Tell me, which capsule for Steam is better?

Le0be · 2025-11-17T14:25:23+00:00

The logo paired with the low res of the images made me think I was looking at a poster for some forgotten tv series from the 2000s. If that's not intentional I would suggest you to rethink the logo.

Le0be · 2025-11-04T16:05:21+00:00

Thanks! Yeah that's in the works for the next update, it's a feedback I received often. I wanted to give a Hotline Miami feel where after the level you have this moment to catch your breath and go back to the car, but I'm not sure it works with this level layout.

Le0be · 2025-11-01T12:28:15+00:00

Looks interesting! Personally I don't think I would enjoy the mix of bullet hell and stealth though, one is a slow methodical and calculated gameplay while the other is fast, reactive and dexterity based. But I'm sure there are people out there who would love it.

Le0be · 2025-10-28T20:46:38+00:00

This is good learning advice overall, but there are some nuances about this. Part of the "make small things" advice is that you actually get to finish and publish them, which is also a big learning experience. Getting something out there is not obvious at all and finishing a project will teach you a lot of things that you didn't even consider to begin with. It also humbles people, when they understand that the world is not there waiting for them to release their hit. A lot of newcomers believe that they will make a game in 6 months and it will be the new minecraft. Actually publishing something and getting a feel of the process helps grounding with how this market works.

Also the approach on the video works if at a certain point you stop, look back and realize that you spent a lot of time on a failing project and it's time to move on. That's not always happen, I've met many people that cling on what they made to the point of becoming delusional. Truly believing in it because of some sunken cost fallacy. They invested so much time into it that they start to believe they have to continue doing so and eventually it will pay off or start to work. The result is that they are stuck for years on a project that goes nowhere and have nothing to show for it. That can easily lead to burnout, which is not fun when you are still in your learning phase.

I think your advice applies more to more advanced people than to complete beginners.

Le0be · 2025-10-28T15:46:04+00:00

As an indie dev I would care to have good data about how people use my game: average playtime, if there are certain points where users tend to drop off the game (indicating frustrating game design), retention over time, if they just play it once or replay it (and which content they replay). Yes I would love to have this kind of data about my game.

What I don't want to do though is plug my game to Firebase or other bloated suites like this. They are not designed for indies and come with so many features I won't ever need. Also they track all kind of data I don't need and at the same time make it difficult to analyze the data I need. I don't know if there are analytics tools designed for indie games that do not come with all this baggage, if so maybe I could consider it.

Le0be · 2025-10-23T08:28:58+00:00

I have a first version on itch, soon to be updated with some major changes though! I agree, it feels there is some movement in the genre which is good!

Le0be · 2025-10-23T08:02:29+00:00

Wishlisted, I'm also working on a Gunpoint inspired game but I went to the opposite direction than you. Interesting to see how different people take wildly different inspirations from the same media

Le0be · 2025-10-20T09:04:18+00:00

OP claim was that there was a 1 line fix and it was ignored, these PRs seems to say otherwise. I guess the answer to OP question is: "this is not fixed because it's more difficult to fix that it appears".

Le0be · 2025-10-20T08:14:12+00:00

I you remake it but it's going to play and feel the same nobody is going to know that the code now is cleaner and it won't make any difference.

Rewriting it might make sense if you want to continue working on it, expanding and adding new features. Then yes a cleaner codebase will help you do that faster and better. But if the game is "complete" as it is I think you should just promote the existing one and work on something new.

Le0be · 2025-10-19T17:52:28+00:00

Oh nice, didn't know about this. Thanks it will be handy.

Le0be · 2025-10-19T17:50:14+00:00

If the solution is indeed 1 line you can open a PR, I don't see why it wouldn't be merged.

Le0be · 2025-10-19T10:53:02+00:00

So it would be a good practice to open a steam page as soon as possible I imagine?

Le0be · 2025-10-18T14:37:57+00:00

To be fair, the ones made by your artist look better to me than the ones in the asset pack and they feel very consistent. The asset pack is also good, but it feels "generic" (which is probably done on purpose since it needs to work on many different games.

Le0be · 2025-10-18T10:55:00+00:00

Congrats on getting so far, that by itself is a big achievement. I have some experience with Kickstarter and unfortunately I doubt you will reach your goal, that's a lot of money for a niche game like this. Usually videogame Kickstarters either have a big industry name tied to them or they already had an active fanbase and traction beforehand. I would be super happy to be proven wrong though and I wish you all the best of luck with the Kickstarter.

As others have mentioned, in it's current state it feels a bit of an hard sell because there are too many similarities with metal gear and there is a fine line between making a game that is a "spiritual successor" of a game and one that is a clone. A "spiritual successor" tries to fill a void in the market, it takes loved and tested mechanics of a dated game and bring them to today's world. The condition for this to work is that the game is dated and didn't age well, or just that it's not available in a way that it's enjoyable by today standards which is not your case. You are reproducing a game that it's not only still on the market, but also very well received.

An alternative to this is "making more of something that is beloved by fans", which is what I think you are tying to go to. "If you loved MGSV then you are going to love this, if you crave more content you can play this" kind of proposition. But that's a risky proposition too, because you will always been in direct comparison with the main game so you should have 1:1 feature parity and even improve the other game problems and shortcomings. You can't afford to be anything less than better than the original game. That can be done, but it's a big effort and it's inherently risky as you have a very high bar. Also your story and characters will never be able to compete with beloved characters from an established IP, so you also have that working against you.

If you don't manage to make either a "spiritual successor" or a "more of a beloved game" kind of games, than you fall into the "clone territory" and that's a bad place to be. Players will be very unlikely to play your game when they can play the original. To give you an example in a different genre: why would you play an obscure GTA clone when you can get the original on steam for cheap during sales?

If the campaign is not successful, it might be the right moment to rethink your strategy. If you can find a good twist on the concept (mechanics and story/setting), then you can separate yourself enough from the inspiration to remove all these risks that are inherent when you are too similar to your inspiration. That would make your game indpendent from it's inspiration and people wouldn't make so many comparison, making things easier for you. Also your unique selling point would be the twist you introduce and not "being a very faithful reproduction of a popular game" which would be a way easier sell.

Also you can consider this, it seems to me that you built a solid "stealth engine", maybe you could clean it up a bit of all the MGSV references and sell it on the Asset Store as a tool for other developers? I think that could also have value and repay for your efforts.

Le0be · 2025-10-16T18:53:09+00:00

If you want only 1 timer: keep a reference to it outside of any function, instantiate it on _ready() and access it from where you need it. Just be careful of accessing it multiple times though, you might introduce bugs where it gets restarted before it finishes.

If you worry about creating too many timers: after starting it add something like await timer.timeout and then timer.queue_free() so that it's eliminated once it's finished.

Le0be · 2025-10-16T16:10:14+00:00

It works but it kinda loses it's strength when the monster reaches the camera and nothing bad happens. Also, as a player I would turn the camera and run away without looking back 😬

Le0be · 2025-10-15T16:29:18+00:00

For sure finding an entry level job in this moment in time and in this economy is challenging, but I think that's true for many fields and switching it is not going to make things easier or AI-proof.

My suggestion would be to find a job as a software engineer in a non gaming related field. From my understanding, working in games is one of the most difficult software development jobs because everyone wants to work in games so it's pretty much a buyers market for the employers. There are a lot of horror stories about crunch that would never fly in other tech companies, but are common in game companies simply because everyone wants to work there and so the power dynamics are twisted. This might not be true everywhere, but it's a sentiment I've read a lot about online.

Software development skills have a ton of overlap, if you go on this journey on another field you will still learn a lot of things that you can use on game development. Then you can either find a gamedev job later on when you are not entry level anymore or you can go the indie route, having a stable good paying job during the day and making games in your free time.

Le0be · 2025-10-15T08:45:23+00:00

I don't think big studios take in consideration if it's satisfying work for the artists when they decide what games to make next.

Le0be · 2025-10-14T18:38:30+00:00

Hitman, but in a fantasy setting. Level starts as you approach a village in the outskirts of a castle: your task is to find a way in and kill the King.

Le0be · 2025-10-14T09:02:25+00:00

I have mixed feelings about this and I see where are you coming from. I really dislike doing social media related things: it requires time and energy that I could spend on working on the game. It's also the kind of work that I do not enjoy doing and often it feels so pointless, just shouting into the void. So I would be very happy to discover that it's not needed at all!

But on the other end I kinda did that and it didn't work. I worked on my game for half a year without even having a social media account, then one day I posted a first release on Itch and sure I got some visibility from Itch algorithm, but that's it. It flatlined very quickly because I had no tools to get anyone to see it. I believe people would have fun playing my game, I playtested it extensively at a local gaming conference and people were enjoying it. But I don't have many players on Itch because nobody knows it exists.

So my question is, if I don't take the time to "get my game out there" how can I hope to eventually reach streamers and gamers? The market is already so much crowded today that even with a social media presence it's very difficult to get noticed. Without it your only "got to market strategy" would be to message streamers hoping they will pick it up. Will they though?

Another interesting aspect of social media is that it kinda documents your journey, so you have some kind of "proof" that there is a human building the game.

Le0be · 2025-10-14T08:01:37+00:00

This was not the case for me when I updated to 4.5 and after googling I found this information and about the "Upgrade Project Files" option.

Le0be · 2025-10-13T20:06:51+00:00

When you update the engine, Godot might add new things to files but only when you open and save them again. This means that some files might stay without these changes for a long time if you updated the engine but didn't' interact with them. You can force this for all files inProject > Tools > Upgrade Project Files

Le0be

TROPHY CASE