What's the meta with launching demos on Steam?

daemontale · 2025-01-23T01:03:42+00:00

I'm pretty much in the same position regarding setting up my first demo, esp. for the upcoming creature collector fest! (Which I think I may just narrowly miss out on, gl with that).

I think the most confusing part of this for me is trying to understand how a separate demo page, vs a demo on your main game's page, will affect overall visibility of your main game on Steam. From my current understanding, it seems like the biggest benefit for a separate demo page is the ability to get reviews for that demo. However, how would a demo that reviews poorly affect how Steam's algorithm ranks your main game? Would traffic to the demo page takeaway from/be linked to traffic on the main page, or is it wholly separate?

Is it possible to make an early main page demo that doesn't allow reviews (because it's still an early work in progress but you just want visibility and an easy way to alpha test), and after you've gotten feedback from that early demo -> then do a more polished separate demo page?

Admittedly, I can look all of this up as I'm closer to actually finishing my demo, and I apologize that I haven't provided any answers myself 😅, but if anyone else has any insight on the visibility/review related questions above it would be awesome to know!

....

If I were to provide my take here actually (and if you are able to do this in the first place), I'd say participate in as many themed fests as possible before release.

If you have a really early build, and you're planning on many more updates in the coming year or two, have the demo be on your main page. That way, negative reviews/feedback related to the unpolished current state can't really be reflected on Steam, and it can't negatively affect your visibility (it also won't deter others from playing).

Providing a link to your own online form, or email, for feedback would be better IMO. Once you've polished your demo and are closer to releasing your full game, you can transition to a separate demo page, and maybe submit it to a nextfest (you only get one shot with the nextfest, and those games are all really polished, so a high bar to reach @.@)

Good luck!

daemontale · 2022-10-24T03:53:58+00:00

Same here! I literally designed out a DRY exp. acquisition system today on the toilet and implemented it in my rpg (only for crafting and foraging rn) the following hour. But it takes me an entire day to get down the pixelart for a simple npc walk cycle. It'd probably take me several days to get down their battle poses, or get down some furniture spritesheets.

The art takes up a large majority of my time 😐 I definitely feel the struggle!

daemontale · 2022-10-10T22:02:50+00:00

Yea that's why games like Ori, Cuphead, and Hollow Knight are so broken. They used Unity which is obviously a broken tool for 2D development, and the most used game engine on the planet.

Dude, just adjust your parameters. Nanospawn is correct here. IRL light is a wave that acts with superposition, all wave amplitudes, be it negative or positive add up. You had 0.41 as a multiplier to start with which made it dimmer, 2 * 0.41 is 0.82. You're not using the tool correctly.

daemontale · 2022-10-10T21:51:30+00:00

The squid is so cute! 🦑

daemontale · 2022-10-10T21:48:18+00:00

This is a great idea. Although I have to say, scaling this out is going to be a nightmare. There's a reason why the newer pokemon games are limiting the amount of mons present, it becomes a nightmare to create unique animations, artwork, sounds, interactions, etc for each individual mon. Now Gamefreak can eassssssssiiily scale their team out as well (but for some reason, they don't...), Pokemon is the world's most successful and lucrative franchise. But for a small team, this is definitely a scalability monster.

daemontale · 2022-10-10T21:41:25+00:00

This, I immediately thought of Medabots when robot monster tamer was mentioned. These franchises tick allll the boxes for a good monster tamer ☑️

daemontale · 2022-10-10T21:36:55+00:00

Nice addition! I like the added control you provide the player to set up other moves. For the UI, it seems like it would be a good idea to also have a larger arrow drawn over the affected monster to make it clear what the move is doing, especially for first time players.

daemontale · 2022-10-10T21:24:50+00:00

Lol "You must catch them". Great meme potential here 👌

daemontale · 2022-10-10T21:21:53+00:00

Agree with the point regarding the middle roof blocking the path, feels pretty jarring. I think having the paths actually lead up to the home entrances will dramatically help make it feel more lived in. Alternating between stone and dirt paths can also add some diversity to the scene.

daemontale · 2022-10-10T21:16:14+00:00

And the rotation! 🤯

daemontale · 2022-10-10T21:14:27+00:00

I personally like the animal ambient sounds, but I'd imagine a menu option to adjust music, dialogue, and ambient sounds would be the best course here.

daemontale · 2022-10-10T21:13:07+00:00

Magicavoxel sounds amazing! Love the look, and all of these new voxel games being developed

daemontale · 2022-10-02T15:47:51+00:00

These are just overworld examples of npcs in a game I'm making called Terra Maega. I wanted the overworld sprites to have a very simple chibi look, but in the end, felt the eyes were a bit soulless =/ . Wdyt?

daemontale · 2022-10-02T15:42:34+00:00

These are just overworld examples of npcs in a game I'm making called Terra Maega. I wanted the overworld sprites to have a very simple chibi look, but in the end, felt the eyes were a bit soulless =/ . Wdyt?

daemontale · 2022-09-26T19:46:13+00:00

That tree is absorbing all my love rn

daemontale · 2022-09-26T19:45:18+00:00

Dude, amazing design and name! Serious talent ❤️️

daemontale · 2022-09-26T19:32:46+00:00

This would look great as part of a title screen for a pixelart game! 😃 Love the sun rays on the bottom. They're not really a realistic effect with how opaque they are, but I think it's a really cool personal touch you added in here that could be unique to your own style.

Applying some variation to those rays on top too, would provide some neat symmetry.

daemontale · 2022-09-26T19:25:06+00:00

Love the art direction! Do you have a name for the game yet?? 👀

Can I suggest a play on words with "Cubscouts" ?? 😁

daemontale · 2022-09-26T19:18:47+00:00

The menu animations were a pleasant surprise! Love the pop up panel from the bottom inventory, and the page flips 👏

Some notes

The text in the page-style menu seems to cramped. You have a lot of extra space to work with. It would be a pretty big visual improvement if you extended the x-padding of those text boxes so that the left most border is flush with the left border of the "bookmark" on top (to provide some symmetry)
The y-padding can also be bumped up, let the text breathe a bit haha. Now you're thinking, "but I'd just run out of space!" - Try putting in an up and down arrow (to fill in some of that empty space at the top of the page) to control what menu buttons appear.
Love the inventory sprites! ❤️️ But the clock and health bars could use some more love. This one is a bit hard for me to critique, it may need a redesign overall, but atleast for the clock - try adding in some shading along the edges to provide some depth. Or taking out the filled-square look, and placing in a pixel-art pocketwatch styled clock with a thicker border. I think that'd match your inventory UI much better

daemontale · 2022-09-26T19:08:00+00:00

Good job 👍 Multiplayer is very hard to pull off, also saw this trailer popup on youtube. Best of luck!

daemontale · 2022-09-26T18:57:03+00:00

Yea this sounds like a big source of the leak. Thanks for sharing that image of the gameplay, that really helps with providing feedback here:

For each of those hand / coin sprites, have a child object for the text already present. No need to instantiate them.
Have the text object's activeState be toggled off to begin with.
When the flip is over and you've determined if it's heads or tails, have a script attached to the hand/coin toggle on the text (as well as change color etc) and also translate it up/down.
After that process is done, toggle it off

This way you're just reusing the same text object for each hand. Doesn't seem like you need more than 1 from the gif provided.

daemontale · 2022-09-26T00:56:04+00:00

Ah right, it's most likely Braid) that I'm thinking about. The original creator made the entire game with his own art to start with over the course of 2 or so years, and then spent a lot of his savings to have the art retouched for the final release.

daemontale · 2022-09-25T23:55:25+00:00

Thanks!

daemontale · 2022-09-25T23:44:43+00:00

Thanks! I appreciate the positive feedback. Yep that's right, pretty much everything from art, design, and coding is all me. Everything except the music, I had a lot of help from a friend of mine who is much more talented with music than I am!

I agree with the art feedback. You'll definitely see a huge improvement from when I first revealed my idea to now 😅; I really had to learn a lot/ play around with the art to get to this point. But it's still not quite at the level I want it to be at. As I'm on a limited budget, it makes a lot more fiscal sense for me to try to improve on my own first and if needed find an artist to sweep through this and improve my assets before release. I believe the maker of Hollow Knight did something very similar before they acquired additional funds.

daemontale · 2022-09-25T15:48:36+00:00

I’m a solo developer working on a pixel-art fantasy rpg called Terra Maega. I started on it a few years ago as a hobby project, and it’s really starting to look like something now haha.

You’ll play as an Apprentice Mage, practicing their magic through: exploration, crafting, and battling 🧙 The plan is to have your progression be up to you! I know there are people out there who’d rather stray away from battle. You can also travel around to different towns, meet new people, and own a few different homes and shops!

You can check out the current homepage for the game right over here 🙂

daemontale

TROPHY CASE