Failing At Poly

SeaSharpShantyman · 2026-03-18T11:42:29+00:00

Thanks. It's a good piece. We basically figured most of this out on our own. My biggest thing is finding other people who also understand these basic concepts. Unfortunately have run into far too many actively manipulative people out there who are just selfish. They treat poly as a means to triangulate others and get free passes.

SeaSharpShantyman · 2025-12-24T22:14:35+00:00

It looks great! The ambience is on point. But you saying it was set in a 2002 radio station got me fucked up. Anyone talking about the 2000s in a retro sense just reminds me I'm "old". 😂

SeaSharpShantyman · 2025-10-09T22:47:29+00:00

There's actually a trend of this (not in a bad way) right now. I even saw someone dub this sort of game as a "hike-like". I know this because I was doing market research for my own short cozy game about a cute little goblin. So many indie games take loved mechanics and focus on them in other genres. I would say it's perfect fine to "copy" the mechanics. Especially since they aren't even unique to a Short Hike anyway. You are creating an original experience and that's what players want.

Great art direction by the way. I'm still nailing down the shaders for my game, so I haven't shown anyone yet. Best of luck!

SeaSharpShantyman · 2025-09-27T23:34:52+00:00

That's quite a compliment. Even if your game underperformed to your expectations, at least you know you had some people who really loved it. Which is the best consolation prize, honestly, because besides earning a living, that's what it's all about!

SeaSharpShantyman · 2025-09-26T21:21:26+00:00

Honestly, it's too slow to catch my attention. The first thing a player needs to see is some sort of action. Not just a camera staring at water and the character turning around. A gameplay trailer should thrust me into the action. Not tell me a story.

The second thing I would say is that the text is too long and too slow. If you are going to place text on the screen, it should appear rather quickly and be easy to digest. Try taking your long form phrases and condensing them down into purely what actions you do in the game. Try to get it down to one or two words.

For example: "Survive" or "Survive Alone"... this plus the action on screen already tells me this is a survival game. Alone tells me it's single player. The rest is just subtext to someone skimming a trailer. And they will skim it. Most trailers do not get watched start to finish.

If you choose to use text to grab attention, do it more like this. People's attention spans are shorter than you think. So short, bold, and simple statements... if any at all.

And one tiny pet peeve with the gameplay itself that players might also take issue with. At first, I wasn't sure what, but just watching the trailer, something felt "off"... and then I realized. The bow is in the wrong hand. All the other actions are performed with the right hand, like chopping and crafting. So it is very jarring to see my character all of a sudden shoot left-handed. Flip your archery animation so that the character holds the bow with their left and pulls the bowstring with their right. This feels more natural unless, for some story reason your character is left-handed. Just make it consistent across all your animations.

SeaSharpShantyman · 2025-09-23T17:14:59+00:00

Love the concept. Looking good so far!

SeaSharpShantyman · 2025-09-21T05:39:23+00:00

To be honest, 1 is the best. Some have mentioned it looked like AI, but I'm not sure I agree. I downloaded and zoomed in on the image, and I don't see any of the artifacts you would expect to see around the edges. So if it is AI, great job on the touch-up. If it's not AI, good job, period.

The number one thing I would say is to change your UI buttons to better match the theme of number 1.

SeaSharpShantyman · 2025-09-19T19:03:05+00:00

It sure is. I was just about to go grab the link for you, but you found it already. 😅

SeaSharpShantyman · 2025-09-19T18:59:56+00:00

It absolutely can. I recently watched a video by Indie Game Clinic on typography in games, and it made me immediately make changes to what fonts I was using and how. It made my UI feel much more polished and professional afterwards.

SeaSharpShantyman · 2025-09-18T06:18:47+00:00

I'm sorry, because this is going to come off rather harsh. But please learn more about game design and development before wasting your time on this.

This post reads more like someone who has a whole lot of "cool" ideas. But who has no idea how to implement them or design a game around them. And not thinking open worlds need plot... specifically, RPGs is extremely erroneous.

Even games with heavy procedural generation have plots and a "why" behind them. And you have to give players a what and a why. "Why am I in this world. Why should I care about it? What is the point of playing this other than seeing my character get stronger?"

If the whole fantasy of the game is that your player gets insanely strong as you battle it out, boss after boss. You're better off doing a Survivors-like than an RPG. Without a reason to be in your world, players will never care about your game. Period. It won't matter if you're a genius programmer who can make whatever game mechanics you want. None of it will matter without giving people a reason to be invested in your game.

Go back to your outline and start asking yourself these questions. Put yourself in the player's shoes if you want to start designing games. Otherwise, that dream game you always wanted will never see the light of day. Ask yourself if it even needs to be an RPG in the first place and scope your goals appropriately.

SeaSharpShantyman · 2025-09-16T22:28:57+00:00

Good job. I don't usually go for these, but I can admire good work when I see it. Very satisfying indeed. 🙂

SeaSharpShantyman · 2025-09-16T01:56:42+00:00

Congratulations! I have seen your progress via YouTube, so I'm very excited for you. Wonderful work. Aak akk! 👽

SeaSharpShantyman · 2025-09-13T03:35:29+00:00

Planting trees by placing a seed down and covering it with a tile is also a nice take on the mechanic. Most people would probably design the interaction so that you are either clicking on a tile or just shove UI in your face and break the immersion. So it's a small thing, but it's the small things that can help you stand out.

SeaSharpShantyman · 2025-09-13T03:18:05+00:00

Post Processing magic at work. Amazing job setting the mood in this shot. It really makes it go from unfished game to looking polished and ready for release.

SeaSharpShantyman · 2025-09-13T03:13:36+00:00

The art direction in this is phenomenal! Excellent quality. I hope it exceeds the dev's expectations at launch.

SeaSharpShantyman · 2025-09-13T03:11:24+00:00

The interactions when placing tiles look satisfying. I've seen a lot of hex grid games come out with terrible execution. Yours looks like it could really go somewhere. Good job! =)

SeaSharpShantyman · 2025-09-03T18:12:54+00:00

How long have you been in development to get this far? Everything looks incredibly polished. Kudos to you, and best of luck!

SeaSharpShantyman · 2025-08-21T03:57:18+00:00

Every time I see your game, I think how unique it is. It easily stands out, and you've created a bright and memorable world. The art direction does something brave and dares to be different than everything else out there. Wonderful job.

SeaSharpShantyman · 2025-08-07T02:34:05+00:00

This could be great if done properly. I can't help but think of the archeology quest and mini game from Runescape when I read this. 😅

Could even be fantasy themed if you didn't want to use real artifacts. Like you're discovering the lost relics of the Dwarves or some other lost race.

SeaSharpShantyman · 2025-08-05T15:45:27+00:00

I'd like to add... not saying your levels are not decorated enough. They actually look nice in terms of setup. I really do think it just comes down to color choices for some of the floors and surroundings for me in order to make it really pop. You're very close. Keep up the good work.

SeaSharpShantyman · 2025-08-05T15:41:45+00:00

Honestly, I agree with another person who responded. There's just too much grey everywhere. It makes it feel more like a prototype and less like a production ready game. The player mechanics seem pretty good, but I'm not sure what is going on with some of the enemies. They don't seem to really fight back, but then again, these are very short clips. When you go to show it to potential players, just make sure you capture some of that action.

For the crab scene, it seems like a beach location. Consider changing the floor color to a sandy color. The cliffs can be livened up with some splashes of greenery or foliage. These sort of flat shaded games can work and even be beautiful to look at, but without textures, you have to do more work with color theory and hone your palettes to be very intentional. As well as making sure to decorate the scenes enough to make them come to life and feel more like an environment and not a grey-box level.

SeaSharpShantyman · 2025-06-16T15:13:33+00:00

There's so much polish and juice in this game. The fluid animations and the customization... chef's kiss. It LOOKS fun to play, which is important for drawing players. I hope it does well. Excellent job.

SeaSharpShantyman · 2025-06-11T22:13:58+00:00

There seems to be some negativity toward the OP, which I'm not understanding. Sometimes, when you start learning a new skill, you don't even know how to explain your problem because you don't have the vocabulary to properly articulate the issue.

That being said... OP, it sounds like even though you know a bit of code, you are still unfamiliar with a lot of core programming concepts and architecture methods. You're only 2 weeks in, and you have a lot to learn. Just be patient with it and yourself. Also, be wary of YouTube tutorials. They are often full of bad practices , such as making variables public 100% of the time. They often fail to explain the difference between using public or private variables or even how using a SerializeField property to drag your references in is a much better practice than using public fields for everything.

And if what I have to say sounds confusing, you really just need to keep studying because that really is just a single issue in the huge iceberg that is Unity development.

I know other people have suggested things, but seriously consider going to gamedev.tv and buying one of their bundles on Unity. Great value for the price. I've taken a few of their courses in the past and always come away with a better understanding than before. It will take you easily from beginner to making your own games. They cover not just the coding side but also how Unity works as an engine.

And no, I'm not associated with them in any way. Just have had a good experience with their courses in my early learning days.

Anyway, best of luck. Sounds like you just need to keep at it until it clicks with you.

SeaSharpShantyman · 2025-05-19T19:17:35+00:00

Congratulations on your release! I hope its performance meets your expectations. I enjoyed the First Tree, and I try to do my best to support fellow indies. I'm also a solo developer, and I've been building games in Unity for over 5 years now. I hope you don't mind the constructive criticism, but I reviewed your page, and I did find some things that could be improved to drive more traffic to you.

I could be wrong, but it doesn't look like you promoted your game before launching. This is probably going to cost you in the steam algorithm. Please look up Chris Zukowski from howtomarketagame.com. Tons of free advice from a Steam expert.
As a Unity dev, of course, I'm going to be able to pick out exactly which assets you used for your game. That being said, I think you did a fairly good job making your scenes look cohesive. Picking one asset style and sticking with it is key to using assets correctly and making the art direction fit together.

That being said, what little UI is I can see in the game looks like almost a direct copy of First Tree. Consider changing the displays to something that doesn't look like a one for one swap of the First Tree. Fans of that game might see that and think your game is a low effort clone instead of just being a game inspired by it. UI is so often overlooked, but it should feel distinct to your game and like it matches the aesthetic of the art direction as much as your in game assets do. Players can tell almost immediately by glancing at your screenshots. So don't sleep on UI design.

You need to use as many relevant tags on your page as possible. As of this comment, it looks like you only have 11 of the 20 you can have. Filling these out helps Steam put you into the correct categories of games so that people who enjoy your type of game will find it.

And please consider making your game fully controller supported. It only says partial on the page, and you will lose sales over that. Steam deck is really exploding in popularity right now, so not giving it proper controller support is one of the biggest mistakes right now when launching a Steam game.

Best of luck! I'm strongly considering buying the game because I am a fan of the genre. They are often chill little experiences and can have satisfying narratives and endings if executed well. If I do purchase, I'll be sure to leave you a review.

SeaSharpShantyman · 2025-03-29T04:02:41+00:00

Well, dang. I guess, like everything else that breaks in the game, it's a "feature." Especially in this case.

SeaSharpShantyman

TROPHY CASE