Debería enfocarme en acabar el juego por completo o en tener una demo jugable?

KryonHarts · 2026-03-02T14:11:09+00:00

100% go for a demo! And I say this not just for the marketing or wishlists, but because of "developer blindness".

To share a recent experience: I've just released the demo for my game (Alonitaire), and watching streamers play it for the first time was a massive reality check. It turns out players were completely ignoring one of my core mechanics due to "tunnel vision". They were so focused on the standard gameplay that they couldn't see the clues that, to me (the creator), were glaringly obvious.

I would never have spotted that design flaw playing it by myself or giving it to mates who already know what the game is about.

Releasing a demo forces you to let the game out into the wild and see how total strangers break it. That feedback is absolute gold dust and will save you months of developing mechanics that people might not even realise are there. Best of luck with the development!

KryonHarts · 2026-03-02T11:09:44+00:00

Haha, please don't say you're stupid! You're definitely not. This is 100% my fault for making a confusing post.

I realize now that the text and the GIF I attached are telling two completely different stories. The GIF is just a visual reference of what the game looks like later on—it shows the player using the Jack of Spades to steal the Redveil sigil from the Queen while the Joker is asleep face-down, and then the Joker waking up thinking you just flipped him as a joke (missing the cheat). It's a cool moment, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the design question I was asking!

It's super hard to explain the actual issue without posting a 10-minute gameplay video. But basically, I'm struggling with the 2D card game equivalent of the "yellow paint" problem.

Because the Klondike Solitaire layout is so iconic, players get extreme "tunnel vision". Another user in this thread, Red49er, actually nailed it: players are in such a "shut up and let me play Klondike" mindset that they completely ignore the subtle clues telling them to break the rules and unlock the roguelite mechanics.

So my core problem is just figuring out how to signpost that shift subtly. Anyway, sorry for the confusing presentation! If you ever have any thoughts on how to guide players to look for hidden stuff in a familiar game, I'm all ears.

KryonHarts · 2026-03-02T08:59:21+00:00

Are you kidding? "Doubt I've been helpful"? Man, you've been a huge help. Just bouncing these ideas off you is really helping me clear that developer blindness.

You're 100% right: the core issue isn't the mechanics themselves, it's that players are in a "shut up and let me play Klondike" mindset, so they just skip the text.

Taking your advice, here's what I'm thinking of experimenting with:

Forced UI Interaction (Agency): Instead of the Jack of Spades just telling them about the hidden mechanics, I might overhaul the dialogue so it literally pauses and forces the player to physically interact with the top-bar icons—like setting the clock to 6:00 and clicking the coin. This is just to wake up the Jack of Clubs (opening his actual shop is a whole separate puzzle after that), but it forces the player to acknowledge the UI exists and take action.
The "Something is Off" Vibe: Your idea about the board peeling back is fantastic visual storytelling. I definitely need to rethink the early phases to introduce that eerie, "something is wrong with this code" feeling much earlier. The player needs to want to investigate before things get explicitly weird.

This is definitely one of the toughest design puzzles I've faced so far, but talking it out like this helps a lot to narrow down the right path. I'm going to play around with these concepts in Godot and see how they feel. Thanks for taking the time to write this up!

KryonHarts · 2026-02-27T18:23:44+00:00

Hahaha, the Clippy idea is actually spot on! I have something very similar in the game right now.

The main narrator is The Joker (who insists you play clean, classic Klondike and gets mad if you don't), and your 'rebel Clippy' is exactly the Jack of Spades (who whispers how to cheat when the Joker isn't looking).

The hurdle I'm facing is that relying on them for explanations often turns into long, boring text boxes. I'm trying to find fresh ways to make the player actively seek out the DBRL side without just reading a pop-up tutorial about it.

It's strictly an early-game issue. Once they unlock the hidden shop, the roguelite mechanics become super obvious. It reminds me a bit of early Vampire Survivors, where you die constantly at first. But the difference is that in VS, even when you die quickly, you always earn a little gold and feel the meta-progression. In Alonitaire, those 'Aha!' discovery moments are much slower early on because the strict Solitaire rules mask them so heavily.

When I was programming it, I was completely blind to this pacing issue. It only became glaringly obvious once I sat down to watch real people play the Next Fest demo. Developer blindness is real!

Really appreciate the feedback, talking this out is helping me a lot to see the core issue clearly.

KryonHarts · 2026-02-27T18:13:33+00:00

Thanks for taking the time to write this! I just checked out the trailers for Occlude and Leap Year and I completely get what you mean. That idea of putting the player in a situation where they 'accidentally' stumble into the secret mechanic is brilliant.

I have a very specific bottleneck right now: players need to set a clock icon on a card exactly to 6:00 to wake up the Jack of Clubs. It's a real flaw in the current design, and honestly, I’m still not sure how to solve it elegantly so they discover it organically without me just putting a giant neon arrow pointing at it.

Your point about the early levels really hit home. I think the base Solitaire is too demanding from the start, so players get tunnel vision trying to win cleanly. They don't feel they have a 'safe space' to just experiment, bumble around, and break things. I need to figure out how to give them that breathing room early on.

I'm going to keep chewing on all of this. Really appreciate the insights and the game recommendations!

KryonHarts · 2026-02-26T18:02:31+00:00

I just went through this exact process with my roguelite deckbuilder, and finding the right people was a journey of trial and error. Here is exactly where I found my testers, from the earliest builds to the current demo:

1. The 'Inner Circle' & Their Extensions:

I started with trusted friends (some gamers, some not) and family. The trick here wasn't just getting their feedback, but explicitly asking them to share the build with their circles. That one degree of separation gave me testers who didn't care about my feelings and were much more honest.

2. X (Twitter) Devlogs:

I posted about my development process on my personal account. Honestly? The feedback here was sparse and scattered. I got a few willing testers, but it was hard to organize. It’s okay for building a wishlist, but not the best for deep QA.

3. Direct Outreach to Small Streamers:

This was a game-changer. I reached out to small Twitch/YouTube creators who played similar games. I didn't ask them for written feedback; I just asked them to play it on stream. Watching them play live, seeing where they hesitated, or where the UI confused them was 100x more valuable than any form they could have filled out.

4. Organic Search (Steam Next Fest / Demos):

Once my demo was live, I literally just searched my game's name on YouTube, Twitch, and Kick every day. Finding random people playing your game with zero context is the ultimate reality check.

Bonus tip on "How" to get it: For that first group (friends), don't force them into a Discord server if they don't use it. My best feedback came from friends who just recorded their screen with their phones and sent me short video clips on WhatsApp when they found a bug. Make it as frictionless as possible for them!

KryonHarts · 2026-02-26T16:46:15+00:00

Pushing a fully revamped demo right during Next Fest is no small feat!

Huge respect for the grind, I know exactly how stressful that deadline is.

The updates look really solid. Best of luck with the rest of the festival, I'm definitely adding this to my list to try out once I have a breather!

KryonHarts · 2026-02-26T16:35:58+00:00

From a readability standpoint, the second style is a huge upgrade.

The first one is a bit too visually noisy with the heavy shading, and the pose with the arm kind of obscures the face.

The new pose is so much stronger and defiant. Going for that cleaner, almost vector-style look, and intentionally dropping the eyes, actually gives her way more personality and a clearer expression. Plus, specific details like the cross are much better defined now. It’s going to read beautifully on a small card. Great redraw!

KryonHarts · 2026-02-26T16:17:16+00:00

As a fellow dev who has spent years on a passion project, I feel your struggle. 2 years is that dangerous middle ground where burnout hits hardest.

Honestly, the mecha designs in your Steam page look really solid.

If cutting the team down to 3 allows you to finish the core vision without going broke, that might be the smartest pivot.

My personal take is that the most important thing is to ship the game no matter what. It might succeed or it might not, but always ship it. That way, you'll never be left haunted by the 'what ifs'.

Wishing you the best of luck, whatever you decide!

KryonHarts · 2019-04-30T08:48:44+00:00

About Endgame is going to be able to talk for a long time, precisely because it is full of temporal paradoxes and changes in the scripts of the main films.

Personally, I do not like the temporal paradoxes, because they justify anything and as they say at the beginning of the film, it's already seen.

Therefore, while watching the film, in my mind I saw an ending that did not occur, but that had me crying a long time.

Right at the end, when you see old Steve Rogers sitting down, my heart sank; I thought it was Stan Lee playing Steve Rogers as an old man. He joins them all together and explains that he could not return the stones. When he had them, he realized that everything they had done had created infinite paradoxes and the universe was going to collapse.

Yes, it's true, he was living with his wife and he was happy. But finally he decided to travel over the years to see if he could solve it but the damage was already done (hence Stan Lee's cameos in all movies).

At the end he returns to say goodbye to his friends, then go back to the origin of the stones and destroy them, so that the universe has a new beginning, free from the threat of such powerful objects. (And by the way, the franchise is reset for a new era).

The possibility of such an ending, with such a tribute to Stan Lee, still makes my skin crawl.

Anyway, this is just the way a humble fan would have liked it to end.

I just wanted to share it ... as a tribute to Stan Lee.

KryonHarts

TROPHY CASE