As the title says do you think you succeeded or did you accomplish what you wanted? as a solo developer one of the most thought question for me and many others is am I going to succeed. We do see many solo devs that have succeeded but what we don’t see are the devs that did not succeed, if so why do you think you are at the position that you currently are, was it the marketing? The graphics, was is niche? how long did the game development took? Would love to hear your experiences as new solo developer

Reading why I’m is is for me and others get motivated and maybe learn from your expresiences

When I was a teenager, I lived and breathed 3 things: Pokemon, runescape, and skateboarding. I always imagined a video game with mechanics from those games mixed with the real-life progression of skating. Simply put.. the more you skate, the better you get and personally unlock more things you can land.

Last year I finally picked up learning Unity front to back, and of course, got right to work on my dream game. It’s in its final stages of completion now, and i was comfortable to make a playable demo for the masses to see for the first time before launch. This is Skatebound!

While the demo only includes the skateboarding mode, the full game is an entire RPG with an open world map with spots and parks to discover, challengers to skate against, boards to collect and hundreds of things to do. You have 6 essential skills like grinds, speed, and gaps that you level up xp with (just like OSRS!)

It’s crazy to see it come to life as fast as it did, and I’m over the moon. It still needs some polishing and fixes, and I didn’t want this post to come off as marketing, I’m just proud of it. If you felt like checking it out on Steam, grab a controller first and thank you!!

I just released the demo of Canary, a slow-burn gothic romance kinetic novel set in a Belle Époque–inspired city of sun mages, cabarets and oubliettes.

It's dark. It's snappy.

It's got a custom scrolling log, muffled-room audio, and art built from authentic 1900s photographs: scenes and portraits, all hand-restyled, halftoned and recoloured.

• About 1 hour (~12k words)
• Free, playable in your browser or downloadable
• 18+ for mature themes (no explicit sexual content)

https://cryptlark.itch.io/canary <- solodev (art/writing/dyingontheinside)

I hope you’ll show my game some support!

Here’s the download link:
https://ktie22studio.itch.io/ktie22

You can also support me on YouTube:
[https://youtu.be/T3v9YXoF3bY?si=WMeWQ-UL9dmgCDc5](https://youtu.be/T3v9YXoF3bY?si=WMeWQ-UL9dmgCDc5))

Hey r/SoloDevelopment!

I've been lurking for a while here while, but now I've finally got a demo for you guys to try out! It's a cult simulator game that plays ENTIRELY out of your terminal/command prompt with ASCII art! It's a very strange and funny game, and I hope you enjoy it!

You can try the Alpha Demo on Steam today!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2345980/CultGame/

And accidentally get hooked on the two-body problem

this game depicts realistic fukuoka 3d map with public transport managing system

Hi everyone! I've been working on Taskbar Aquarium, a small idle game that sits in a thin strip right above your Windows taskbar. Your fish swim, nap and grow while you work, and you can check on them whenever you take a break.

What's in it right now:

• 66 fish species from common, rare and legendary eggs, plus 30 mutations you can breed in a nest
• Tank care: feed your fish, wipe algae off the glass and change the water
• Every fish has a personality, a name, hearts and a small diary of memories
• Release fish into the ocean to bring a reef back to life, and get postcards from them later
• Visitors drop by now and then (a sea turtle, a whale shark, a narwhal…)
• A 32-skill tree that unlocks automation: auto-feeding, a gold magnet and offline progress
• Real-time day and night: fish sleep at night and some of them glow

Made to stay out of the way: it hides itself when a fullscreen game is running and lets clicks pass through outside the tank. It's fully offline, with no account, ads or energy timers. It's playable in English, Turkish and German.

It's free (pay what you want if you'd like to support it)

Windows-only for now: 👉 https://digitalis10.itch.io/taskbar-aquarium

It's an early version, so I'd really love feedback, especially on pacing. Does progress feel too slow or too fast? What would keep you coming back?

Transparency note: the music and sound effects were generated with ElevenLabs, and I made the pixel art, the code and the translations with the help of an AI assistant (Claude).

Clogwork is a factory builder where the pieces are real objects. A block needs as many parallel lanes as it is wide.

The game already had the whole simulation totally decoupled from the graphics. It would be impossible to run at a decent framerate otherwise, because you don't want to do any extra work for things that aren't on the screen.
Things off screen are still simulated, they're just not shown at all. And not being on the screen has no effect on the simulation.
So I did what everyone would do and tried it in 3D. It frankly looked really good even from the start.
Luckily this game doesn't have a lot of art to begin with, and because of the minimalistic style I can crank up the depth of field and shadow quality a lot. I think the 3D look it has now is pretty cool.
I also made it so you can switch at any time (V key), and I'm still deciding what I like best. I like to build in 2D, and then admire it in 3D.
And of course I had to remake the trailer and some Steam assets. The 4K 60fps version is on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GMxMY07vSE

Clogwork comes out November 10. The free demo is on Steam now and has the 3D view:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3404030/Clogwork

I welcome feedback, so please don't be shy.

Haven't decided on the name so for now it is simply named Boom Shrimp, this is the current attack roster.

-Launches a cascading line of explosions directly at the player
-Blinks right to the player for a quick swipe which causes a small explosion
-Blinks to the player and launches as shorter line of explosions, then repeats once more
-Slams into the side walls causing rocks to be shaken loose from above
-Dashes rapidly to the player three times with explosions spawning in its wake
-Occasionally after an attack it will enter a defense curl, it can reflect a set number of bullets back as damaging projectiles while also spawning explosions around the player

In conclusion lots of booms hence the name lol

Steam

Hey guys, please roast me

I'm experimenting with different tonemappers in Sundered Reach, my upcoming sci-fi sandbox game inspired by Mount & Blade and Total War.

Same scene, two different looks.

Which one do you prefer A or B? 👀

Your feedback will help shape the final look of the game!

All assets and landscape amterials brushes etc that we used are from Joe Garths Brushify packs so shoutout to him , check his packs out they are awesome and easy to handle :)

i dont know him thats not paid advertisment -_-
I see you reddit filters 👀

A while ago I posted a clip of my 3D top-down metroidvania on r/metroidvania https://www.reddit.com/r/metroidvania/s/vMLb2gc1Fn, and the feedback was way better than I expected. I've now finished the first region, and I've hit the "okay, what now" wall.

Quick context:
Solo dev, Unity, no AI-generated art in the game
3D top-down, focused on puzzles and exploration over combat.

Current plan: 7–8 regions and about 12 abilities
Three questions I'd love your experience on:
Scope. Is 7–8 regions with 12 abilities realistic for one person, or am I setting myself up for a six-year project? If you've shipped a solo metroidvania, how did you decide what to cut? I'm considering designing for 8 but structuring development so the game is complete and shippable at 4–5 core regions. Does that make sense?

Publisher vs. self-publishing. When did you start pitching: after a vertical slice, or after a Steam page had built up some wishlists? Any publishers you'd recommend (or avoid) for a first-time dev with no shipped title?

The AI flood. This month's Next Fest had over 7,000 demos, and a big share of them disclosed AI use. Honestly, it's been making me anxious. For those who launched recently: did it actually hurt your visibility, or is it mostly noise below the algorithm's waterline?

Hey everyone! I’m working on Padel Simulator in Unreal Engine, and I’ve just released a free demo on Steam.

My background is in 3D environment art, but this project has taken me much deeper into character movement, shot timing, and how a match feels to play.

For this demo, I’ve been working on more varied shot animations, including trick shots, smoother rallies, and a training mode with a ball machine. The training takes players through movement, aiming, serving, and different shot types before they jump into a match.

The current demo focuses on single-player doubles matches. There’s still plenty I want to improve, particularly movement and transitions between shots, but it’s a milestone to have a public version people can actually play.

If you’d like to try it, the demo is free on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/4915770/Padel_Simulator/

My game page is up for more then 6 months, I am usually working on small games and release them in a short cycles, for the current game I decided to wait on a strategy to wait for 6 months before the release.

But now I am not doing anything much of promotion, even if I do it does not get much traction as my game is very niche, but I have a huge uptick of Wishlist in last month coming from Steam itself, and looking at the source I have a lot of visitors coming in from Personal Calendar, so it is good new feature that at least helps for my games discovery.

Just remember it works only if you have Exact Date set, so be sure to use Personal Calendar also to your advantages.

Anyone interested of how my game looks - Lost Media Agency

I’ve been working on my game discovery tool for about a year on-and-off. Now I’m learning how to make web games too, and thought I could apply that to making the joy of discovery a bit more tangible.

The purpose here is really to use general vibes to find your next game. For greater specificity, there is a recommender tool on the same site with filters not available on Steam, but this project is meant to evoke the kind of fun you used to have with StumbleUpon, except you curate the experience a bit more yourself.

Written in JS, dig your way through your preferences and find some fun new games to play.

Apologies for the somewhat nooby janky nature of it, but I plan on refining it to feel a bit better over the next few weeks. Any feedback to make the experience better would be very appreciated.

Try it yourself at https://gamediscoverytool.com/diiig

The game is about exploring the infinite, endless procedural world of stars, planets, galaxies. The game does not include real planets or real stars or galaxies. Real names can be observed at the home location and names like "Andromeda" or "Milky Way" and the whole solar system. Tho it is possible they will not be in soon updates.

Link: https://astro.ableproman.hu/

The game is inspired by Space Engine, that is only on Steam and is not free. I made this game for people who want open world real scaled worlds to explore and visit throughout the universe for free without downloads.

Graphics are all made with three.js and looks incredible. I am updating until it works perfectly.

It works on desktop and mobile too.

I am ready for any review or feedback of the game!!

(The images are from the actual game from browser!)

Less than a year ago, my sister Shani was diagnosed with cancer. She spent almost three months in the hospital, and to give us something fun to do together during those days, I started building a music game for the two of us.

She passed away on August 29th, before I finished it. I kept working on it, partly to keep my mind busy, and now it's live as Shabang, with two games:

🥁 TrackStack: every song is split into its instruments. You start with only the drums, and each wrong guess adds a layer: bass, guitar, piano… vocals come last.

⏱️ Songuess: you hear a fifth of a second of the song, and each wrong guess plays more: half a second, 2 seconds, 4…

In both, the less you need to hear, the more points you get, and each one has a daily challenge: one song a day, the same for everyone.

Free, no signup, works on your phone:

https://shabangmusic.com/

I'd love honest feedback, and to see your daily results in the comments.