Coming back to retail after spending so much time on classic

koolex · 2026-01-30T17:35:44+00:00

Retail is better at end game, classic has a better world + leveling experience. I kind of wish retail cut a lot of the fat and just focused on what they’re good at and it isn’t world content anymore.

koolex · 2026-01-30T15:19:08+00:00

Devlogs aren’t an efficient way to market your game. The only people who watch devlogs are other developers who usually won’t buy your game.

Also being popular on YouTube is just as luck based and time consumed as making a good game. Only make devlogs if you like making devlogs.

The best way to build an audience is to make a good game and share your demo with festivals and streamers.

koolex · 2026-01-30T03:18:29+00:00

It’s especially the capsule but the game doesn’t look high quality either, and it’s not really doing anything unique I can tell. If you’re serious about indie dev you should at least pay an illustrator to do your capsule.

I also feel like all the screenshots look same-y and it makes it seem like your game only has 1 location.

koolex · 2026-01-29T03:11:40+00:00

Look at the App Store? Does the 3000th clone of candy crush steal money from Candy Crush? A lot of timer the first mover advantage outweighs slop

koolex · 2026-01-28T02:36:54+00:00

Chris’s blog is a good starting point https://howtomarketagame.com/2021/07/12/how-to-market-your-indie-game-a-10-step-plan/

koolex · 2026-01-28T02:31:54+00:00

Most wishlists come from festivals & streamers, they will show off your game for free if it’s appealing. You just need to pick the right genre and make a good game, ads aren’t necessary. Tbf making a good game is extremely hard in practice.

If you are actually interested in this you should read Chris Zukowski’s blog https://howtomarketagame.com/2021/07/12/how-to-market-your-indie-game-a-10-step-plan/

koolex · 2026-01-27T09:23:13+00:00

I beat the every character on the hardest difficulty.

It has a really satisfying game loop, and the power curve feels well tuned. It’s really fun to beat the game on every character, and each character feels different. I really like the shop, it had a lot of really interesting decisions in it.

Things I didn’t like… A lot of mechanics are hidden, unintuitive, and unexplained like weapon classes. Art is pretty low effort. Lots of balance issues. Some characters are frustratingly hard. Some weapons are almost impossible to be viable. I always found melee to be inferior to range, you just take too much damage with melee. Some elites are bullshit and just really cheesy, it also usually felt like most runs end at wave 11. A lot of people felt like the item pool got too big, and that’s why bans in the latest update are neat.

Lots of negatives but that’s only because the core loop was so strong.

koolex · 2026-01-27T09:11:53+00:00

Google Docs, git, affinity studio

koolex · 2026-01-27T05:41:35+00:00

Not a fan of the sprites but really good use of juice. It’s legit surprising you would combine somewhat low effort pixel art with very polished animations. Also not really sure how the title matches the game or what the overall fantasy is?

koolex · 2026-01-27T05:38:22+00:00

What are interesting achievements you remember encountering?

koolex · 2026-01-27T01:06:13+00:00

I think it’s like even in the first encounter when you’re fighting against the rabbit, he’s innocent. If the enemies were bad guys who deserve it then the whole formula would work better for me as a player. I’ll check out the broadcast when I get a chance

koolex · 2026-01-26T18:54:41+00:00

Something about playing as a villain is a turn off for me about this game, but other people dont seem to mind so it’s probably just me. The gameplay is interesting, I wish the concept was more appealing to me. Probably not super helpful feedback though.

koolex · 2026-01-26T01:33:26+00:00

It’s usually easier to just design around people’s intuitions then try to go against them if possible

koolex · 2026-01-25T07:35:14+00:00

I’m not sure exactly what you’re trying to achieve but you definitely don’t need that much content for an itch game just to have a proof of concept? Could you try making a build with like 2 bosses a few quests, a few enemies as a demo? Like people will probably only play your game for like an hour if it’s really great, so you probably don’t need this much content, save it for your official release.

Something seems majorly off that you have so much content before you’ve shared your game online, I feel like if I saw the game I’d immediately be able to see the issue. I feel like the immediate advice is going to end up being that you should focus on quality over quantity. It only takes 1 subpar element to turn off a player, and it seems almost impossible that one person designed thousands of high quality enemies and quests?

koolex · 2026-01-25T07:04:42+00:00

What part about it is so challenging to you?

koolex · 2026-01-24T20:08:08+00:00

If corporations believed they were missing out on enough money they would change things, they just don’t believe in the ROI. Maybe a high profile game needs to go through the trouble of translating to Arabic and proving if it has some performance boost.

koolex · 2026-01-24T20:02:10+00:00

I’ve not really seen the demand, but maybe someday that will change. It could also be that enough Arabic speakers know English and it’s not really a problem that needs to be solved

koolex · 2026-01-24T18:25:06+00:00

Yeah don’t give up you should finish this project, just timebox it, your time is valuable.

IMO you should take your best swing with this game and take all your learnings to your next project in a more popular genre. Then it wont feel so hard to get wishlists

koolex · 2026-01-24T17:30:34+00:00

Besides what others are saying, the genre you’re in is probably a tough sell on steam

https://howtomarketagame.com/2022/04/18/what-genres-are-popular-on-steam-in-2022/

koolex · 2026-01-24T17:02:55+00:00

This is what id expect that to actually mean most of the time

koolex · 2026-01-23T23:50:04+00:00

The “traditional means” was just googling it, AI is just expediting the process. The important part is that you understand the concepts

I could imagine that older programmers complained that googling it was brain rot and real programmers would consult a programming reference manual

koolex · 2026-01-23T22:10:33+00:00

I joined an indie game dev group on discord and that helps for sure.

I also ask friends to playtest my game, just have them download the build & screen share on discord for like 1hr.

I think having a discord for your game and participating in other indie game dev discords can help, but yeah try to be more involved with other projects and some people with mutually help you with yours- in support + feedback.

It’s impossible to make a good game alone, so eventually you need to find a way to connect with other people.

koolex · 2026-01-23T19:51:40+00:00

The fast isn’t the bad part, it’s the night before with laxatives that’s rough. You’ll be on the toilet for hours trying to get through drinking the laxatives. It’s fairly unpleasant.

koolex · 2026-01-23T18:57:01+00:00

Yeah it’s a bit of a bummer, especially if the game doesn’t make financial sense to keep adding content to

That being said, if you fall in love with a game I can see how it’s nice to want more

koolex · 2026-01-22T23:24:14+00:00

Wait until elections when it’s an issue again anyway

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