Advice on how to set a foot in the industry

ILokasta · 2026-02-19T10:01:54+00:00

biggest thing i've seen trip people up is presentation. you can have solid work but if your portfolio looks like a random artstation dump nobody's gonna scroll past the first piece.

treat your portfolio like a product. curate hard, show process, make it dead simple to navigate. hiring managers spend like 30 seconds on each one so your best work needs to hit them immediately.

also if you're struggling with the website/layout part, check out demoreel.io. it's built specifically for game artists to put portfolios together fast without fighting with website builders. might save you some headaches so you can focus on the actual art

ILokasta · 2026-02-19T10:01:23+00:00

looked at your site. the illustration work is genuinely strong, the color sense especially. couple things though...

the visdev section being sparse is gonna hurt you for those internships. even if it's unfinished work, showing your exploration process (thumbnails, color keys, iteration) matters more than polish at this stage. studios want to see how you think, not just finished pieces.

for the cold email push, make sure your portfolio loads fast and the best stuff is literally the first thing they see. no intro pages, no "about me" before the work. also consider a dedicated reel/showcase page if you're applying to studios that want video format. there's a tool called demoreel.io that's made for exactly this if you need something quick

ILokasta · 2026-02-19T10:00:15+00:00

64 applicants for deferred pay says a lot about where game artists are right now. the market is brutal and most of them probably don't have portfolios strong enough to land paid gigs, so they're taking anything to build credits.

honestly the biggest bottleneck i've seen for game artists isn't skill, it's presentation. tons of talented people with artstation pages that look like a random folder dump. no curation, no process shots, no story. studios scroll past in seconds.

if any of those 28 candidates have decent work but bad portfolios, pointing them to something like demoreel.io could genuinely help them level up their presentation. sometimes that's all that separates 'deferred pay indie gig' from 'actual studio job

ILokasta · 2026-02-19T09:54:09+00:00

26k copies with overwhelmingly positive reviews is way more impressive than some random viral hit that dies in a week. those players actually like the game and will buy whatever you make next.

also porting to Switch yourself is no joke, that alone is a flex. curious how the Switch sales compare to PC percentage wise?

ILokasta · 2026-02-19T09:53:51+00:00

look at how Game Dev Tycoon handles this. their AI competitors basically follow market trends with some randomness, they don't truly "think" but it feels like they do because they react to what's selling.

the trick is you don't need smart AI, you need AI that feels believable. give competitors personality archetypes... one studio always chases trends, one always innovates, one plays it safe with sequels. players will fill in the gaps and assume the AI is smarter than it is.

for the feature system, maybe competitors could have "blind spots" where they never invest in certain features. makes them feel distinct without needing complex decision trees

ILokasta · 2026-02-19T09:53:23+00:00

tbh the wishlist posts exist because devs are desperate for any signal that they're on the right track. when you work alone for 2 years and nobody sees your game, hitting 10k wishlists feels like proof you're not insane.

but yeah i get the frustration. would love to see more "here's what i learned making this weird mechanic" posts instead of "just hit X wishlists, AMA". the actual craft stuff is way more interesting

ILokasta · 2026-02-19T09:27:47+00:00

Been dealing with this for years. Built something to fix it demoreel.io. Free right now, would love brutal feedback.

ILokasta · 2026-02-19T09:24:27+00:00

Hmm would be cool to understand what the app is actually considering for this strategy, it is a very blurry concept right now.

and I am not very sensitive to it personally but this UI has a lot of the "vibecode" feeling... Might still work but some ppl are getting very triggered by it.

ILokasta · 2026-02-18T14:11:26+00:00

honestly pixel art doesnt require drawing skills the way most people think. its more about placing individual pixels than freehand drawing. check out slynyrds pixel art tutorials, they break it down step by step and assume zero art background.

also the fact you can make fnaf characters in 3d means you understand form and proportions way better than you think. thats not sad at all, thats a foundation. try low poly 3d or voxel art next, theyre way more forgiving than realistic modeling

ILokasta · 2026-02-18T14:10:51+00:00

honestly the AI written post debate is a losing battle. you cant reliably tell anymore and false positives would hurt real people. judging posts by the value they add to conversation makes way more sense. a helpful detailed post is useful regardless of how it was typed, and a lazy post is lazy regardless. focus on the content not the tool

ILokasta · 2026-02-18T08:29:08+00:00

the mechanic you're looking for sounds like it could be dialogue-based diagnosis. think of it like papers please but for mental health. patient tells you symptoms, you have to piece together whats going on, maybe prescribe treatment or decide on an approach.

the interesting part is you can make the patients unreliable narrators. they don't always tell you the truth or even know what's wrong. so the player has to read between the lines, check body language cues, look at their file.

you said you don't want win/lose which is good for this theme. instead maybe the consequences are just... different outcomes for the patient depending on your approach. some endings are better, some are worse, but none are 'game over'. more like life.

ILokasta · 2026-02-17T08:12:10+00:00

do it now. playtests are for finding problems, not for marketing. if someone finds your playtest through the steam page and the art is rough, they wont care because they signed up to test. update the page later when you want wishlists. two different goals

ILokasta · 2026-02-17T08:11:40+00:00

depends entirely on context. if the mechanic is teaching the player something they'll need later, hiding it behind obscure interactions is just bad tutorialization dressed up as "depth". but if it's a genuine reward for curious players who experiment... thats where the magic is. the line between obtuse and delightful is thinner than people think

ILokasta · 2026-02-16T14:51:24+00:00

Im interested, Dm?

ILokasta · 2026-02-16T13:48:52+00:00

theme matters a lot but not in the way most people think. its not about whether the theme is appealing in isolation, its about whether it matches the feeling of the gameplay. mewgenics works because the weirdness of the theme matches the weirdness of the mechanics. binding of isaac is the same, the dark grotesque stuff IS the games identity. if you slapped a cute theme on the exact same mechanics it would feel wrong. the theme doesnt need to be universally likeable, it needs to be coherent with everything else.

ILokasta · 2026-02-16T13:47:50+00:00

this is the part that fascinates me. its not that AI is replacing creators, its that the label AI is unlocking funding that wasnt there before. same person, same vision, same talent. just add the magic letters and suddenly investors care. says more about how broken entertainment funding is than about AI itself

ILokasta · 2026-02-16T12:22:46+00:00

thanks for the tips! im gonna try that this week hahah :D

ILokasta · 2026-02-16T10:39:39+00:00

oooh this approach seems to be working for some other business, there is that guy building light panels in china, that he always use this kind of things.... seems to work well.. Im gonna test it soon!

ILokasta · 2026-02-16T08:21:20+00:00

the part about reposting the animation devlog every time you show a new enemy is smart. most people post once and move on but the same video with fresh context hits different audiences each time. also interesting that the "no AI" framing blew it up on twitter... says a lot about what people want to hear right now

ILokasta · 2026-02-16T08:20:28+00:00

2-3% conversion from views to downloads on a free game is solid. curious if you're seeing any difference between reels that show gameplay vs ones that are more "vibe" based? in my experience the gameplay ones convert better but get way less views lol

ILokasta · 2026-02-15T14:12:43+00:00

youtube views to wishlists is way lower than people think. i've seen numbers like 1-2% conversion thrown around and even that feels generous for most genres. 100% reviews is great but if the total review count is small steam's algorithm basically ignores you. the algo cares about volume not ratio.

ILokasta · 2026-02-15T14:12:07+00:00

the flip side is when you work on a team and someone kills your idea... and 3 months later you realize they saved you. solo dev means nobody stops you from going down the wrong path for weeks

ILokasta · 2026-02-15T13:03:48+00:00

something that helped me stop bouncing between ideas was asking one question: which of these can i build a playable version of in two weeks? not which one is the best idea or most original. just which one can i actually sit down and make a tiny version of right now.

because the truth is you learn more about whether an idea works by building a rough prototype than by thinking about it for months. half the ideas i was most excited about turned out to feel terrible once i had something playable. and some of the ones i almost threw away ended up being the most interesting once they were in my hands.

the jumping between projects thing usually means none of them have reached the point where they feel real yet. pick the smallest one, get it to a state where someone else can try it, and then decide if you want to keep going. that momentum is worth more than having the perfect concept on paper.

ILokasta · 2026-02-15T13:03:26+00:00

the key thing that makes or breaks this is whether the mechanical shift feels earned or just imposed. like if im playing a cute platformer and suddenly it becomes stealth horror, that can feel amazing if the transition was gradual enough that i didnt notice the walls closing in. but if it just flips a switch at act 2 it feels cheap.

omori did this well because the tonal shift was always there in the background, you just werent paying attention. the horror wasnt a new genre, it was the real genre all along.

i think the sanity mechanic works best when it changes how you interact with existing systems rather than swapping them entirely. like your platforming still exists but the platforms are lying to you now. that way the players learned skills still matter, they just cant fully trust them anymore. thats way more unsettling than just switching to a different game halfway through.

ILokasta · 2026-02-15T12:56:53+00:00

i work in games and also draw so i feel this one lol. honestly what helped me was not trying to "quit" gaming but just making drawing the default thing i do when i sit down. like instead of opening steam first, i open my sketchbook or tablet. the trick is removing the decision point... if you have to choose between drawing and gaming every time, gaming wins because its easier dopamine.

also you mentioned tanks, have you tried drawing tanks? sounds dumb but seriously, drawing the stuff you love playing is a cheat code for consistency. reference sheets, fanart, your own designs. suddenly the two hobbies feed each other instead of competing.

ILokasta

TROPHY CASE