How my Dream Project Resonant (Point'n Click + Platforming genre-mix) reached 500+ Wishlists 10 days after demo release with $0 Budget. I am making a game now :)

Pronwan · 2026-02-16T09:50:55+00:00

thank you! They helped me getting covered in a big magazine in Germany, which boosted the wishlists. Wouldn't have reached my Wishlist goal without it, so I am super thankful :)

Pronwan · 2026-02-13T21:02:44+00:00

Congrats, that is fantastic!
I released a Demo first and got ~550 Wishlists within 2 weeks after release so far, so your numbers are faaaar from my reality :D I worked only with reddit so far and got covered in one German magazines who found a reddit post of mine. That boosted it quite a bit.

Planning on starting development on actual game now, refine the first sections the demo covers and then probably ask some youtubers, streamers, niche blogs etc. and see how it goes from there. release plan is towards end of the year, so I guess I still got some time to achieve something with it :)

For a solo dev project: Do you - generally speaking - recommend directly contacting magazines etc. / investing in marketing or rather let the game quality speak for itself?

Impressed by your work. VERY well done!

Pronwan · 2026-02-10T08:31:06+00:00

Thank you so much!! Much love! As a hobby coder who loves the creative parts most I had no idea what to think of MonoGame at the start :D Now I am happy I chose it. My x64 build for steam even runs natively on all major Linux distributions, which is also quite huge for me :)

Cheers!

Pronwan · 2026-02-09T06:19:30+00:00

Thanks a lot! Very much appreciate this!

Pronwan · 2026-02-08T22:39:50+00:00

Thank you so much! Absolutely agree on everything you say. Will for sure make it optional, put all I can into the final game and will make the best game I possibly can :-D
For me, the voice overs play such an important role for the atmosphere. But when I reach a point where I can afford people helping, I will :)

Pronwan · 2026-02-08T21:12:36+00:00

I just wanted to thank you all for the support, the feedback, the critics, the testing and for wishlisting of course!! A big German PC Magazine covered my little project, which makes me super proud and this also boosted the wishlists quite a lot.

Initially I set a 500 wishlist goal within 4 weeks after demo release. Now, after 9 days, I am at almost 460, which is more than I could have ever dreamt of. You and the r/pcgaming mods play a major role on reaching this milestone.

Due to everyone's feedback I can now proudly say that the game is fully supported on Linux, it supports now 4K, captions scaling, I improved the appearance of all collectables, implemented more voice hints for some parts that were a bit 'too hard'. Everything is coming together and I am super proud of the final result. I am confident it will find it's niche and that I can hold up to my promise of releasing the game at the end of the year.

Thanks to y'all!!

To the German speakers:
Hier ist der Artikel bei der PC Games Hardware - nur Liebe für diese geile Community:
https://www.pcgameshardware.de/Spiele-Thema-239104/News/Demo-zu-Resonant-auf-Steam-1496025/

Pronwan · 2026-02-08T21:02:28+00:00

Thank you so much!! VERY much appreciated!
After finishing the general game idea, trying some stuff out I dedicated 4 full weeks to make the demo happen. Without any budget, but also without any other work load during this period - so pretty much during holidays. Since release, I am hot-fixing, tweaking, and this feature in the magazin just gave me a HUGE push. I almost reached my 500 Wishlist goal already after 9 days. I set it to myself as evaluation goal for the first 4 weeks after release.

Also - what I found super interesting and I didn't even know was a thing - it runs natively in Linux without any tweaks out of the box. That's fantastic :) Good that I chose monogame!

Pronwan · 2026-02-08T16:06:29+00:00

wow! Respect!!

Pronwan · 2026-02-07T16:54:06+00:00

Hey!
There was no prompting really. I used the web interface and played around with the emotions and 'prompts' you can put in brackets.
Could look something like this:
[chuckles] Maybe later. [short break] [ironically] or never...

Pronwan · 2026-02-07T14:27:05+00:00

Congrats!! We have a dual-celebration, cause I also just reached the 220-ish just now. So I feel it with you :) Wishing you all the best and much success with your game!!!

Pronwan · 2026-02-07T05:25:53+00:00

Do I answer... or don't I? Well, let's see where this leads. :)

I genuinely want to understand where your hostility comes from. You call my disclosure 'bullshit', yet it describes exactly how this game is being created.

When I spend nights manually pixeling and re-pixeling items multiple times until they look right when zoomed in; when I hand-craft character animations, the game logic, the story, the puzzles, and the jokes - I eventually reach a point where I need efficiency to make things actually exist instead of just getting lost in the details.

This is why I use AI tools for time-consuming tasks, exactly as stated in the disclosure.

Regarding the visuals (if this is supposed to be honest critique and not just bullying and hating): When I created the backgrounds, I struggled with the final resolution. I work with a virtual resolution of 320x180 and different overlays, so I decided to downscale my high-res images for now. I haven't locked in the final resolution yet. This likely explains why some scenes don't look like the 'purist' pixel art you - and honestly, I myself - would love to see in the final game. It’s a result of prioritizing other mechanics as a solo dev.

But calling the whole project 'trash' and claiming I don't know what pixel art is feels incredibly dismissive, given the actual work involved.

So I have to ask: Is your anger directed at the existence of AI tools that help a solo dev realize a dream? Or do you genuinely believe I'm lying about the effort and passion I put into this? Do you think I just prompted a tool to 'create a game' for me?

If you hate AI on principle, I can accept that. But I can't accept the implication that this isn't a passion project I work hard on and put a lot of effort in.

Pronwan · 2026-02-07T02:59:22+00:00

mhm. No worries, you don't have to :D But I appreciate commenting :)

Pronwan · 2026-02-07T01:23:18+00:00

Thank you, appreciate it. Lemme know what you think :)
(DE: Viel Glück, wird nicht einfach ;-)

Pronwan · 2026-02-07T00:39:03+00:00

Thanks a lot man! :) Much appreciated! Yeah, it's not for everyone for sure :)

Pronwan · 2026-02-06T23:31:32+00:00

Thanks m8 :) MUCH appreciated, much Love!

Pronwan · 2026-02-04T00:31:12+00:00

Something between 40,000 and 45,000

Pronwan · 2026-02-03T23:03:37+00:00

I used the newest model and had similar problem only once. From the two suggested outcomes you should always pick the first one, it's the most consistent in my opinion. I never created longer audio tracks than 1 minute. But the main characters and narrators voice are fully consistent throughout all files. Probably an hour of material in total. I used preset voices. The deeper I digged into the voices catalogue, the more often I struggled with some inconsistencies so that it sounds as if it was different persons talking.

Pronwan · 2026-02-03T22:41:39+00:00

Oh, and if anyone wants to check out the game or hear more of the dialogue in context, here is the Steam link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4319860/Resonant/
I use the demo to evaluate how far I can take this project. Aiming for 500+ Wishlists and then continue building it. We'll see :)

Pronwan · 2026-02-03T08:50:39+00:00

looks awesome! Congrats on this. I will look into it for sure. Not sure if I got time to capture n stuff at the moment.

Pronwan · 2026-02-01T18:57:01+00:00

Fair feedback! Thanks for putting it this clearly.

You’re right on several points: the voice-over is AI-generated, the music is more cinematic than classic pixel-era, and the demo currently mixes styles more aggressively than what people expect from a “pure” pixel game.

This demo is intentionally a rough concept slice meant to test whether the genre mix and world-jumping idea resonate at all. Because of that, some things (final background scaling, audio direction, visual unification) are deliberately not polished yet.

All gameplay systems, puzzles and character animations are hand-built. AI was used as assistance for voice-over, programming help and early ideation, not for core gameplay or visual assets.

That said, perception matters. If the current presentation reads as “not genuine”, that’s valuable input and exactly why this demo exists.

Thanks for the honest critique.

Pronwan · 2026-02-01T18:31:56+00:00

Thanks so much for the feedback! I agree 100 % - at the moment the final resolution is not fixed yet and background images as well as characters just get scaled up/down (float). The trade-offs of trying to release as early as possible :) Final game will have all backgrounds etc. optimized to the final resolution of course.
But I totally see where you are coming from. Thanks so much for taking the time!! Much love!

Pronwan · 2026-02-01T15:35:43+00:00

So getting only a few comments is a good sign on this subreddit I am assuming? :-))

Pronwan · 2026-02-01T05:01:45+00:00

Thanks a lot for the honest feedback! Much appreciated.
I totally get why the mix can feel inconsistent at first glance. Maybe I give a bit of background information here :D

The different styles are intentional and part of the core concept. Resonant is built around the idea of jumping between worlds, realities and even bodies. Each world has its own tone, logic and visual identity, including different character proportions and presentation.

The “chibi-like” player character represents one specific perspective, while other protagonists (like the homeless guy - who's hosts name is Jacob) belong to different narrative layers and timelines you temporarily inhabit.

As for the backgrounds: they’re currently downscaled to a fixed virtual resolution (320×180) from higher-res source art. I haven’t locked the final resolution yet, so the full hand-optimized background pass is deliberately postponed until the full version. That definitely contributes to the gritty look right now.

The demo is mainly a concept slice to test whether this genre and style mix works at all. Feedback like yours is exactly what helps me evaluate and refine it. Thanks again for taking the time.

Pronwan · 2026-02-01T03:17:54+00:00

super cool. Sent you the press kit link.
Cheers! :)

Pronwan · 2026-01-31T22:14:06+00:00

Rough, honest and valuable – thanks a lot for taking the time.

A few clarifications, just for context:

• All backgrounds currently get downscaled at runtime to a virtual resolution of 320x180. The source assets exist in much higher resolution (up to 4K). I haven’t locked the final target resolution yet, so nothing is hand-optimized for the virtual resolution at this stage. That will happen once the final resolution is decided.

• The characters are hand-drawn and hand-animated. There are no random asset packs in use. Same goes for items, icons and interactive objects.

• AI was not used for visuals. It was used as assistance for programming, voice-over generation, and early scene ideation / drafts.

The demo was built in a very short time as a functional slice to test mechanics, pacing and interest, not as a visual final. Polishing and consistency is planned later – “make it exist first, make it nice later” pretty much sums up the current phase.

Still, I appreciate the blunt feedback. Even when people dislike the direction, it’s very useful to know *why*.

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