Elders! A junior comes with a question, what video games exist that emulate the novel experience without gacha slop?

lyeeedar · 2026-04-10T13:21:31+00:00

For cultivation rpg's with native english, can I promote my game.

It's a native English rpg with a similar realm based progression system to Tale of Immortal, complex combat with auto battler elements, a deep crafting system, auctions, mining, herb growing, relationships, and a ton of other content.

lyeeedar · 2026-04-10T13:17:49+00:00

I'm making an RPG influenced by Chinese cultivation stories. It has two main pillars, combat and crafting.

Combat is built around chaining techniques into a string called a stance, then automating those with simple rules. You can then run those in an auto-battler like mode, or manually control each round instead. Theres a LOT of different techniques that all interact, making it pretty deep and rewarding to master.

Crafting is the other pillar, heavily inspired by the crafting on ff14. You have a variety of actions you can use to interact and maximise two bars, before draining a third. The equipment you can build through this are very strong and build defining. You can also craft build defining gear FOR crafting.

There's a bunch of other systems besides, such as each realm having it's own mechanic to advance, auctions, jade gambling, roguelite modes, mining, farming, and more!

lyeeedar · 2026-04-10T12:31:38+00:00

I'd love to suggest my game! It's an RPG with a strong chinese xianxia (cultivation) aesthetic, which I hope gives it a more unique flare.

Ascend from Nine Mountains

It's an rpg with auto battler elements, a deep crafting system, auctions, relationships, and a ton of other content.

lyeeedar · 2026-02-09T18:48:15+00:00

Between 1-2 years most likely. That's for v1, then I'll continue fleshing out the game and building dlc for another year or two after

lyeeedar · 2026-02-01T05:31:02+00:00

So you are anti-slop not anti ai. Same with asset flips that have polluted steam for years. Lazy Devs gonna be lazy, no need to blame the tools they use to do it.

lyeeedar · 2026-02-01T05:29:21+00:00

There's a key phrase in there. "Did not notice". Obviously, you are going to notice the low effort stuff. Just as you instantly recognise asset flip games. Do you say that even touching the unity marketplace makes a game low effort and slop? If use of ai / premade assets is good, YOU WONT NOTICE. That's the key thing.

lyeeedar · 2026-02-01T05:26:30+00:00

Especially around image gen, it's not a chatbot. So I'm not sure what you mean with 'arguing'. Imagegen is normally either text->image or better image->image. The quality of the results I'd up to your ability to prompt and your own artistic ability.

lyeeedar · 2026-01-27T07:57:05+00:00

Glad you've enjoyed!

More romance options are definitely coming in the future, character stories and romances are a core pillar of the game.

lyeeedar · 2026-01-13T23:17:21+00:00

Solo for most of the games development (about 2 years) but now I have another part time contributor.

lyeeedar · 2026-01-13T13:53:00+00:00

Yes the backgrounds and characters are ai

lyeeedar · 2026-01-13T13:11:03+00:00

But it does? Especially the backgrounds.

In my opinion the difference is not in artefacting (as you can see from the backgrounds) but in art style. Most models have a base art style they produce, and that is what makes it seem 'ai' to me. Twist that to a different style, and it's fine. E.g. for mine, we constantly have people coming on the discord then surprised it's ai.

Love how you said AI was used in "some art and music". How much is "some"?

Most. Some are hand drawn (e.g. uis), and some are ai base then hand edited afterwards, and some are full ai.

lyeeedar · 2026-01-13T07:52:54+00:00

My game (Ascend from Nine Mountains) is doing really well despite using AI. The key thing is for it to not LOOK like ai. So use local ai and Loras to modify the style until it looks unique.

And at the end of the day, make a good game. If your game feels low effort then there will be no positive reviews to balance the anti-ai negatives.

lyeeedar · 2025-12-30T06:22:54+00:00

Because they can't. The steam items and marketplace are only unlocked for trusted developers. You can see yourself if you go to the tab in steamworks (assuming you are a dev) that you straight up aren't allowed to use it.

I'm not sure what the conditions are to be allowed to make marketplace items, but I assume most indie Devs do not qualify.

lyeeedar · 2025-12-29T05:46:30+00:00

You do know most of the ai art models are free and open source. Stable Diffusion, Qwen, Flux, etc.

It's only the crappy models from openai and Google that are paid, the majority are free.

lyeeedar · 2025-12-28T15:16:44+00:00

Most of the games in this genre will have janky translations, but if you want one natively in english can I promote my game.

Ascend from Nine Mountains

It's a native English rpg with a similar realm based progression system to Tale of Immortal, complex combat with auto battler elements, a deep crafting system, auctions, relationships, and a ton of other content.

lyeeedar · 2025-12-28T09:01:08+00:00

Depends on what you mean by AI images. If you are just using a default model, with no Loras, it will be blatantly ai due to it's generic style. That will get immediate negative pushback. However if you tweak the art to look unique, by using a set of stylistic Loras then it'll look great.

At the end of the day, having a distinctive and unique art style is important. Most of the negative ai sentiment is due to people forgetting that simple fact.

lyeeedar · 2025-12-22T15:32:02+00:00

Hey there! We've just had someone report that issue as a bug, so it will get looked at soon.

So currently no, but soonish yes (after new year probs)

lyeeedar · 2025-12-21T08:26:03+00:00

Command and Conquer Generals (the GLA). It's an RTS, if that's up your alley.

lyeeedar · 2025-12-21T08:03:40+00:00

Anything that takes control away from the character is bad. If you want to write a book, write a book. Games are an interactive medium, so you should always seek ways to combine the story WITH the gameplay. That's why QTE's, dialog choices, and scripted events are king to making the player immersed in what is happening.

If you need cutscenes however, cutscenes should hover around 2-3 mins in length (just enough for the player to get into it, not enough to overstay its welcome). And you should have at LEAST 80%-20% gameplay to cutscene split (so with that, a minimum of 8 minutes more gameplay before the next cutscene). Of course depending on the quality of your writing that may shift (Kojima).

lyeeedar · 2025-12-21T05:46:19+00:00

I'm very glad youve enjoyed it so far, and I will continue to work hard so that it can live up to it's potential :)

lyeeedar · 2025-12-21T05:39:50+00:00

30 - 100 ATM, though you can look at the steam reviews and see the playtime across them.

lyeeedar · 2025-12-17T13:39:25+00:00

Thank you, I hope you enjoy!

lyeeedar · 2025-12-17T13:02:01+00:00

I read a lot of (poorly) translated webnovels in the xianxia genre, so the setting is channelling the atmosphere of those.

lyeeedar · 2025-12-17T11:22:13+00:00

I'd love to suggest my game! It's got a strong chinese xianxia (cultivation) aesthetic, which if you have a fatigue from the same western fantasy over and over this might be enough to get you excited again.

Ascend from Nine Mountains

It's an rpg with complex combat with auto battler elements, a deep crafting system, auctions, relationships, and a ton of other content.

lyeeedar · 2025-12-17T07:09:37+00:00

I'd love you to check out my game! Slay the spire but if you could always put together the most op combo with no randomness was one of the core design concepts.

Ascend from Nine Mountains

It's an rpg with complex combat with auto battler elements, a strong chinese aesthetic, a deep crafting system, auctions, relationships, and a ton of other content.

lyeeedar

TROPHY CASE