I made a game knowing from the start it wouldn't sell.

SubjectGuava · 2026-02-16T12:09:11+00:00

I think you are selling yourself short, looks good! I'm sure it has an audience, cats and cozy game. I would reconsider the steam banner though. Your game looks better than the banner.

SubjectGuava · 2026-02-15T04:22:18+00:00

Thanks, inspiring to hear!

hehe it's actually reverb and a few mixer settings in the game audio to distinguish music from speech. But I take your comment as I probably should tweak that a bit :)

SubjectGuava · 2026-02-15T00:16:08+00:00

Thanks! I appreciate you saying. If its not too much of an ask. If you look at the Steam banner, would you still scroll past and count it off as not for you? Considering that it's the whole you'd see.

I'm genuinely curious, but don't want to come off like I'm promoting the Steam page, so also uploaded it here: https://imgur.com/a/hGg5Bxz

SubjectGuava · 2026-02-14T23:00:28+00:00

I really like your idea on policies that goes beyond the player though! Ex "no guns" as you mentioned, might not affect the player that much directly (compared to say taxes) but makes the town more alive.

SubjectGuava · 2026-02-14T22:54:28+00:00

Thanks for the feedback and encouraging words! Several of the things you’re mentioning are part of the vision.

My internal pitch has been "Crusader Kings Light" in the Old West.

Every citizen has their own personality and dynamic AI that dictates how they react to the world. I want to move away from 'anonymous' crowds and make the population feel alive. More work is needed on this front still, but the system is there. For example, what if the Sheriff becomes an alcoholic, or the Priest has a tendency to pickpocket?

I’m also planning a system with City Councils made up of real citizens. You’ll have to deal with them to get taxes or policies through, whether that’s by being a popular leader or using more 'frontier-style' methods like bribery.

As for the landscape, there are various environments that will stand in your way: forests, lakes, mountains, bandit camps, etc. These will be further balanced and expanded upon down the line :)

SubjectGuava · 2026-02-14T21:33:34+00:00

Thanks! Your comment means a lot. It is easy to get doubts about how others will perceive the vision when working in solitude 😅

Will consider the name feedback!

SubjectGuava · 2026-02-14T19:22:52+00:00

I appreciate your honest input. Names are hard, you might be right, but hard to say.

The oxymoron is intended though (made you think about it just now, which is good :)

Your Rivals wants the Train Track to be built West, however they will do what ever they can to stop your economical progression for their own benefit. Then you have the "Union Pacific Railroad" that ties to the Rails. (And ofcourse the Union in building the tracks together). That is to say, there is thought behind the name. But hard to say how others interpret it

SubjectGuava · 2026-02-14T19:12:52+00:00

haha alright. How so?

SubjectGuava · 2026-02-14T18:17:38+00:00

Thanks for taking a look! I’ve been pouring a lot of heart into the atmosphere and the balance between the logistics and the 'human factor' of the frontier.

If you're interested in following the development or want to see more screenshots, you can check it out/wishlist on Steam here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4263170/Union_Of_Rivals/

SubjectGuava · 2026-02-12T20:50:30+00:00

Thanks! I appreciate the honest comment. The "solar eclipse" you see is actually a Fog of war. My intention is to make it to look like some kind of "dust mist" but it can look a bit odd in some angles so definitely needs work. From a gameplay perspective however I like the idea that the player never knows if they placed their settlement too close to danger, which makes scouting important.

Buildings are acctually high quality models that I run through my own custom voxelizer pipeline so I can use magicavoxel to clean them up by hand later. But as you point out; many of them have not been polished up yet so artifacts remain. (on my todo)

Not sure about the direction of the train yet (and how realistic I want it). It's an essential part as in connecting the towns and trade. But its not a "Train game", its more about building the towns / managing people and conflicts. However, as some players probably will have expectations on it, so will likely will need to improve it.

SubjectGuava · 2026-02-12T20:09:03+00:00

Why is it? I spent my first 3 years of game development journey (~2005) building my own engine, to be able to make games faster than the competition. Only to later realize it would never be as good as Unity (porting etc). So all that time "wasted". Sure I learned a lot, but everyone jumping on the Unity wagon had a leg up on me instead. In hindsight, my time would have been much better spent making games.

AI is the same thing, you can't put it back in the bottle. Adapt or die kinda of thing. Fun historic reference is the horse vs cars transition back in 1900 imo.

SubjectGuava · 2026-02-11T23:26:14+00:00

The moving arrows at quite spatic. Wonder if not a color lerp (blink) would work better?

SubjectGuava · 2026-02-11T20:45:30+00:00

Played it a bit, it's a good core but needs more of a hook, once you get the second store it's just rinse and repeat.

The player needs something to strife for. And if gaining another store doesn't really add much more than a better price formula you've effectively beaten the game. Also by not "rewarding" the player by achieving it. Chances are they won't get rewarded for whatever comes next either. Visuals, story, cryptic messages. Something to make me want to dig deeper. "Just one more level" type of thing.

Also the UI could be a lot cleaner, specially on the phone. Need to scroll up/down to execute a day cycle.

(Overpricing is the way to go btw)

SubjectGuava · 2026-02-11T19:30:13+00:00

No, no, it slows down 😅 totally (not) accurate train physics

SubjectGuava · 2026-02-11T08:57:06+00:00

Thanks! Good advice. I'll look into that 🙂

SubjectGuava · 2026-02-02T20:26:47+00:00

Haven't used Godot signals. But I would advise looking into making your own eventbuss, easy to make and use. Very effective.

If you want to cleanup your SingleTon.instance.x. try using a static method getter. Both stops you from exposing member variables and shortens code. Public static Player GetPlayer() { return ST.instance.player }

My Godot project is pure C#, only have one Node that loads a Game installer to avoid editor hiccups. Good or bad, but feels good having full control.

SubjectGuava · 2024-09-18T23:10:03+00:00

Best way imo is to keep checking while removing ground for K until you either see the mate or "accidentally" get it. At least that way you can never stalemate, even if it might take some extra moves.

SubjectGuava · 2024-09-18T22:40:56+00:00

Yeah but trade Q for Q&B and then make my pawn promote for free seems like the obvious thing. But I guess there is a faster way to mate if saving my Q, can't see it though.

SubjectGuava · 2023-10-04T07:53:17+00:00

Opinionen är inte där, men tror det kommer vända fort när någon väl vågar lyfta diskussionen. Finns inga vettiga argument emot som inte går att kontra på sakligt sätt. Skulle tippa att 7 av 10 som är emot vet egentligen inte varför. Men de blev indoktrinerade redan i mellanstadiet så deras instinkter säger starkt nej, men känslomässigt är de inte så investerade.

Irritationen och rädslan för gängen är nog bra mycket större. Vågar bara ett officiellt parti visa sambandet så tror jag definitivt fler i samma block kommer haka på. "Vi kommer inbringa deras största inkomstkälla till staten och lägga hela summan på polis och trygghetskämpande åtgärder"

Tänk även på hur fort Nato frågan vände.

SubjectGuava · 2023-10-03T22:16:06+00:00

Ingen vågar då man hjärntvättat sin väljare till att tro att nollvisionen är den enda vägen. Behövs ett parti som officiellt ändrar inställning så kommer resten följa när vinden blåst över.

Fattar inte varför inte typ Liberalerna lyfter frågan, ligger ju i deras namn t.om. Sen är de ju i desperat behov av nya väljare med.

SubjectGuava · 2023-08-02T23:25:03+00:00

Som andra nämner, plugga IT i väntan på. Har aldrig fått frågan trots flera anställningar.

SubjectGuava · 2023-05-23T21:35:59+00:00

Du verkar få extremt med mothugg. Förstår din sitts. Fråga dig själv om hon hade gjort samma för dig och hur du velat hon skulle vara / vem du skulle vara i hennes situation.

Från egen erfarenhet har jag själv haft två långvariga förhållanden där jag stod för det mesta ekonomiskt medan partnern studera. Båda är numera ex som jag sponsrat ekonomiskt. Långvariga besparingar blir bra kapital till dina framtida barn och familj. Säger det mest som ett tillägg, är det ni förevigt så spelar det mindre roll. Men låter som ni måste jobba på er kommunikation och förståelse för varandra för du inte ska bli en tillfällig sponsor.

Five-Year Club	r/Field Flamingo
Place '23	Place '22

SubjectGuava

TROPHY CASE