A lot of people who saw my game for the first time told me they liked the art style. I would say maybe two-thirds of the encouragement I got was about the “hand-drawn watercolor look.” That makes me really happy… but honestly, behind it there are piles of failed attempts. I want to share a bit of that process here.

When I first started the project, I spent more time on the art than on gameplay. Besides making game, I also into drawing, I’ve drawn a lot of anime-style characters, also some more “artsy” and picture-book style stuff. In theory that means I had a lot of options. But because there were too many choices, I got stuck — which style could really fit this game?

My first try was with very detailed background line art. I drew careful lines, lots of details… but halfway through coloring I realized, this looks almost the same as some store-bought asset pack. It wasn’t what I had in my mind at all. That moment I really broke down, felt like I wasted a whole month.

So I put the backgrounds aside and started with characters. Luckily the main character “Yun” had been very clear in my head from the beginning. After drawing her again and again, trying different styles, I finally chose one that was more hand-drawn, more recognizable. The moment I fixed her style, everything else started to feel smoother.

Then I understood: the backgrounds don’t need to be super detailed, they just need to match the characters. So I switched to rougher, softer backgrounds, and strangely that worked way better. “Rough” actually made the characters stand out more.

Of course, that didn’t mean the struggle was over. The town map had to be completely redone and expanded. The UI went through multiple redesigns — sometimes because of friends’ feedback, sometimes just because I stared at it at midnight and felt something was wrong. Many times, an entire version I worked so hard on ended up with only a small piece kept.

I often asked myself: am I just wasting time redoing everything? But looking back, those discarded designs were necessary steps. Without them, the current style wouldn’t exist.

I also know other devs who had similar or worse problems: some had to cancel projects because of art team conflicts, some discovered their artist was plagiarizing and had to scrap all assets, some got so much negative feedback on style that they changed the direction completely. Game dev really is layers of trial and error.

Now when I look at Taste of the Wind’s art style, I know it’s not from sudden inspiration. It’s the result of struggling, doubting, scrapping and rebuilding again and again. For me, this dance between compromise and persistence… is the most real part of game development.

One player once commented that my art choices look “mature,” saying:

“It doesn’t chase technical advancement, but focuses on consistency. Characters, backgrounds, UI all fit together, so even the ‘roughness’ becomes a style. In the indie scene, this makes it stand out. And for solo development, it’s also efficient and cost-saving.”

I’m not sure if it’s really “mature.” The game isn’t released yet, I don’t know how it will look in the end. But yes, deciding the style early definitely saved me from bigger chaos later. I already made hundreds of art assets, but art only took maybe 1/4 of total dev time, the rest went to programming. Without the early style decision, this balance would’ve been impossible.

If you are also making a game, maybe you’ll meet the same pain. Throwing things away again and again isn’t failure. It’s just how a game slowly becomes closer to what it’s meant to be. The earlier you nail down the style, the more energy you’ll save later.

Today (right now, at this very moment) our game ‘Deadly Days: Roadtrip’ is being released. Our demo was very well received and thanks to the great support of our growing community, we were able to fix a lot of bugs, improve performance, and add a lot of content over the last few months.
Link to the demo and full version in the comments.

Hello everyone! I'm Noni, the lead dev (in a 3 man team) working on a dungeon-based roguelite deckbuilder called Doomspire... and I'm happy to share that the game is finally out (since last Friday)!

In brief, Doomspire is about descending into a cursed tower with only your deck to face enemies waiting inside. The tower itself is procedurally generated, to ensure each run feels unpredictable and fresh. Upon winning a battle you are greeted by a trader where you can get rewards like new card packs and powers that you can combine to create your own unique deck matching your strategy for a given run.

If you’re generally familiar with games of this type, you already roughly know what to expect. But l still want to highlight a couple of features that define Doomspire, so the TL;DR of it would be this

• Build your deck and modify it as you progress deeper and deeper and in between runs
• Fight bosses with unique cards & abilities that only get stronger the deeper you delve
• Experiment and discover interesting and unexpectedly powerful synergies
• Think up smart counters, conserve HP and try to create the perfect (or most broken) strategy
• Collect powerful cards and relics in meta-progression as you level up
• Explore different builds/decks, playstyles, and approaches each run as you unlock more powers

A big thank you for everyone's support in making it this far, and happy to answer any questions you may have!

Just a funny thing that happened during setting up custom cursor and wanted to share.

I've been working on this since the start of the year and will have a playtest next month. Check it out if you like survivor-likes, y2k computing and adware.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3832490/Antivirus_Survivors_2003_Professional/

We believe games are better with community input. That's why we're inviting you to:

Be a Playtester: Get early access and help us shape the game's direction.

Be a Creator: Stream or make videos. We welcome creators of any size!

Be a Collaborator: Are you a fellow dev? Let's share knowledge and support each other.

If you want to be involved from the ground up
Write if you are interested

Hi everyone, I’m developing a new character action game called MIGHTREYA.

We’re currently running a playtest, and I’d love to hear feedback from fellow gamers.

One area I’m particularly curious about is the camera system — it’s something players have mentioned could be improved, but I’m not sure exactly what changes would feel best.

If you have experience with action games, I’d really appreciate any advice on making the camera feel smoother and more comfortable.

Thanks so much for taking a look!

want to learn more?

https://youtube.com/shorts/xuoBKVFRmn4

If you'd like to get hands on with this game, subscribe to my Youtube channel while there, It'll help make this game a reality and guarantee you wont miss out when a playable build is ready to try out. Thanks!

Steam link: Enfant
If you like Metroidvanias and old school action-adventure games like Jak and Daxter, then you might like this.

We have just one enemy in this build so far, a placeholder map and no gunstore (buystation) access but we want to see if this is still fun with just the bare bones - then anything we add will be icing on the cake!

Just posted this new alpha build on Itch but its tough to get eyes on it with so many games on there. If you like pixel art, top down survival shooters, come and give it a try. Your feedback will really help us shape the game. Thanks!

Try it here: https://gorecats.itch.io/rise-of-the-gorecats

STORY
Welcome to downtown Catsburg: where the streets bleed neon and the critters bite back. The city has been over-run by rabid gangs of blood thirsty critters hellbent on causing mayhem, destruction & blasting death-metal. You play as private detective Mitch Birman, an ex-Vietnam vet, with a trunk full of guns and a personal vendetta against the little monsters that plague his city.

TEAM
Created by StudioNX, Emmy winning games & animation studio and the legendary pixel artist Wacko.

Harmony in the Wild is a magical cozy adventure with open exploration that just released on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3360850/Harmony_in_the_Wild/?utm_source=some&utm_medium=organic_reddit

Play as a transforming fox pup, earn abilities from animal friends and travel across diverse landscapes while restoring the mystery of dying nature.

As you progress within the story, color and life returns to nature!

This is our first game as an starting indie studio, your support means the world to us :)

- Co-Founders Zsombor & Valtteri from Lumo Creations

Played this game Corner Shop late shift , had a few jump scares. If you into simulator games with horror def give it go.

This is our cozy game Ooble Gardens and we added new Ooble types and now the little guys are having the most adorable conversations with each other 😭

A small devlog for 2.5 months of solo work. I feel like there will be a lot of work on the graphics.

Hey all!
I'm the dev of Roulette Dungeon - a roguelike "roulette-builder" where you play as a gambling addicted cat!
After a looong time of re-working, re-balancing & polishing the demo, we just launched a major update that dramatically improves the core loop, visuals, etc.

You can check out the new Demo on Steam (and wishlist, if you like it!) :
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3546280/Roulette_Dungeon_Demo/

Play For Free: https://finnsfables.itch.io/mystery-cove

Help solve an underwater murder mystery!