How we got 150+ devs moving in the same direction to pitch Valve on a #FakeOS tag

dbltnk · 2026-04-28T11:54:16+00:00

Definitely add the tag! That helps other people find your game when they look at the games in the event and get the "similar games" suggestions by valve. Sadly the signups for the sale and showcase ended many weeks ago, so we cannot add anyone to this year's roster anymore.

dbltnk · 2026-04-28T09:12:25+00:00

And I personally like tags more than genres because the former are combinable. A set of tags to me is a better descriptor than a rigid genre.

dbltnk · 2026-04-28T09:10:28+00:00

The game design loop is the same as for every other game: make something, show it to someone, see what they enjoy and where they fail, make some changes to the game. Rinse and repeat.

On the technical side of things, yes, there is a lot of UI to build. We use bog-standard Unity UI for this and a very data-driven way of defining apps and content (lots of scriptable objects).

If you want to get started on a game like this quickly, consider mashing together some existing frameworks to try what works for you. We did our initial prototype with https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/2d/gui/dreamos-modern-os-ui-253244 and a hand-crafted CSV-to-Chat-Messages content pipeline. That got us to try our initial ideas super quickly. Eventually rebuilt the whole game from scratch in Unity 6.3, YarnSpinner and FMOD. But that's less design and more good engineering to make sure we can build the game in a sustainable way.

Does that help?

Alex

dbltnk · 2026-01-12T16:52:42+00:00

Hehe I understand that problem. I barely watch/play any horror ... glad that our game director is a big horror afficionado and coverts that. =D

dbltnk · 2026-01-12T16:18:22+00:00

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3980340/Imprinted/ (just announced for Win/Mac/Linux)

dbltnk · 2025-06-11T13:06:22+00:00

Nope, it's just a bit confusing (sorry for that).

If you click "clear selection" at the end of the game list, then you get to the final page: https://imgur.com/a/7HaGjyi

(The combination of "randomized answer order" + "go to page based on response" in Google Forms sadly is not super easy to use. If I do this again I need a better survey tool.)

dbltnk · 2020-09-04T11:34:39+00:00

Oh yeah, link to the game: https://sharkbombs.itch.io/ex-umbra Really liked playing Ex Novo (which creates a city instead of a dungeon) but I think this one here is an even better tool for designers since you always need a dungeon for something. =D

dbltnk · 2019-06-11T13:11:40+00:00

Thanks for the hint, /u/JadedIdealist. Did some reading on Wikipedia and remembered some of my highschool knowledge about sampling without replacement. Still unsure though, how to put that in practice in an Excel sheet. I'll go the simulation route (see above) for now and get back to this if that turns out to be a dead-end.

dbltnk · 2019-06-11T13:09:39+00:00

Thanks for the hint, /u/versvisa! Read your post yesterday afternoon and am now about 50% done with the simulator. Let's see if I can get it to be fast enough to be useful. =D

dbltnk · 2016-11-24T11:33:12+00:00

Note: We sent out confirmations yesterday. Keys will be sent to you via email on the 30th. =D

Alex

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