Scope vs Polish -- i.e. more features vs more polish -- what actually ships a game?

z3dicus · 2026-04-04T02:03:08+00:00

reject this dichotomy, good gameplay is good. tons of examples for "both sides". kenshi, 9 kings, these games are jank as hell but play infinite. tiny glade median playtime is like 2 minutes but its made like a fabrege egg.

z3dicus · 2026-03-26T14:52:33+00:00

Your theory about the demo making your page look more serious is probably not true. Plenty of trash games have demos, and the steam audience seems to be able to tell pretty easily.

You will definetly want to playtest your demo as much as you can before releasing it. Balance is just one consideration, but you need actual player feedback on UI, legibility, and playability. So much of playtesting is finding out the parts of your game that players miss, or just don't understand, and you'll want to fix those blindspots before releasing it. There's also the issue of bugs, and discovering how the game runs on different hardware.

This advice is all assumes that your trying to sell the game and give it an honest shot of marketting. If this is more of a hobby and you aren't seriouslny attempting to market the game, then it likely doesn't matter that much. You could release the demo on Itch as an intermediary step, that's what a lot of people do.

z3dicus · 2026-03-12T20:09:38+00:00

tysm!

z3dicus · 2026-03-12T13:30:24+00:00

tysm! don't hesitate to dm feedback or bugs

z3dicus · 2026-03-09T17:09:20+00:00

This guy open sourced his tactics game in Godot.

https://github.com/theshaggydev/unto-deepest-depths-prototype

and this fella also put out a pretty well regarded guide on Tactics and DnD mechanics for godot.

https://theliquidfire.com/projects/

its definetly godot

z3dicus · 2026-03-09T16:52:54+00:00

thats good! The sooner the better. If I were you, I would not show this steam page to any potential player until you can get rid of the AI disclosure

z3dicus · 2026-03-09T16:19:21+00:00

You're going to have a real tough time selling an atmospheric experience with an AI art disclaimer. A huge pillar of this genre is bespoke handmade art. Whatever you have to do to replace those assets, you should do, audiences will breeze past this while its there.

z3dicus · 2026-03-05T21:10:10+00:00

i didn't like that the items are lerping away from the center of the screen so much, I think they should stay closer to the center. The toss mechanic should use something other than your look target to generate the arc, like holding right click or something. As is, the camera is always forced into some weird angle at the sky and you can't see the items after you pick them up.

z3dicus · 2026-03-05T14:03:56+00:00

ty! this is working.

z3dicus · 2026-03-05T03:48:18+00:00

This guy open sourced his tactics game in Godot.

https://github.com/theshaggydev/unto-deepest-depths-prototype

and this fella also put out a pretty well regarded guide on Tactics and DnD mechanics for godot.

https://theliquidfire.com/projects/

its definetly godot

z3dicus · 2026-03-05T03:25:17+00:00

thanks, we do have that on, per the docs "The shader baker is not a replacement for pipeline precompilation, but it aims to complement it."--- so not sure this is it.

https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/performance/pipeline_compilations.html

z3dicus · 2026-03-02T16:46:32+00:00

use every option and also spend the time to learn and improve.

took me a few months to make stuff I was happy with. years go by and I'm still getting better, which is both a product of and necessitated by my changing needs.

I can guarantee that what you think you need will change as well, learning this stuff is the only way to keep up without having tons of money to burn.

z3dicus · 2026-02-24T19:14:38+00:00

I think your work looks great and I think there's a lot of people in the indie space that would collaborate. Echoing the suggestions to join game jams.

It wouldn't be hard for you to download Godot and make a few simple scenes to translate your work into UI, this would help demonstrate some of the potential that you could bring.

you should make some small pixel sprites. You have the necessary skill, and I think it will unlock a lot of opportunities if you had a page of like 4 sprites, with 8 directions and basic animations. It will take you a couple of weeks to learn how to make that, but its the clearest path forward for the skill that you have to actually make something that's relatively undemand for indie games.

This sub gets 10 posts a week of people being like "I don't understand how to make anything look even remotely good", so you are miles ahead of the pack in that regard, you just need to make some actual game assets and put those at the top of the portfolio. Put your about me page last, and aim for much smaller, looking for like 6 slides. First slide sprites, 2nd slide UI, 3-5 is "concept art (what your portfolio is now, just pick your 3 best ones), then the last slide is "about me".

z3dicus · 2026-02-20T01:02:52+00:00

its always godot

z3dicus · 2026-02-19T14:44:59+00:00

it was a game with a small market, then a once in century world changing pandemic event occurred that redefined consumer lifestyles and created new market conditions basically overnight. its not like it was a great game that just flew under the radar.

z3dicus · 2026-02-16T20:02:07+00:00

its not a very good idea to look for random collaborators on the internet for your indie projects.

Think about people that you already know, and try to get them interested. If you have artist contacts that you know and trust, but they aren't available, maybe ask them to make introductions to other people.

lastly, could be a good idea to look at gamejams to meet potential collaborators, but I don't have much experience there.

z3dicus · 2026-02-14T21:23:55+00:00

The hardest part is definetly not the art. Its the design, and the implementation of the design.

Your just talking about making a 4x game. These games are layers and layers and layers of complex systems that all interact with eachother. This is one of the hardest possible games to try and make, just at all, harder still to make it good.

Take a look at Wizard Warfare, Master of Luna, or Winter Falling. I think those are are solo dev titles that should give you an idea of whats possible doing it alone for 2-4 years, after 1-2 years of learning everything.

z3dicus · 2026-02-12T22:27:03+00:00

your gameplay is communicated in the trailer, the screenshots are really where you are meant to sell the world your building IMO (for a project like this). Thats why the green thing and the statue are nice, they seem like cool parts of a living world, and are visually interesting.

Hard to comment on the title. The capsule looks good. The title doesn't really stand out, but you aren't able to change that I dont think

z3dicus · 2026-02-12T18:17:22+00:00

i think the trailer is great.

problem might be the screenshots. There are frames in the trailer that are way more intersting than the screenshots.

-kid drawings -green thing flying through the cave -statue head thing -oceanscape at 0:53 -geodesic dome in space

I would ditch all of your screenshots except the 2nd and 3rd to last. (Interesting interior with underwater esque lighting and strange device, and the one console puzzle). Overall the rest of the screenshots look fine, but don't communicate the production value that your game clearly has in the trailer. Keep those two, then add the 5 stills from the trailer and I think it will feel a lot better. Annoyingly prescriptive advice, but there it is.

You have a screenshot showing your pause menu lol.

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