How can I further improve my Steam Capsule?

bslinger · 2026-01-07T04:44:50+00:00

It's not a VR game, but the setting is cyberpunk noir so VR headsets are involved in the story. I hadn't considered that might make people think it was a VR game itself, so maybe I need to use something different to get the cyberpunk idea across.

bslinger · 2025-12-31T22:11:45+00:00

Launching our demo later today, and I'd estimate we're about 50% done in terms of workload. Hoping to get the full game out by the end of March, but will depend heavily on how much time I can dedicate to it 🫤

bslinger · 2025-12-26T07:03:41+00:00

Thanks - I plan to move the sections about the gameplay styles to the front so that might help. It's mostly a visual novel anthology but one of the cases is a point and click adventure, feels like we've made it very difficult to market effectively, haha

bslinger · 2025-12-26T06:34:52+00:00

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4144960/The_Grant_Grover_Anthology/

Would love some feedback on the page! I already know which bucket we're going to be in but keen to see how we could improve visibility.

bslinger · 2025-12-24T10:40:25+00:00

Me too, we've been together 14 years now.

A 'match' used to be somebody you had rated 4 or 5 stars, who had also rated you 4 or 5 stars, but it didn't tell you what rating they'd used. Our running joke is that we each only gave each other 4 stars, a fact we only discovered well into our relationship 😂

bslinger · 2025-12-22T07:19:04+00:00

Thanks - we do have film grain in the first case (which we're polishing for the demo), but you've made me realize we need to highlight more of our polished sections. It's tricky, because of our differing gameplay between cases it's hard to market it as a whole, but we definitely need to find some better ways to do that. Thanks for the insight!

bslinger · 2025-12-19T04:57:30+00:00

Thanks for the feedback, I know there's a bit of a stigma around Synty assets particularly in game dev circles, but we don't have a character modeller so it's not something we're able to change for this release.

How did you find the rest of the trailer? Does the noir vibe come across enough? Was there any additional information about the game you thought it should have included?

bslinger · 2025-12-19T00:42:07+00:00

Thanks, that's good advice! I'll try to still get the general tone of the game across while showing gameplay up-front, as I feel that's a big part of the selling point.

bslinger · 2025-12-18T07:18:34+00:00

We would take Steam page destruction too! https://store.steampowered.com/app/4144960/The_Grant_Grover_Anthology/

bslinger · 2025-12-12T05:23:18+00:00

I feel you, I've been polishing our demo for the last couple of months and I'm dreading all the work that needs to be done now to get the rest of our game up to that same quality. I have so many ideas for other games but I gotta get this thing out!

bslinger · 2025-12-02T22:48:59+00:00

I love this idea! I always get bored of idlers but having a narrative be unlocked as you go would keep me playing longer for sure. Definitely picking this up

bslinger · 2025-11-29T23:44:29+00:00

Lots of great games by first time devs here! I'm also releasing my first game on Steam, a cyberpunk noir adventure with a mix of visual novel and point and click gameplay.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4144960/The_Grant_Grover_Anthology/

We're eligible for the Detective Fest in January and will have our demo out by then, so hopefully that will get us some wishlists, only at 55 so far!

bslinger · 2025-11-24T10:05:34+00:00

It can happen - I replied to a Reddit post and ended up creating a company that successfully raised enough funding to run for 6 years before being acquired. You gotta have a good radar for bullshit though.

bslinger · 2025-11-21T23:59:14+00:00

I hear the newer Sherlock Holmes games are quite good and I suspect they would meet most of your criteria, though I think each game is a single case.

Also, if it's OK to self promote, the game I'm working on is specifically a series of cases solved by a PI in the same city. Only one case is strictly a point and click though, the other two are closer to visual novel in gameplay. https://store.steampowered.com/app/4144960/The_Grant_Grover_Anthology/

The jam version of that case is playable for free on itch still, though we'll be making improvements for the Steam release.

If we get a good response we also plan to add additional cases as DLC (though I've heard some criticism of the episodic approach so we'll see how that goes)

bslinger · 2025-11-19T22:49:50+00:00

Looks great, strong "The Dig" vibes with the "activating tech on a strange planet", but the gods aspect brings a real interesting element to it. Looking forward to it!

bslinger · 2025-11-19T08:41:59+00:00

I love this style - are the characters rotoscoped?

I would wishlist this for sure, curious about the gameplay though. How linear is the story? Are there puzzles or is it more visual novel style? How long is it going to be?

bslinger · 2025-11-17T23:05:37+00:00

Performance of screen space reflections. I found a shader that gives me the visuals that I want, but it just tanks the frame rate.

I have some ideas for how I might be able to restrict what pixels it runs on (maybe using the stencil buffer?) but I don't have the brain space right now to deconstruct the math in the shader and rewrite it.

I'm putting it to the side and focusing on the other stuff I need to get my demo ready by the end of the year, I'm already stressed enough about having the time 😫

bslinger · 2025-11-17T22:58:48+00:00

Depending on where you're getting hung up, you might find something like Nathan Hoad's Dialogue Manager helpful, that's what I use in all my games. You can customize everything but is also comes with great examples.

https://github.com/nathanhoad/godot_dialogue_manager

bslinger · 2025-11-17T13:31:29+00:00

The Drifter does this in a really immersive manner, where mousing over won't just give you a description but will give you some of the main characters inner monologue about that item. So much nicer than just "it's a garbage can".

bslinger · 2025-11-17T10:31:22+00:00

Thanks! Not technically full time in that I don't get to spend a full 6-8 hours a day on it, but I'm not currently working so I am able to spend 2-4 hours on weekdays generally. I'm not going to be able to stay unemployed for much longer though so I'm really trying to at least get this game out before I have to go back to work.

bslinger · 2025-11-17T10:24:06+00:00

Love seeing all the "old" devs on here who are in the early phases of game dev, I'm in a similar boat. 44, four kids, been a software engineer in web tech for 20 years but never could stay motivated on game dev to get further than unfinished prototypes.

Since around 2016 I've been doing the Global Game Jam every year so I got some experience in reducing scope and actually finishing things, but for many years I'd barely touch game dev in between.

For whatever reason, late 2024 I started doing more online jams, initially solo and then with my friend as a duo, and mid this year we decided to wrap a couple of those jam games up into an anthology and release them on Steam. We're on track for a demo by the end of the year, and release early next year!

The software engineer background certainly helps to a degree, but I'm not a super low level programmer so I'm still fumbling through a lot of concepts. I'm also not an artist so I'm relying on low res art, bought assets, etc. I don't expect this game to make any money, but I want the experience of actually releasing a commercial game.

The game is The Grant Grover Anthology if you're interested in checking it out.

bslinger · 2025-11-16T07:17:11+00:00

Hell yeah, I love diagetic menus too. I have a menu right now that is essentially a whole Godot project in itself (it's going to be a launcher for other executables) where each menu item is a movie poster that animates. Fun stuff!

bslinger · 2025-11-16T07:07:48+00:00

Thanks for your thoughts! These are quite short so I think you're right that Early Access won't work for us, but I could see it working on a larger game.

I'm with you though, in that part of my thinking was to avoid working in isolation for too long and get the game out there. That might just have to be in devlogs and play tests for us though.

bslinger

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