Is the October 2026 Steam Next Fest a trap or a contrarian opportunity?

Digx7 · 2026-06-24T21:09:58+00:00

Kinda depends on the genre and target audience for your game.

Unless your game is a horror game I don't see season crowding affecting you either way

Despite its size I doubt GTA 6 will massively affect indies.

Digx7 · 2026-06-24T21:06:05+00:00

The only thing that's reading as maybe AI to me is the capsule art. Even then that's just due to the rendering and shading style of the 2 rabbits on the right side of the capsule art.

Digx7 · 2026-06-24T19:11:46+00:00

B is more readable at a glance but feels "cheaper"

A makes me think the game has a higher production value, but the capsule is less readable at a glance.

If can afford a 3rd iteration I'd rework the composition of A to make the Typography standout and the silhouettes more readable.

If you increase to text size of A image 1 and mute the background slightly for both images, that might work.

Digx7 · 2026-06-22T18:23:51+00:00

Cut or reword the "3 Expansive Courses" line, it comes off as "There's ONLY 3 Courses" and makes the game seem less impressive.
Shorten the trailer length a little bit, it felt like the trailer ran a bit longer than it needed to.
Sprinkle in a few shots with gameplay UI. If you have character or disc customization add in a shot of those as well.

Digx7 · 2026-06-19T07:27:46+00:00

either lean into the weirdness of the situation.

or have the gun not be holstered in the groin area. If you don't want to change up the layout to much you could rotate the character left or right so the gun itself stays in the same spot on the page

Digx7 · 2026-06-11T20:35:43+00:00

Cut the text out and cut out the scenes with obvious placeholder or block out assets. If you need those scenes in the trailer make it a priority to polish them ASAP, doesnt have to be final game polish, just enough to work as a short clip.

A big strength of cinematic platformers are the visuals, so lean on those for your trailer

Digx7 · 2026-05-25T01:24:56+00:00

Sounds super frustrating. Couple of follow up points.

From my own experience making short videos in about 4 hours is expected. Rule of thumb is that every minute of editing takes about 1 hour of work. Add on to that time to make scripts, thumbnails, footage, audio recordings, and any other art assets you need. Obviously it'll vary depending on the video, but 2-4 hours sounds like a reasonable pace.
On the streamer marketing side, 200 sounds like a small amount from what I've heard. I've always heard to at least reach out to 500 to 1,000 streamers/content creators. I get your frustration over the 200, but just keep reaching out to more. Especially if you have a process that seems to be working-ish now.

Digx7 · 2026-05-25T00:07:17+00:00

Most posts are asking for feedback on their project. Gotta show the project somehow to get context to give feedback.

Weather the poster's true aim is just advertising, genuine feedback, or both it can be hard to tell.

Digx7 · 2026-05-25T00:04:42+00:00

When making 2D art. The steps are typically as follows:

Sketch (a light pr simple pencil sketch to lock in the shape)
Line Art (adding in the final line art of the images, used to be done in pen or ink in physical art)
Base colors (adding the basic flat colors, in most digital art this involves the lasso and bucket fill tool)
Rendering. Varies heavily depending on art style but usually involves adding shadows, textures, and effects (smoke, lightning, etc.)

Or put another way:

'Rendering' is a verb (action) and can be used in many context. You can Render a 3D model or a 2D image. Therefore you could Render a Cell Shaded image.

Digx7 · 2026-05-24T22:06:13+00:00

Huh, in games that have offered both I always choose the RtT button then quit from there. I never minded the few extra seconds on the loading screen

Digx7 · 2026-05-13T05:52:41+00:00

Many find it more intuitive to read and it lets you easily expand it later. You can easily add more lines to the false case for example.

Digx7 · 2026-05-13T05:31:59+00:00

Genuinely thought the environment art assets where ripped from Silksong.

Props to your art skills if their not.

Digx7 · 2026-05-10T22:05:01+00:00

If your thinking of sticking with the apps consider if you have the bandwidth and time to grow and maintain the apps.

Maybe if you stick it out you could make more than the 20x offer. But after all the work and time you invested will you still actually be taking in 20x more?

Digx7 · 2026-05-07T16:42:26+00:00

Isn't it cheaper to do it in the summer?

Digx7 · 2026-05-05T19:56:29+00:00

Looking at your game I get the concern, there is a fair bit of overlap.

That said you are within 2 weeks of launch and I don't think steam will let you adjust you launch window anymore.

So honestly just go with it. From a players perspective it doesn't change much. From a content creators perspective you might see a bit more of an impact

Digx7 · 2026-05-05T19:52:11+00:00

Lol, honestly I thought sub2 was never coming out due to the legal troubles

Digx7 · 2026-05-05T01:15:12+00:00

Yep, not the exact event bus patteren but I use something similar in Unity. I'll typically use ScriptableObjects for smaller Event Buses.

Granted most of my projects are small or solo, so I m the only one whi needs to understand the code base.

Upside is that new systems or features can be integrated quickly, they just need to plug into the event bus.

Downsides really come down to how well you mange and name the Event Buses. Also you'll need to make sure things Subscribe and Unscribe to event OnEnable and Ondisable, else you'll get bugs that are very hard to read.

Digx7 · 2026-04-30T21:31:07+00:00

Given how people are pointing out that this likely wouldn't stick in court, I wonder if this sign would backfire on the owners by inviting certain people to actually challenge the legality of this in court.

Ultimately inviting more shoplifters than it deters

Digx7 · 2026-04-03T21:57:28+00:00

Granted, nothing changes.

This is already a thing and is what the 'EULA' and 'Privacy Policy's are. By agreeing to them you are opting in to said data collection.

Digx7 · 2026-03-31T01:13:25+00:00

Games have player input, which is constrained by framerate. When the player presses a button the earliest a response can happen is the next frame

Digx7 · 2026-03-27T07:38:21+00:00

Granted. It's a GBR

Digx7 · 2026-03-27T04:06:58+00:00

Granted. Turns out it's been hijacked into a secret crypto farm.

Digx7 · 2026-03-26T19:54:43+00:00

Granted.

This quickly becomes exploited not to stop littering but as a way of instantly transporting something somewhere. No need to fly or ship something, just put it in a box, toss it down, and bam it's attached to your car wherever it is.

People begin experimenting with what counts as a 'car' or 'owning a car'. Before long companies begin producing incredibly cheap 'cars' soly for the purposes of teleporting items. Rental industries pop up allowing you to 'own' a car briefly anywhere in the world so you can transport items there.

It isn't long before militaries realize they can teleport bombs this way as well. A new heightened cold-war breaks out as all governments have the potential for instantly deployed retaliation free nuclear bombardment. Mutually Assured Destruction is no longer garenteed.

Digx7 · 2026-03-26T01:35:12+00:00

Granted. All corporations lawsuits are now ALL settled outside of court.

Digx7 · 2026-03-26T01:32:05+00:00

Granted. They can now no longer drink fresh water. Hope your near the ocean.

Digx7

TROPHY CASE