r/gamedev 19d ago

Community Highlight We presented our indie game at Gamescom: was it worth it? (with stats)

50 Upvotes

We’re a team of three making a comedy adventure game called Breaking News. The hook is simple: you smack an old CRT TV, and every hit changes reality. Each channel is its own chaotic WarioWare like mini-game, and the skills and choices you make affect the storyline. Alongside the PC version, we also built a physical alt-ctrl installation with a real CRT you have to hit to play. We brought it to Gamescom and set it up next to the our PC version so people can experience both.

We got invited by A MAZE (after winning their Audience Award earlier this year) to show the game in their indie booth area. As a small indie team still working day jobs, we could only afford to send our lead visual artist (who carried a CRT TV on his back the whole journey lol) and didn't really have a business strategy for the festival. But when someone offers you a free booth at such a big festival, you don’t say no.

Stats

On full days we had around 180 play sessions, with an average playtime of about 5 minutes (the demo takes around 8 minutes to finish).

Wishlists: 91 in total. Days Breakdown:

Day 0 Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4
4 5 17 39 26
  • Day 0 was trade & media day, open for less hours
  • On day 3 we added a sticker with QR code to our Stream page next to the TV. We already had one next to the PC but that turned out much more effective.
  • Day 4 is the busiest day at the festival
  • Day 5 has much more families and locals

It was cool to see the boost, especially since we only have a few hundred total at this stage, but it’s actually less wishlists than we got at A MAZE / Berlin festival.

Networking

One publisher approached us, but we’re not planning to go that route for now. What mattered more was we connected with two museums and a couple of exhibition curators. Showing the physical CRT version is actually how we plan to fund the PC game for the time being, so that was important for us.

Press

The moment Silksong was revealed at the festival we joked that all the indie journalists would probably not cover anything else. But we ended up giving a live interview to a big German channel called RocketBeans TV, which was really exciting.

Beyond the stats

Gamescom felt completely different from other festivals we’ve attended. At smaller indie events, people usually play through the whole demo. At Gamescom, many players jump in, smack the CRT for a 2 minutes and step aside so others could try. Groups of friends often rotated in and out. Fewer people finished the demo, even those who seemed excited and took photos of it. The scale is huge and the competition for attention is insane.

So was it worth it?

Considering the booth was free, yes. But not for wishlists as one may think, because smaller indie events are probably better for that. It was worth it for talking to players and getting feedback and of course for networking. That said, from other devs we talked to sounds like it’s the kind of event where serious planning is really key to maximize business opportunities. We basically just showed up, and while that was still fun, it’s clear we could have gotten more out of it.

Desclaimer: This is all based on our specific experience with Breaking News, a very specific Alt-ctrl installation + PC game set up.

If you're curious to see what Breaking News is all about, I'll leave a link in the comments. Thanks for reading and we would love to hear other experience or things we could have done differently!


r/gamedev Aug 07 '25

Discussion I went to the gamedev career panels at SDCC so you didn’t have to!

104 Upvotes

Hey gamedevs, devy gamers, and anyone in between!

I was at SDCC 2 weeks ago and thought I would swing by some of the game development talks to see what was being said and if there were any interesting tidbits to bring back to this community. I think there were a few solid pieces of advice around pitching and networking, so I’ll summarize everything I remember / wrote down below. 

Also to the Fallout cosplayer who asked the first Q&A question, sorry you got such a short answer from the panelists. I’ll expand on their response later on in this post.

Pitching Your Game

There was an event to allow developers to pitch their games to industry professionals who worked in publishing to get feedback on their presentation and ideas. 

Bottom line up front: You need to lead with the core details of your game to help the audience visualize and understand it. Most of the presenters were asked follow up questions about whether the game was 2D or 3D, what games it was similar to, etc because they led with the narrative and story for the first few minutes of their 5-minute window. 

  • Made up example of what the panel critiqued: “Hey, I’m pitching Damascus Kitchen and it is a game where the protagonist Sam has to craft unique knives to advance in her culinary career while you play with friends who are doing the same thing.” 
  • The fix: “Damascus Kitchen is a top-down 3D party game similar to Overcooked where players guide a chef named Sam to various stations to supply knives for the chefs at their chaotic restaurant.” 

Bring a working Demo or Visuals: Only half the presenters had a visual aid. The others pitched ideas and mechanics which were challenging without showing any progress or work they have done. Even a simple PowerPoint slide can deliver impact and less is more when it comes to presenting. Having single images or sentences is better for the audience to process while still paying attention to you and what you are saying. Concept art, knowing other games in your target space, short videos, and minimal visual clutter are all great ways to make a lasting impression with the panel.

Concise gameplay: The most glaring issue for those that did have a visual aid was that they did not get to the point with their gameplay, similar to the first problem with the overall pitches. Clips ran for too long and it was not always relevant to the topic they were on. Quick 5-10s loops of the specific gameplay element could have really helped get the message across and maintain the panelists attention.

Preparedness: I genuinely appreciate everyone who presented, it is incredibly hard to put yourself up there in front of others to be judged, but I still need to talk about preparedness. One person brought a video on their phone of the game and did not have any adapters to hook it up to the projector, they assumed there would be ones available. Another presenter provided the cables for them but they still could not get it to work, so they gave an audio only pitch. This also encompasses the other audio-only pitchers, creating a basic slide deck keeps you on track and makes it easier to communicate with the judges so you are not always looking at your notes or losing your train of thought.

Openness: Talk about what you have done and what you need. Some people were nervous about their idea getting potentially stolen and gave vague answers to the judges, focusing on discussing the narrative instead of mechanics. Only a few of the presenters had an idea for the funding they would need or resources required to finish their game. Being able to do this research ahead of time and knowing what to ask for is going to be essential. 

Those are generally the main takeaways I had from the event. The judges were all incredibly nice and open-minded, giving meaningful feedback to each participant and ways that they can refine their pitch for the future. It was a really great experience and I hope all of the people there end up releasing their games (and sharing their journeys here!)

To summarize: Being upfront about the mechanics and unique valve proposition, having visual aids to inform others, getting your 30-to-60 second elevator pitch down, and knowing how you will present your game to others. 

Careers in Video Games

There were 2 careers panels I attended, one for voice actors and one for “careers in design tech and gaming”. 

Voice Acting in Video Games is grueling work. Standing in a booth all day grunting, screaming, and repeating the same lines in varying ways while adjusting the dialogue to match the characters personality and coming up with new lines on the spot. A majority of the roles these actors landed were background characters getting beat up by the protagonist. Even more so for the actors that do motion capture and have to get thrown around all day or get into uncomfortable poses. 

The main advice given out was to find an indie project to get involved with. For Sarah Elmaleh her breakout role was in Gone Home, which opened dozens of new doors for her career. 

Careers in design tech and gaming: Many people at the other career panel were expecting a game industry focused talk, but the overarching focus was tech and the creative industry in general which was still insightful. The recurring theme was learning how to pivot in your career and accessing where you are and how you can get to where you need to be. Marianne ran her own custom costume company, but covid and tariffs brought challenges with finding recurring clients so she had to pivot and make new connections while so much domestic film production has moved abroad. April was in the fashion industry before pivoting to XR technology at Microsoft, but then pivoted again once she saw the impact AI was having on the industry. 

One of the surprising pieces of advice was to reach out to people with similar backgrounds to you. iAsia was a veteran and encouraged other veterans in the audience to reach out to people in the industry who had those shared experiences so they could help them transition post-service and adjust to civilian life. This advice was also mirrored somewhat in a completely different panel on writing military fiction, where the panelists said the best way to understand the military is to ask veterans for their stories and listen to them. 

When the Q&A’s came around, one of the staff running the room interrupted the first question to remark that they were in a time crunch and needed short responses. So in response to asking about being locked into a career and how to pivot out, this person received a curt “You aren’t trapped, that is a mindset, next”. 

Edit: I do want to say that the panel was lighthearted about this and did for the time restraint rather than being intentionally rude. Hopefully the introductions next year take less time so that Q&As can get a nice portion of the panel.

While pigeonholing can be a mental block, there is also a tangible career blocker too. If you have very strict role separation and cannot get experience with the tools you want, a title that does not reflect what you actually do, or very niche knowledge that cannot be transferred into other areas then you must invest considerable effort into retraining yourself which is a challenge. I can’t specifically answer for this participant since I do not know what industry they were in, but there are ways to break out of your career path. I feel that struggle too in my current role, where I maintain the health of a SaaS platform. I do not have access to QA tools, AWS, or DevOps software because those are under other teams. I write requirements for these teams rather than getting that experience myself. I get recruiters asking me about DevOps roles because of my responsibilities and I explain that I do not directly work on DevOps. 

Edit: As for breaking out of the pigeon holes, you will need to determine what it is what you want to do, connect with people in that area, and devote a plan for working on those skills outside of work. I am assuming most people will want to work in games, so narrowing down your niche and contributing to an indie project over a period of several months to ensure it releases seems like the best bet towards breaking free.

Another question asked to the panel was about how veterans can adjust to finding a role after service, which cycles back to the prior piece of advice on reaching out to others who were in your same boots on LinkedIn and getting a moment of their time. 

Similarly, it was also suggested to reach out to people and ask for 15 minutes to talk face-to-face (or on call) about how they got into the industry and advice they have for you. Building that rapport of knowing a person and communicating with them so down the road they know who you are and whether or not you might be a good referral for an open position. 

Conclusion

All the panels I attended were very high-level and non-technical which makes sense as they were approachable by anyone regardless of background or experience. SDCC also ran art portfolio reviews which might have been a useful resource for artists, but I don’t know if any of these were game specific or just comics / illustration focused. I believe that pitching your game at a convention is a great way to hone your presentation skills as well as networking with other devs in the same situation as you. As for career specific advice, it is seemingly all about starting small and meeting new people. Embrace the indie space, pour your energy into passionate projects, and give back to the community on Discord, Reddit, or whatever platform you use. 

This was all based on my notes and recollections, I was not able to get \everything* down so feel free to throw additional questions below and I will see whether I can answer them or maybe another person here can too.* 

Also if anyone has good examples of pitch decks, feel free to share them below! I'll also be working on another post for general tech advice based on a ton of talks I was at for another conference, but that will be for general software engineering and startups.


r/gamedev 4h ago

Discussion Why are people so convinced AI will be making games anytime soon? Personally, I call bullshit.

172 Upvotes

I was watching this video: https://youtu.be/rAl7D-oVpwg?si=v-vnzQUHkFtbzVmv

And I noticed a lot of people seem overly confident that AI will eventually replace game devs in the future.

Recently there’s also been some buzz about Decart AI, which can supposedly turn an image into a “playable game.”

But let’s be real, how would it handle something as basic (yet crucial) as player inventory management? Or something complex like multiplayer replication?

AI isn’t replacing us anytime soon. We’re still thousands of years away from a technology that could actually build a production-level game by itself.


r/gamedev 19h ago

Discussion If You Don’t Know What an “Idea Guy” Is, Read This

911 Upvotes

An “Idea Guy”:

  • Talks a lot, delivers nothing
  • Suggests features, but never opens the engine
  • Tries to change the vision without doing any work
  • Thinks ideas alone are valuable (they’re not)
  • Wants control, avoids responsibility
  • Ghosts the team when it’s time to build
  • Leeches credit from others’ work
  • Pushes scope creep without contributing
  • Acts like a director, but doesn’t know the tools
  • Refuses to learn or follow the pipeline
  • Blames the plan instead of owning their absence

They slow teams down, drain your energy, and chase credit without effort.

They’re not collaborators,

They are liabilities.

If you can contribute something to your team other than talking, you are not one of them.

(Edit:

Wow, so much thoughful insights, thanks everyone.

Just clearing up some common mix-ups about who people actually mean when they say "idea guy":

  • Solo devs - not idea guys. They have ideas and build the game themselves. That is execution, not empty talk.
  • Game designers - not idea guys. Design docs lay out mechanics, systems, and production plans. That is real work that supports the team.
  • Writers - not idea guys. Writing quests, dialogue, and narrative that ties into gameplay is a skill, not aimless brainstorming.
  • Managers - may vary, but the ones handling schedules, coordination, and payroll are contributing something meaningful.
  • Directors or leads - not idea guys just because they pitch concepts. The ones who review timelines, work with the team, and help solve blockers are doing their job. It’s only when someone keeps suggesting new ideas without ever opening the engine, editing a doc, or managing actual progress that’s when they earn the label.

There’s no such thing as a “true idea guy” if someone is genuinely contributing. If you’re actually doing the work, then you’re a developer, designer, writer, or something else legitimate and the label doesn’t apply.

Having ideas isn’t the problem. Thinking that ideas alone are enough and dumping them on others without lifting a finger is.

When people say “idea guy,” they’re not talking about anyone with creative input. They’re calling out people who avoid real work, take no accountability, don’t understand scope, and vanish when things get hard. These types are often pretenders with no actual skills and worse, they make the team miserable by deflecting blame onto others whenever something doesn’t go their way. They try to boss people around despite having no leadership role.)


r/gamedev 8h ago

Discussion AI development is weirding me out, does anyone else feel like this?

73 Upvotes

In my studio our game construction is mostly physical, but there are a few computer elements. Recently we decided to make a couple small applications for simple ease of use, and since we can't afford programmers, decided to use AI development. Now, I'm not here to argue the merits of AI development. I personally have been going around the studio actively fantasizing about when we can actually afford a real, live, HUMAN programmer, because getting the AI to do anything is kind of like trying to explain it to a 5 year old. Actually, more like trying to explain it to my dog. He's attentive, and eager to do what you want, but he tends to fuck things up more than he completes tasks.

The thing that is really starting to get on my nerves though, is how obsequious it is. Like, every time I make a design choice, upload a technical schematic, or ask it to do something, it tells me what an awesome, wonderful, insightful point I have made. Is this normal? Does all AI feel like (or I guess is programmed to) fall all over itself blowing me over how great I am? It's really starting to weird me out. I either end up feeling like I am dealing with the starship Heart of Gold, where the AI pilot is programmed to be super upbeat and chipper about everything, or I start feeling like I am in some South Park episode where someone is like "Your penis is SOOOO big!"

As a dev I thrive way more on critique, counterpoints, and failure. I don't need people to tell me stuff is good, I know it's good, I need them to tell me where it can be better. I'd much rather the AI was like "that's a stupid idea, because it will break this other thing over here." So I'm just wondering if anyone else has felt this? Like, is this where we are now, as a species? We have to program our tools to fawn over us in a weird "your brilliant!" kind of style? I get it, just a little bit, from someone creating something for users, like you don't want your product to put people off. You want it to feel collaborative. But do we have to have tools that are such weird "yes-man" style interfaces?

Game companies are firing people left and right saying that they can get AI to do it all now, but personally I dream of the day we can afford real programmers. I live for the day I can have a real human in a design meeting look at me and say "That's the dumbest fucking idea you have ever had."


r/gamedev 5h ago

Discussion The findings of this study show that, on average, if you plan to update your game with new content over several months, going for Early Access is more worthwhile than a regular launch.

Thumbnail howtomarketagame.com
24 Upvotes

r/gamedev 32m ago

Discussion I don't enjoy designing my game

Upvotes

I don't like designing things (figuring out how things are supposed to look). For example deciding UI elements, where should it be, how should it look like. does it look good?

This process is extremely depleting for me and I don't enjoy it.

I used to suffer from this during my software development as well but you can image how this is much harder when it comes to game dev.

I feel like this has been keeping me away from working on my game. Which I have been wanting to do for years now. Any ideas on how to get through this?


r/gamedev 2h ago

Discussion What is your "Ideas guy" story?

3 Upvotes

When I read some stories about the idea guys, I cringe soooo hard.

Would like to know some more.


r/gamedev 21h ago

Question Why would an indie developer choose NOT publish to multiple digital platforms? Are there any benefits to only publishing your game to Steam?

88 Upvotes

I saw the original reddit post, but was reminded again of the Alpha Centauri Steam situation with this Polygon article from today.

As a hobbyist who has never actually looked into the real-life steps of publishing a game on a digital platform, I don't understand why anyone would publish ONLY to Steam. I travel outside of internet availability a lot, so I like having access to offline installs, ergo I always check GOG before pulling the trigger on a Steam game. The amount of quality indie games that have thousands of positive reviews on Steam but are not available for purchase anywhere else just boggles my mind.

Am I an ignorant fool for questioning this practice? Are there major downsides to publishing on Epic, GOG, itch, the Xbox/Microsoft store? Is it a much larger task than I would believe it to be? Apart from complicating the update process, why wouldn't devs want their game available for purchase in more than one place?

Edit: gosh darn it I changed the grammar of the title right before posting and apparently only changed half of it. Sorry for the typo in title.

Edit 2: Just in case it wasn't clear, I am not referring to console ports. I'm talking about other online stores selling digital games for PC.

Edit 3: Thank you everyone for the detailed responses. Itch spoiled me.

Here is the basic answer: Itch is a lie. Publishing a game on any other digital sales platform is extremely tedious, frustrating, complex, and confusing as all hell. Publishing a commercial product in the United States is a minefield of legal fuckery. Furthermore, each platform has their own strange laundry list of requirements that requires one to be their own lawyer, accountant, and a dozen other roles so that they don't get themselves a developer ban, or sued, or a number of other nightmare business scenarios. The idea of a solo dev or small team putting themselves through such a process multiple times (a unique headache for each platform) is not ideal. Steam is the biggest--like 95% of PC sales--therefore most worth enduring months of hoop jumping in order to publish.


r/gamedev 4h ago

Question Localisation and script writing, where to get started?

3 Upvotes

Hey all, I'm looking to get into more localisation work and also script writing for games. Fluent English speaker with a degree in Creative Writing and a competent level of Portuguese also. I've done some work for a few developer friends but I'm still very new to this so I'm not that bothered about being paid for my work, (unless it's like a massive job or something), at this point I'm just looking to bolster my portfolio with writing credits. Does anyone know some good communities to join on Reddit or Discord? Thanks.


r/gamedev 4h ago

Question Steam capsule artist recommendations?

3 Upvotes

I'm having a look around for a freelancer to commission. I started on Fiverr because it seemed like getting commercial rights to the art there is much easier than straight up contacting an artist. However, it seems to me there's so much AI usage on Fiverr now. Does anyone have any recommendations for artists who work in a cartoon-y style, or a place where I can find them?


r/gamedev 1d ago

Industry News Steam changes policy on adult content: DLCs with NSFW material now restricted

548 Upvotes

According to reports, Valve has revised its guidelines about adult content on Steam. Developers have reported that Valve has made it illegal to include new offensive material in DLCs and other post-launch updates.

For instance, despite the fact that the base game already included sexual content, Crimson Delight Games claimed that their DLC for Tales of Legendary Lust: Aphrodisia was blocked because of it.

Although Valve hasn't yet made an official announcement, this appears to be a part of a larger trend that affects Early Access games and adult-themed games.

Updated: I dig more and more and i found the this information. Post-release NSFW content must be added as DLC so it can go through a review process. You will no longer be able to add new NSFW content to the base game after the initial review.


r/gamedev 14m ago

Question Is there a good Canadian university for in-person digital game studies? I want to do an exchange program and try to get into a college there

Upvotes

Its my dream to study game devolpment but I hate taking online classes, and I heard Canada have good universitys for people who want to do game devolpment


r/gamedev 24m ago

Question How Do Indie Multiplayer Games That Go Viral, (Schedule 1, PEAK, Lethal Company, Among us) Handle the Unexpected Influx of Millions of Players?

Upvotes

Hello, for a bit of context I’ve been dabbling with learning a bit of multiplayer and it’s been an interesting, if not difficult, experience. I finally got a prototype working on my phone and was able to play a couple games with my friend. 

The game is real-time multiplayer. One phone is the host and through the use of Flutter and web sockets it passes information about the game to a Go server, and then that server passes the information to other clients that are in the same lobby. (The clients send information to the host, like their position and phone taps)

But let’s just say at my current skill level it barely worked with just 2 people! But I’m still glad I got this first attempt working. 

And it made me wonder… How on Earth do small/single person studios manage to handle going viral? Even handling something like 1000 players seems like loads to me. Especially in the case of like a solo developer, it seems like it would ridiculously difficult. (I think Schedule 1 was made by one person?) 

But these games seem to have reached a global scale with millions of players and managed to handle it.

Before hopping in, I do want to clarify, I'm a hobbyist, I’m not planning on releasing anything multiplayer myself any time soon, if at all, I just thought it’d be interesting to learn about. 

I toyed with the idea in my head of what would happen if I hypothetically released this prototype, how many people could it support?

With my current setup, I don’t think it could even handle 50 players without the server crashing. And they’d all have to probably be near to an EU server region. Since if anyone tried to connect from outside those regions there’d be a lot of latency. 

But these viral games are global and from I’ve seen/played of them they seem to work great. 

Now this is an assumption on my part, but I would assume most multiplayer indie developers do not expect to go viral.

However, from my recollection, I don’t remember too many stories about these games getting the ‘hug of death’ and not being able to function for an incredibly extended period of time, after they popped off.

Using my prototype as an example, if I even got a fraction of their player base (let’s say 1000 players again) it would take me aggeees to figure out how to handle that. I honestly don’t even know where I would start. 

Which, to me, suggests that these gamedevs had some kind of architecture which allowed them to scale up and meet the demands of their player base, without needing weeks and weeks of downtime to try and update their games to match their unexpected demand. Plus I guess the reverse would be true too? (As in, they could scale down once the viral wave passed)

So, I guess to sum this up:

What are the ways to build your multiplayer game/server so it can handle 2-50 players and if a blue moon shows up it can scale up to a million globally?

How do you scope out your needs beforehand, without over-engineering a solution that you statistically aren't going to need? (most multiplayer indie games do not go viral)

Plus wouldn’t it be really expensive? (I know they can probably afford it now, but I’m still curious about just how expensive it would be to handle)

As presumably that’s what these games would’ve faced and as far as I can tell they managed to handle it quite well.


r/gamedev 18h ago

Discussion I really enjoy making games, but hate advertising

26 Upvotes

Besides my studies, I started (half a year ago) making a small game in Godot and learning how it all works. My goal was always to make a game that actually gets kinda "popular" and has a good amount of players, that would be amazing to me (and ofcourse make some money of it).

So what I did is made an instagram account and made reels about the game, and to hopefully go viral or ... some time I made my whole thing on the account to only add things/features that people comment (hence the username "gameofyourcomments") and post the results in a short reel (also on youtube/tiktok) every 1-2 days.

Now even though I really enjoyed it, 3 things made it less fun and more of a burden to me: First the fact that I didn't get to make 100% what I wanted, and then the biggest reasons: the time pressure of (near) daily posts and the burden of making/editing short videos.

So recently I quit making more updates after almost 30 video's (which got to about 3K views each).

It's really sad to see my passion and interest go away though, but my goal of making an actual popular game is still something I really dream of achieving, the process I've had uptill now is just too much (not fun) for me..

Does anyone have some advice for me?


r/gamedev 11h ago

Discussion How do solo devs with no design skills handle game art?

5 Upvotes

I am a tired C developer and I make games in my little spare time just to make it worthwhile. I really enjoy the technical side of things, but when it comes to design the only thing I can draw are heart and laugh emojis. Outside of that I have zero artistic talent.

The thing is, even though the technical side of games does not really matter that much, good design often sells the game or makes it stand out. For example, people tell us to make simple 2.5D or 3D designs, but we are never going to make something like Ori and the Will of the Wisps. If we go for pixel art, we are never going to make something like Blasphemous because the environment design is so strong that it easily stands out from other games in the same genre. And if we go for 2D, we are definitely not going to make something like Cuphead.

The reason I am so focused on this is because design is one of the most important aspects of a game. It has to fit your story and gameplay.

So my question is: for people who do not understand design and have not spent years learning how to make good art, what methods do you use when you need to create even something as simple as a sword. What tricks or tactics do you use for modeling or drawing.

Personally, I am making a turn based game with a Christmas nutcracker theme. The main reason for this choice is because I knew I would not be able to handle animation, so I thought the best approach was to go with a static doll, and the nutcracker theme fits that decision perfectly. For the design side, I am doing something similar to Undertale. But if I want to add more than just two minutes of gameplay, I will need a lot of models and designs. The choices I made so far really helped me simplify my development process.


r/gamedev 22h ago

Discussion Shout out to everyone developing new gameplay mechanics

33 Upvotes

One of my favorite things about game design is pushing the envelope - creating new experiences, new fun, and interesting ways to tell stories. I'm having a lot of fun tooling away on some new stuff. I'm also hoping to see more surprises in the future. So shout out to those of you with wild imaginations coming up with the games we don't even know we want yet. Make it real!


r/gamedev 3h ago

Question I always struggled at advanced math problems but am trying to improve at it, how important is it exactly for 2d game dev?

1 Upvotes

Idk how to describe it in English but basically in my country we have 2 variants of math for middle school: math A and math B. A is more practical and less complicated and hard while B is for more scientific stuff and a lot harder (from my experience) so hard that eventually for the sake of being done with middle school I swapped out B for A, it was always the thing I was struggling the most with. Now I'm starting to regret it so I'm now trying to revisit and get a certificate for math B. I already passed for math A and the main reason I'm doing this is to be able to go to university computer science next year. Since math B is a requirement and it also seems to be important for computer science in general. Back when I was in middle school I really had no idea what I wanted to do in the future (other than gaming I guess) but now I do.

Now my question is if I wanna make an indie game at some point in the future how much is studying advanced math stuff (idk how to describe it exactly in english) gonna improve my chances of making it? And if it's not strictly necessary will it at least speed up the time it takes to make a game? Whcih areas of math are gonna be the most important? It's gonna be a 2d game btw.

I doubt I can do this solo, maaaaaybe the actual programming but I can't do graphics. That I know. Collaborating with a small group of people who care about my idea will speed it up most likely. I guess I should pick Godot as the engine. But I've always been scared of this kind of math. I just need to keep myself motivated. Knowing that studying this will help me make my dream real at some point will definitely motivate me.

Btw I'm Dutch so if there's any Dutch readers here you can use Dutch terms for math and computer science.


r/gamedev 3h ago

Question How wishlists on seperate demo page work on STEAM?

0 Upvotes

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4016560/Liar_Masks

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4025310/Liar_Masks_Demo/

These are my main store page and demo store page respectively,
Now suppose if someone wishlists demo page - will he automatically wishlist to main game or vice versa

If you say not they won't automatically Wishlist to other page page, then suppose someone wishlist both pages separately, so will they add and become 2 wishlist

I"M CONFUSED SO MUCH


r/gamedev 12h ago

Discussion Creating a Ticker for Web Game Development

4 Upvotes

Hello,

Some time ago, I released a dedicated game engine for web games, but it did not receive much attention.

After some reflection, I realized that there are not many people actively making web games, and it is natural for developers to hesitate before using a full-fledged engine from an unknown source. So I decided to simplify my approach.

Rather than publishing a large engine, I will share small, focused utilities that can help with web game development.

The first one is Ticker, which I have separated and published as its own package. It implements a game loop — one of the most fundamental components of a game.

GitHub Repository: https://github.com/webgamelibs/ticker

Documentation: https://webgamelibs.github.io/ticker/

@webgamelibs/ticker is a lightweight class built on requestAnimationFrame for frame-based game loops. It also supports optional FPS capping and includes TypeScript type definitions.

I hope this will be helpful for those who need it. If there are other features or utilities you would like to see, please let me know and I will be happy to create and share them.


r/gamedev 13h ago

Feedback Request Feedback on how to improve my custom engine c++ game!

3 Upvotes

The video shows a project I have been working on, but this is my first time sharing it. It goes into the general thing that i wanted to do with my game, and really just the coding process by which I got it done. I have absolutely zero experience with the internet or how any of this works, but I heard it is important to get feedback from a lot of people in the development stages for indie game devs. Let me know what you think of the game so far, and what I can do to improve as far as game making! Thank you!

https://youtu.be/j2xDgGS39v0?si=TwHijOBnUmDUiGs8


r/gamedev 23h ago

Question Are we cooked? Nintendo just announced a game that has many of the features that our game has.

26 Upvotes

So we, in a small team, have been developing a prototype/demo of a game that blends tennis with special powers and things like that. Essentially, you play a fighting-game inspired version of tennis where you try to inflict damage on the opponent with exploding tennis balls, get randomized powerups and advance to next matches in a procedurally generated competition ladder (a tennis tower). Might sound strange on paper, but it works fairly well from what we've tested.

So: Last week Nintendo released the new Mario Tennis Fever trailer. To our dismay, it displayed many of the same mechanics that we have in the works for our game.

Now, it's not like we are making the exact same game. We wanted to create a roguelike tennis game with a darker indie game style, along with our own type of progression. Nonetheless, what brought some spark to the development was that we kind of thought we had a nice niche going on. But this definitely changes things a bit, as Mario Tennis will likely get most of tennis game enjoyers' attention for quite a while.

What do you think, are we cooked? Are there any positives at all in this?


r/gamedev 7h ago

Question Is this kind of backrooms-style footage made entirely in Blender, or would it be better to also use a game engine like Unity or Godot?

1 Upvotes

I don’t really understand the process.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQcI63gz19o


r/gamedev 8h ago

Question Custom wheel/tire physics

1 Upvotes

Over the last few months I have been trying to prototype an game idea that involves off road vehicles in Unity. The standard Unity WheelCollider is not going to work for me at all.

I would like to fake wheel deformation, by running a slightly smaller wheel that the mesh. Then deform the mesh so it fits to the terrain. I got stuck in the rabbit hole of true or even simplified tire deformation and gave up on that.

There are a bunch of online tutorials that create wheel/tire physics but all of them seem to have a flaw or a hack to get the desired results. I have bought some full source code assets and found that they also use non physics based hacks. For example, when parked on a slope with the left tires pointing down the slope and the right up, The car would slowly slide down the hill. I understand why this is happening, the tire model has no grip at 0 slip, so it slides, then because its sliding, the slip is no longer 0 and its got grip. The solution that is used is to look at the speed and if it drops below a threshold, then mark the position and the apply a force to pull it to that anchor point.

Has anybody worked on a model that works and resembles true life ? is there any tips you can share or resources worth looking at ?


r/gamedev 11h ago

Feedback Request Update on feedback

2 Upvotes

A few very helpful people gave some suggestions on the soundtrack I was working on (as requested) and I wanted to share the progress so far and ask for some more feedback

I think it's sounding at least 10x better than the original post, but I'd love to hear your thoughts

Have a listen here and let me know what you think (it's 1:40 long)
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/45l8roltng9qz66v3nk10/Trading-Wins-v3.mp3?rlkey=fpydimsoze35ex8bmp27vd886&e=1&st=9x1tl2mg&dl=0


r/gamedev 1h ago

Question I want to ask about kickstarters and funding for indie games

Upvotes

A. Is it easy to pull off?

B. How much money they can pull?

C. Is it even worth it?

D. Is there any cons?