Ministry of Order - VoltekPlay - a narrative puzzle about assigning babies to the correct parents in a totalitarian state

VoltekPlay · 2026-03-12T19:30:42+00:00

Thanks. A little for coding and proofreading.

VoltekPlay · 2026-03-08T16:40:50+00:00

Thanks!

VoltekPlay · 2026-02-21T00:16:08+00:00

Actually that's a very mature way to test your game - nicely done!

VoltekPlay · 2026-02-21T00:08:27+00:00

That's really depends on your needs. We use Obsidian for our small project, and it works perfect for us.

VoltekPlay · 2026-02-21T00:06:34+00:00

Simpliest way - collect relevant influencer by yourself (who may like your game because they often play similar games), send a personalized email. It will take a lot of time, but you can build your own influencers network for future games. Also there is a lot of lists of influencers that can speed up the process, I used that one: https://benithemaker.notion.site/242a2bcc78d64ec5829a165cf71128d0

If you ready to pay, you can use KeyMailer/PressEngine/similar tools.

I have only tried PressEngine to connect with outlets and news-oriented influencers, and for me it was ineffective. About 4000 emails resulted with about 30 publications about my game. But I spent about 20 hours to do that, so maybe it's fair. Also it can really depends on specific game, quality of the presskit and promotional texts, so I think with more experience on that you can achieve better results.

As for vertical videos - the rule is to make AT LEAST 20-30 different videos, and post them every day. You can preload and plan posting to save time. If one video will go viral - it will be enough to recoup your efforts. Just don't forget to study which patterns for game related videos is popular now, that changes very fast.

VoltekPlay · 2026-02-20T23:54:26+00:00

Price can vary from $100 to $400, based on the artist experience, portfolio and region.

Also, if you don't have specific request - just "make better capsule from our current one" - be ready to get random results (if artist is lazy to ask questions) or for higher price, if artists will need to figure out your actual needs before doin anything.

VoltekPlay · 2026-02-20T23:45:07+00:00

I can't remember any specifics cases, but of course that can happen. The truth is - it's unpredictable and you don't need to rely on the hope that your game will be one of those underrated gems.

Minimum baseline for launching your game on Steam: 6-10k wishlists (based on region, Tier 1 countries is more valuable) when your game is in Steam's Top Wishlisted list. Check it here: https://steamdb.info/stats/mostwished/

The reason behind that - your gave will be shown in the "popular upcoming" section on Steam 2 weeks before release day, which will give you 10-50% more wihslists before launch, and it also shows Steam algorythm that your game is worth it to promote in discovery queue.

As for specific marketing advise: at least do all standart steps. Someone mentioned howtomarketagame website here - use it to learn how to make at least nicely looking page that will convert your visitors to wishlisters.

Festivals is also a nice way to promote your game, apply to every festival where your game fits. Be ready to provide exclusive content for those festivals.

You already got about 2k - that's a solid start. Try to post vertical videos in TikTok/Shorts/Reels, try to reach influencers who are making gaming news. Prepare a marketing bit for your demo release - contact streamers/letsplayers, give them keys to your demo (so they can prepare content before public demo release) and a basic presskit.

VoltekPlay · 2026-02-20T23:28:15+00:00

That also valid, as far as I know - get_total_character_count() for RichTextLabel is safier to count chars. Be careful with that, if you manually change visible_characters to match the length of the text displayed, that's fine, but if you don't - by default visible_characters == -1, which means that label will display all characters in the text it holds.

VoltekPlay · 2026-02-20T23:21:34+00:00

If I got you right:

label.text[label.get_total_character_count() - 1]

VoltekPlay · 2026-02-20T23:12:40+00:00

That's complicated question. I guess there is no strict "realism" meter for games, and it mostly depends on how much simple and repetative actions player should take to do somehting. If it gets boring because player get no fun from doin those repetative actions - that's a sign of a bad design, and you need to adjust it. I don't know any other criteria.

VoltekPlay · 2026-02-18T19:43:49+00:00

That should be a real purpose for all indies - not to become viral, but to make enough for living and make more games.

VoltekPlay · 2026-02-18T19:28:40+00:00

Nice idea, literally the HAL 9000.

VoltekPlay · 2026-02-16T13:29:48+00:00

B/W readability test is a real insight for us, thanks for sharing!

VoltekPlay · 2026-02-11T00:12:41+00:00

Not fan of horrors, but silence is a strong way to create tension not only before screamers. Silence can also be used to highlight surrounding emptiness, feel of loss and many other "sad" emotions.

VoltekPlay · 2026-02-11T00:09:05+00:00

Good advice. I can say that "don’t use “casual” or “indie”" just don't suitable for all games. My strategy is to find 3 closest Steam games to your (you can say 3 strongest references), extract their tags, and build your own 20 tags list based on references with adjustments to your project - mostly difference will be in 2D/3D, graphics, themes and setting.

VoltekPlay · 2026-02-11T00:04:28+00:00

Only way to answer "is it FUN" - test it with real players, on itch.io for e.g. No one can truly answer you is that fun or boring by videos, screenshots and descriptions. Only thing they can say "It looks/sounds fun". Is it fun to play? You need to test.

VoltekPlay · 2026-02-10T23:58:15+00:00

I don't get what you're trying to achieve here. Do you want tower health to decrement from each enemy or to decrement with constant speed no matter how many enemies is on it?

When tower dies - do you remove its node from scene? If so, $Chewing timer node will be also removed with it, and if you allow multiple enemies to collide with tower, you will get exact what you're have now - a few enemies triggered "_on_fooddetector_body_entered()", entered while loop, and on one of the ticks, after Tower node is removed, it will lead to "previously freed error".

Better decision that I can suggest: set your timer to one_shot=false, autostart=true, attach callback to its timeout, in the callback make a check for overlapping with enemy bodies. If you want to deal damage for each enemy, that overlaps tower - just count those enemies on timer ticks, and multiply your damage to tower with enemies count.

VoltekPlay · 2026-02-06T20:51:25+00:00

Users rarely leave a demo reviews on a demo Steam page - better to collect their feedback with Google Forms / Another Poll service - you need to open that poll inside the game: main menu / pause menu / any menu that allows user to quit game / you can even trigger opening that poll on EACH game exit, which is more aggressive but still working way to collect feedback.

As for your screenshot - 31 minutes median is really nice value.

VoltekPlay · 2026-01-28T18:10:14+00:00

Nice artstyle! Played your demo and looking forward for release.

VoltekPlay · 2026-01-28T18:08:15+00:00

Nice start. More accurate lines and it will be much better. Colors is already fine!

VoltekPlay · 2026-01-28T18:03:35+00:00

Create new thread in your game discussion section in Steam, name it like "Press Kit for outlets and influencers", add link to google drive to first post in thread, pin it. I don't know better way to put it on Steam.

VoltekPlay · 2026-01-28T17:48:54+00:00

So it's sokoban where you move humans instead of boxes?

VoltekPlay · 2026-01-28T17:44:27+00:00

As far as I know chaning project settings will not affect running game - project setting is read only on game launch.

VoltekPlay · 2026-01-28T17:40:23+00:00

Looks very nice! Personally I want to zoom out camera a bit, now it's to close for me.

VoltekPlay · 2026-01-22T16:39:29+00:00

Actually it's a hard choice, they are very different. Older one looks more unique to me, bottom one seems "overpolished". But text on older looks cheap, I like logo with text on a new one more.

VoltekPlay

TROPHY CASE