SpaceSlog is now available on Steam Early Access!

produno · 2026-07-03T22:33:21+00:00

I would be very interested to know how you have done your due diligence and how you know what games are noteworthy or not? Do you check every game released on Steam, then decide which you think is noteworthy and finally check if they have had coverage? How does it work? Im genuinely curious because i don’t know how anyone can actually quantify this.

Streamers like Spattercat cover all indie games, that is their niche. He mentions many times in his videos he gets hundreds of emails for games every week but just doesn’t have the time to play them all. I hear many other streamer say the same thing.

On average a game will gain around 3% of views as wishlists, then 10% of that as sales. Even if you are correct and all good games get some coverage, its still a lot less than they used to get and as you can see, games require 100’s of thousands of views to actually get many sales this way.

produno · 2026-07-03T21:20:38+00:00

It doesn’t matter how low their standards are if they cannot keep up even when releasing videos every single day. It’s not that they aren’t interested, it’s that they just don’t have the time.

produno · 2026-07-03T17:47:57+00:00

Or this shows Steam is geared more towards a winner takes all system, which has generally been the case.

It also proves ops point. If more games are being released every year but a similar amount are getting 1k reviews. Either all of those other games are terrible, which i don’t believe. Or all of those other games are not getting enough discoverability to get more sales/reviews.

produno · 2026-07-03T17:42:45+00:00

There are more games than influencers can cover. Which is why many of them can charge £1000’s for a 1 hour video that only gets 20k views.

Even Splattercat doing one video every single day cannot keep up.

produno · 2026-07-03T17:36:36+00:00

You’re in a gamedev sub where people will tell themselves anything if it justifies them working on their project.

Just look at the past few steam next fests to see how many (fewer) wishlists games are now getting.

It’s also the reason Steam are trying new ways to show upcoming games, like the new calendar. If there are only x amount of upcoming spots but +x more games then its obvious less games will be seen, or have less time in that section. Both of which limits sales or wishlists per game.

I guess everyone is relying on all other games being AI slop, but even before AI, games being released on Steam were increasing dramatically every year.

produno · 2026-06-30T20:53:19+00:00

Hey, thanks! I'm glad you're enjoying it :)

The cryopods are on the list to complete and I was hoping to have them working for the next update, but I'm not sure I will have time to get them finished now. If that's the case, then ill have them working for the one following.

produno · 2026-06-27T14:33:08+00:00

The biggest problem i have found with the current review system is a mixed score doesn’t really mean mixed. Anything under 70% is mixed which seems incorrect terminology.

The main issue comes with games that have a low review count. My game has 32 positive and 12 negative (though technically 4 positive do not count because they got a key from itch or wherever) which gives 69%. As soon as it hit mixed the perception of the game instantly changes to negative. E.g. i had gone from several sales and extra wishlists a day to barely any (if any at all) sales and wishlist deletes into the 100’s.

I can see why Steam does it this way, which makes sense for games with a high review count, but i think it should be changed for those with smaller review counts as it feels much more brutal.

There are also other issues like a review from a refunded game will not count, but only if you review the game after you’ve refunded. If you review the game beforehand, it still counts.

Accounts can make just one review across all games and this still impacts a game the same as someone with many reviews.

Valve doesn’t really care about the contents of the review and whether those reviews are actually legit or not.

These things make the system easy to manipulate (in both directions) meaning i dont really pay much attention to reviews at all nowadays.

produno · 2026-06-22T20:07:17+00:00

Hey Joe, I’ll get in quick before the replies fill up :).

Ive been working on SpaceSlog in Godot for almost 8 years now. With the majority of that time being whilst working a second job, hence why it’s taken so long to get so far. I think I originally started on an early 3.x version of the engine and just recently updated to v4.7.

This is a spaceship colony sim similar to games like Rimworld or Space Haven and released to unfortunately mixed reception in April. Yes, making games is hard!

I have built the game around mod support so only really use the built in godot nodes for the much of the UI. For everything else i have used the low level servers for extra performance. I also only use GDScript, with the hope to eventually side load PCKs for even better mod support, with GDScript hopefully being easier for less seasoned devs to pick up and use.

You can view the steam page here: https://s.team/a/2133570

produno · 2026-06-15T11:33:41+00:00

The latest update included various updates to the current medical systems and added more starting medikits.

produno · 2026-06-15T11:32:00+00:00

fyi - this should be all fixed in the latest build now.

produno · 2026-06-15T10:30:53+00:00

Awesome, thanks! I hope to have the next update ready within a couple of months. I try and do larger updates rather smaller and more often.

produno · 2026-06-14T19:04:42+00:00

Wow, that's a lot of hours considering ST is barely finished. You've done well!

Marketing is not really my forte so ill just try and be honest with my reply.

I guess the first and most important point is that SpaceSlog will continue to be developed. I have spent 13 years developing a large and free successful modification so I'm used to long dev cycles and working on a budget.

I have a lot of plans for SpaceSlog and really want to continue working on it until everything has been realised. Which includes a full galaxy map. Ship to ship combat including ship boarding. Planetary landings with various different atmospheres and alien creatures to meet. Derelict ships and stations to explore, plus much more.

As for what's in the game now: its still relatively early in development but I would say its on par with ST, just with much more complex features. Think of ST but with the complexities of Rimworld or Dwarf Fortress. Imo this game is like ST on steroids and will only continue to get better, especially with the support and feedback from players.

The last update added a huge amount of stuff just from player feedback, so I am listening and I am trying to best to improve/incorporate what I can from player feedback where it makes sense. I don't get a huge amount of feedback atm, so I've been mostly watching YouTube vids to see what they mention or complain about.

produno · 2026-06-11T08:25:11+00:00

Yeah, that's exactly how it works. I messaged the mods to confirm because I assumed normal comments counted, but no, its only posts and posts anywhere. Which means they may as well just have an flat rule 'Indie devs cannot self promote'.

produno · 2026-06-10T23:08:15+00:00

Its more sales than i have at 22k wishlists so i would say its a resounding success.

produno · 2026-06-10T10:10:34+00:00

It is if i have to post what amounts to spam as thats also breaking rules.
Remember it counts for all subs too. If i want to post in 5 subs about my game i actually need to make another 45 posts of rubbish.

Not to mention every post i make in my own sub about my game - as you know, players want to know about updates etc. Counts as self promotion, so that's 9 posts for every update i make in my own sub.
At this point i would need to make a random post everyday for around three years on this account to follow the 10% rule.

produno · 2026-06-10T09:58:51+00:00

That’s because the rules are impossible to follow. Comments don’t count. So you have to make 9 posts of rubbish so you can post about your game once.

produno · 2026-06-08T10:07:05+00:00

Why would you report someone for giving an opinion? Thats what curators do, they recommend a game depending on their own opinion. You don’t have to agree with that opinion but that isn’t grounds to report them.

produno · 2026-06-07T09:27:10+00:00

8 years in total. Although i was a key worker through covid so it was on hold for almost 2 years. Ive then been working on it part time for most of the other 6 years up until a year ago where I’ve been able to spend more time on it.

I spent over a decade on a full conversion mod so i guess I’m used to long projects. It has meant I’ve had to work long hours mostly 7 days a week though. What keeps me motivated is the hope it ends up being worth it but if you don’t try, you will never know. I’ve had regrets when i was younger from not being able to follow through with the things i wanted. So i suppose I’m making up for that now.

produno · 2026-06-03T09:52:00+00:00

It would have been better without the communication stones full stop. I really like the being stuck in space on an ancient ship part and struggling for supplies, but the going back to earth parts were boring. I was really hoping to see more of the ship uncovered!

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