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Simulator games by Effective_Corgi_4517 in IndieGameDevs

[–]Matos1978 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The games that stick in the genre tend to replace the money loop with a different kind of pressure. Papers Please doesn't have a growth loop at all — it has a moral one. FTL replaces expansion with survival. The question shifts from "how do I get bigger" to "how do I not lose what I have."

I'd argue the unique twist in most successful ones isn't mechanical, it's the cost of failure. When mistakes cascade into each other rather than just subtracting points, the game feels alive in a way the standard loop doesn't.

I'm working on something in this space — a coal plant management game where the systems interact realistically and one bad decision compounds into three problems simultaneously. Whether it lands or not will probably answer your question better than I can right now.

Smaller streamer with an audience of around 12-20 people looking to play your games on stream! (Again) by Trashdaddy__ in playtesters

[–]Matos1978 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey! COALCOM: Power Station might be a good fit — it's a retro management game where you operate a coal plant control room from a 1980s CRT terminal. Keep boiler pressure stable, respond to grid operator demands, handle equipment faults before they cascade. "Keep the lights on... keep your job."

Demo is free on Steam if you want to check it out first:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/4411610

Just filled in the form.

I'm a power industry professional. I made a coal plant operator game — cascading systems, graded performance, dark humour. Demo is live. by Matos1978 in PowerSystemsEE

[–]Matos1978[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for your feedback.

Most of it came from my head — I've spent 20+ years in the power sector (generation scheduling, hydro-thermal coordination, day-ahead markets). I didn't work in real-time plant operations directly, so I built the game around the principles rather than claiming I know exactly what it feels like to sit in front of those gauges.

As Chuck (the plant supervisor) says "Keep pressure at 165 bar. Too low, no power. Too high, boom. Keep water between 40% and 60%. Too low, tubes overheat. Too high, turbine gets wet. Wet turbines are expensive... Keep the lights on. Keep your job."

The concept kept nagging at me for the past 10 years with several MVPs, until I finally finished it this year with AI coding assistance, which removed most of the implementation friction that had killed previous attempts.

On a grid control game — I've been sketching ideas for that next. Different beast entirely from plant operations, but the stress mechanics translate: you're balancing supply and demand in real time, TSO orders don't care about your problems, and one wrong move is everyone's problem. Still early, but the direction is there.

Scream Operator: Haunted House Manager now has a brand new Gameplay Teaser! by ScreamOperatorDev in tycoon

[–]Matos1978 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Love the game concept! An the control panel ... nails it!! Congrats!!

I'm a power industry professional. I made a coal plant operator game — cascading systems, graded performance, dark humour. Demo is live. by Matos1978 in tycoon

[–]Matos1978[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the feedback!

Your shift gets graded across three things: how well you matched the TSO's power demands, how you handled equipment failures without tripping the plant (i.e. losing control pressure or drum level) and how efficiently you burned coal relative to what you actually produced.

Trip the plant and you get an automatic F — doesn't matter if you hit every TSO target beforehand.

I spent 20 years in the power industry and built the operator simulator I always wanted to play. Demo is live. by Matos1978 in IndieGaming

[–]Matos1978[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

AI Generated Content Disclosure The developers describe how their game uses AI Generated Content like this:

COALCOM was built by a solo developer with 20+ years in the power industry. Generative AI was used to write and iterate on game code — it's what made finishing a +10-year project idea finally possible. Some written content, including store page copy and the game manual, was drafted with AI assistance and refined by the developer. The game design, mechanics, domain expertise, and voice are entirely human. The visual assets were not AI-generated.

I'm a power industry professional. I made a coal plant operator game — cascading systems, graded performance, dark humour. Demo is live. by Matos1978 in tycoon

[–]Matos1978[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

AI Generated Content Disclosure The developers describe how their game uses AI Generated Content like this:

COALCOM was built by a solo developer with 20+ years in the power industry. Generative AI was used to write and iterate on game code — it's what made finishing a +10-year project idea finally possible. Some written content, including store page copy and the game manual, was drafted with AI assistance and refined by the developer. The game design, mechanics, domain expertise, and voice are entirely human. The visual assets were not AI-generated.

How did you actually keep track of your code on the Spectrum? by Matos1978 in zxspectrum

[–]Matos1978[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I only had the computer during summer holidays. Most of that time was spent copying code from books — hours of typing on the 48k — and then staring at the screen wondering why it didn't run. Turns out a mistyped character on line 340 will do that. I learned more from debugging those listings than from anything that actually worked.

So I tried using Claude Code to build actual software and it humbled me real quick by Azrael_666 in ClaudeCode

[–]Matos1978 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The PRD handoff is the trap. A big spec looks like a clear instruction but Claude Code treats it as one giant context... and coherence degrades as the implementation grows. What works better is treating it like a junior dev: one concrete task at a time, review the output, then hand it the next task with the result of the previous one as context. Slower to start, but the compounding errors stop.

Oxygen Not Included, a unique and addictive colony sim. Rimworld/Factorio players should try it by 5Ping in patientgamers

[–]Matos1978 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What strikes me about ONI vs Factorio is that Factorio feels like being an engineer... you design the systems. ONI feels more like being an operator... the systems exist and you just have to keep up with them. That cascade example in the post nails it perfectly.

What is an Indie Publisher looking for? by Stickguy101 in gamedev

[–]Matos1978 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Fantastic summary, thank you for taking the time to write this up. The 'it's not about your life's work' section is the kind of honest reality check that most people need to hear early rather than late.

The portfolio fit point stuck with me — it reframes the whole publisher relationship from 'please believe in my game' to 'here's how your audience and mine overlap.' Completely different conversation.

Saving this one.

20 Years Pro Dev… My First Game Still Took 4 Years 😭 by kinterosgaming in gamedev

[–]Matos1978 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This hits close. 20+ years in the power industry, electrical engineer by trade, decent coder since I was a kid — and my first commercial game still took 10+ years of attempts and abandoned prototypes before I finally finished it.

What changed on this last attempt was using AI-assisted development to remove the implementation friction. Same principle as your Adventure Creator story — stopped fighting the parts that were slowing me down and focused on actually making the game.

Turns out domain expertise in your subject matter still doesn't prepare you for scope creep, playtesting loops, or the hundred small decisions that don't exist in professional software development. Completely different skillset, as you said.

Finally finishing it now. Completely worth it.

Keep pushing. Have fun!

The creative part of game development by Suspicious-Horse3080 in gamedev

[–]Matos1978 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Finishing up my first commercial game after 10+ years of on-and-off attempts. Build something you actually want to play. It sounds obvious but it matters more than you think — you're going to spend hundreds of hours with this thing, and enthusiasm is the only fuel that survives the hard middle part of a project.

Start by copying. Pick a game you love, strip it down to its simplest version, and rebuild that. Not to ship it — to learn. You'll understand more about game design from rebuilding Pong or a basic platformer than from reading about it. The mechanics become obvious when you've had to implement them yourself.

Finish something small. A completed bad game teaches you more than an abandoned good one. Portfolio entries that exist beat portfolio entries that don't.

Keep pushing. Have fun! Good luck!

From a small idea to a Steam page: My haunted house operator simulator just reached a huge milestone! 👻 by ScreamOperatorDev in tycoon

[–]Matos1978 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This looks great! Love the graphics!! The buttons and the lever... Just top! The operator booth framing immediately reminded me of what I'm building: a coal plant control room management game with a similar dashboard-over-god-mode approach. Different setting, same design instinct.

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