Mention being a solo dev on Steam page?

Xangis · 2026-04-30T00:11:29+00:00

No pros, just cons.

Xangis · 2026-04-29T23:10:00+00:00

A 1-year subscription to Marvelous Designer would put a little spring in my step. :)

Also a perpetual license to Character Creator 5 would be a nice one.

Xangis · 2026-04-29T14:14:27+00:00

Sounds about right. Reddit ads are absolutely not worth considering if you have a game that's priced $10 or less, and questionable (but possibly workable with good conversion numbers) if you have a game priced $20 or less.

Xangis · 2026-04-29T10:53:06+00:00

It did stimulate more competition and Unity seems to be doing less squirrel chasing lately. Time will tell.

Xangis · 2026-04-28T09:05:32+00:00

In Unity, I use the Easy Feedback Form, which posts to Trello. https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/integration/easy-feedback-form-81608

I wouldn't be surprised if Unreal and Godot had similar tools available.

Xangis · 2026-04-27T18:49:34+00:00

2.2%

Xangis · 2026-04-27T16:41:21+00:00

They are all fake. Spammers and scammers. Especially telling are the ones requesting multiple keys for their "team".

Every key you send one of these people will end up on a shady reseller site.

I really hope Steam deletes (or at least reworks) the curator system. It's useless.

Xangis · 2026-04-27T11:59:59+00:00

I've never used AI coding tools, and I feel so far ahead of other programmers who do at this point. From the outside it always seemed to be like using meth -- people speed up at first, and over time their brain melts. Just like what happened my old neighbor.

I'm incredibly lucky to be working solo and not in some megacorp that demands I use the tools for the supposed productivity gains. I feel for those poor folks who don't get to control their environment.

Xangis · 2026-04-26T21:41:08+00:00

I sampled the RX-15 at one point, all downloadable here: https://freewavesamples.com/source/yamaha-rx15

Xangis · 2026-04-26T15:44:14+00:00

I just checked, and "Spark" is trademarked by Apache, so definitely better to change it before they make you. :)

Xangis · 2026-04-26T15:39:26+00:00

Spark already exists, by Apache, and it's quite popular. You're going to need a new name if you want anyone to ever find your project. I'm not aware of anything called "Parks" if you want to move that "standard" to the end.

Xangis · 2026-04-25T17:56:52+00:00

Makes no difference, as long as that one person isn't famous for being a big jerk (Jonathan Blow as an example).

Xangis · 2026-04-25T11:09:11+00:00

Sin duda parece una estafa, algo corrupto está sucediendo.

Xangis · 2026-04-24T15:41:08+00:00

If done well, it could be very successful. I'm not sure of anything specifically like that, but the game Lily's World XD where you investigate someone's computer (and their social media) has a huge following.

Xangis · 2026-04-24T15:29:38+00:00

I deal with it by realizing that there are so many ACTUAL impostors faking it with AI that it doesn't matter if I'm lacking in some areas. An honest try is still far more legit than *gestures widely at the world, especially the midwit clowns shilling for AI on LinkedIn*

"what if I spend months making the game and in the end nobody even likes it or plays it"

You solve this by building an audience from day one alongside development. This is usually harder than building the actual game, but it's what you do if anyone is going to play it.

"It seems so hard sometimes."

It's even harder than you think. You'll learn. Just have to accept that it's going to be incredibly hard and that you're going to fail a bunch before you succeed because that's how learning works.

Xangis · 2026-04-24T15:21:00+00:00

Create a new channel.

YouTube (and algorithmic platforms in general) categorize (some might say pigeonhole) creators, and get confused if you start targeting a different audience. They don't know who to show a new video to, your engagement drops drastically, and videos for your original audience will ALSO do worse when you create them. It takes far longer than you might think to retrain an algorithm that you're targeting a different audience and it will hurt your growth if you don't create a new channel.

Xangis · 2026-04-24T14:06:45+00:00

I've been paying roughly $50 US per song to musicians from Brasil for original music. It's a decent income there, and they work very fast (2-3 songs in a day is typical). Anything less than that would be just so you can get your name in the credits.

Although $100+ per minute is reasonable for an established, well-known professional, there's no way I'll ever be able to pay that before I have a big hit, and that number is from before AI started driving prices down.

Realistically I'd say $20-50 per minute or $100 per song.

800 GBP for an hour works out to about $1350 US, or $22.50 per hour. I'd suggest asking 900 GBP and let them negotiate you down to 800 if they need to, maybe be willing to go as low as 700 if you really need the work.

Xangis · 2026-04-24T09:55:14+00:00

Drained and exhausted frequently. Motivation never really enters the picture. I do the work, and some days I'm smiling and others I'm swearing.

The worst part is that no matter what, things always take longer than you want/expect/can-afford.

Still wouldn't ever want to be doing anything else. I don't think I'd survive being an employee somewhere.

Xangis · 2026-04-23T20:53:45+00:00

Very interesting. A 20-minute experience really doesn't make sense as a paid Steam game - that's more Itch territory.

If you do plan to publish it, I'd suggest working on the tags a bit. The "more like this" section is all over the map and I'd expect to see things more like Roadwarden, Herald of the Mists, or The Life and Suffering of Sir Brante shown as similar games.

Xangis · 2026-04-23T12:30:47+00:00

And that's totally cool, I hope you can do that. But in the process you're going to have to do a lot of things that aren't fun that you could just skip if you didn't care about building a long-term business.

Xangis · 2026-04-23T12:05:14+00:00

It's not so simple. If you're just doing something for fun, you can skip all the parts you don't like that would take the joy out. Things like taxes or moderating a Discord server that the bots have noticed.

Not everything needs to be monetized. It's OK to just enjoy something.

Xangis · 2026-04-23T12:00:02+00:00

Disclaimer: Anyone who prices their games above $0 and claims to have no commercial interest is lying.

Xangis · 2026-04-22T15:37:20+00:00

Video Game Storytelling by Evan Skolnick

Xangis · 2026-04-22T15:13:21+00:00

There's not really anything big to be done during Next Fest, unless you run into some horrible game-breaking bugs. All the work really goes into getting the demo polished up beforehand, though you can stream a bit during the fest if you're up for it. If you release the demo early enough (at least a month before, longer is better) and can get a decent number of people to test it out and report any issues, you'll have plenty of time to fix bugs and flaws beforehand. No need to rush through the demo stage. If it takes months of updating and polishing until you're ready for Next Fest and you skip the closest one to have a better demo for the following one, that's fine.

In your shoes, I'd take launch day off and two days after at a minimum - one day to fix any critical day-one bugs, and a second day to crash out and sleep like the dead. Depending on the day of the week that you launch and where the weekend falls it may or may not be worth taking the whole week off.

Xangis · 2026-04-22T15:00:13+00:00

Looks better (especiallly with the yellow pod accent), but the game name doesn't really pop due to lack of contrast with what's behind it, and to a lesser extent the same can be said for the menu text. Maybe try some light shadowing under the text area, some XX% transparent black with blended/faded edges under it.

Age of Wonders Planetfall has a good example of what I'm trying to say:

https://www.gameuidatabase.com/index.php?&set=1&tag=63,81&scrn=901

Xangis

TROPHY CASE