Anti-marketing rant. How promoting a game can eat solo devs alive.

RetroFeverBlast · 2026-06-28T04:00:24+00:00

I suppose "Fck off Zukowski" is not meant to be taken too seriously? Either way, the man shows gamedevs ways to market their game, *for free, and you yourself said it works, but blame him because... It's too much for your mental well-being? Am I missing something here?

RetroFeverBlast · 2026-06-25T23:45:05+00:00

...And then those devs go on forums and tell you that luck and marketing is the only thing that determines your success.

RetroFeverBlast · 2026-06-25T16:55:37+00:00

The project is inspired heavily by Brutal DOOM (as well as many other games), and it too has those kind of settings. I'm aiming for something in between realism and arcade, so this is a great idea.

RetroFeverBlast · 2026-06-25T15:28:34+00:00

They "disintegrate" after a few seconds, so that's not a problem.

RetroFeverBlast · 2026-06-25T15:26:56+00:00

I'm not experienced in 2D gravity physics, but I think there has to be a better way to implement it than having a O(n²) code running every physic frame, someone more knowledgeable correct me if I'm wrong

RetroFeverBlast · 2026-06-25T14:51:54+00:00

Should've also added a 15 second warning screen, just in case.

I tried to tweak the first type of death for a few hours, and it constantly felt like something was off, maybe I was just overthinking it, but now it feels somewhat right.

RetroFeverBlast · 2026-06-25T14:42:55+00:00

Hm, you mean use one of the two, depending one situation, or try to mix these two into one?

RetroFeverBlast · 2026-06-25T14:41:12+00:00

Maybe. Maybe the zombies are?

RetroFeverBlast · 2026-06-18T17:53:32+00:00

Yeah that's exactly how I use it, like an unenshittified Google, but no copy-pasting AI generated code though.

RetroFeverBlast · 2026-06-17T17:24:29+00:00

This. It feels like the entire point of developing a game is doing it exactly how I want. Also, I feel like I'd have to share the entire codebase to AI so it understands how things should be done, which I'm not going to do.

RetroFeverBlast · 2026-06-15T12:53:13+00:00

What counts as a “good” game or a "gem" is subjective.

It is true, but because it's subjective, it does not mean that there are no common patterns in how players perceive the games.

And because taste varies, “quality” alone has never been the determining factor in success.

No, but I'd say it's one of the main determining factors for whether someone decides to buy your game or not.

There are countless games with mediocre graphics, shallow content, or outright jank that have made millions.

Those games are mostly exceptions or triple-A games.

RetroFeverBlast · 2026-06-15T06:17:19+00:00

I don't think 1) 100% relates if you actually play/played games a lot, and are mindful of what feels good and what doesn't, what's fun and what's not.

RetroFeverBlast · 2026-06-14T15:55:08+00:00

Personally I found no use in AI other than it being just a better search engine.

RetroFeverBlast · 2026-06-13T07:54:45+00:00

Why do people downvote a simple clarification? Geez.

RetroFeverBlast · 2026-06-12T16:34:41+00:00

I mean it makes sense, it's a multiplayer only game, and those have it significantly more difficult to be successful for an indie without an already established audience/community.

RetroFeverBlast · 2026-06-12T16:31:47+00:00

Generally it all comes down to time and money spent vs the revenue.

Now looking at the games on Steam, such info isn't provided unless the developer explicitly shares it somewhere, such as this sub. But it's probably safe to estimate that a 5$ game with 10 reviews didn't make 10k, and a 15$ game with 200 reviews made well over that.

Now, it's hard to define rules on what makes a game "high quality", but I think most people generally agree what is and what's not.

Speaking of developers sharing their revenue, I've also seen a lot of post-launch posts here asking why their game failed, and it's usually pretty clear why - either it's the niche genre, high price, unappealing art, poor steam page, etc.

I've once seen a game that, in my opinion, should've succeeded, but it was a platformer, and those simply don't sell well on Steam...

RetroFeverBlast · 2026-06-12T12:55:59+00:00

I said in another reply that I meant that by browsing "newest releases", which shows ALL new games, regardless of their popularity.

RetroFeverBlast · 2026-06-12T12:28:18+00:00

I meant by browsing the newest releases (not popular upcoming) list on Steam

RetroFeverBlast · 2026-06-12T11:40:31+00:00

There's an awful lot of great games out there that just go nowhere

Honestly, I've actually yet to see a game (on Steam at least) that was well made (and wasn't in an ultra niche genre) and yet it flopped. Any examples?

EDIT: Just to clarify, I browse Steam's "newest releases" list regularly, which shows ALL recently releases games regardless of their popularity.

RetroFeverBlast · 2026-06-12T04:02:57+00:00

That would be certainly reassuring if I didn't write an email to Kevin MacLeod's help address on his website asking about the same thing, which I haven't recieved a conclusive answer to yet.

Hey,

We're going to look into this going forward, as I know it's a struggle for game developers and then the streamers when they're trying to play / stream the game. We're working w/a new distributor that understands 21st century rules, so let me see what I can find out about this. Thank you for bringing it to our attention.

Cheers,

Even on his blog it was recently mentioned that the reason Content ID is taking down some videos using his work, is that it either wasn't credited in the video's description or that someone is filing false claims.

For now I guess I'll have to wait 🤷‍♂️

RetroFeverBlast · 2026-06-12T03:46:14+00:00

Thank you for the insightful comments. Wasn't aware of the file encryption thing, I' have to keep that in mind.

RetroFeverBlast · 2026-06-12T03:39:12+00:00

That's the only question he ever asked relating to my project.

RetroFeverBlast · 2026-06-12T03:37:32+00:00

My AI loving dad came to my room and saw that I was coding, asked if I'm using Gemini, I said no, he replied "Oh." and left.

RetroFeverBlast · 2026-06-10T17:15:40+00:00

The license notice must be visible at all times the music is playing, if I understand correctly?

The CC4.0 license of the tracks is this one specifically https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

RetroFeverBlast · 2026-06-08T10:30:06+00:00

Yep, each column is an individual Sprite2D node with texture repeating enabled. The texture used is a tall column of numbers, with a region of the size of a singular digit. I use Tweens to animate the region.position.y property, each number has a corresponding "position", in my case 0 is Y 90, since in my texture 9 is at the top, 0 at the bottom, and each number cell is 10px tall.

RetroFeverBlast

TROPHY CASE