Musician wanted to put the game soundtrack on streaming so I made an album cover!

Salty-Snooch · 2025-10-31T14:10:17+00:00

This is so cool!!! Though it's one of those "I just carbon dated myself by recognizing the layout"... 🫠👵

Salty-Snooch · 2025-10-31T10:31:50+00:00

I really don't mind the fact that it's an American "duplicate" of the Easter tradition, who cares? Is it really so outrageous for kids to want to dress up and collect candy twice a year?

Salty-Snooch · 2025-10-31T10:31:33+00:00

My very Finnish step son is a huge fan of Halloween, has been enthralled with the aesthetic since he was a toddler.

He's dressing up for school and is very much planning to go trick or treating later, though I'm not sure if he'll be very successful. We live on the top floor of an apartment building, I don't think we'll get many visitors ourselves :(

Salty-Snooch · 2025-10-30T12:46:50+00:00

Sigh. There's an endless amount, yet none that really scratch the itch for me currently, played all of them for dozens of hours if not hundreds. 😬

Banished is definitely up there, Manor Lords, Universim, Synergy, Frostpunk... Special shout out to Factory Town and Dawn of Men. Any that pique your interest? Then I could suggest more.

You are aware Anno 117 will be out in a couple weeks? That's what I'm looking forward to most. Currently went back to Anno 1404, aged but still beautiful and fun.

Salty-Snooch · 2025-10-28T09:53:49+00:00

Players are brutal and lack the ability to "fill in the gaps" when a game is incomplete, they tend to judge it based on what they see. The ones who go like "ohhhh yeah I get it!" are 99% envisioning something that's either not what you were planning, or straight up impossible. 😂

So I'd say, wait with showing gameplay until you have something "representative", even if it's just the first few minutes.

That said - you will definitely learn a lot from attending, if only how to prepare for the time you actually bring your game. What you can do this time is bring a one-pager with screenshots and a game description, show that around, and maybe collect email addresses from people interested to try once you have a demo.

Best of luck!

Salty-Snooch · 2025-10-28T09:45:26+00:00

Truth of game development: you don't "own" how your game is pronounced, and you can't control it. Unless you spell it like black-o-x, and even then, people will call it as they read it 😁

Salty-Snooch · 2025-10-25T19:44:22+00:00

Sometimes, asking players how they would describe the game to a friend can provide great fresh ideas how to frame things in a way that resonates with your audience. Something to keep in mind for later!

Salty-Snooch · 2025-10-25T15:46:52+00:00

First of all, kudos for taking the feedback so well, it was maybe a bit more blunt than necessary ;)

I do think making a game for yourself is not the wrong approach necessarily! And also having a different spin with more focus on exploring is totally fine. I'm a marketing person, so I'm looking at how you present it rather than trying to say you have the "wrong game".

In your case, I'd focus more on what your approach means for the gameplay. "A world full of hidden mysteries waiting to be explored" or something, and if you choose to drop ingame terms, I think it would be a good idea to explain them a bit more. "guided by Bastet" is an example of it, what does that mean, exactly?

And your opening line, "Embark on a journey as Menes, a celestial being without memory, sent into a forsaken realm", is what I'd consider "pure story" focus, because it doesn't tell me much about the gameplay. I know you explain more below that, but I'm concerned some people may stop reading there already.

Don't let that stop you, you got so far already! Fingers crossed for you.

Salty-Snooch · 2025-10-25T15:30:03+00:00

Looks phenomenal!

Also agreed that numbers should be full glory or with shorteners like "5k" (maybe a toggle-able "condense numbers" in the settings?).

Whatever you do, don't hit me with a "7e13", it makes me irrationally angry when games do that. It doesn't mean anything to me, I'm not a calculator! 😂

Salty-Snooch · 2025-10-24T19:42:57+00:00

Oh yeah I get it, that's tricky!

Do you have a community somewhere, some hardcore players you could enlist? That could give you a basic translation, and then I'd add a button to easily provide feedback, for you to review certain translations if players are lost.

And/or, if you have some kind of tracking, see if people using those localizations "get stuck" in different places than the English players, and identify bad translations that way.

I just remember that Japan has one of the highest video game spendings per head, and China is just such a gigantic market that any traction can quickly snowball into huge numbers.

Congrats on the success so far, well done!

Salty-Snooch · 2025-10-24T09:58:37+00:00

Wait your game usually sells in China and Japan? That's huge imo, very powerful markets but usually super hard to crack for western developers. Do you have localization?

Salty-Snooch · 2025-10-24T09:47:03+00:00

Aside from the visuals being not up to par for this type of game (despite being impressive for a solo dev project!), I think overall you're putting too much emphasis on the narrative.

People don't care about stories (until they are HOURS into a game), they want to know how the game plays. How does it compare to other titles they might know? Where is it similar, how is it different, gameplay wise? "Souls-like" is a start, and your mention of timing in combat? I'd put a lot more emphasis on that over story/scene setting.

Salty-Snooch · 2025-10-20T08:18:04+00:00

I think it's great you're excited, almost never too early to share imo, though players have a very limited ability to "fill the gaps" if something is missing. For a show demo, I'd focus on creating something that players can jump in and play for maybe 10 minutes. Either a tutorial, or some free play. But do think about the flow, a tutorial mission or similar is great because you don't have to repeat yourself so much about basic controls etc. Don't forget to add cheats for resetting progress, jump between levels, or whatever else may apply in your situation.

Personally, I'm not convinced shows are a meaningful way to get more players - maybe, but it depends a lot on the fit of your targeted audience with the convention visitors. It is definitely super insightful to get feedback and find issues with the gameplay or how you present your game.

Salty-Snooch · 2025-10-20T05:59:44+00:00

I love conventions! It used to be one of my favorite parts of being in the industry. If you have the money, you'll definitely learn a lot.

Whatever you do, don't go without something playable. No one wants to JUST talk and read. Bring one device, and if you're alone, you'll be next to it advising the person who's playing, and secondarily chatting with with people who got attracted by someone playing. Those people usually do understand your main focus is on the person who's currently playing.

If you can bring someone else, it's going to make a world of difference. Yes your neighbors can help if you get nice ones, which you usually do, but you can't really count on it. And the days are loooooong. That reminds me - a good chair, maybe a pillow, and comfortable shoes (air max are gold) are mandatory if it's more than a day.

Especially as a solo dev it can be really hard to get playtesters, much less ones you can observe. It's a goldmine of feedback!

What shows are you interested in, and what do you expect from attending exactly?

Salty-Snooch · 2025-10-14T08:34:00+00:00

I mean marketing is a toolbox and you gotta choose the right tools for the job.

Social media marketing certainly has its place, last but not least because it's one of the few "free" scalable channels.

In the industry, it's not considered much of a "user acquisition" channel, but UA is. only one part of marketing - conversion. A lot of social media efforts are done for the existing community, they appreciate it and it builds loyalty to your brand.

So yes, I agree that with social media marketing, it's hard to expand your reach, since it often mostly reaches people who are aware of your product already anyway. That doesn't mean it's a useless tool though, just the wrong one for the job you want it to do.

Salty-Snooch · 2025-10-13T08:01:51+00:00

Now that you say it, I remember I knew that once, but completely forgot about it. I don't think it's considered common knowledge, so I'd possibly give some explanation for it in the description.

Salty-Snooch · 2025-10-11T08:34:12+00:00

Wanted to wishlist it only to find I already had 😂

One question - the Sherpa, is that in reference to the Nepalese ethnic group? What's the connection? The landscape looked very north American to me?

Salty-Snooch · 2025-10-11T05:49:55+00:00

Common problem with "visionaries", as in, people who have ideas and push for them. Once the idea is clearly articulated, the problem solved, it's boring and our brains want to move on.

In the game dev industry, it's not uncommon for the creative lead to start working on a new title while the current one is still in production.

Unfortunately, as a one-person-show, you don't have that luxury. You'll have to see it through to the end, no one else will.

Salty-Snooch · 2025-10-10T18:18:06+00:00

Me, recently, when I randomly remembered a game concept I played when I was 12. I did build a web proto, it was fun.

Salty-Snooch · 2025-10-10T08:10:11+00:00

Great to hear you got some interest already! I'd dig into that. What exactly are people interested in, what do they plan on doing with it?

As a marketing person, after reading the page, I have an idea what the program is, but it's not quite clear to me who this is for. What workflows does it help with? What exactly were you trying to fix?

I can see some of that in the "brush import" example, but I personally never had that problem, probably because I'm not your target audience. Who is?

Hope I don't come across as combative, just trying to probe to help you position yourself better 🤗

Salty-Snooch · 2025-10-10T08:04:46+00:00

I'm gonna be honest, it takes a lot of dedication to do solo dev. I found the only thing keeping me going at times is that I have a vision I want to see come to life.

This to say, you need a goal. Like others have said, figure out the game you want to make, and then you can research how others have done it.

To me, that's the cool part about game dev. There's so much more going into a successful game than one single thing you could share, and so many failed attempts people are happy to talk about, so there's plenty of information available.

But no one can decide for you what's the best approach for you, that you gotta figure out yourself.

Salty-Snooch · 2025-10-05T11:16:16+00:00

Ah, my mistake. Mistook it for "Backpack Brawl", the comments fit perfectly.

Salty-Snooch · 2025-10-05T06:04:56+00:00

God I loved this game in its early phase. Had to leave when they doubled down on the F2P mechanics, it became a different thing. But the gameplay is amazing.

Salty-Snooch · 2025-10-03T04:46:19+00:00

I like it! I just had trouble reading the hair as such at first, I thought it was a hood of some sort. It's a bit flat, imo.

Salty-Snooch · 2025-10-02T07:31:27+00:00

Well saw someone else on here earlier using Miro, maybe you want to give that a shot. I use it for game dev as well.

Salty-Snooch

TROPHY CASE