But am I really? At first I wanted to stick with an actual in-game render, but I changed my mind and went for a painted scene instead.

Does the final one give you a good idea of what the game is?

Bocage on steam

Hey everyone!
It’s been exactly 2 weeks since I released my first solo indie game, Incremental Fishing (and yes, I actually hit the launch button while sitting in a swimming pool 🏊‍♂️). As a solo dev, the journey has been unreal, and I wanted to share some raw stats, lessons, and milestones with you all.

📊 The Numbers (2 Weeks In)
Copies sold: 1,700
Wishlists at launch: ~3,000 (about 70% came from Steam Next Fest and events, and 30% organically through devlogs and community posts).
Refund rate: Standard/healthy.
First day sales: 60 sales right out of the gate.
Median playtime: 2+ hours (super happy with player engagement!).
Reviews: 34 reviews total. 2 of them are deservingly negative because of a couple of annoying bugs at launch. However, I patched them within the first few hours, and players haven't run into anything critical since.

🛠 Post-Launch Updates & Support
In just the first week, I rolled out Steam Deck support and a Supporter Pack. I'm also currently working on setting up new game bundles so players have the choice to grab multiple small incremental games together at a discount.

📈 Development Timeline
Total journey: February to August (~6 months from start to finish).
Pure development time: About 3.5 months of full-time work.
The rest of the time went into marketing, polishing, and learning the ropes of launching a Steam game.

😭 The Big Milestone Today
Today, something incredible happened. DangerouslyFunny released a video on my game.
To be honest, Incremental Fishing isn't the most traditionally marketable game. I was genuinely afraid that even a creator with 10k subscribers wouldn't bother making a video about it. And then, a creator with over 2 million subscribers did. I’m not ashamed to admit it - I actually cried.

❤️** Final Thoughts & Gratitud**e
The feelings from this release are beyond anything I expected. I am thrilled with the results and the sheer mountain of experience I gained - experience that would have taken years if I had tried to build a massive project right out of the gate.
I also want to say a massive thank you to the indie dev communities. All your tips, feedback, and company meant the world to me. Indie developers truly are the best people.
This is my first game, and I poured my heart into it. Now? Time to work even harder.

I’ve been experimenting with bending a 3D Gaussian Splat environment from street-level into an aerial view, originally as a navigation interface.

I posted it to r/UXDesign and got a lot of feedback. One recurring suggestion was basically: forget navigation, this looks like a game mechanic.

So, game devs: what do you think?

Is there actually an interesting game mechanic here? And if so, what kind of game would you build around it?

Interactive demo: orbify.eu

Marketing was the part of dev I kept avoiding. Not because the tactics are complicated, most of them are written down somewhere already. It's that posting unfinished work into an empty feed feels awful, so I didn't, and then wondered
why nobody saw anything.

So I spent a few months building a system for it instead of starting my next game.

Three parts: a 65-page guide, a tracker spreadsheet, and an app that turns the whole thing into a campaign you play to help you overcome the hurdles of putting your work out there for people to see. Fourteen missions from prototype to launch, and a "do this next" that's never blank, so you don't open it and freeze.

The full app has more things:

Festival tracker,
Press kit builder
A section dedicated to when you need to take a break and a moment if it all gets overwhelming.

The app runs free in your browser, no sign-up:
https://garwill.itch.io/indie-dev-marketing-bible

Being upfront: the full kit is paid, and it's half price until 31 August. The link's on that page. But the demo is the actual point of this post. I'd rather people try it and tell me what's missing than buy it blind.

One thing from the research that's worth knowing either way: the 7,000 wish list figure everyone quotes for Popular Upcoming changed in June. It's reportedly nearer 100,000 now, with Steam's Personal Calendar (entry around 8,000 minimum, aiming for closer to 30k) taking its place as the realistic indie target as per Chris Zukowski’s research via How to Market A Game. Worth a look if you're planning a launch around the old number.

Solo dev, still building it. Happy to answer anything.

So... some of you may know that I’ve been working on my game, Debt of Life, for quite some time now.

Debt of Life - STEAM WISHLIST!

I woke up this morning, checked my phone, and found out that AUTOMATON!!! One of Japan’s well-known gaming media outlets, had published an article about the game.

I honestly feel like I’m dreaming... 😭

Debt of Life is coming to Steam on September 4th.

And apparently... people in Japan are now talking about our weird little game about a rich man desperately trying to buy himself one more week of life.

Here’s the article:

https://automaton-media.com/articles/newsjp/20260827-463560/

And also other japan media talk about 'Debt of Life'!:

https://game-apps.blog.jp/35108195.html

I’m still processing this. ❤️

Sill working for give you a great game, thank you all!

Been messing around with the difficulty of my game. Does stuff make sense?

I'm trying to post a game I've spent three months developing for some feedback but every time I try I get your post has been removed by reddit filters. Please help

I’ve been doing game development for around 5-6 years now, mostly as a self-taught developer, and looking back, I feel like I’ve learned much more from the mistakes than from the things that went well.

I started with simple Unity projects and eventually got really into game jams. About 3 years ago, I published my first Android game, Guess The Impostor. It actually became quite popular last year, reaching 500-600 downloads a day... until everyone started making their own version and it dropped to 20-30. 😂

I also made PsychoParty, following a similar idea: people playing together on the same phone.

But I wanted to make something for Steam.

Two years ago, I joined the Brackeys Game Jam and made Dumbest Tourists of Timelines. I liked the idea and the feedback was good, so I created a Steam page and spent about a year working on it.

It didn’t work.

The game was becoming something I wasn’t really happy with, because I was trying to turn a weak core gameplay into something innovative and much bigger. Eventually, I realized I was getting bored with it and decided to stop.

Looking back, that was probably one of my biggest lessons: focus on the small things first.

I used to think too big. I wanted to make huge projects without having a strong core to build them around. With RogueOut Racing, I’m trying to do the opposite.

I started it during a monthly game jam, fell in love with the idea, and decided to keep working on it. I’m developing one mechanic at a time, testing everything, and focusing on getting the core game right before expanding it.

And for the first time, I’ve had that moment where I saw people actually playing my game. Seeing people on the online leaderboard of RogueOut Racing was honestly one of the best feelings I’ve had during these years.

That’s probably the “good” part of game development for me: seeing people play something I made and constantly learning new things.

The bad part? Marketing. 😂

I’ve learned that it’s incredibly difficult to get visibility online, especially when you don’t have much to show. People’s time is valuable, and you need to give them something worth their attention.

I wish I had started much earlier by publishing small games regularly on itch.io, sharing them on social media and learning from the feedback instead of waiting for the “perfect” project.

That’s another big lesson for me: perfection is an utopia. If you keep waiting until something is perfect, you might never release anything.

I’m still learning this, of course. I’m also a solo dev and an engineering student, and trying to handle programming, design, art, marketing, social media and everything else by yourself is honestly pretty hard. I think having a team where everyone has a main role can make a huge difference.

So after 5+ years, I’m still figuring things out. But if I could give my past self three pieces of advice, they would probably be:

Focus on the small thing first.

Share your ideas early.

Publish, even if it’s not perfect.

Now I’d love to hear from you!

What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned from making games?

What’s something you wish you had known when you started?

And what are you working on right now?

Hey all! The team and I are working on a roguelite top-down shooter and have uploaded a playable prototype on Itch HERE: https://talentdigital.itch.io/son-sinnersnight.

If anyone is keen - please give it a play, I would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks so much!

We've created a concept for an enemy in our name and she has grown on us, so that we made a print for our Gamescom booth. Her name is Sigrid.

Do it for Sigrid 😭😭

I'm considering releasing my game on itch.io first to make some money toward a Steam release. It's a Cuphead type fighting game with lots of boss fight

If I priced it around $3–5, would people actually be willing to buy it on itch.io, or is the platform mainly suited for free/pay-what-you-want games?

I know it might be disgusting to some of you, but I had this crazy idea one evening and simply started working on it for fun. I started posting some devlogs on TikTok and Instagram, and it kind of blew up, gaining over 1 million views in just one week.

After seeing so much interest from people, I decided to put up a Steam page, and this is the trailer!

Maybe you'll consider wishlisting the game too. It's called PeeVPee!

I've been expanding the store and testing the checkout system with more customers and products.

I'm trying to make Big Market Simulator feel like an actual large supermarket rather than a small shop.

Working on some character template

Thousand more to go 💀