10 days ago I created this post saying that I decided to shift my work to fully remove AI generated art from my upcoming game. Back then, I only had a few sprites going.

Then I discovered that it wasnt about AI art, and to be honest, I ask my self if this still is a post for this sub. A LOT of pixel artists came into my dm to give me tips: How to do it faster, how to give it more detail and keep consistency without losing quality. A few people also came in to teach me a few tips about the UV masks that helped speed up the 3d skin process. The community just came together to help someone unknown.

And the thing it was about is: This is now mine. I could choose which style I wanted to give the things that I was building. I could disassemble the 3d weapons and decide which parts that I wanted to remove. If anyone here EVER worked with generative image before knows that it is a nightmare to keep image generation deterministic.

Even if the internet is divided, and some people called it a "big downgrade", it is now mine. I have 100% control of it.

We (me and some friends who decided to help) are now about 60% of the way done, and I can gadly say that my game is still launching this october for just a couple bucks.

Also: My steam page just got updated, and we just crossed 200 wishlists!

It's called Pocket Guild, and there's a demo on itch you can play for free. Heavily inspired by 90's first person dungeon crawlers like Ultima and The Elder Scrolls: Arena.

It's definitely still a huge work-in-progress, so expect some rough edges!

There's a hub, called simply "The Town", where you stock up on supplies and pick up monster hunting quests from the Guild Master. The NPC's around town will also eventually have their own detailed storylines and quests.

Stepping outside one of the four gates will take you to a massive, randomly generated Adventure Zone. These are packed with enemies, abandoned forts and ruins, dungeons and loot! If all your party members die, you lose all your stuff (except your gold) and wake up in Town.

AI disclaimer: Claude Code is used to prototype mechanics and systems, and then everything is manually tuned or completely rewritten by me. Very little "AI generated" content exists in the code.

All of the NPC, enemy sprites, and other environment assets came from human itch.io asset pack artists. Some of the ground and building textures were generated as placeholders by Claude and were then extensively modified by hand to become what they are now.

I think that my partner is a brilliant software engineer (even though she doesn't think so). She has great ideas, is perfectionist (which could be a curse) and can talk about kafka or docker and docker with so much passion that sometimes I don't know if we are from the same planet.

Her marketing strategies, however, are more like selling wool sweaters in a sauna.

She has been working on a real time strategy game and since she started I feel like she's more involved in her tiny armies of flies than spending time outdoors that she used to do. If we have a chance to have a conversation, all I hear is " how she's going to post a clip that should be short and clever so it will sell itself" So far she made attempts on TikTok, YouTube, IG, even Reddit. Each time, after she posts something, she just stairs at the wishlist hoping it will miraculously go up. I keep telling her that there are thousands of games on Steam and I don't know if anyone would stumble upon flying army of bugs attacking robots.

Today, when I saw her desk with 3 monitors opened I offered that maybe I should post something on Reddit, but she told me "don't you dare", and that reddit can smell desperation and it will be even worse for her.

I'm new on Reddit anyways and I don't mind if I'm being down voted or my post is deleted or something. I'm taking a risk and want to hear how others are dealing with their partners working constantly on their games.

Anyway, she's trying to make more videos, and I am begging you: if you ever see some clip of small bots building a path to crystals and working as hard as her, please just pretend it’s cool so she finally drinks some water and goes outside.

Slowly replacing my old assets with newer ones and the characters were the first ones i made. Quite happy with the A/B comparison.
I really love vector graphics since its more or less a point and click workflow, where everything is just a geometic shape and just can group them and animate them way easier later.

Edit: I did not learn drawing from scratch. A few years ago, when I was in school, I drew a lot of manga type stuff and was also in the schools' drawing club/after school activity. I was familiar with the basics of vector graphics as a web developer, but did mostly mockups and icons.
For the guy on the left in spend around 30 minutes, on the version on the right multiple hours and used reference pictures for the pose and accessories. I did not want anyone to think that both images were done with the same level of effort. Also, Invisigal from Dispatch was the main influence here :D

It basically went from funny lil dude with guitar for a post-protoype version to finalized asset

also if your game is a web or browser game you can always submit it to:

https://www.MegaViral.Games

a platform to discover games from across the internet.

You can list your game here https://www.MegaViral.Games/submit

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Hi, I am solo-developing Knights of Frontier Valley, a low-fantasy RPG with gridless tactical combat, deep character customization, complex NPC behavior, and procedural world building. Explore a new valley each game run, solve quests, make meaningful choices, and gain riches and glory while staying alive.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHVDNkzbgZk

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1085830/Knights_of_Frontier_Valley/

The second Steam Playtest is underway and runs for another 2 days.

The engine was written from scratch. All art is hand-made with no AI involved. Music was made by top composers including Kevin Manthei (Neverwinter Nights, Jagged Alliance 2, Wizardry 8...)

Can you guess game type and genre?

There were plenty of times in the past 5 years where I was anxious I’d abandon the project from inertia, and lots of competing demands for my time from a full time job and starting a family. Just kept chipping away at things marathon-style… excited to share Feather Trail now that the demo’s out on Steam.

While a demo’s not the final product, I’m taking a beat to reflect on all the long nights, infuriating bugs, and uncertainty; I definitely feel a bit of pride to have finally manifested the ideas that originally inspired me to get started way back in 2021 (with plenty of painful compromises, necessary details and complexity I hadn’t considered, etc etc).

Keep chasing your vision! Demo’s here if you’re interested.

Demo for the game is also available on Steam!

Project TITAN Demo

This is my first game ever releasing on Steam, so I'd appreciate any feedback!

I'm a solo developer working on Over Human, a first-person sci-fi adventure set in a snowy world where drones can manipulate the weather (creating tornadoes, thunderstorms, and other dangerous conditions), and you have no weapons to fight back.

I recently decided to completely refresh my Steam page, improving the visuals, screenshots, and description (which should have a stronger hook now!). Since the update, I've noticed a really nice increase in wishlists, which honestly surprised me!

I'm so, so, so happy. I've been dreaming of making my own game since 2013, and I've been working on this project alone, putting so much of my free time, energy and passion into it, so seeing even a small number of people excited about my game means the world to me!!

And the first playable demo is coming this November!!! ❤️

Here's the page if you'd like see what I changed (and if you want to give me a feedback):

https://store.steampowered.com/app/5237810/Over_Human/

Francesco

I posted my trailer here recently and got some really useful feedback, particularly about the AI cinematics and music.

A few people pointed out that the cinematics looked completely different from the actual game and gave the wrong impression of what you’d be playing. Looking back I agree.

So I’ve rebuilt the trailer using only in game footage and replaced the AI music with music from a composer (Jason Shaw). There are still some AI generated assets in the game, so I’m not claiming it’s completely AI free, but I’m moving away from them as much as I can.

The game is called Don’t Follow the Flowers. It’s a top-down survival horror game set in an infected English town, with camp building, hunting, crafting, puzzles and mutants.

I’d love to know whether this trailer gives you a clearer idea of the game. Does anything still feel confusing or misleading?

I’m also looking for people interested in playtesting and giving honest feedback on the game itself. If that sounds like your thing, let me know in the comments.

Cheers to everyone who took the time to help with the first trailer. It’s made a difference!

I forgot to apply gravity to my engine, so now every jump is a one-way trip to space, or it can be with some adjustments 😄

Hey all, this is a 2D souls-like I've been building on my own in the evenings for some time now.

It's still really early, but I wanted to get some outside eyes on it before I sink more time in.

The clip is a few fights with a couple bosses.

I know souls-likes are everywhere right now. I'm making it mostly because I love the genre, but I'm curious whether this looks like something you'd actually want to play.

Is the combat easy to read from the video? Does anything feel off?

Also, a lot of the art is bought packs and placeholder stuff for now (the player's armour especially, I know it doesn't fit yet). The combat sounds are also something i dont really like currently but they are good placeholder.

Harsh feedback is totally fine, it's more useful than nice feedback at this stage.

Hey r/SoloDevelopment

I've been building Festival Inc. on my own. It's a management sim where you start with an empty field and turn it into a music festival. It goes into Early Access tomorrow, 14 October, and I wanted to share it here first. This sub has kept me going more than once.

What you do in it:

• Lay out the site: stages, food courts, bars, paths, trees and decorations
• Book artists across 8 genres and schedule their sets
• Build campsites, glamping and campervan zones with showers, shops and campfires
• Hire security and medics, each with their own traits, morale and energy
• Follow any guest and read their thoughts to see what's working and what isn't
• Deal with storms, health scares and council inspections
• Pick guests up with a giant hand and drop troublemakers outside the gates
• Play a 10-festival campaign, or build freely in Sandbox
• Lease the fields next door when you outgrow your site

Some solo-dev takeaways:

• Simulating a crowd is mostly about tuning, not code. Getting a few hundred guests to drink, litter and misbehave at believable rates took far more iteration than writing the systems did.
• Small readable details mattered more than I expected. Guest thoughts, performers with genre props and the tannoy announcer brought the place to life more than any big feature.
• I built a headless balance checker so I could test economy changes without playing a full festival every time. If you're making a sim, build one early.

I expect Early Access to run about 9–12 months, and I'm aiming for a full release around Q3 2027. I'll keep shaping it based on feedback, so please tell me what you think, good or bad.

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3300530/Festival_Inc/

Website: https://www.festivalincgame.com/

Happy to answer questions about the tech, the art pipeline or the marketing side of going solo. Thanks for reading! 🙏

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.FiredUpForge.ArmsRace

Hey everyone! I've been working on Grill & Grow entirely on my own for the past year and a half. What started as a small burger restaurant has slowly grown into a much bigger game with employees, deliveries, restaurant expansion, and a lot more.

It hasn't always been easy, but I've kept working on it, improving things, and adding new features along the way. I'm proud of how far it's come, but I know there's still a lot I can make better, and I have no intention of stopping here.

I wanted to share my latest gameplay trailer to show how much the game has grown. The free demo is also available on Steam!

Thanks to everyone who takes a moment to check it out. Your support really means a lot to me! 🍔❤️

I released the free demo for DeltaV Orbital Strategy today. I'm making it as a solo developer, with Codex helping on the code and some of the writing.

The game is turn-based and the whole fleet shares one fuel reserve. A move can be affordable on its own but leave another ship without enough fuel to defend against a missile. That makes a fairly small set of rules harder to explain than I expected.

I ended up making the demo a guided tutorial. It introduces the decisions while you're playing, rather than asking you to read all the rules first. Getting that sequence clear has been a big part of the work.

The video above shows the game. The demo is free on Windows and macOS:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/5070120/

If you've made a tutorial for a strategy game, how did you decide when to stop explaining and let the player figure things out?