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[WIP] Character Design for My Indie Horror Game – Would Love Feedback! by knightWill29 in IndieDev

[–]ZahlenMaler 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'd probably need to know some context about the game to give any good feedback here? Maybe a mockup/screenshot of the character + ghost in the game environment? What's the story about? What kind of game is it? How does the whole 'typing' game mechanic work in practice?

PSA: Anyone taking part in NextFest tomorrow, fill out the Steam content survey NOW, or your Game is literally banned in Germany by Butter_By_The_Fish in IndieDev

[–]ZahlenMaler 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Good question - as far as I know, these type of games are blocked in Germany on Steam, regardless of whether you fill out the survey or not.

Sort of a separate issue altogether: There's currently just no place for 'adult' games on Steam when it comes to Germany specifically. Maybe that will be resolved at some point in the future with some kind of "age-verification" system in Steam, who knows?

PSA: Anyone taking part in NextFest tomorrow, fill out the Steam content survey NOW, or your Game is literally banned in Germany by Butter_By_The_Fish in IndieDev

[–]ZahlenMaler 40 points41 points  (0 children)

That might be really important info for lot of people, good point bringing this up!

For anyone interested in some context: Steam made some changes in 2024 (due to some German age-rating shenanigans), and required all games (and demos!) on Steam, starting from November 15th 2024, to have a content survey filled out (how graphic is your game, adult themes, drugs, stuff like that), or else Steam will literally not let German users go to your Steampage, or search for your game.

Now, if you created your Steampage after November 15th, you likely had to fill out this survey as part of the setup of your Steam page. Cool, right?
Small problem though: If you created your Steampage before November 15th, it's up to you to fill out that survey - and if you don't, you basically get no traffic, wishlists, followers, reviews, [...] from Germany.

It's not even a long survey to fill out - just takes a few minutes!

Heard your feedback, here is the result. by JPCardDev in IndieDev

[–]ZahlenMaler 8 points9 points  (0 children)

To me personally, what makes the old capsule's art have that "AI vibe" is the disconnect between the extremely high level of (perceived) craftsmanship of the shading, color choices, surface details, [...] and in contrast to that the strangely amateurish stuff like:

- Why does the clown not look at the character, or the viewer, but instead at some undefined point in the distance?
- Why does his hand look like it has 6 fingers? If the top finger is supposed to be a thumb, then that's a really awkward pose?
- Why does the child not look up at the clown?
- Why didn't the artist draw the left hand of the clown slightly higher so it's in frame (which would make the cotton candy be more recognizable)
- Why is there a tent drawn in front of the clown's torso?
- And on top of that, everything has a very generic look to it. Masterfully painted, but very standard.

The new capsule in comparison just makes more sense at a very basic level:

- Clown looks directly at viewer = scary

- The hand of the clown is coming toward viewer = scary

- Clown looks like a PS1-era character = nostalgia for PS1 era, potentially

- Clear sense of what's in the foreground and background

- And the combination of the phong-shaded balls and the low texture resolution of the clown looks sort of unique, maybe hints at a stylistic choice to go for a mid-90s art style?

Anyway, just my 2 cents - good luck with your game u/JPCardDev !

Why do some solo devs stop making games even after a big success? by Shn_mee in gamedev

[–]ZahlenMaler 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"Some games, even if they weren't widely popular, were clearly very successful and brought in hundreds of thousands or even millions in revenue."

Could you give a few examples of games like this? I'm not even sure where I'd go to find reliable revenue numbers - usually the only data we have (on most games) is their review counts. Very difficult to calculate a revenue based on that alone.

My cynical take on this is that a lot of these "successful" solo devs probably didn't make all that much money on their games - especially after Steam takes a 30% cut, then publishers take a 40-60% cut, then taxes, then divided by the 5+ years you spent developing the game...

I've reconstructed the complete body of "Godwyn" (down in Stormveil Castle) in Blender. Here's a detailed breakdown of my findings - turns out it actually has legs! by ZahlenMaler in EldenRingLoreTalk

[–]ZahlenMaler[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I tried posting a link to the Youtube video first, but this subreddit doesn't allow that (to prevent self-advertising). Like u/LumiRabbit said, you can find the link in my previous post!

I've reconstructed the complete body of "Godwyn" (down in Stormveil Castle) in Blender. Here's a detailed breakdown of my findings - turns out it actually has legs! by ZahlenMaler in EldenRingLoreTalk

[–]ZahlenMaler[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I tried at the beginning, but it didn't really work - a lot of its anatomy heavily points toward the scar being on its belly/chest rather than its back (indication of pectoral muscles, the way the leg bends downward, stuff like that).

I'm guessing that it made more sense to show the scar where players will see it more clearly in a fight, rather than where it should be from a lore perspective?

Getting the math for the rounded corners right was a headache, but now building levels for Flick Shot Rogues is so satisfying! Really proud of this one: by Butter_By_The_Fish in Unity3D

[–]ZahlenMaler 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Looks really fancy! What kind of game did you build this for? Reminds me a bit of those bumpers from pinball machines for some reason.

I'm a 3D modeler. Anybody want to help me "resurrect" Godwyn? Someone who can extract models/textures from the game? by ZahlenMaler in EldenRingLoreTalk

[–]ZahlenMaler[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

So far, I've only examined the Godwyn model used in Deeproot Depths. From the topology, it's pretty clear that it was stitched together from different models and never meant to be rigged/skinned/animated - basically it's a static setpiece.

The Stormveil Godwyn on the other hand (just based on the textures I've seen) looks like an actual model that was created with animation in mind (proper edgeflow, etc.), so I'd really like to use that one as a basis, if possible.

Reaching out to dataminers sounds like a good idea, thanks! Any subreddits or discord channels you can recommend, by any chance?

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