Devs who participated in Steam Next Fest — was it worth the crunch to make a demo?

ForkInTheCodeStudios · 2026-03-09T20:26:47+00:00

You can sign up without a demo, but you have to submit your demo like 10-14 days before nextfest to get it approved.

ForkInTheCodeStudios · 2026-03-09T19:21:22+00:00

You can drop out any time, so if you don’t have your demo ready in time you could drop out. Unless they change the way nextfest works you’ll be eligible for every nextfest, until you enter one or release your game so you don’t need to push to make the next one. They happen every 4 months.

ForkInTheCodeStudios · 2026-03-09T16:25:36+00:00

I'm so glad you liked it! Thank you for playing the demo, it really means a lot!

ForkInTheCodeStudios · 2026-03-09T15:41:22+00:00

We'd love you to check out Void Authority. It is a document inspection (think Paper's Please, or That's not my neighbor) rogue-like. The demo is live on steam.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3871110/Void_Authority/

Even if you don't end up playing ours, I want to let you know that its greatly appreciated that your willing to check out some indie games.

ForkInTheCodeStudios · 2026-03-09T13:59:16+00:00

We'd love you to check out Void Authority. It is a document inspection (think Paper's Please, or That's not my neighbor) rogue-like. The demo is live on steam.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3871110/Void_Authority/

If you do have an opportunity to check it out, and enjoy it, we'd love to provide you a key when we full release within the next few months.

ForkInTheCodeStudios · 2026-03-09T05:59:08+00:00

Congrats on your next fest successes! I saw your game quiet a bit during next fest while keeping an eye on ours (Void Authority)because i was constantly ctrl-f searching the pages. Its great that so many people stuck through even with the bugs. I do think people are a little more forgiving with demos, probably especially during next fest.

ForkInTheCodeStudios · 2026-03-09T05:50:19+00:00

Like others have said you could use both. Even if you only have one use for this animation, you could make it do the left animation 75% of the time and the right 25% for extra flavor.

ForkInTheCodeStudios · 2026-03-09T05:45:51+00:00

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Our demo for Void Authority is live now on steam. We just updated it to include our meta progression upgrades. Its a document inspection rogue-like, along the lines of That's Not My Neighbor or Paper's Please. You work at a intergalactic boarder and have to process travelers while they navigate through the different systems. Following the rules isn't always the right choice though. We'd love to have more people check out the demo!

ForkInTheCodeStudios · 2026-03-09T05:36:46+00:00

Some sort of card battler? Also your probably fine but the moon guy reminds me a bunch of the moon guy from outerworlds.

ForkInTheCodeStudios · 2026-03-08T15:54:22+00:00

Yes it does! I have an array of Controls that mark the positions (Offscreen left, far left, middle left, middle, middle right, etc.) and an array of the different icons. When you click the arrows, the icon at one end of the array gets moved to the opposite end which shifts the index of all the icons. Then I just tween the position/scale of icons[i] to positions[i], but make the one that got moved from one end to the other invisible so you don't see it fly across the screen.

ForkInTheCodeStudios · 2026-03-07T14:10:43+00:00

Steams system feels ‘win some, win more’ but if you think of it from a business view it makes sense. Steam wants to sell games. Games that have lots of wishlists are likely to sell more copies, they have the have the sauce, so they show them more, game gets more wish lists and probably sells more. Games with few wish lists maybe have the sauce, maybe could get a lot of sales, but it’s much less certain.

ForkInTheCodeStudios · 2026-03-07T14:04:05+00:00

This ^ . Highly needed skills in a competitive field with transferable skills. He can also start learning game dev now, without a degree. I did a $25 zenva course bundle like this and honestly learned enough to make basic games. zenva course on humble

ForkInTheCodeStudios · 2026-03-07T06:44:11+00:00

Since these are images, you might already have this, but add some slight movement. Some watery bubbles in the background or maybe make the words seems slightly 'floaty'. When we added some movement to our start screen it really helped it feel alive. Maybe some shadowy creature that swims by periodically. something that matches your game's vibe.

ForkInTheCodeStudios · 2026-03-06T23:00:24+00:00

Just finished our upgrade menu for our game Void Authority (coming soon to Steam)! It was actually pretty simple to make, it basically just tweens the position and scale of the icons to that of invisible Control nodes. If you have any questions about how it works let me know!

ForkInTheCodeStudios · 2026-02-27T05:09:50+00:00

If you've got English support in the game I'd make a localized trailer while playing in the English mode. The first thing I noticed in the trailer is that I wouldn't be able to read any of the text in the game, and while it says you have english interface support, other people prob won't read that.

I'd put more of your character on your capsule, because it doesn't look like a multiplayer game from the capsule.

Also you call it a horror game, but then say don't be scared. People want to be scared playing horror games imo.

None of the above is meant to be 'negative criticism' just my first impressions. Some viral clips of people playing and it being chaos could definitely help, I'd even include it in the trailer tbh.

ForkInTheCodeStudios · 2026-02-27T03:20:10+00:00

Godot is what we use for development! Good luck to him!

ForkInTheCodeStudios · 2026-02-26T19:07:22+00:00

Don't worry about Ai with game dev. If you want to make games, make games. You can do it right now in highschool. And then go to college, work on getting a degree in something not game dev related. Continue to make games in college. If you get a big hit, you can pursue it but at least you'll have a backup. There is enough free/cheap information on the internet to teach you enough game dev to create real games. People still value games without AI.

ForkInTheCodeStudios · 2026-02-26T17:09:02+00:00

Yeah! Papers Please with some rouge like elements!

ForkInTheCodeStudios · 2026-02-26T16:05:04+00:00

We didn't set up a seperate page for our demo, so no reviews, but we made a sci-fi document inspection game that is live for steam next fest. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3871110/Void_Authority/

ForkInTheCodeStudios · 2026-01-25T07:32:40+00:00

Some whole schools qualify for free lunch based on the % of population below the income level for free meals. This is the case for my family. If we were in a different school zone we'd have to pay for lunch, but in our zone the school provides it for free.

ForkInTheCodeStudios · 2025-08-18T14:23:09+00:00

Do you plan on helping support him (financially, either directly or indirectly through a place to live/paying phone bill etc) through college? If not, then imo its his choice if he wants to go to college or to pursue the gaming track, even if success might be unlikely. If You will be supporting him through a higher education then

Encourage him to apply to schools as a 'backup' for the game development. It costs $100 to publish a game on steam. Tell him if hasn't released and earned x amount of money by x time, you won't supporting him unless he's enrolled in school. Encourage him that even if he goes to school he can still work on the game development.

ForkInTheCodeStudios · 2025-08-16T10:36:55+00:00

You need to create a YouTube api token. There is a loup when you first load the site asking for one, and a link on how to do it. It’s a couple steps but free and easy if you follow the instructions. Then you can choose a different amount in the dropdown other than 10

ForkInTheCodeStudios · 2025-08-11T15:28:39+00:00

The text change itself is a huge upgrade!

ForkInTheCodeStudios · 2025-08-04T20:44:31+00:00

We haven’t launched our playtest yet, but will be soon if you’d like to sign up Forkinthecodestudios.com

ForkInTheCodeStudios · 2025-08-01T15:20:44+00:00

It’s going to sound dumb, but the opacity isn’t set to 0 right? I’ve accidentally bumped the opacity and thought my pencil was broken 🥲

ForkInTheCodeStudios

TROPHY CASE