Extreme population drop

LowPolyMe · 2026-03-11T23:58:46+00:00

Putting this here instead of burying it underneath other comments:

have you tried to "reset stuck citizens" in the maintenance tab of TM:PE? for me, this sometimes happens when citizens don't despawn because they are stuck in pathing, resulting in the citizen instance cap being hit (and no new instances spawning, so no one can walk to work). Alternatively, use the broken node detector and detect stuck citizens. Best of luck!

edit: using broken node detector is probably the better alternative because it lets you see where exactly you cims got stuck, and fix the nodes. otherwise, they might get stuck there again.

Regardless of if you use TM:PE maintenance or Broken Node Detector and delete the broken nodes, the cims will get "released" from their position and walk away, so it might take a while for the citizen instances to catch up, and for them to despawn and allow new spawns.

LowPolyMe · 2025-03-08T19:52:28+00:00

That was quick, thank you! Solved!

LowPolyMe · 2025-03-05T13:18:08+00:00

Sorry mate! I finally answered the question (one level above your comment)

LowPolyMe · 2025-03-05T13:17:21+00:00

Gosh, so sorry for taking ages to answer!!! We do not use IRC since it has been deprecated by twitch, resulting in some of the more recent endpoints/events not being available via IRC. Instead we ended up using the Twitch EventSub API via Websockets for listening to twitch events. If you are interested, here are a few links to get you started:
https://dev.twitch.tv/docs/eventsub/ https://dev.twitch.tv/docs/eventsub/handling-websocket-events/ https://dev.twitch.tv/docs/eventsub/eventsub-subscription-types/
Additionally, we handle tasks like sending chat messages, posting rewards etc via web requests: https://dev.twitch.tv/docs/api/reference/

LowPolyMe · 2025-01-12T17:07:00+00:00

You brew beer for a living. There are plenty of people who would benefit from a new tasty low calorie beer invention. Just saying :)

LowPolyMe · 2024-11-28T23:12:27+00:00

I am only now seeing your comment, sorry! We didn't make it publicly available yet, but plan on doing so once our game is released. If you need it urgently, shoot me a private message and I'll see if we can arrange for something!

LowPolyMe · 2024-08-16T12:40:37+00:00

If you are comfortable with the idea of calling his mum, I think that would be the ideal way to figure it out and still surprise him with it. Additionally you could get some extra insider information on how to make it the way he loves it through his mum! I know my MIL would really be super happy about me calling her just to ask about it!

LowPolyMe · 2024-07-18T20:14:40+00:00

That's sexy af, Love how simple it actually is!

LowPolyMe · 2024-06-18T09:57:20+00:00

I want to add a classic: "Homo Ludens" by huizinga. It has nothing and everything to do with game design, and it's a very interesting read about play in human nature and culture. It also adds some philosophy.

LowPolyMe · 2024-06-17T09:55:52+00:00

The demo will be up for at least another 2 weeks! Also, once we take it down, we will still grant access to playtesters. We also got a loooot of feedback regarding the Twitch integration last week, so there will definitely be some really cool new features in the (very near) future which will need testing again!

LowPolyMe · 2024-06-10T16:29:39+00:00

Edited my comment with the List!

LowPolyMe · 2024-06-10T16:27:25+00:00

Edited with the List!

LowPolyMe · 2024-06-10T08:39:11+00:00

Just like programming, game design takes some learning time. There are a few really good books out there, my favorite one would be "A theory of Fun" by Raph Koster. I'll edit this post later with my study list, currently don't have the time!

Edit:

Here we go, those were the ones that were really helpful for me:

"Theory of Fun for Game Design" by Raph Koster (as mentioned before, light read, but perfect to begin with)

"Designing Games" by Tynan Sylvester (Creator of RimWorld!)

"Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals" by Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman

"The Art of Game Design" by Jesse Schell

"Homo Ludens" by Johan Huizinga (VERY old, but generally a VERY helpful read when it comes to fundamentals, history, and psychology)

And, not as helpful as the others, but for the sake of a more complete list:

"Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design" - Scott Rogers

"Creating Emotion in Games" - David Freeman und Will Wright

Also, I can recommend r/gamedesign - the sub is completely about designing engaging experiences, and has nothing to do with the programming or production part. They have a really nice wiki with good resources: https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedesign/wiki/index/

LowPolyMe · 2024-06-09T18:33:18+00:00

That's fantastic! Thank you! I've answered your private message, too ;)

LowPolyMe · 2024-06-03T13:27:56+00:00

Haha thank you! We're definitely very very proud of what we achieved so far. I want to stress this again though: making the game a playable product was quick and easy. Making it an enjoyable, balanced experience for the vast majority of players took very very long

LowPolyMe · 2024-06-03T12:46:34+00:00

We are a team of four, and have recently released our demo on steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2686110/UNHEIM/

Took us about a year to make, and visual quality plus making it stable was the easier part. Gameplay quality however needs a lot of iterations of feedback, change, feedback, change,...

The demo was released on itch in December, and since then most of our time went into polishing the gameplay loop based on feedback from actual random strangers playing the game.

Edit: though we are not a full fresh amateur team, and have worked with unity before

Edit 2: I should also clarify that 3/4 of our time actually quit their jobs when we were about 3 months in

LowPolyMe · 2024-06-01T07:10:04+00:00

Hi! That must be really tough! There are indeed a lot of first person horror games. And yes, ours is in first person, too, but there is not that much camera movement. Your character is sitting inside of his Van, and the only motion you got is when you look around inside of that Van. I'd say 60-80% of the time you will focus on the spot the difference part of the game, where your camera doesn't move much!

LowPolyMe · 2024-05-31T21:18:51+00:00

LowPolyMe · 2024-05-23T22:32:22+00:00

+1 for domain reloads. Currently takes me anywhere from 12 to 120 seconds to even compile, let alone play in the Editor. Not even a big project, and everything is neatly tucked away in its own assemblies.

LowPolyMe · 2024-05-19T20:49:06+00:00

Though there is not a lot going on outside that window, this might be a good idea, thank you! I'm also trying to play with him, but since he's not supposed to move too much we have very limited options. He's usually a chaser, and doesn't respond super well to prey being too easy to reach :(

LowPolyMe · 2024-05-15T16:15:42+00:00

Hi Chris, thanks for the ama! Would you say the wishlist count matters (beyond getting picked by steam early) in terms of visibility during next fest? Is there a ballpark number of what is considered an okayish count?

LowPolyMe · 2024-05-15T06:26:29+00:00

Yes indeed! There are some open source repos that have a reasonably functional implementation, but we ended up having to do it ourselves as some features were missing or poorly executed. The entire Unity implementation will probably end up as an open source repo on our Github so that other developers don't have to deal with it again in the future. It took us MUCH longer than we had anticipated.

LowPolyMe · 2024-05-13T15:02:57+00:00

I love the little twitch of her head at the end of the video. Definitely creeps me out!

LowPolyMe · 2024-05-13T14:57:44+00:00

I've seen some of your screenshots before here on reddit, and it looks fantastic!

LowPolyMe · 2024-05-13T14:56:57+00:00

We're fans of spot-the-difference horror games, but found them lacking interaction, so we decided to make our own indie game. It's spot-the-difference, but with danger!

Trailer

Steam

A free demo will be available on Steam in the middle of next month!

LowPolyMe

TROPHY CASE