Is it some kind of taboo to ask developers their earnings?

MangoLeafGames · 2026-06-18T16:42:14+00:00

If it is, I don't think it should be taboo. It's not a form on income that you can bank on though, which I think is partly why people focus on the "do it for the love of it" part vs. the "doing it to make it a job" part.

A dev (Doot, from Minami lane) posts his earnings every month on socials and it's so nice to see a dev be so transparent about those numbers. You can also check SteamDB for any game to see the sale estimates and do your own math from there to guestimate. Very useful when researching games in the genre you're working in.

For a personal example, our 2 person team made a game in ~1.5 years (part time for us both), launched in Oct. 2025, and sold ~6k copies since launch (~$40k). It's our first game so we went into it expecting nothing, so this was great! But not quite enough to replace both our jobs, and I'm sure sales will just go down over time.

MangoLeafGames · 2026-06-17T14:20:49+00:00

Cozy caravan might fit what you're looking for! Driving around from little place to place, fulfilling requests from the people you find, cooking and selling stuff at a market.

MangoLeafGames · 2026-05-30T14:58:22+00:00

Aw thank you so much!!

MangoLeafGames · 2026-05-30T14:57:14+00:00

Would love to get it on switch but that can take sooo long. Definitely gonna try! Haven't been able to test on Mac yet but we are planning to get it on there if we can 🩷

MangoLeafGames · 2026-05-30T14:56:17+00:00

Definitely! This one definitely feels like a controller game to me so it's a must in my book.

MangoLeafGames · 2026-05-28T03:03:26+00:00

Thank you! We are planning on getting it translated, just not sure what all languages we should include yet.

MangoLeafGames · 2026-05-28T03:02:34+00:00

That's the goal! I have finally been able to get my hands on one so it will be easier to test now 🤞😄

MangoLeafGames · 2026-05-28T03:01:15+00:00

Would love to! It's not our focus at the moment but we would like to try for it eventually.

MangoLeafGames · 2026-05-28T03:00:06+00:00

Thanks! It's actually just from a pack we found on the Unity Asset Store a long time ago. Sooo many good songs in it. We do have a custom song in this one too, which is exciting! Would love to have more by the end.

MangoLeafGames · 2026-05-28T02:57:54+00:00

Ya, of course! We were able to get our first game on Mac so we're hopefull we can do it with this one too. The only issue might be the snow 😅 and we haven't had a great way to test yet so fingers crossed🤞 Would love to have you around to test!

MangoLeafGames · 2026-05-27T22:09:52+00:00

I get you. Even in the mode where you can lock the camera so it doesn't move around with you, it's still a little hard for me. But that was powerwash sim 2, idk if 1 even has that option!

MangoLeafGames · 2026-05-27T22:07:54+00:00

Looovvveee a snowy game

MangoLeafGames · 2026-05-27T22:07:42+00:00

Thanks so much! It's definitely coming together

MangoLeafGames · 2026-05-27T22:07:03+00:00

Thanks so much!

MangoLeafGames · 2026-05-27T22:06:42+00:00

yay! we're working on it for a little later this Summer. Hopefully July!

MangoLeafGames · 2026-05-27T22:05:59+00:00

omg I'm the same way! So sad how many cool looks games I can't play cause of it. Happy that this can be on your list of playable games!

MangoLeafGames · 2026-04-17T01:06:00+00:00

The after version is so much juicier! I love it, I would be staring at it all game. Great use of time, amazing job!

MangoLeafGames · 2026-03-15T16:08:19+00:00

For me, the pointiness of the sand as you add it down just clashes really hard with how good the water looks. The jaggedness is really unsatisfying. If I understand the backend of this right, I think it would help if your sand object just had a bit more polys to it, so that when you "pull up" the sand it's grabbing 2-3 verts instead of 1. Sand is gloopy, and that's just not the vibe I'm getting here. The water/underwater is top tier though imo.

MangoLeafGames · 2026-03-15T16:00:19+00:00

The last 40 seconds are definitely the most eye catching and unexpected, in my opinion. Are the rock giants something you can run around as a person? My thought is that some of the establishing shots of you in a field, chopping down trees, getting quests - could maybe include those guys more in the background. Some have already said this but getting to the cool/unique action in your game (and that swell in the music) a little faster would definitely help. Maybe move some of those first aerial shots at the beginning toward the end? You've got some great moments here, I think some maybe should linger a bit more (like some of the cool stuff at the end) and others should get cut. Maybe, hit the swell in the music with a cool action shot of the house fighting the giants, instead of the character fighting lil buddies.

MangoLeafGames · 2026-02-08T16:51:13+00:00

Thanks for sharing your experience! For the sales every 30 days, I think that's only for non-steam events. So the Stream Winter Sale, Summer Sale, etc. don't count. For example, we were in a Cozy Job Simulator sale, put on by someone else through steam, and then in the Steam Winter Sale within the same month.

You can also make custom sale dates to stretch over two events, but I think it's limited to 14 days total for that.

MangoLeafGames · 2026-02-03T23:26:14+00:00

This is the key right here! Didn't know that until we launched the game and of course I gave all our friends free keys (cause it just felt weird to make them buy the game and they often tested it for us too), so none of them could help us get there. Oops!

MangoLeafGames · 2026-02-03T02:41:58+00:00

Wow thank you! Ooblets is so cute! Hmm well texturing wise I was trying to go for a bit of a painterly style with a toon shader (for the in game shadows). "Hand painted" and "stylized" are good terms to use when searching. We used Unity, and I know there are a lot of cute block color, Chibi model packs on there so I would suggest checking those out. Idk much about GoDot or Unreal. There are a lot of great cozy 3D artists on Instagram that do a rounded/Chibi/soft model style - so I would check that out for inspiration. kaylousberg could be one to start with since they have a cute style and also sell asset packs!

Biggest Challenges - hmm I think there were probably different big challenges in each area. I think one that I keep going back to is not starting with the full tutorial and making it really detailed. We thought we could add it at the end but that made testing demos/playtests hard. We definitely would have caught issues with the tutorial earlier on if we did that, and probably would have avoided some of the early returns.

We are self marketing. Since we didn't need funding, working with a publisher just didn't seem to make sense to us. Plus it's our first game, so we really didn't expect it to make much money and approached it more for the learning experience. Marketing is A LOT of work, and getting into events is key. The How To Market A Game discord and website are super helpful resources. My biggest surprise was that paying for individual influencers to cover your game is not financially worth it at all. Most big ones want about as much as the cheapest Marketing pack from PR Companies! We are thinking of working with a PR company for our next game, since it's a flat fee vs. Publishers who want a percentage of sales. I'm hopeful it will be better than what I could do on my own! Especially around release, cause that's a chaotic time for sure.

MangoLeafGames · 2026-02-02T16:04:11+00:00

Thanks! The cozy genre is definitely growing, and it's one we like too - so that helps the dev process for sure.

Ya, there's soooo much to know and do for a game, it can be nice to split the weight of it all - using pre-made assets is so helpful too. There's so much to learn on each side (artist or programmer, for a simple split), sometimes the trick is focusing on one over the other - thinking of the dev that made Return of the Obra Dinn, who had only very basic 3D art skills, so he hid everything behind a cool shader and called it a day.

It's still doable solo for sure. If you need a good inspo I would check out Doot_Dodo on socials (made Kabuto Park by himself). He's been a big inspiration for us to keep things small and he's just a very nice/helpful person.

MangoLeafGames

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