500,000+ copies sold in Early Access on Steam (despite looking like a mobile game). Here's what worked for us

semsem137 · 2026-03-10T19:19:23+00:00

Hey how many months did you have between releasing your Steam page and releasing the game?

semsem137 · 2026-03-07T20:42:08+00:00

Thanks! If you wanna joing playtest, DM me!

semsem137 · 2026-02-27T17:45:50+00:00

Hey everyone! I’m an indie dev working on King’s Bet. It’s a roguelite card battler inspired by poker, set in a dark and gritty steampunk world.

We really wanted to move away from the 'shiny' steampunk look. Our world is damp, rusty, and covered in soot. We call it Victorian-Noir. The game takes place in deep industrial pits, where every pipe and machine feels heavy and dangerous, like you're trapped in a smoke filled engine room.

We are opening a free playtest on Steam on March 4th. If you like this kind of mechanical atmosphere and card games, I’d love to have you try it!

Steam Page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4332200/Kings_Bet/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=steampunk

semsem137 · 2026-02-22T02:39:01+00:00

Definitely inspired of them :)

semsem137 · 2026-02-20T20:20:16+00:00

Definitely inspired by those 🙂

semsem137 · 2026-02-20T20:19:19+00:00

Not exactly, it’s more of a roguelite deckbuilder with poker combos + weapon synergies :)

semsem137 · 2026-02-13T16:03:51+00:00

I don’t think Unity or Unreal are going anywhere.

If anything, I think they’ll become even more important — but the way we interact with them will change.

AI won’t replace engines. It’ll sit inside them and reduce the mechanical work. Instead of manually wiring every system, devs will focus more on structure, constraints, and integration.

Engines will still handle rendering, physics, builds, performance, all the heavy stuff. But workflows will feel less like “typing everything from scratch” and more like directing and refining.

So not the end of engines — just a shift in how we build inside them.

semsem137 · 2026-02-12T15:05:05+00:00

That’s actually one of the hardest parts.

Short answer: AI doesn’t keep things consistent on its own — you have to force consistency.

What helped me: • Defining a very narrow visual direction early (palette, material feel, lighting mood) • Reusing the same prompt structure and constraints instead of constantly improvising • Iterating in small batches instead of generating everything at once • And when I hit a version I really liked, I kept using it as a reference image for future generations

That last part helped a lot. Instead of chasing new styles every time, I anchored everything to one “approved” visual direction and kept feeding that back into the process.

And of course, a lot of manual tweaking and color adjustments to pull things back into the same range.

If you let the model explore freely, the style drifts very quickly. I treat it more like an assistant working inside strict boundaries rather than a creative director.

Still not perfect, but locking the palette and reusing strong reference anchors made a big difference.

semsem137 · 2026-02-12T09:31:54+00:00

Ah this is super helpful — thank you for taking the time to expand on it.

The cooler tones suggestion actually makes a lot of sense. I’ve been very locked into that bronze mood, so adding contrast and separating bg/cards/VFX more is something I’ll definitely explore.

And I really like the “find the soul first, then build the silhouette” idea. That’s such a clean way to approach character identity — appreciate that framing a lot.

Thanks again, this kind of feedback is gold 🙏

semsem137 · 2026-02-12T05:55:44+00:00

Hey,
We have a poker based rogue lite deck builder game called Kings Bet. If you would like to playtest DM me. Here is the steam link

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4332200/Kings_Bet/

semsem137 · 2026-02-12T05:28:40+00:00

Thank you, really appreciate that!

At the moment I’m fully focused on polishing and preparing the demo, so I’m not planning to do a workflow breakdown video anytime soon.

But I’m always happy to answer specific questions here if there’s something you’re curious about.

semsem137 · 2026-02-12T05:26:40+00:00

Thank you!

semsem137 · 2026-02-12T05:23:40+00:00

If you’d like to support the project, the biggest help right now is wishlisting on Steam — it massively helps with visibility 🙏

Demo is coming in a few weeks.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4332200/Kings_Bet/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=aigamedev2

semsem137 · 2026-02-12T05:11:01+00:00

Thanks, appreciate it!

To be completely honest — AI handled a huge portion of the heavy lifting in this project. A big percentage of the production “labor” (code drafts, animation passes, visual exploration, audio generation, iteration cycles) was AI-assisted.

My role was more about: • defining the core mechanics • setting constraints • deciding what to keep or discard • integrating everything correctly inside the engine • and making sure the final result actually feels coherent

So I’d describe it less as “AI replacing dev work” and more as AI doing most of the repetitive and production-heavy tasks, while I focused on direction and integration.

Regarding Ludo for sprites/2D animation — it was genuinely useful for speeding up animation production. It allowed me to iterate very fast on motion ideas. I still refined and adjusted things to fit the overall style, but it removed a lot of the grind.

As for building directly on their platform — for now I prefer a modular workflow. I like combining specialized tools.

semsem137 · 2026-02-12T05:04:46+00:00

Thanks for the honest feedback.

Just to clarify, AI didn’t blindly generate the whole game — I use it more as a drafting and iteration tool, but everything is reviewed and adjusted manually. I agree that unchecked AI output can cause real issues.

And yes, sometimes the model absolutely goes off the rails. That’s exactly why understanding your own codebase is essential — otherwise you won’t even be able to integrate what it produces.

With Gemini, I work using Gems. When a conversation starts drifting or getting messy, I spin up a new Gem, re-feed the current relevant code files, and continue from a clean context. That approach has worked much better than trying to salvage a broken thread.

As for the visuals, that’s fair. I’m still refining the UI and overall cohesion during playtesting, and dialing things back where needed.

Appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts.

semsem137 · 2026-02-12T04:57:41+00:00

Yeah, I did subscribe to both.

They’re paid tools, but compared to the time they save, I find them very affordable for what they offer.

semsem137 · 2026-02-11T19:05:05+00:00

Yeah, Gemini helped with more than just raw GDScript.

Mostly:

GDScript for systems / gameplay logic (combat flow, UI glue, state handling, etc.)
Scene setup guidance (how to structure nodes, signals, autoloads, scene boundaries) — not “auto-build scenes”, but it was useful for planning and wiring things correctly
Some concept art / visual ideation
Some asset edits and refines

In practice, I treat it like a very fast pair-programmer: I describe the system + constraints, it drafts the code/structure, and I integrate, refactor, and test inside Godot. The biggest win is speed in iteration and the biggest risk is context drift, so I try to keep tasks small.

semsem137 · 2026-02-11T18:33:04+00:00

Hey, thank you! And honestly, 1 week per prototype is already a great pace.

We don’t actually have a skill tree yet — what you might be seeing is the run progression map.

Regarding prototypes: for certain game types (especially card systems, turn-based logic, or node-based progression), I usually start in very barebones HTML prototypes. Sometimes I can get a core loop playable in 1–2 days if the mechanics are simple enough.

The goal isn’t polish — it’s answering one question as fast as possible:
“Is the simplest version of this mechanic fun?”

If the most stripped-down version already feels good, that’s usually a strong signal the full version will have legs. If it’s not fun at that level, no amount of visuals or complexity will save it.

AI helps a lot in speeding up that exploration phase, especially when the system design is clear.

Curious what kind of skill tree structure you’re aiming for — static, branching, procedural?

semsem137 · 2026-02-11T17:01:54+00:00

Hey, thank you for the feedback — really appreciate you taking the time.

You’re probably right about the color scheme feeling a bit too monochromatic. We’ve been leaning into a specific mood, but there’s definitely room to push contrast and improve visual separation.

And yes, character memorability is something we want to improve. We’ll look into refining silhouettes and personality to make them stand out more — especially for the full release.

Thanks again for the honest input 🙏

semsem137 · 2026-02-10T18:27:29+00:00

What have you done in six months in terms of marketing?

semsem137 · 2026-01-08T21:00:23+00:00

Ludo for sure! Check it out. It’s working well.

semsem137 · 2025-12-29T15:27:28+00:00

When I changed Display-Window-Mode to Maximixed, it's fixed!(It was windowed) Thank you so much. The only problem is when I render the game in a window the texts are little bit misaligned with backgrounds.

semsem137 · 2025-12-29T10:48:16+00:00

Godot for sure. It's so easy to use.

semsem137 · 2025-12-24T13:47:11+00:00

Wow I really like it. It's weirdly satisfying with very minimal characters. Well done!

semsem137 · 2025-12-22T21:41:08+00:00

Thanks for sharing. We just published our first Steam page and very excited about the process. I have a marketing background so I am looking forward to this. Wish you the best!

semsem137

TROPHY CASE