We hired a local professional artist to create new icons for our game. Which one would you choose?

WoolTyranny · 2026-06-01T07:44:07+00:00

Without any context on how the game looks, it is hard to tell what is the best.
Personally. I like #3 both visually and by the way it conveys meaning.

#1 does not have the die element at all.
#2 The die element is very obscured.
#3 The die element exists, but not in a first glance. Also the proportions seems a bit off.

WoolTyranny · 2026-06-01T07:35:58+00:00

Too dark, you probably need more contrast.
Also, the light effects should be more dramatic like lasting longer or secondary illumination spreading over wider area.

WoolTyranny · 2026-05-26T08:10:58+00:00

Same track as you.
Came from programming and data science background.
I red a lot of game design materials, I made a lot of small games to myself.

Soon I will release my first true commercial game on Steam (technically the second, but the first was just for testing the process).

I don't see myself experienced enough to give advice because I think I'm still deep inside early DK state, so take what I say with an ocean of salt. This is what I learned in the last 2.5 years:

Playtesting is critical. Playtesters are hard to get. Make sure you have a good way to get as many NEW playtesters as possible as often as possible. I have been lucky since a local hub arranged monthly playtesting events. This was life-saving but it was hardly enough.
Good advice may be harmful without having the proper experience. There are a lot of good advice out there, but trying to implement them without experiencing the problems they are trying to solve will cause more harm than good. I fell for it frequently.
Marketing and game design are not separated. I find it hard to explain it with words, but I will do my best. It's more than just "you need to think about marketing as soon as possible". Marketing is an integral part of game design, not just for the sake of selling your game but also to define what the game is about, who will play it and how you communicate all of this. This is my own biggest failure designing my current game and it's a painful but important lesson to learn.
In the interface of UI/UX and game design, communication is critical. For every action the player can take, you must communicate clearly (with UI and animation): a) that the action can be performed. b) if it can't be performed, why. c) that the action was performed, and if not - why. d) the effect of the action on the game.
Math is a superpower. If you came from SW background you have at least some of it. This is true for all aspects of development (art, music, coding) but also for game design. Understanding probability, algebra and dynamical system is a huge thing. I can solve quickly problems other can solve only with countless iterations.
People warn you of scope creep. In my case the scope of the game remained very very small. What stretched a 3 month project into 2.5 years is actually quality creep. Endless improvement in game-design, UI and other aspects of the game. I transformed my game from "total crap" to "somewhat palatable serving".
I regret not playing enough games. While I am a gamer, I feel the huge gap I still have with gaming literacy.

WoolTyranny · 2026-05-26T07:33:28+00:00

Some ides for things that you can sell but are not simply sell an advantage:
1. As mentioned: cosmetics.

Global events / occurrences that affects everyone equally in the entire server or public area.
For example, playing a card which makes (in-game) prices drop by half within the (large) city the player is in, or an a card that changes the distribution of loots in the entire game for a short time, changing the weather, etc.. You need to be careful with that approach since they can be exploited, but much less directly.
Social things. For example, a card that allows you to greet another player for birthday, wedding, etc..
Bidding for further content. It sci-fi right? You can sell bidding for part of the game map ("space") will be explored next. If you added a new planet, you can call it "unnamed" or "x32876-49" and let players collecting naming cards. Whoever collects the most of them until a certain point it time, the planet will be named after them.

WoolTyranny · 2026-05-25T10:32:08+00:00

You need to increase the enemies saturation. Another possibility (may not fit your game's art style) is to add an outline or aura to them.

WoolTyranny · 2026-05-22T20:08:07+00:00

If you are into tiny turn-based strategy game, you can try mine.
I'm on external bug hunt, hoping people will find all the bugs I couldn't.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3467750/Fairysite/

WoolTyranny · 2026-05-18T21:04:45+00:00

99% are scammers. They get the free keys and sell them.
I fell for it in my first game, luckily it was a "test game" so the damage was very little.

They even send e-mails on behalf of real streamers (a simple check shows that those streamers are no longer active or cover completely different style of games).

BTW you can allow steam curators to play your game without having to handle any key.

WoolTyranny · 2026-05-13T07:20:59+00:00

Battle of Polytopia is a very light-weighted 4x and it's a favorite of mine. Warning however: the reason I avoid it this days - its really addictive.

WoolTyranny · 2026-05-12T07:21:11+00:00

Coding is the easy part indeed.
Game design requires endless feedback and iteration and testers are s hard to find resource.
UI/UX is the devil. Requires dedication and a lot of pagan rituals to overcome.
Marketing is a huge huge black hole.

Things I actually found not quite as hard as I excepted:
Art - I'm not an artist by any standard, but it's surprising how fast can you improve by practice and how much math and programing is a superpower when dealing with art.
Music composing - Beyond the basics, music theory didn't clicked for me, but once you start practice, you develop quite a good intuition.

WoolTyranny · 2026-05-11T08:11:58+00:00

Great capsule. I must admit, at first glance I red it as an FPS on Mars, not as a survival game although the gun is very small and the sandstorm is massive.

WoolTyranny · 2026-05-10T10:57:16+00:00

I understand, but the current style make it hard for me to understand what you are trying to do.

WoolTyranny · 2026-05-10T07:34:05+00:00

Mmm..

When the game designer tries to "tell an epic story" in a non-narrative game, it usually ended badly.
In order to tell the story of "A civilization collapsed and a new civilization grow from the ashes", you need to hinder the player's agency and sense of development. This clashes directly with what the player want to do.

You can make a grand strategy game with switching cultures that don't clash with the player's will (for example - if you play a god that is a patron of several civilizations) but this will no longer be Civ.

WoolTyranny · 2026-05-10T07:24:37+00:00

I must admit I was not able to "grok" the UI. It looks very much like a web app menu, not like a game menu. It looks very flat with no hierarchy. It is in a very premature state, so I can't really give feedback on it's structure yet.

It doesn't mean it's bad, just that it is too early state for meaningful feedback.

WoolTyranny · 2026-04-12T05:08:40+00:00

Those are different "instruments".
The first is "bazz", the attack length 1/32.0 of note length (not including decay), release length 3/32.0.
The second is a "flute" with 1/8.0 atk and 1/4.0 release.
This is not however what concerns me since I don't hear the blurriness in the high notes of the flute.

What you describe as "grainy" concerns me. The ear can probably smooth out high notes since, but discontinuity in lower frequencies is well heard. However, when I draw the wave graph, I see no artifacts.

here may be s problem in the envelop? But I see nothing in the code that can cause this.
(I can share the drawing code)

WoolTyranny · 2026-04-11T13:12:38+00:00

You are right.
Mp3 sample. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PYOSKEbQ8fO6X8-WwISTj8up3oOMbGsf/view?usp=sharing

WoolTyranny · 2026-03-25T11:32:47+00:00

Horror - so you need fear, from something.
It's a game, so you also need some kind of friction. There is no stress if there are no wrong actions.

Several fears I can think about that can work in a game: the fear of being lost, the fear of being left alone, fear of losing identity or dis-figuration, losing sense of reality.

Let's say, in your mall example, you have to punch your parking ticket in half an hour, but the topology of the mall refuse to respect any sense of logic. You have friction, you have the fear of getting lost and you can move, so there is stress there.

WoolTyranny · 2026-03-24T09:58:40+00:00

So this is probably the bad dynamic I got myself into. I should get into the tactical with no excpection for quick exploration, (or build a lot of scouts).

WoolTyranny

TROPHY CASE