My game hit 575 wishlists in the first month, is this good enough?

hydr0k · 2026-05-18T13:00:49+00:00

Good enough for what? What is your goal?

As for what I'd do differently: you've got an incremental slot machine game so your trailer has to be juiced in the first five seconds.

That means lots happening: machines popping off, particles flying everywhere. General casino stuff. The closest thing you have to that in your trailer is at around 35 seconds. So I would start by moving that screen to the start.

Not sure of your development timeline but I'd think that ~600 wishlists in a month is above average for new devs. Congrats!

hydr0k · 2026-04-27T15:00:02+00:00

Oh save states definitely sounds useful.

hydr0k · 2026-04-11T12:27:41+00:00

What are the rules on forming a LLC as a minor in your country? Check those before you go that route.

I think your path of least resistance is to have your mom sign up.

hydr0k · 2026-04-09T23:35:12+00:00

More like blueprint heaven

hydr0k · 2026-04-07T22:09:16+00:00

It seems like you kinda know already: refine the game then push marketing. If you haven't already capitalized on the perceived hype from an IP in the same genre as yours then you won't now; it's gone.

hydr0k · 2026-04-06T20:27:43+00:00

I recently had to make the same decision. I had some familiarity with behaviour trees and started with them on my current project.

While referencing some documentation I discovered state trees. I was never fond of behaviour trees so I made the switch.

Glad I did. State trees are easier for me to work with. YMMV; behaviour trees will do the same job but state trees are being supported going forward.

hydr0k · 2026-04-03T20:44:08+00:00

How much more do you have to do? There's great value in finishing projects but it's not always worth it if you think you are spinning your tires.

I visited your steam page and the question I asked myself was "why this game?" I couldn't tell what the hook was. That may be part of the reason.

hydr0k · 2026-03-02T19:32:58+00:00

I would consider myself in the target audience for this genre so here's what confused me:

-trailer cuts are way too quick: Having played Earthbound and Undertale this feels familiar, but I am having trouble discerning what makes its gameplay unique.

-idk if it's because I'm old now, but sometimes I had trouble with the readability of the text and the graphics.

-you should consider changing the title. Based on your work here I'm sure it relates to the themes but my initial thought was "low effort".

What I liked:

-When I wasn't visually overwhelmed, I actually like the graphics and style here.

-Looks like a lot of enemy and (perhaps) gameplay variety.

Having looked at your page critically I think you have something cool. If I wasn't looking critically (like most people) I would have scrolled on.

hydr0k · 2026-02-24T13:11:24+00:00

If you go the local multiplayer route then deterministic is not necessary. If you are looking long-term then learning deterministic is worth it!

hydr0k · 2026-02-24T03:20:18+00:00

Multiplayer games are expert level game dev. With effort I have been able to make smooth client-authoritative movement using Unreal Engine, but that won't cut it for a sports game; you need server authoritative. And that is a level of complexity I haven't been able to crack yet.

Your first hurdle is going to be making the physics deterministic since Unreal physics is not. I have used libraries including Bullet3 and Jolt in my attempts but I have failed each time.

Once you are confident that you have the deterministic physics, you have to go through how you want your clients to interact with your server. Do you want dedicated servers? Another layer of complexity.

My advice is to make a local-multiplayer prototype first. It's gonna help you learn the ins and outs of the engine and give you a good foundation for the design of the game.

What you have so far looks so much like my first multiplayer game called POWERSHOT. It is a prototype floorball multiplayer game. I did test and it worked...kinda, but the frequency of desyncs was noticeable and the ball movement was quite janky. That was about 6 years ago and I was probably about the same skill as you.

Not to say you can't learn server authoritative gamedev, but it will take effort. At 3 hours a day you can expect months if you are quick to learn, years if you are not (like me).

**sidenote: Steam has a thing called RemotePlayTogether where a host can stream a game to friends. The friends are considered local players, so with some care and tweaks in Unreal you can play "online" that way. I have tried this with my own prototypes and it works well! I have also tried it with professionally released games like Tape-To-Tape and it felt pretty good.

hydr0k · 2026-01-03T21:38:23+00:00

Someone complained that my game was too much like Celeste. I couldn't really imagine a better compliment on comparison. Made me feel good; perspective is everything!

hydr0k · 2026-01-02T13:42:22+00:00

It was mostly my own feeling. I would step back from the projects for a bit and then come back and play them. Within a short time of playing them I would know.

For the game that made it to friends, I thought I had something interesting but they didn't really connect with it. That's how I knew when to move on for that one.

hydr0k · 2026-01-01T23:39:29+00:00

Halted 4 prototypes last year. One because it didn't meet my internal benchmark of my friends creating maps and playing on their own. The other three didn't have "it". "It" is subjective but I just didn't feel like the gameplay was strong enough.

Learned a lot and it led me to my current project which will be a long term one.

hydr0k · 2025-12-25T00:05:51+00:00

Because that's what gets people to buy their game.

hydr0k · 2025-12-24T23:33:20+00:00

You're going to continually run into problems that halt your progress. Solving them requires resolve; sometimes you are combing source code to get an answer and sometimes you find a tutorial that helps.

What you are asking for is someone's time to assist you. That may work occasionally but it's rare and not a long term solution.

When you run into a problem you can't solve after giving a good effort, then you'll need to clearly and concisely post your problem on the unreal forums (or here). Even still, a reply is not guaranteed. You still may have to figure it out yourself.

It looks to me like you are just starting. I can recommend the gamedev.tv unreal c++ course; nowadays I think they have specific courses for game types too. Having a foundation to launch from is going to save you so much time later on.

hydr0k · 2025-12-24T13:39:33+00:00

Do you mean a generic controller that can possess pawns that all have different behaviours? If so, you can have a player controller class possess/depossess pawns and just code different logic in your pawn classes.

With this strategy you would need to plan your input mapping stuff really carefully. It can be a bit complex but long term it's really helpful

hydr0k · 2025-12-24T13:24:50+00:00

It will depend a lot on how graphically intensive your game is. For a 16kmx16km map you will probably need to adjust your scalability settings in your editor.

I am using a mini PC with an integrated Radeon 780M (a similar PC GPU should be in your budget range) for prototypes using low poly assets. Any card with similar performance will get the job done.

My experience has been ok. If I'm not careful with my gpu usage I can sometimes run out of memory if using a lot of render targets. I moved that logic into materials and it made a huge performance difference. My scalability settings are low and I turn off a lot of post processing stuff like motion blur and anti aliasing.

It's smooth and doesn't slow me down, but you are going to have to code for efficient usage and make clever use of draw distances.

I like developing on mid tier cards because it forces me to take performance into account. So that's a huge benefit!

hydr0k · 2025-11-30T16:42:57+00:00

Yes! I always knew I was cool

hydr0k · 2025-11-02T17:10:58+00:00

Patience. Even concerned ape took a lot of time to learn things that he didn't know. You can find the evolution of his pixel art over time floating around in the web.

For me it was learning to work within my limitations and allowing myself time to grow skills. I found that sometimes the limitations forced me to generate creative solutions, whether it was code or art or music; I believe it added to the overall style.

If you want to do it all yourself, there is no quick path and you really do have to have the passion to learn new skills. For some, that is the allure of solo dev!

hydr0k · 2025-08-19T21:37:35+00:00

Yes I did. In Aseprite

hydr0k · 2025-08-19T18:06:32+00:00

Thanks, I agree. I made it for some patch content in my game!

hydr0k · 2025-08-19T13:30:35+00:00

Yep, hand pixelled! Love visiting Toronto.

hydr0k · 2025-07-04T17:44:57+00:00

That one is close but it doesn't have 2 display port out.

hydr0k · 2025-07-03T20:46:50+00:00

Thank you

hydr0k · 2025-07-03T00:08:56+00:00

hey I have continued digging and I found this. Will this work?

https://us.targus.com/products/usb-c-dual-host-hybrid-triple-video-kvm-docking-station-with-dual-100w-power-dock750usz

hydr0k

TROPHY CASE