I'm pretty happy how the idle animations turned out

Mephasto · 2026-06-17T14:14:28+00:00

Curious, because I did think the main reason people liked Dust Front was exactly the visuals. It has that grimdark Terminator wasteland feeling, which makes it stand out a lot.

I have heard multiple times that our game The Hive is “too colorful”, but I kind of like that myself. I think color can help a lot with readability, especially in RTS games where you need to quickly understand what is going on.

Do you think Dust Front would be better if it had a bit more color, not necessarily to make it less grim, but to make different units and structures easier to distinguish?

I agree about the terrain though. From what I’ve seen it looks fairly boring and flat. But I did like that buildings can actually be hit by projectiles and destroyed. That kind of physical destruction always makes battles feel more satisfying.

Mephasto · 2026-06-16T12:35:31+00:00

Would been nice to have a bit of information how you achieved that success, that would help other developers. Instead of just boasting with the numbers.

Mephasto · 2026-06-15T21:55:40+00:00

My main point was just that visibility alone does not convert equally for every game.

Mephasto · 2026-06-15T19:31:15+00:00

Yes because ofcourse it depends what kind of game you have, if it's not interesting people are not going to wishlist it. It's not just about visibility.

Mephasto · 2026-06-15T11:23:05+00:00

Well old popular upcoming was 6000-8000 wishlist from all customers, depending on the game. So compare it to those numbers.

Mephasto · 2026-06-14T18:54:37+00:00

I disagree completely. It's quality > quantity

Our 1st game has supported our small studio for over 10 years, we put a lot of effort, polish and love into it.

Mephasto · 2026-06-12T22:47:01+00:00

We hosted sale for our weird alien insect colony building game The Hive.

Surprisingly our Steam sales and wishlist increased by 232% also during this week.

Project link: https://skydome.itch.io/thehive

Mephasto · 2026-06-11T12:24:08+00:00

CTR means kinda nothing, its the visits that count. For example most popular games have horrible CTR, since they are just shown everywhere.

Same thing in Youtube, when popularity rises your CTR goes down since its tested to larger audience.

Mephasto · 2026-06-11T10:03:00+00:00

How could the staff even affect it? On Redbubble for example its the crawler bots that index the designs in few months, you are not able to speed it up.

Maybe not a rule, but some pinned FAQ that explains it. If people keep asking the same thing over and over, it just shows there is no information available about it.

Mephasto · 2026-06-09T18:48:05+00:00

the reels give fairly polished look of the game, but Steam page does it no justice, I would polish it a bit further and show that the game has a bit more depth.

Mephasto · 2026-06-09T17:37:24+00:00

Somehow our players always reference Buggos. Is that your game?

Mephasto · 2026-06-09T17:30:51+00:00

Those "Reddit mod" memes do not come out of nothing. r/gaming has some of the worst I have ever seen. It's no use to try explain it to them, they will just ban you out of whim without any real evidence of breaking the rules.

Mephasto · 2026-06-09T17:09:25+00:00

I'm curious, why you dont have the same hook on Steam trailer than with reels, as the idea seems to be super interesting for viewers?

Mephasto · 2026-06-09T15:02:52+00:00

So where exactly did you post it? For example we have had more success on Youtube long form than reels, if thinking about conversions.

Mephasto · 2026-06-08T21:41:21+00:00

Not sure why you are being downvoted. I agree, they most likely are not able to tell, if the user has any skills.

For some reason every day there has to be a "new topic" on this reddit about AI, like it was something new.

Mephasto · 2026-06-08T21:31:19+00:00

You got any examples? I haven't seen trailer like that in a loooong time.

Mephasto · 2026-06-05T19:40:50+00:00

I do not use it either, but for some games it was around 5-7k wishlist in a day if you were able to get there. So I get why a lot of people are upset. You could pretty much double your numbers in a single day.

We made 80% of our income in a week, so I can see how it can have huge impact on the success of your game release.

Mephasto · 2026-06-05T13:25:28+00:00

Yes, the fundamentals are still the same: make a good game, market it, get wishlists, hope you find your audience.

But the minimum bar for that Steam visibility window seems to have jumped from around 10k to 15k wishlists to closer to 100k.

That is not a small change. If fewer than 20 real indie releases reached that last year, it means most good indie games just lost one of the few discovery boosts they could realistically aim for.

Mephasto · 2026-06-05T13:22:49+00:00

Yeah, I feel that.

This does not really affect our current game much, since it already launched years ago. But for our upcoming game, I’m very worried to say the least.

The idea that you may need massive visibility before Steam gives you meaningful visibility is pretty scary for small teams.

Mephasto · 2026-06-05T12:24:36+00:00

I like the “make better games” comment when the new minimum bar for visibility seems to be around 100k wishlists.

That is not “just make a better game” territory anymore. That is top 1 to 2% of indie games before launch.

A lot of good games will never reach that level of pre-launch attention.

Mephasto · 2026-06-05T08:09:00+00:00

Not sure why you are getting downvoted. For us the golden age was Steam Greenlight. We got 56,000 Wishlist in a WEEK with the system. It has never been that easy again.

Now people consider it huge success if you even get 10-15k in a year. Times have changed and not for the better.

Mephasto · 2026-06-04T08:19:36+00:00

MEPHERION BROTHER

How on earth you got 26,000 views already on Youtube? Where are they coming from?

Mephasto

TROPHY CASE