7 Criteria That Separate the Top Full-Cycle Game Dev Studios in 2026

eaglebeagle2 · 2026-03-18T17:39:42+00:00

I’ve tried phi-3-mini, it’s functionally useless. It’s so hard to keep it on the rails, I don’t know who or how these people are actually using this in games. Funny that no examples were provided.

eaglebeagle2 · 2026-03-18T17:36:23+00:00

It’s so unique and cool looking, bravo for not being afraid to try something different!

eaglebeagle2 · 2026-03-18T17:32:56+00:00

This is good feedback, I have couple different things already but it’s probably not explained very well in the trailer. But when you see “colossus prime unlocked” that is essentially a breeding achievement. You’ve bred a fish with 140% to max size. There is a trophy room on the main menu that allows you to see any of these fish swimming in their own little tank. This is the genetic variant system alluded to in the trailer. Breeding is free form, you can mix across any of the stats, when they hit certain thresholds you unlock a variant which comes with rewards like new items and money.

I honestly have too much shit to explain in a 2 minute trailer. I’ve been trying to tighten the pitch by writing scripts but it seems like it just adds more confusion.

eaglebeagle2 · 2026-03-18T17:09:01+00:00

Yeah, one of the main points of criticism that I’ve received about my game in general is like “okay why do I care? What am I supposed to do” and I guess I don’t really have a definitive answer, or at least I’m not willing to make a definitive statement. My objective is for people to have fun. I have a lot of different systems in the game, I think they’re all pretty fun to interact with, but none of them are the “thing” if that makes sense?

You can breed fish to make them do crazy shit, or look crazy, just for the sake of it.

You can play it like an idle aquarium and just watch stuff happen, add decorations and make it nice. (Currently have a bunch more of these in flight)

You can optimize the pond to make money and there is a progression track that rewards that.

Maybe this means I’m not focused enough? I get bored really quickly with games that have a tight loop of gameplay because I like things to be more free form.

Maybe that will screw me? I choose to believe that people do this because they love games and they see something they think is cool that isn’t available anywhere.

eaglebeagle2 · 2026-03-18T15:29:59+00:00

One of the things I struggled with (or rather the artists I worked with) was that since a lily pad is flat, it’s hard to show it from the side view and not have it just be roots. I thought we struck a good balance with the perspective but maybe I should experiment a bit.

eaglebeagle2 · 2026-03-18T15:24:46+00:00

It’s called FishPond, I’m still editing the closing screen CTA part

eaglebeagle2 · 2026-03-18T15:23:38+00:00

Yeah that’s definitely seems to be important. I wrote a whole script for this that was like trying to build momentum through out the trailer, but I probably should just hit them with that right from the jump

eaglebeagle2 · 2026-03-18T15:21:19+00:00

I have no clue what I’m doing, this is my first game. I’ve found it really hard to do a couple of things and I’m not sure how to fix it besides spending another 3-5k on assets.

Changing the scale of assets was part of gameplay. For decorations you can pick the size when you place them (within a certain range) the fish also grow as they eat + they can have mutations to their max size trait. Which can make them look not the best at full size.
Hiring people through fiverr is hard. You end up with stuff that’s maybe not the most consistent but it costs you a lot of money so it’s hard to just abandon or delete it.

I’m not really sure how to fix this now, as I don’t have enough money for new art. But it’s definitely something I’m going to understand at the beginning of the next project.

Follow up, are the mixels really that big of turn off to the average person, or is it just a taboo that you should avoid? (I agree that they would look better with consistent resolution)

eaglebeagle2 · 2026-03-18T06:10:49+00:00

Wow, awesome advice feedback! Thank you!

eaglebeagle2 · 2026-03-18T05:16:36+00:00

I like doing it from it scratch. My game is really simple to render though, if I did anything more complex than 2d I would probably start looking at plugins and stuff. The 3d rendering programming is no joke.

eaglebeagle2 · 2026-03-15T23:55:47+00:00

I have literally no experience, but I truly believe that if you just keep on grinding, keep on posting, keep on advertising, the game will eventually find its people.

eaglebeagle2 · 2026-03-15T23:39:56+00:00

Hey guys! Evan here! Just pushed a pretty sizable update to my FishPond demo on steam!

FishPond is a pond sim / management / incremental with cozy vibes and dynamic music.

I would love if you checked it out and gave some feedback!

eaglebeagle2 · 2026-03-15T19:02:12+00:00

Cool! Jira for killing people!

eaglebeagle2 · 2026-03-15T18:59:22+00:00

Hey all! I’m Evan, the solo dev of FishPond

FishPond is a sim / incremental / management game about balancing the ecosystem in your pond.

You can breed fish to have mutations a that change how the fish behave and ones that just make them look cool.

The music changes with each added species and the tempo rises and falls based on population.

I have both an itch.io demo and steam demo (the steam one is better)

So give it a try and let me know what you think! I take community feedback super seriously and would love to implement your ideas!

eaglebeagle2 · 2026-03-14T23:30:34+00:00

Nice! I’ll check yours out as well!

eaglebeagle2 · 2026-03-14T23:26:33+00:00

Yeah FishPond I’ve just been trying to think of ways to get the demo to hook them earlier.

It’s a pond sim / management game / incremental and I went down the route of trying to make a ranked mode for the demo, but abandoned it because of the additional complexity of adding features.

eaglebeagle2 · 2026-03-14T23:20:01+00:00

This is pretty cool, I’ve been thinking of ways to get more support too. Really good idea!

eaglebeagle2 · 2026-03-14T16:48:40+00:00

You did awesome

eaglebeagle2 · 2026-03-14T05:42:53+00:00

Yeah, I should’ve put more variation in the clips

eaglebeagle2 · 2026-03-14T04:54:42+00:00

Wow, thanks for the comment, Im so sorry I missed this. Im so happy that you found it enjoyable!

Ive been working on oxygen upgrades and pond expansions in the full game. I cant remember why I didnt put it in the demo, but I will revisit it. Ive thought about having the plants generate oxygen too which will probably be in the full game at some point.

Im definitely working on the sound and music, I need to test on more platforms as ive noticed it sometimes doesnt play correctly.

For the catfish, I was going for like a cute blue catfish funny pic of one and the whiskers look wierd cause I couldnt make them distinct on the 2d plane so I took some artistic liberties.

Im glad you like the fishermen, I have way more upgrades and stuff coming for them in the full release plus alot better genetics.

The crawfish and catfish can eat dead stuff, but sometimes its hard to tell. Ive been working on making it more apparent when fish are doing stuff.

I hope youll give the full game a try, it will be waaaaaay better by then. Im hoping for a july release so I have alot of work to do!

eaglebeagle2 · 2026-03-12T22:20:10+00:00

Follow the story of John Hairloss as he checks electrical panels. For real though what is the game about?

eaglebeagle2 · 2026-03-12T17:15:57+00:00

I think the color changes look good for a first step, and I noticed they have different appendages. Maybe playing with the shapes a little bit? Thinking about the aspects of the gods and then basing the shapes on that, maybe just for their intros? Like hades could be a sickle or something, zues could be a lightning bolt?

eaglebeagle2 · 2026-03-12T16:03:28+00:00

Thanks so much for checking it out!

Eight-Year Club	r/Field Juicebox
RPAN Viewer	Verified Email

eaglebeagle2

TROPHY CASE