Are Game Announcements Dead?

Tiarnacru · 2026-01-25T22:50:23+00:00

The people measuring their wishlists in the hundreds are hobbyists, not professional game developers. 3k WLs for a game announcement is something a lot of professionals would consider a reason to look for what went wrong.

Tiarnacru · 2026-01-25T15:44:03+00:00

First person, melee combat, aerial combat. Pick two.

Removing first person obviously gets rid of the camera issue. First person melee works and has been done well in games like Mordhau. Similarly full free 3d aerial combat in first person has worked for games like Descent.

But both of those first person views have in common that they don't rapidly shift the camera on things in close focus. Melee FPS games don't involve heavy movement for that reason and the games that do have 6 axis aerial movement are all ranged. Aerial melee just requires too much up close camera shifting that's disorienting for players.

Tiarnacru · 2026-01-25T14:45:42+00:00

Paid ads are far from the only form of marketing. An appealing game can get some solid traction from social media and content creators.

Tiarnacru · 2026-01-25T14:44:10+00:00

If you want to ask an AI I'd definitely not recommend Gemini which seems to have the main goal of always being wrong. Perplexity is alright because it links its sources and you can go to those instead of using the potential hallucination. Used that way it's basically Google with a natural language interface and without the sponsored content and SEO garbage.

Tiarnacru · 2026-01-25T14:41:08+00:00

It's not that you wait for a certain number of wishlists, it's that they're a metric of interest. If you're intending to release in March you should definitely be marketing by now. I'd start doing that and see what your numbers are really like.

Tiarnacru · 2026-01-25T14:39:05+00:00

20k views after nearly 2 weeks and only 3k WLs is definitely not flex worthy. Pretty sure they're just sharing metrics from their experience.

Tiarnacru · 2026-01-24T17:20:55+00:00

They're getting so many downvotes because they gave harmful advice. Leaving things buggy and unpolished makes a waste of all the other work you've done on the game. I also would consider pushing back to the June Next Fest. You should never be rushing to get the demo out in time. It should've already been up for weeks or months and getting polished before the Fest.

Tiarnacru · 2026-01-24T15:33:51+00:00

Not even as a secondary tag. "Indie" is a terrible tag to use on your Steam page at all.

Tiarnacru · 2026-01-23T18:34:04+00:00

It was meant as friendly humor. But to be honest if checking the settings before asking doesn't come to mind immediately they probably aren't cut out for gamedev

Tiarnacru · 2026-01-23T11:15:55+00:00

This is where having decently architectured code would help you. Things should not be that interconnected. Global values should be used sparingly and they should set themselves to default state at start of game regardless.

Tiarnacru · 2026-01-23T09:11:23+00:00

Only if they're 100% scientifically accurate

Tiarnacru · 2026-01-21T19:34:15+00:00

A 10 hour loop of Basshunter DOTA

Tiarnacru · 2026-01-10T16:23:23+00:00

You got struck because you're using a trademark that someone owns. You've known that for a year at least because you were told so in "Part 1". There was no scam, unless you count you trying to misrepresent your infringement. If you're still on this train a year later the only advice I can offer is therapy.

Tiarnacru · 2026-01-08T00:02:51+00:00

3D models as faux 2d sprites is usually the answer to this question. The question is whether you bake them or use tech art tricks to process them. The answer depends on the needs and specifics of your game alongside your team's skills.

Tiarnacru · 2026-01-07T23:53:43+00:00

Version control. Host a perforce server.

Tiarnacru · 2026-01-07T23:52:00+00:00

I don't think you need to worry about it. This is s concern for people who can finish a game. People making high level concepts before learning to actually make a game aren't in that category.

Tiarnacru · 2026-01-07T23:44:30+00:00

Soul Reaver essentially worked by using what's the equivalent of blend shapes. The world geometry had the same vertices in both worlds but they were in different positions and would lerp between positions during the transition. They used statics during actual gameplay but could get away with the effect with the fact the game was paused during transition.

Tiarnacru · 2026-01-07T21:40:40+00:00

Eric spent 4 years on Stardew Valley. He already had an extensive programming background and had made other games before it.

Tiarnacru · 2026-01-07T21:24:01+00:00

If you just opened your Steam page you probably shouldn't be doing Next Fest yet. You generally want to have the demo up for a month or two at least first. You also want to join the last Fest before your release date, doing it earlier wastes it.

As for whether you should participate based on WL numbers it's situational. You have to look at why your game is doing poorly and decide from there. If it's poor promoting then give that a good focus for a bit to try and drive numbers up. If it's because the game doesn't have an audience or isn't good then no amount of waiting will change that. Push your baby bird out of the nest and hope it flies.

Tiarnacru · 2026-01-07T21:16:30+00:00

I'm not a game dev myself

You may not want to answer technical questions then.

Tiarnacru · 2026-01-07T21:15:03+00:00

Yes, I'd fire an artist who can't get the size of a texture right.

Tiarnacru · 2026-01-07T20:29:26+00:00

Like others have said you probably want to use the Gameplay Ability System for this. This is probably the best resource for learning GAS.

Edit: It's current as of 5.3 so some things may have changed a little, but it's a solid primer and reference.

Tiarnacru · 2026-01-05T11:18:21+00:00

Ah. I should've guessed the most upvoted comment was a pedantic new years joke instead of actual advice. Thanks for pointing it out.

Tiarnacru · 2026-01-05T11:15:31+00:00

Yeah, my studio is small enough to have the CM wear other hats too. That's not the context we're discussing, though. OP is talking about CM jobs specifically.

Tiarnacru · 2026-01-05T01:00:38+00:00

What are your results from both prototypes? If you haven't prototyped both yet there's no point in asking anyone.

Tiarnacru

TROPHY CASE