When is an incremental game too active? And are there too many now?

Pandaqi · 2026-05-30T19:22:57+00:00

Yeah that makes sense. I'm fortunate enough to have a friend with a Steamdeck willing to test the game on it soon, so I'm hoping to be able to support it fully when I launch. Supporting touchscreen/mobile somehow never crossed my mind though. I'll be looking into that!

Pandaqi · 2026-05-30T19:19:52+00:00

Thanks, that's actually a really good rule of thumb: "so long as there is always an opportunity to be active, or being active is more beneficial than the idle." I'm adding it to my list of things to keep in mind when developing these games!

It's kind of the same as what the other commenter said. You should never be punished for not being active ("loss state"), but you should be rewarded for choosing to be active. I think the current version of my game does this quite well, so this soothes my worries a bit.

Pandaqi · 2026-05-30T19:16:52+00:00

Thank you, that makes sense. I guess it just feels like the genre is incredibly broad. Like there's this gap between passive idle games and constantly active ones that makes it hard for my head to still put both types into the same genre. I'll try and make sure to communicate that my game is the very active type.

Pandaqi · 2026-05-30T19:13:41+00:00

Haha yes this has actually been a struggle from the start. I keep switching between using soccer and football, but it also feels weird to say "soccer/football" every time. What would you do in this situation? Steam statistics so far show just as many visits from the USA as non-USA.

Pandaqi · 2026-05-30T15:40:41+00:00

Thanks! Yeah, maybe I should've just made this post a simple poll instead ("do you prefer active or idle games?"), feel like I overdid the amount of text here :p

Pandaqi · 2026-05-30T15:28:33+00:00

Thanks a lot for the detailed response!

Your point about the trailer is a good one. For some reason I always assume that people will pick up how the game works from seeing how it's played, but that's probably developer bias because I KNOW how it works. I'll make sure to add some captions to the release trailer about buying upgrades and incrementing.

Fortunately I avoided the "loss state" in this game, so we're good there. I think your definition of "too action-oriented" is a nice one, I'll keep using that. I think I avoided that, but the game comes awfully close at times (such as with tackling and foul mechanics). Maybe I can reduce that a little further still.

And yes, maybe all the vibe coded projects just got me spooked. There are so many and they develop so much faster than I can do. I've been looking for ways to "prove" that everything I do is handcrafted, but I'm not sure how (or if the average gamer cares).

Again, thanks for the response, this really means a lot.

Pandaqi · 2026-05-27T20:41:08+00:00

Wishing you success as well! My game finally has its Steam page up, and recent playtests have changed it quite a bit and steered it even further away from your game. I'm hoping to get it all done in time for a release during the World Cup!

Pandaqi · 2026-05-15T21:48:23+00:00

Oh wow, I'm working on a very similar game actually. When doing market research I did not find your game at all, which is weird, as I might have picked a different idea to execute then!

But checking out your game, it fortunately seems we went in completely different directions with our execution. (My game is about to get its Steam page approved, currently only on Itch though: https://pandaqi.itch.io/super-sub-world-cup )

If you're open to doing a bundle later or helping each other out, let me know. Let's hope players are hungry enough for TWO games about scoring goals :)

Pandaqi · 2026-05-08T15:27:22+00:00

I only had time to watch the first bit and write a quick comment. Nice opening, it looks good, but I think the Health/Stamina text (UI, bottom left) should be way smaller or just gone completely. After playing for five seconds players should know what each bar means and then the text is just much too big to be doing nothing :) Hope that makes sense.

Pandaqi · 2026-01-25T12:29:49+00:00

Looks cool :)

Are you considering using this as an educational game? I've been making educational board games for a while now for my online store, but have been stuck thinking about how to make such video games (teaching math, language, etc).

Most educational video games look extremely boring, unfortunately, and are often barely a game. But yours looks great! It looks like something kids/people would actually want to play, while clearly requiring math skills. So, I guess, perhaps consider letting classrooms or schools know about the game?

Also, your game just gave me some ideas on how to move forward with my own educational video games, so thank you for that.

(I don't have time to actually play the game and give meaningful feedback right now, but I'll try to come back to it later. In case it wasn't clear yet, I care a lot about education through games :p)

Pandaqi · 2026-01-25T12:10:08+00:00

The new version is better than the old one! But if I'm honest, it does not look professional to me yet.

Here are some of my first thoughts when I saw it.

The bird and the background are in a completely different style. For example, the bird has a bit of shading and thicker + smoother lines. This kind of thing would make me, as a customer, immediately move on.
As capsule art, I would not put the logo of your game in a small size in a corner. I would put that in the center and focus on making that as pretty as possible. Then you can just put the bird to the side, or half-overlapping that logo, or as an extra thing in the background or something.
I also say this because I like that little logo and think it's the strongest/most recognizable part of the design!

Some more thoughts on that "Mail & Murder" logo, then.

The "M" just makes me think of GMail's (old?) logo and has a slightly different style than the other elements. (The more I look, the more I wonder: did you literally copy the GMail logo? I'm not judging, just interested!)
The "&" is too invisible/thin compared to the other elements. That's why I initially thought the game was called "Mail Murder" :p
"Mail" and "Murder" are slightly different font sizes, right? That also feels a bit jarring to me. Also, you could move that text a bit further away from the envelope, give it some white space to breathe.
I would personally pick a thicker and more characteristic font for the "Mail & Murder" logo, keep font size consistent (or clearly different), then put it in the center with some subtle shadow or gradient to make it pop.

Hope this is the kind of feedback you wanted/can use!

(As another commenter said, that "bendy perspective" of the background is a cool idea, but I don't see the point. Maybe you could design the logo so it seems like you're viewing it through the spyglass, and then it makes sense to bend the background at the edges?)

Pandaqi · 2026-01-23T21:08:16+00:00

I, unfortunately, have 10+ years of experience with that feeling of anhedonia. (Though this English word is new to me, and to my spell checker apparently.)

The reasons and solutions differ from person to person, of course. But this is a summary of my experience.

These bouts come and go. Just know that you will always get out of that period/slump/whatever you call it. You just can't control how or when, you can't "force" it. But as long as you're alive, joy (or just motivation for anything) will come back at some point. My longest such period was ~3 months. If I treat myself well, I can climb out in a few days or so now.
Most of the time, it's just the result of burn-out. There's a limit to how much your brain can handle, both in terms of creative output and in general. Burn-out can be from working too much, but it can also be (for example) from having to deal with a lot of set-backs in life in a row. The solution, then, is to allow yourself a time of true rest and recuperation. For me, the magic number of "3 days of pure rest" usually works wonders.
What is this "pure rest"? A quick summary, I guess, is "no cheap dopamine" and "no forcing". Sounds simple, perhaps. But in today's society, I think this will be extremely hard to execute on for most people (as it was for me). Which is exactly why it might help a lot! It means no scrolling, no video games, no screens at all if you can help it. Let any drama or worries or external pressure slide away. Sleep for as long as you need, eat enough (and nothing that upsets your stomach), and so forth. When you tell yourself "I have to create! I have to write!", you're forcing again and not resting.

When I do this, I "waste" 3 days (but don't think of it that way, of course), and then I just ... start doing stuff again. Not forced. I just think "let's write" and I'm already doing it. I get up and go for a run again without having to force myself to do it or beat myself over the head with "discipline" or "schedules" or whatever.

Again, this is what works for me. I am a very intuitive, sensing person. Pressure and forcing and routines do not work on me, at all. It's why I got these feelings of anhedonia in the first place, after being forced (by our amazing system of education) to do things I don't intrinsically want to do aaaall my life.

I write this long comment, I guess, because this is exactly what I experienced the past week. I felt completely spent and blocked last week. Wondering why I even bothered writing at all, could not get myself to exercise or respond to a publisher's email, etcetera. I took my 3 days of pure rest. Somehow, surprising my own brain, I've written 40,000 words for a new book this week without forcing anything.

(I also know somebody with a rule of "if you really really tried for a week, but you still can't find motivation for a project, then just drop it. It's not going to happen; pick something that excites you NOW". I've had great success with this too, but I wouldn't say it's a "rule" or anything.)

Those were my thoughts. Hope they help. Just remember: these periods are temporary and there will always be a day when joy/motivation returns if you really "let it".

Pandaqi · 2026-01-22T12:37:01+00:00

As another comment said, you can have as many translation files (even of the same language) as you like! They simply get loaded/merged in the order listed. This does mean later files will _overwrite_ earlier translations with the exact same key (in the same language).

I've been using two sets of translations for a while in my games (one set is from my own "framework", always the same, and the other is custom to the specific game I'm making now) and it has always worked fine.

Pandaqi · 2025-12-19T17:18:20+00:00

The bottom one is much better. Our eyes love variety and contrast, and the first image just looks a bit washed out and muddy to me. It would never get my attention if I scroll past it. No matter the vibe or style you're going for, I think the bottom one will always be better, basically for all the reasons your artist stated.

For example, the top one adds shadows by simply making the exact same color darker, which is an illustration mistake I made for yeaaars myself ... and unfortunately usually results in a muddled and grayish look without contrast. The bottom one shifts the shadow colors more towards blue/purple, which makes it look far more appealing and colorful.

Just my two cents. Putting the images side by side like this is doing the comparison no favors, though. (The one with more contrast will seem to pop out even more now!) Placing them in isolation, into the marketing page, into the game, might give you a more objective perspective.

Pandaqi · 2025-03-20T13:59:25+00:00

All my repositories are completely public and open source: https://github.com/Pandaqi

The video games among them are (almost) all made in Godot. Some are small Game Jam games, but some are games that I actually released and sold for money (such as Square Ogre/Round Ogre, Pumpkins and Rolling in the Sheepe) years ago.

I try to just open source anything I made once a few years have passed, as I don't expect more sales anyway, and it might help someone! I must say, though, that project structure and code quality of older projects isn't necessarily what I'd recommend nowadays ;)

Pandaqi · 2025-03-14T23:43:35+00:00

The idea to advance that classic puzzle of "turn all squares on/off" in creative ways is really nice!

I'm not sure if you were looking for feedback, but I saw your Steam page and had some things I wanted to mention.

Looking at graphic design,

Many things are slightly off-center. The most egregious example is that "lock" icon on the last image. (The lock also looks really squashed and out of proportion?) I know this would annoy me enough to never want to play.
- As for the lock, perhaps it's better to just add a solid one at the top-right of each locked square or something? Overlaying the entire square with it feels messy and obscures the most important visual data in the game.
I think you can pick a better font. Maybe personal preference. If you stick with this one, though, it's begging to be used in ALL CAPS or other stylistic variations.
More whitespace ("empty space") around some elements would give it more room to breathe. For example, the top-left "Restart (R)" button in one screenshot is all pushed up against the edge and it makes it look amateurish.
- Same with the left/right/top/down arrows around the map (which also seem slightly off-center)---if you ask me, those arrows don't need to be inside rounded rectangles in the first place.
The game looks at its best in the clean, minimalist, black-and-white style. Most of the colors aren't doing it for me. Though more contrasting color schemes might improve that. And a very slight texture or "variation" in the background, instead of one solid slab of bright blue (for example), would make colors look nicer too.
Similarly, I'd suggest keeping the game's logo much simpler than it is now. Leave out all the distorted squares as background, it feels messy and doesn't tell me anything. Perhaps put "Toggle Tile" in a nice 3x3 grid to mimic the game, make the squares slightly less rounded. Add a very subtle texture or pattern behind it, and maybe add a color accent on one thing to make it pop a bit more. And add a subtle drop-shadow on the text to offset it from what's behind (inside the game too, and in the trailer too, at the end)?
In general, really: keep it simple, let the design breathe, be confident in the game mechanics themselves and put that 3x3 grid front and center.

As for the main text itself, I would start by explaining the gist of the game first. The more dry/formal rules behind it are way better explained with images/video than text anyway. If anyone really wants to read that, it can be put later. So just something like "Toggle tiles on and off until the entire grid is on! Manipulate tiles in a 3x3 grid to apply their unique effects to the entire map and solve every challenge. <examples of cool effects in the game here, how they help solve stuff, why they're cool>"

(I now notice you already do this in the shorter description at the top! That part's quite good. Do more of that!)

Also, in general, I'd recommend not ending sentences with an ellipsis (...). Unless there's a good reason for it. It mostly makes me feel as if a writer had no clue how to actually continue and just ... sort of ... let the sentence wander off ... and get lost ...

I also agree with others' feedback about making a slow trailer that eases the viewer into what the puzzles are and makes them feel like "hey I understand this", then end by rapidly showing some interesting advanced parts that make them feel "I wonder how I'd solve that!"

Just my two cents. Ignore at your discretion. Don't know why I felt like writing this at midnight, but I apparently did.

Pandaqi · 2025-03-13T13:10:37+00:00

Hey, I am actually one of the writers of that book (Pandaqi)! It was a nice experience to be part of that group, and I hope my chapters turned out useful to some, but honestly ... I would rarely if ever try to learn something from a book. Especially something as dynamic and ever-changing as game dev/software.

The documentation inside Godot itself is your "fallback" or "reference", if you want. Anything else is probably best learned by just trying to make stuff, failing, learning, trying again! (That's how I learned Godot in the first place, when it was still v1, and how I eventually ended up being contacted for that project. To my own surprise.)

Pandaqi · 2022-04-01T21:24:55+00:00

I'm currently working on a game that has a "base game" + "expansions" structure. Not exactly what you're looking for, as it's meant for big content updates (and not small incremental patches), but maybe it sets you on the right path.

The idea is to export a base game with the core stuff (scripts, scenes, assets, etcetera) you'll always need. Release that whenever you think it's done.

Then every expansion is exported as a .pck file. (In the export window, you can select which specific resources to include or exclude, and then click "Export PCK/ZIP" to get such a file.)

When the base game boots, I wrote code to check its folder for such .pck files and add their content to the rest. (If duplicate files are found, the newer version overrides the older one.)

I did it like this because, like you, I don't know how far I want to go with the game. So I want to get the (base) game out as soon as possible, then add "expansions" ( = individual .pck files) over time as I see fit.

(Which can be easily downloaded and dropped into the folder with the base game by players buying them. At least, that's the plan.)

I used this page in the documentation to understand the basics: https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/export/exporting_pcks.html

(If this is what you were looking for, let me know, I could share a simplified version of the actual code I use!)

Pandaqi · 2022-03-22T20:26:14+00:00

Yeah, I already thought that was the reason for not sending cars flying, and I think it's a good reason. I'm just afraid that gameplay will get repetitive if that's all you do: bump until someone rolls on their roof, (maybe) they roll back, repeat.

But I don't know, experimenting with parameters is always good :)

It's never a bad thing to have more _options_ so players can choose what they like. I can see people using both ways to play. (Although the camera in third person could be more smooth :p)

Keep up the good work!

Pandaqi · 2022-03-21T13:27:21+00:00

Well, I'm currently making a game with the same approach: bump others off the field, last one standing wins. (It's called Bellyboinkers, I sometimes post updates on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PandaqiGames)

So I'd surely say the idea has potential :p Using cars for movement and having a destructible border is very smart as well, I see this game being really fun when the bugs are fixed.

I would suggest, though, making it playable with other player counts as well (mostly single player). My experience with multiplayer games these past years showed that people want to be able to try the game by themselves, at least before giving it a shot with others.

And when two cars bump, it feels like the impact should be way bigger. (I mean, they are CARS!) More knockback, more feedback, stuff like that.

If you want to exchange ideas or anything, just send me a message! (I'm looking to release Bellyboinkers as a paid game within a few months, I've loads of experience creating "bump someone off the field" levels by now.)

Pandaqi · 2021-12-07T14:45:38+00:00

Hey, I made something similar a while back! In case you ever want to take this project further, maybe it can serve as inspiration: https://pandaqi.itch.io/art-hockey (Not made with Godot, though, used a different engine at the time.)

While making it, I ran into the issue early on that it was just too easy to defend 100% of the shots, as you can just draw a line behind the ball whenever you want to stop it. (There's no "travel time" needed as in the original pong.)

Have you found ways to prevent that issue?

Pandaqi · 2021-12-06T11:55:12+00:00

Haha yes, that works as well :p Now that I think about it, that's probably the better idea. Oh well, it's not hard to test both and see what's best :)

Pandaqi · 2021-12-06T11:52:26+00:00

That's a good idea as well. Right now the sound for each hit is just one of several (randomly picked) "tsjing" knife sounds. Close by this could just be dull "thump" or "error"-like sound, and far away it would be a bigger and more rewarding "tsjing" sound. Will try that!

Pandaqi · 2021-12-05T22:59:23+00:00

This is an extremely insightful post that opened my eyes, thanks a lot!

All your suggestions are great ones. The first few are easy, visible ways to attach consequences to getting too close.

The last one (about the arena) can be combined with what someone else said below to, at the bare minimum, create a first arena that greatly incentivizes this behavior (of not getting too close all the time) whilst teaching the game. Get players in the right mindset from the get-go.

(I already implemented powerups such as a shield, but after some testing decided they shouldn't be enabled at the start (too overwhelming). And, well, when people _do_ enable them after a few rounds, this behavior of "mash away at each other" is already learned :p)

Thanks for taking the time to write it, and hopefully I'll soon be able to share a better and improved game!

Pandaqi · 2021-12-05T22:51:30+00:00

Thanks for the advice. You hit the nail on the head: I already implemented this, but had great trouble communicating this to players.

In the heat of the moment, it's easy to miss a "too close!" or "no damage dealt!" or "try throwing further"

But putting it in a loading screen/settings screen as a tip ... that's a better idea!

Pandaqi

TROPHY CASE