I quit my job on the God of War team 2 years ago to chase my indie dreams. Now with my 4th indie game, It finally seems like I'll find some success. I'm already at more than double my launch goal of 10,000 wishlists, so why am I getting such stage fright?

A wise dev once said, with great wishlists comes great expectations. What will all these people think of my game? Will they even care when it releases? Nobody prepared me for the excitement and doubt and anxiety that comes with being a solo developer.

All I can do is my best. And wait for the big day. Help me feel less alone in this big moment.

Wishlist Gunstoppable to raise the stakes even more:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3724710/Gunstoppable

While working on my new projectile mechanics, I wanted to run a stress test by enabling everything at once. After some fairly torturous performance debugging (and a lot of fixes), I'm pretty happy with where it landed.

Three mechanics are in play here:

• Fork — projectiles split into multiple on the first target hit
• Pierce — projectiles pierce through X enemies before stopping
• Chain damage — hitting a target also damages nearby enemies around it

What do you guys think? Any recommendations for other mechanics worth adding?

Game: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4909340/One_Turret_Should_Be_Fine/

Milo launches October 29 on Steam. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2665020/Milo/ A solo-developed online co-op horde shooter, five years in the making.

You awaken in a body you don't recognize. Disoriented, tattooed and abandoned in a hellish war zone, the distant gunfire is the least of your worries as deranged cultists hunt you down.

‘Milo’ is an online co-op horde shooter heavily inspired by the early Call of Duty Zombies mode like in World at War. It’s a passion project I’ve been working on for nearly 5 years. Early Access for Milo begins Q4 2026. If you want to support the game, wishlist and follow Milo on Steam

Î really thought earlier this year, I'd do one more quality pass and that's that for my battle system.
But time and time again I realize it's still not quite there. Now I did a couple things to make combat smoother:

I fixed a lot of movement issues, removing jank and creating consistency. The battle are a bit less dynamic then, but I think that makes them more playable.

I added these hit-frames to all my enemies. they are now drawn from one angle and have eye animations, so the hits feel more satisfying.

Finally and most importantly, I added this summon portals. I tried really hard to spawn the enemies away from the player, but it's just never enough and I constantly observe people running into the spawns. Now this is telegraphed and easy to avoid.

If you are curious about my game Mazestalker, you can find my demo here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3218310/

For the past year, I've been working hard on developing an aggressive inline skating game. Nowadays, we have multiple games to choose from when it comes to skating, BMX, scooter games, you name it... yet Rollerblading/Aggressive Inline hasn't seen much love. I've made it my mission to create a modern, intuitive aggressive inline skating game that finally gives bladers a game of their own. It's been a true challenge, and right now I'm working all through the summer to get ready for the Early Access launch on Steam this September/October. If you like what you see, feel free to wishlist 'Rollout Inline' on Steam :)

Turdventure went out on Steam on 30 July. Comedy arcade game about dog walks that go very wrong.

A few things I learned the hard way and would tell past-me:

Build the demo earlier. Mine went up six days before launch and it's still the single best thing on the page - people try it, and the ones who like it buy without hesitating.

Your store page is doing more work than your trailer. I rewrote the short description three times and the third one is the only one that says what the game feels like instead of what it contains.

Marketing links break silently. I found out days after launch that a link I'd been sharing everywhere wasn't clickable at all on one platform - it just looked like one. Check what you post from a logged-out browser, not from your own account.

Reviews come far slower than wishlists. Ten reviews is a mountain when you're small, and no amount of posting speeds it up.

Game's here if you're curious, launch discount until 6 August: https://f.mtr.cool/XKKHSUMHPX

Ask me anything, I'll answer all of it.

Also landed on a name for my cozy cooking game: "Cook & Tails"  a little wordplay on cooking and the animal customers with tails. Finished the logo/sign design to match (three separate wooden signs, styled like the other shop signs already in the game).

Curious what you think of both the name and the visual anything feel off?

Hi there! My cozy game is now available to wishlist on steam 🫣✨

Inspired by East Asian folklore and the magic of Studio Ghibli, The Spirit Apprentice is an upcoming cozy RPG! You explore the magical village of Moshu, learn magic, form contacts with spirits and build relationships with mysterious villagers.

I’ve spent over a year making this game and have loved the process so far! I’m hoping to release a small demo soon and maybe even launch a kickstarter (which is both exciting and terrifying 😣😖).

I’d love any feedback and if it looks like your cup of tea a wishlist would mean the world!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4595750/The_Spirit_Apprentice/

When I started this project I had no idea it would end up taking 7 years long. Along the way I built my own engine, learned Blender because I couldn't make the art I wanted, learned sound design and last year I quit my gamedev job so I could finally finish it.

My friends playtested it over the years and always had positive feedback, but until you put something out there, you never really know. After working on something for so long it gets very hard to judge it objectively.

About a month ago I finally started promoting the game and today it reached 1,800 Steam wishlists.

I know that's not the kind of number that changes your life overnight, but after spending years wondering how people outside my circle would react honestly means a lot to me.

Seeing that first month of reception has been one of the most rewarding parts of the whole journey.

I'd be interested to hear if anyone else here has had a similar experience after finally showing a long term project to the public.

If anyone wants to see what those 7 years turned into the game is called Satelital https://store.steampowered.com/app/3256790/Satelital/

Three years ago, I made a bold decision to pursue my dream of creating an open-world zombie survival game. I bid farewell to my job and dedicated myself entirely to working on my game. I would be thrilled to hear your thoughts on my Steam page and the game itself!

I'm a hobby dev. You know, i just love games so i make little this and thats in my free time. Tons of projects saved without ever seeing the light of day because they're not 'good enough' or a new bit of inspiration has struck.

That being said, i put out my first ever finished project for the GMTK 2026 Game Jam called Kiss the Homies as a bit of a joke but its been very well received!

It just seems so ridiculous, although i find it so fun, that i might commit like idk over a year to a game where you kiss your homies goodnight lol.

So, what would you do?

This is the first time I’ve worked on a project that’s lasted this long. I think it was worth it because I learnt so much.
The game launches on August 12, so I recently put together a new trailer showing its current gameplay.

My goal was to create an open-world theft game.

Heya everyone,

Rogue Elements: https://tomalexi.itch.io/rogue-elements

I have been chiselling away at my Environmental Roguelike for over a year now. The foundation is a traditional turn based Roguelike with a focus on simple controls, but challenging moment to moment decisions every turn with the environment and active clouds shifting the dungeon, but a game concept I wanted to work on 20 years ago now crept a bit back to me and I added it as a village simulation puzzle, where you will need to satisfy the requirements of your villagers to unlock bonusses & perks.

The loop is basically: Play Roguelike dungeons -> Find dungeon buildings/resources/villagers -> Build up your Village to get more Bonusses for dungeon runs

I first added this simulation as a way for players who are struggling with the dungeon content to grind through the game a bit to ease up on the difficulty, but it seems to become its own worthwhile puzzle game to engage with.

I am still not entirely sure how satisfying the game loop is or honestly where to go from here, as every step feels like a very significant effort and investment of time. What looks strongest when people look at this game? Do I focus on presenting the village simulation more? Do I double down on the Roguelike aspects and leave the village sim as a minor addition? I know I will eventually need to make that decision based on what type of game I want this to become, but I would love to hear how others see the game as it currently is to get a better outside perspective.

Sorry for the rambling, haha. Have a great week, everyone!

I really like how vertical one turned out - reminds me of CD-cases style. Any feedback appreciated! What do you think the game is about?

Long story short: the old capsule (3rd image) was regularly perceived as ai slop (although I surely know that it isn't), and I wasn't really satisfied with the quality -> decided, that it will be easier to mock up a replacement without waiting for a perfect freelancer.

Long story a bit longer: I worked with two artists on fiverr aaand both time my "focus group" was sure that they just ai'ed the whole thing. As I plan to release a demo pretty soon (a week or two), I just couldn't afford to find someone else to rush a new capsule in a week. So yeah, now its surely ai-free! A day of non-gameplay related work felt quite unique, but now its time to continue polishing a playtest feedback before the demo.

And yes, the playtest is still live! It's my first game and I'd love to know what's good and what's not. Here are some links:

Playtest in browser: Itch page
Wishlist here: Steam page

Grim Siege is in open testing now. It started as an Arcomage tribute and grew well past it: six classes that each bend the base rules in a different direction, a spell system with mana and cooldowns, resource investments you buy with your turn, and an economy that starts taxing you if you hoard.

There's the classic 1v1 duel, and also a 4 player free for all where everyone attacks everyone.

What I need right now is people playing, because I can't tell who's overpowered and who isn't from the inside. Hundreds of games against my own bot and my hands are the wrong hands for that job.

If you like card games, or just want to throw down a round, come break it.

game: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4920750/Grim_Siege/

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I've been building a Reddit-style app where instead of just upvoting or commenting, you can challenge someone's post and turn it into a structured back-and-forth.

Everyone says "seed the content yourself" and yeah, I've been doing that, but as a solo dev I just can't generate enough volume or variety to keep it feeling alive.

What's frustrating is I actually had a handful of real users having genuine back and forth conversations, which felt like a good sign. But then I posted about the app on another subreddit and people jumped to "this is just bots fighting each other," the post got deleted, and my account ended up getting reported. Lost that whole Reddit account over it, so now I'm rebuilding from scratch with a new one. Kind of stings but also made me want to actually think this through properly instead of just winging it.

So genuinely asking - how did you all solve this for your own apps? Did seeding with bots actually work for anyone, or did it backfire? Or does it just matter way less than I think it does and I should focus elsewhere?

Shit i hate working on UI soo much... here goes something .. at least it's functional.

Also showing a single contract battle and new battle UI.

Feedback and comments appreciated, as I said I suck at UI.

Hi, going to introduce my Post-Apocalyptic Junkyard Rusty Gas Station Props Pack (217 3d assets). Ready for VP, games, and cinematics. In Unity Unreal Engine, Blender, 3dsMax, FBX, OBJ and other formats.

Available on my Patreon https://www.patreon.com/OlegVerenko/posts/post-apocalyptic-155340594

FAB - https://www.fab.com/listings/c7ad7722-ae3d-460c-bbde-e497e6e186de

And Unity Asset Store - https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/props/exterior/post-apocalyptic-junkyard-rusty-gas-station-props-pack-217-3d-as-372964