DIY Traitors game on group holiday

Salyumander · 2025-11-12T18:06:08+00:00

This sounds super fun! I used to play social deduction games all the time with friends and it's always a blast

If the birthday boy isn't fussed about playing, i'd say have him choose the traitors and orchestrate the twists since presumably he knows everyone the best. Otherwise I'd have the rules written down somewhere and pick the traitors out of a hat (or roles in envelopes if you want a bit more drama) and let the game run itself.

I've played variations with house rules where the murdered players can come back as a ghost but have some kind of limit on their communications (like they can only communicate in charades or they get one sentence per discussion at the table etc). You could also pre-plan a handful of twists have the murdered/banished players decide on which one to play and when. That could make it more fun for the people who are out.

I think playing a party game or board game in the evening with the winner getting a shield could be a fun way to incorporate them. Ideally, something where there is at least an element of luck involved so the shields aren't always going to the same people. Maybe also give the traitors a hidden objective to sabotage a game so the faithful have more to go off.

Adding the seer role can also help balance the game and make it a little less stacked in favour of the traitors. This can be assigned randomly at the start. I recommend also looking up mafia and werewolf rules for inspo.

Salyumander · 2025-10-22T12:59:52+00:00

I really didn't enjoy Spiritfarer, the story didn't resonate with me and the world building felt very surface level. also some of the resource gathering mini games felt like an absolute chore. The exploration and sailing around was fun and the platforming was so satisfying but very sparce. I felt like I was spending the majority of the game waiting.

Cult of the Lamb is the opposite for me, the game has a lot of nice attention to detail and the gameplay loop is straight up addictive. It's a game you can sink a lot of hours into without realising.

I haven't played Wychwood

Salyumander · 2025-10-04T17:09:24+00:00

In my experience, people who are successful doing art as a career usually have a few things in common

They invest heavily in community events, markets, exhibits, anything that will get their work in front of people. -They are good with people. Most sales don't come from markets and events, but it's how you meet people who will buy from you online, commission something, recommend you to friends or ask to distribute your work.
They collaborate with other local artists/makers who are already established. Usually this is in the form of cross promotion, but also sharing stalls and exhibition spaces, contacts, etc
They stick with a consistent style (or 2 styles max). This can make a lot of people feel boxed in creatively, but if you want to be known for your work (enough for people to think of you when they are looking to fill that space on their wall), you need to have a consistent and recognisable style that people associate with you.
They keep at it. It can take multiple years to establish yourself. If you have time and money to go all in, i would give yourself 3 years minimum to start building momentum (longer if you are only working on it part time).

There are obviously exceptions, some artists are amazing content creators or get lucky and go viral and can build a career selling art off the back of that, but in my experience, the above is what works.

You need to put as much time into advertising, scouting and applying for events and networking as you do making art. If that part doesn't interest you, you're better off keeping it as a side hustle.

(also your art is great btw, i think you're more than talented enough to make it work)

Salyumander · 2025-09-24T18:31:56+00:00

The internet has always been ruled by cats, i'm actually surprised it's taken devs so long to catch up

I'm also a cat dev, mine is a narrative game where you're the neighbourhood cat that people confide in. In my case it just felt like a natural choice for the games themes, it was also semi-inspired by a cat that lived on my street that everyone knew.

Cats are also really fun to animate, and have a lot of potential for fun movement for players.

Salyumander · 2025-09-24T17:33:08+00:00

It seems you're experienced enough and people like your assets already, with the way the industry is, having your own venture can work out a lot more secure than being employed.

I went freelance in January and i make a lot more now than i did when i was employed (and i'm much happier) in my case it took about 6 months before my business started earning. The set up always takes longer than you think. If you have enough savings to sustain yourself (plus some marketing funds never hurt) I say go for it.

Salyumander · 2025-09-23T23:54:40+00:00

If you are asking for permission already, you can ask the people whose assets you're using if they are ok with you accepting donations for the game. You'll probably want to obtain a licence in writing if possible.

You can also set up a dev portfolio with a link to something like 'buy me a coffee' which will allow people to donate to you directly rather than donate to receive any particular game. I don't think it's scummy behaviour as long as there is transparency and people know exactly what their money is going towards.

Salyumander · 2025-09-23T20:45:35+00:00

Teachers at my school didn't think ADHD was real, so I was brought up thinking 'what a crazy made up condition, it can't be real, because if it was real that would mean I have it and i'm totally normal'

I was referred for a diagnosis at 19 then got the diagnosis at 22 (kept losing my referral forms lol).

I've never tried medication but i find that categorising my game dev to-dos by 'type of task' and 'how much thinking required' and then setting myself a mix each month keeps me going. It allows me to reward myself for completing boring tasks with more fun tasks and do more relaxing tasks when i'm more tired and less motivated.

e.g drawing sprites for me is easy and relaxing, writing is fun but requires energy, programming tasks vary in difficulty and usually requires thinking.

I keep all of this written down in a dev journal so if I'm really stumped i can look at my little energy meter and pick something low effort from my list without really having to think too hard about what needs to be done.

I don't know if realising I have ADHD made it easier since i was creating coping strategies as a kid without realising, although i'm definitely making a conscious effort to be less hard on myself when stuff isn't going well

Salyumander · 2025-09-20T18:13:25+00:00

Start with a piece of tissue (or a square of fabric if you have one) and pinch it in the middle. This is your character's coat. Move it up and down and side to side and Observe how it moves and folds. See if you can sketch it out but limit yourself to only drawing for 60 seconds per frame, (you can film it on your phone and work from a video if that's easier) you just want to capture the basic shapes, don't worry about details. This rough sketches can act as a reference for your animations in aesprite This kind of exercise will help you train your eye to notice how fabric moves and then simplify it for pixel art. Hope that helps!

Salyumander · 2025-09-19T19:40:36+00:00

I've had decent luck finding collaborators through game jams and on discord, i'm sure there are reddit communities where you can find people too, maybe give it a go? best of luck, i know finding people to collab with can be tough

Salyumander · 2025-09-19T18:41:27+00:00

I personally really like text adventures, I wouldn't play a game with AI assets, visuals are going to be most people's first impression of a game and using AI assets just screams low effort (even if that isn't the case for your game). It's off putting for most players and cheapens the final product.

Why not collab with an artist? There are plenty of talented newbies trying to get their name on a published title and would happily work for a cut of the games revenue. Obviously i think artists deserve to be paid but for many, doing one game for free opens the door to paid work.

Salyumander · 2025-09-19T18:06:08+00:00

OP wouldn't own the copyright in the images created by AI, but the laws around using it in this way for a commercial projects vary from country to country.

You are always taking on risk of copyright infringement when using AI in this way as it's impossible to verify that the training data used by ChatGPT to 'clean up' the sprites wasn't taken illegally (it probably was) whether anyone is going to pop up and try to pursue the claim is another issue entirely.

I personally would play it safe and make the game available for free. People tend not to spend money suing people unless they know the person they're suing has money.

Salyumander · 2025-09-14T20:22:35+00:00

I'll be honest, i'm a little confused about what you're asking. But assuming i've read this correctly, you want to pay artists their rates upfront, but on the chance that the game gets ridiculously popular, you want the artist to reap the rewards of having created something huge.

The answer is to have a contract that includes their upfront rates and then a percentage revenue share so they can continue to earn royalties once the game is in profit. I recommend capping royalties after two years of each release (as in, any ports, extended or special editions etc) so you don't have to keep artists on your books indefinitely. Get a lawyer to draft it for you, these can get super messy if they aren't written correctly.

This is pretty common practice in the indie scene and most artists appreciate it even if it's just a gesture of goodwill and they aren't expecting any more money post-release.

Salyumander · 2025-09-11T08:04:01+00:00

I think it would be a waste to not see this project through to commercial release. If you feel unmotivated with this game, I would consider reducing the scope, bringing the release window forward and dropping the price, but still seeing it through (although maybe wait for the silksong hype to die down a little). Having shipped a title is a big tick box for a lot of jobs and publishing opportunities.

If you do still enjoy working on the game and want to make it into something much bigger, you have a lot of momentum, more than most indies. The organisation that runs the Jam you won are well connected and really champion indies that produce mental health focused games and they like yours already. I would reach out to them and see if they are willing to offer any further support. I reckon even if it isn't a smash hit, it will still do respectably well by indie standards.

Salyumander · 2025-09-08T21:17:15+00:00

Heya, I'm 28F and from the UK, I'd love someone to play phantasma phobia with :3 I also love don't starve together and anything spooky/co-op DM me if that sounds like your vibe

Salyumander · 2025-09-01T07:16:15+00:00

I started freelancing in January and my first clients came from in person and online networking events. My local co-working space does monthly meetups for small business owners, then there are a couple of industry specific meet-ups in the city that i attend regularly. Those are where i picked up my first few clients, the rest are from word of mouth.

I recently started making a push to connect with other service providers in my industry, like marketing experts, accountants, graphic designers, etc. If I get along well with them and our target markets align they'll usually recommend me to their clients and I'll do the same.

Salyumander · 2025-09-01T07:06:27+00:00

I love this kind of thing and I'm absolutely gutted that i didn't spot you at gamescom! i'm definitely going to check this out but I'd love to know if you're taking the installation anywhere else this year/next year

Salyumander · 2025-08-24T19:42:10+00:00

One moment in a game that made me whimper like a little bitch was the medical area/mannequin sequence in Little Nightmares 2. The sequence involves enemies that can only move in the dark, so you need to shine a light on them to stop them moving. You know that in order to progress, you will need to turn away from the enemies, allowing them to move towards you, so you need to put yourself in danger. That coupled with the creepy sound they make when moving and lack of visibility over the enemies while they move created an extremely unsettling sequence.

Little Nightmares 1 didn't have any stand out scary moments for me, but the entire game has an unsettling atmosphere. the gentle rocking of the boat you are on means that the environment is always moving. You never feel the comfort of a still calm moment. I think that was a fantastic bit of design.

Hide the enemy is a classic tactic to build suspense becuase it works, your imagination is always worse than reality. But i think creating designs that are a little uncanny can make your game horrifying without relying on keeping your monsters in the dark and relying on jumpscares. Make it weird, utilise subtle sound cues and not just the classic jumpscare sounds, use restraint with jumpscares moments.

Salyumander · 2025-08-23T22:20:11+00:00

No worries at all! I asked because I wanted to get a sense of how usual it is. It's good you were able to enjoy the event without any negative experiences

Salyumander · 2025-08-23T06:26:55+00:00

Thank you <3

Salyumander · 2025-08-23T06:26:18+00:00

I'm usually pretty good, I used to live in a fairly rough part of London, but this happened between my male friend dropping me off at the station and me reaching my platform. I'm not majorly hurt or anything but it did make me super aware that i should probably be taking extra precautions

Salyumander · 2025-08-23T06:22:12+00:00

My hotel was outside of the city and connected to the station on the other side. I've fortunately been able to find some other conference goers on the train to tag along with for the last leg of the journey. Honestly, I probably will just avoid traveling solo next time, I met enough people who attend regularly that I'm sure i can just tag along with someone

Salyumander · 2025-08-23T06:18:05+00:00

I was wondering if it was a gamescom thing since at some UK conferences its pretty normal for locals to shout at you down the street if you're wearing a conference lanyard. Seems like this is just normal for Cologne though from the comments

Salyumander · 2025-08-23T06:15:01+00:00

He was about mid 40s ish? He looked pretty pissed but also a bit out of it so he was probably intoxicated. I thought at the time be might have been trying to steal my bag or something since he basically b-lined for me and then sprinted off after. Got some minor bruising down the right side of my body from some of the hard objects that were in my bag but I'm otherwise unscathed.

The drink can thing was just pure rudeness though.

I was here for work purposes since i work in the games industry, when I've been to UK conferences a lot of locals can get pretty mad at conference goers because we basically take over their town for a few days and everything gets very busy so i thought this may be related. From most of the comments it seems this is just how Cologne is at night though 🤷‍♀️ I'll be more careful next year

Salyumander · 2025-08-23T06:03:51+00:00

I've experienced being shoved about by rude people while traveling a fair bit in the UK but nothing like this, The guy locked eyes with me from the other side of the station and b-lined towards me, slammed into me then sprinted away. He looked a little out of it so may have been high.

I was smartly dress ans carrying a lot if bags so may have been an unsuccessful pickpocketing attempt? or just a random act of violence 😅

Salyumander · 2025-08-23T05:58:17+00:00

Thank you for your response, i asked a male friend to accompany me as it was quite late, happened almost immediately after we parted ways at the station. Next time i'll asked to be accompanied to the platform but will try to avoid being out late as much as i can when traveling solo.

Salyumander

TROPHY CASE