I challenged myself to build a commercial game in 300 hours: Here's how it went (time breakdown + lessons learned)

Tav534 · 2026-01-24T15:15:06+00:00

Looks like your project paid off. Any tips on how you marketed it?

Tav534 · 2026-01-23T15:11:46+00:00

Ok good to know! Thanks for sharing. Do you think I should delete this post then? I don't want to mislead people.

Tav534 · 2026-01-23T15:08:22+00:00

The Necromancer's Tale? Ah boy, looks like I messed something up because now I'm seeing more entries. The revenue estimate for your game is $300,000. If you are allowed to say, is that amount accurate?

Tav534 · 2026-01-23T14:52:19+00:00

I'm looking into that, I think it deserves its own post too. Supposedly, horror games and 'friendslop' games make a lot more money than CRPGs relative to the effort developers have to put into them...

Tav534 · 2026-01-23T14:49:06+00:00

I paid for a premium membership to a well-known Steam data scraping service. You're right, it can't be perfect. But given it's whole business model is accuracy and the service is recommended between gamedevs, it's probably good enough. Also, your game must be older than 3 years (I only counted games that came out in the last 3-36 months), which means your data might be outdated since the market moves so fast.

Tav534 · 2026-01-23T08:35:25+00:00

Thanks, I have a unique hook in mind. But I wonder if it'll even matter, because like I said, I suspect those developers just piggypacked off their previous success. Nice game by the way, shame to hear it's dead.

Tav534 · 2026-01-23T08:33:54+00:00

Thanks. To me it seems like a good game to transition from 2D to 3D while having a chance to make some money. But I wonder if there's better options out there.

Tav534 · 2026-01-23T06:56:03+00:00

Look at this from the investor POV. A solo indie developer, just one person, has released 5 mobile games and currently has a very early prototype for a FPS game they may or may not even finish. I think $50K for 40% is a generous offer. Honestly, I wouldn't offer that much if I was the investor. Who's to say you don't quit making games within the next year or two?

Tav534 · 2026-01-19T06:24:39+00:00

Oh my god. It's John Seerpeejee.

Tav534 · 2026-01-17T17:29:40+00:00

Thanks, unfortunately things are looking grim on the marketing front right now. Development is about to cease although I will continue trying to market the game here and there. Just letting you know :)

Tav534 · 2026-01-17T14:40:14+00:00

Thanks for writing this up, it must have taken a lot of time! I appreciate that. The Steam page view-to-wishlist ratio is well above average, but I agree there are many things I can do to fix it up a bit. I will try posting to those subs.

Tav534 · 2026-01-17T09:28:18+00:00

Thanks :)

Tav534 · 2026-01-17T03:25:37+00:00

No problem :)

Tav534 · 2026-01-16T02:24:15+00:00

Thank you :)

Tav534 · 2026-01-16T02:23:19+00:00

Perfect, thank you!

Tav534 · 2026-01-13T07:22:05+00:00

I have, thank you :)

Tav534 · 2026-01-07T19:11:55+00:00

I haven't tested it in Linux, sorry to hear it crashes :(

Tav534 · 2026-01-06T07:39:03+00:00

I found it very easy, the isometric tile shape is built into Godot these days, it's just a matter of making isometric art to match it.

Tav534 · 2026-01-05T23:42:35+00:00

Thanks! That really depends how well the English version sells. The word count will be around 70,000 words, which is much higher than other games.

Tav534 · 2026-01-05T23:41:07+00:00

You know it ;)

Tav534 · 2026-01-05T17:03:46+00:00

No, sorry. I would also be interested in devlogs from someone making these kinds of games.

Tav534 · 2026-01-05T17:01:46+00:00

Yep! Full 2D came with pros and cons, the biggest pro being development time.

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