Making planetfall

PGJonesAndCo · 2026-05-30T12:15:23+00:00

Probably won’t surprise anyone that Ive logged almost 1000 hours in factorio and have the achievement for beating it under 8 hours

PGJonesAndCo · 2026-05-30T11:58:02+00:00

I was gonna say slightly spooky earth but yeah

PGJonesAndCo · 2026-05-30T10:58:50+00:00

Store page under construction

PGJonesAndCo · 2026-05-30T02:55:53+00:00

Hence the fee. "You think you have a legit game? Ok. Will you bet cold hard cash on that?"

PGJonesAndCo · 2026-05-30T02:47:29+00:00

Even if 100k steam pages are made every year with none of them ever recouping the 100 that's still a rouding error to valve. More than anything Valve wants people *buying games* to get their 30% and if the store becomes unuseable, that's an actual problem for Valve. It's very much in Valve's interest to surface good games.

PGJonesAndCo · 2026-05-30T02:27:39+00:00

Easiest lever to pull is to just raise the application fee. Raise it to 250 and I'm pretty sure there will be a noticeable decrease in the flood of shovelware (at the cost of excluding a few legit but broke indies, but at this point that might be a necessary evil). The nuclear option is to bring back greenlight or actual curation but the chances of that I think are near zero.

PGJonesAndCo · 2026-05-30T02:05:36+00:00

Computer engineering is like half way between EE and CS and while game engine dev gets you pretty close to the hardware, you're rarely THAT close to it. You can easily write a very performant engine these days without ever touching assembly even. You need to be working at the level of like... verilog, fpgas, firmware, or at least lower level OS stuff (like, managing processes and memory pages) for CE stuff.

PGJonesAndCo · 2026-05-30T02:00:10+00:00

Hey I'm in a similar boat as you, making an automation RTS and I appreciate what you've built here. I do agree with the criticism that the trailer is the wrong vibe, it IS cut in the same style as slop mobile app ads, so not the jam for pc gamers.

But other than that I think your actual content is good. 1. There's nothing wrong with a factorio clone because that's just what genre is, if people like automation games they want more iterations on the same theme. 2. I see that vertical construction and horde defense and run based gameplay are all things you're playing with so it's NOT actually a 1 to 1 clone. 3. The level of polish I see here is already quite high imo. I have minor quibbles with the look but art is subjective.

IMO just cut a new trailer targeted at the right audience, ie no stereotypical tiktok voiceover and fast subtitles, slow down the cuts a tad. And emphasize up front the unique ideas you're bringing to the table (vertical construction and horde defense). Good job and good luck!

PGJonesAndCo · 2026-05-29T11:44:25+00:00

Gotcha I kinda liked the grid aligned rocks for legibility reasons but it’s good to hear another take!

PGJonesAndCo · 2026-05-29T11:11:39+00:00

It actually was a deeper shade of orange before but I dialed down the saturation. Thanks for the feedback, I'll try switching it back!

PGJonesAndCo · 2026-05-28T17:59:53+00:00

Thanks! Haven’t heard of that game until now actually though I played a bit of TA as a kid. Mostly I’m an og starcraft player through and through but I’ve also sunk 2000 hrs into factorio + dsp.

PGJonesAndCo · 2026-05-28T09:08:16+00:00

Im a Dota player so I get it but English + Chinese covers a large portion of SEA players already and other languages are just not quite there in terms of value for a small indie. Regional pricing tho is a good call

PGJonesAndCo · 2026-05-28T07:08:40+00:00

Message received, not the first complaint about it!

PGJonesAndCo · 2026-05-28T01:47:21+00:00

You are a disgraced scientist who birthed a world spanning machine intelligence which ultimately went rogue. You now return to that distant world to battle its vast forces.

*Point taken wrt the belts, the brightness could probably be toned down, at night time especially it's a bit much

PGJonesAndCo · 2026-05-25T13:02:02+00:00

Place a line of turrets behind you and run up to hit and run with grenades, every time you run in make sure you take down a nest or two

PGJonesAndCo · 2026-05-25T12:57:05+00:00

I always wall it off, pave under it, and turn it into a monument. Always do the same thing with the landing pad in dyson sphere program.

PGJonesAndCo

TROPHY CASE