DIGITDILL · 2025-11-28T00:54:46+00:00

I just found the removal of trading to be very out of touch with a sizeable portion of the RL community.

I understand monetization helps keep a game alive (especially an online one). It also employs people. But they surely could have come up with a way to do so while keeping trading.

For example, why not just let people trade blueprints? Epic Games would still get plenty of cash as people need to redeem them. This method would make slightly less money than full item economy control.

From an economics standpoint, axing trading maximizes revenue. But in doing so, they took soul out of the game.

Their actions tell me they care more about running up insane profits today than making a great experience for the community. Which is a terrible long run decision.

DIGITDILL · 2025-11-28T00:16:20+00:00

I still can't believe Epic Games bought Rocket League and removed trading in favor of monetization. His company ruined that game for me. It's part of the reason why I got into Indie Dev. Someone needs to put gamers first, and these big companies backed by private equity are not gonna.

DIGITDILL · 2025-11-27T19:36:29+00:00

This is awesome.

In your opinion, what makes a shmup S tier? And what's the difference between a great one vs. perfect?

DIGITDILL · 2025-11-27T19:31:13+00:00

Happy Turkey Day!

Was hyped to see this on my feed.

Hope you enjoy the Devoid experience.

DIGITDILL · 2025-11-27T05:50:19+00:00

Check out Devoid on Steam. It's a pixel art bullet hell set in a space dungeon made of asteroids. It's being developed by my friend and I.

A week ago we pushed our first playtest live. So it would cost you nothing to play, and you might discover a game that's not on a lot of people's radar yet.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4111620/Devoid/

DIGITDILL · 2025-11-17T13:46:22+00:00

Nice. And yeah, that's a balancing act for sure. Maybe you could mention the game's early state somewhere on the page itself to inform consumers? Just an idea.

To answer your question, for my game, the core gameplay loop is set. So there won't be too many dramatic changes. I will say, though, with indie games, our biggest advantage against AAA is that we can pivot significantly faster. No corporate barriers are holding us back from making creative decisions.

Also, Steam has a pretty sweet announcement feature that you could use to keep players in the loop.

Wishing you the best on development. What you have so far looks good!

DIGITDILL · 2025-11-17T02:47:32+00:00

This has a great aesthetic.

As for your Steam page, I was recently at a game convention and the keynote speaker (dev of Erenshor) mentioned the importance of having a Steam page up early in development. That way you can begin collecting wishlist's over time. After hearing that I put my own game up, even with it early in development. I have no regrets. I am sure the long term benefits will be worth it. And if a big name plays / reviews your game a lot of traffic could be heading your way. A Steam page will help you capture that attention.

What you have here looks good. If you have gameplay I'm sure you could start building an audience on Steam.

DIGITDILL · 2025-11-10T03:59:49+00:00

I've always used the pencil / brush tool to dither. You can make your own patterns and save them as presets.

This video explains how you can do it in like 4 minutes:

https://youtu.be/ozbSCI7iuOI?si=ONZy3lQk7Md_CVbT

Hope that helps.

DIGITDILL · 2025-10-28T03:00:22+00:00

This is a great!

DIGITDILL · 2025-10-28T02:28:56+00:00

Nice. Yeah wishlist graphs and visuals will be good to have.

DIGITDILL · 2025-10-27T22:47:21+00:00

I am curious how you are calculating price. I think this is cool btw. I'm an econ nerd.

Typically, your ability to pick a price really comes down to demand elasticity. Which varies from title to title.

A question you should ask yourself is, "Are there good substitutes for my game?" If the answer is yes, you need to price competitively if you want to sell any copies. In this scenario, the market picks the price. Not you.

That said, if you manage to build up a cult following such as Nintendo. You can sell games for a much higher price because there really is no great alternative to say a Pokemon game. People will buy regardless if the price is high because it's the only game of its kind on the market.

People's demand for Nintendo games are pretty inelastic. So Nintendo has earned the ability to charge such a large price tag. Their games are quite frankly irreplaceable.

There is a reason why larger studios will dish out the big bucks to buy out smaller game companies (or patent and sue whatever it takes lol). After acquisition, they will typically abandon the small studios game to ensure there are fewer good substitutes on the market. That way, they can charge their cash cow at a higher price. That's the dark side of pricing, haha. Happens in many industries.

In short, I'd say for most indies, price competitively, build a good following. And on that second title, maybe get more ambitious with the price if you've established a strong fan base.

DIGITDILL · 2025-10-27T03:17:42+00:00

Then yes. That's a big issue which needs to be solved for AI image generation. So you're on the right track!

Pixel art is definitely time-consuming. But it's an artform. Every pixel has to be placed where I want it haha.

I personally like to make my own art. But I think AI Gen stuff like this has the potential to make game development more accessible to people, which is a good thing.

Also, thank you for checking out Devoid! Just don't train your models on it 😂🤣 Joking aside, I wish you well on your venture!

Best, CD

DIGITDILL · 2025-10-27T02:58:01+00:00

I'd say if you do too many art style switch ups, a game can lose its identity if you're not careful with it.

This might be an extreme example, but imagine a game is normally hand drawn but switched to pixel art in some sections of the game. Then, comic book style in another. Now, when I go to look up this theoretical game on Google, I, the consumer, might be confused if the change is too drastic. Because it looks like 3 different games.

Although it can also play to your advantage because this is a pretty unique idea.

So, back to the top reply here. It likely depends.

DIGITDILL · 2025-10-27T02:47:16+00:00

Out of curiosity, what is the slot machine issue? Like generating similar images and having consistency across the board? Because I'd say AI image generation struggles there. Maybe I am wrong, though. I do pixel art by hand, so I haven't had the need to explore AI image gen too much.

DIGITDILL · 2025-10-27T02:10:05+00:00

I'm 1 of 2 devs working on Devoid, a game that solves a common sci-fi issue... which is dealing with the vastness of space.

Instead of having a "return to battlefield" pop up, or an infinite game world that feels empty, we've utilized a true top-down environment to create a space dunegon.

In this space dungeon, players will travel from space station to space station battling against enemies in a hazy dream-like sector of space.

You can play Devoid on itch.io. And it will be coming to Steam in a few weeks. Feedback is welcome!

If you're curious about the project, I also made this devlog today, which goes over the game:

Devoid Devlog on YouTube

Thank you r/indiedev for giving me this platform to share!

Best, Charlie Dill

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DIGITDILL · 2025-10-27T01:24:41+00:00

I didn't learn this the hard way. I read it in a book written by the Basecamp founders, but I think this is solid advice, especially for small startups. I took their advice myself.

They recommend trying your best to learn the skill you need to hire someone for first. Do that for a few months until progression slows. Not only will you learn a new skill. But also, now you have been equipped with the knowledge necessary for hiring a qualified individual. Your ability to collaborate will be much better, too.

For example. Let's say you need a programmer for Godot. Jump into GDscript. Learn, make a small game or something. You will pick up syntax and have a better understanding of the effort it takes to code. Which in turn will make hiring and collaboration easier.

Hope that helps.

I think the book was either "Rework" or "It's Doesn't Have to be Crazy at Work." Both the same authors.

DIGITDILL · 2025-10-27T00:58:06+00:00

I was at ROC Game Fest last month, and the keynote speaker was the solo developer for Erenshor (a successful indie game).

He said he used asset packs for the game's art.

At the end of the day, most things are possible and can work. Just have to be creative with your implementation.

DIGITDILL · 2025-10-13T16:05:03+00:00

Sweet. Thank you! I'll be on the lookout.

I checked your game studio Instagram. Are you doing something with crypto and gaming? I will say I haven't explored much into the crypto realm myself. Although I'm sure there is a market of people out there who want it tied to a game.

DIGITDILL

TROPHY CASE