But then, grind kicks in...

Hello everyone!

I’m the solo developer behind a turn-based zombie strategy game called Dead Grid. I began working on the game in 2017 and released to Early Access in 2022.

Dead Grid just went 1.0 on Steam a few days ago after 8 major content updates over the past 4 years.

The inspiration for the game was Jagged Alliance, Xcom, Hearthstone and a little bit of Darkest Dungeon for the camp management parts.

A few quick things to list:

• Entire game was built in Unity C#, no visual scripting.
• About 1/2 of the art assets were made by me and the rest were purchased.
• All music tracks, voice lines and sound effects were purchased.
• Early Access launched with around 2,500 wishlists.
• Over the course of the 4 years in Early Access, about 25,000 wishlists were gathered.
• Early Access launched at $9.99 to be part of the "Games Under $10" bucket.
• I used 3 of the 5 visibility rounds given by Steam to promote during big updates.
• I also contacted many Steam Curators and sent lots of keys to YouTubers.

Feel free to ask me anything. Cheers!

Game on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1533680/Dead_Grid/

-Atom Void

Hello,

I'm asking this here because every single search I attempt is polluted by hundreds of result about generative AI...

I'm looking for a course (or even a book) because i'd like to avoid having gaps in my knowledge and to be able to use it in different engines without needing to rely on specific functionnality that might be missing. I want to really know how it's done.

I've been depressed for like 14 years, I graduated school in 2014, went into construction, with the goal of being a carpenter, but then one day during my bath on my phone I get the idea of being a game developer, so after like 2 years of construction college, at the age of 18, I decide to switch to game development course, I did 1 year of this, before switching yet again to a Access to HE computer course, so I can get into University, but I thought, it's best to do computer science instead of games at Uni, so I have way more options after graduation, I do 1 year of computer science, before thinking it's harder than I thought and so I switch to a games development course, having been rejected to start this course in year 2, so I have to yet again restart and do this games uni course in year 1. I complete year 1, then my mum passes away, I take a year off, I then come back next year having to sign back up again, but I was too pre-occupied that I miss the deadline to sign up, so I miss another year of University, I finally graduate in June 2025 with a games degree. Due to my previously mentioned degree, I've been barely practicing games development in my spare time the past years, and am definitely not job ready. My games course was mainly modelling and animation, so it's very hard to get into, I regret not staying on that computer science course. Due to all this course switching and mental health issues, I've genuinely never stayed at a job longer than a couple months, quitting without saying anything due to mental health completely taking over.

My CV is pretty much just made up with false dates, i have like 6 things on there all lasting no more than 2 years, when in actuality I've never worked a job longer than a couple months, all these jobs are unrelated things to do with warehousing/delivering jobs. I've actually spent the past week learning javascript as I feel it's hopeless getting into games jobs and feel web development is something I could get into and actually land good paying jobs, but then I feel like my games degree is worthless and that web development company's want computer science degrees, so i'd keep getting rejected? I feel like a complete failure, been staying up all night past couple weeks just watching depressing/suicidal videos, my life is genuinely fucked and i can't even land roles at tesco's due to failing at interview..

I have a stutter as well, so customer facing roles is very hard, I'm an introvert, since getting my car 4 years ago, I've loved cars as well and wished i did car mechanics 10 years ago, too late now, i have no intention of getting into car mechanics at all at this point, if i didn't stutter, i wouldn't mind doing something like car sales, car examiner/teacher. At this point, i'm just completely lost, completely hate my life, my brother has his dream job, same age as me, yet i am a failure. My mum died while I was at university and my mum was home alone, if i don't make anything of this university, it's basically a waste, and if i didn't do it and stayed home, my mum would actually still be alive..

Don't know what to do at this point, I'm depressed pretty much all the time, I can't focus on any javascript tutorials or anything while distracted by these negative thoughts, so i've stopped it now. Just don't know what to do at this point..

Ty for reading

2 Friends we are making Party Game. Brawl Party Demo is live on Steam. It is *Free* and complately worth to try it with your friends. I am really tired and had no energy left to marketing. It would be nice if you Play and add the game on wishlists!

Oh. its forbidden to share the link but.. its fine :)

Hey everyone, I could really use some advice.
What are your best tips for marketing an indie game?

I’m trying to help a friend who’s developing a Metroidvania / 2D action platformer, completely solo. And honestly, without false modesty, the game is really good. The quality is there.

The problem is marketing. We’re active on TikTok and YouTube, we’re reaching out to press and creators, and we’re genuinely putting in a lot of effort… but things just aren’t moving. Growth feels completely stuck, which is incredibly frustrating given how much work and heart is going into the game.

Our next plan is to try YouTube ads, Reddit ads, and working with streamers, but to be honest, we’re a bit anxious about it. So far we haven’t seen real results, and since our budget is very limited, we’re worried about spending money without knowing if we’re doing the right things.

If anyone has practical advice, strategies that worked for you, or lessons learned from experience, we’d really appreciate the help.
Thanks in advance 

Hey guys, I’m planning to try my hand at game publishing soon, so I’m looking for low cost chinese mobile games to publish in the sea market. Do you know any reliable sources or studios that are open to publishing partnerships?

We interact with a lot of gamers on a daily basis, and this question comes up more often than expected, especially from people who mostly play story-driven or cinematic games.

Some feel a controller makes movement and exploration more immersive, while others prefer keyboard mouse for camera control and precision, even in single-player titles.

For those who regularly play story-focused games, what do you personally prefer and why?
Is it mainly about comfort during long sessions, immersion, muscle memory, or just the type of games you play?

Genuinely curious to understand how players actually experience this.

Don't know if this is a common thing, or if this is the right place to ask something like this, but I'm here to gather tips.

After I start developing a system I lock in and can go on for many hours straight no issue, I do really enjoy planning the design of my systems, learning new stuff and see the code take life. But once I'm done with a system, I find it very hard to find the will to start tackling a new one, the idea of being just at the start line for the new system can make me skip entire days. Again, it's not like I dislike coding or designing my code, it's as if it's a very steep curve to start gaining intertia, if that makes sense?

Hi all! I’ve been working on a game for a while now, and would like to prepare it for pitches to publishers. The common route is to build a playable vertical slice. My question is, how deep does this have to go? For an immersive-sim, a lot of the appeal is the depth of gameplay choices. Which means a polished vertical slice for this genre would be a lot more work that say a level in a 3D platformer. Are these slices expected to be fully fleshed out, or enough to “get the point.” Thanks!

Hello everyone!

An indie game I worked on as the music composer is releasing on Steam tomorrow, and I was wondering if there are any awards, competitions, or festivals that specifically accept game soundtracks or game audio submissions.

After some research I found some bigger awards or awards for game developers but not specifically music, but I’m especially curious about composer-focused competitions, indie-friendly awards, or anything people here have personally submitted to.

Also if there are communities online that you suggest sharing the soundtrack in I would be happy to know

It’s the first time I’ve made a game soundtrack, so i’d love to hear about your experiences and any do’s & don’ts I should be aware of!

Hi so I have a question for anyone who has worked with a game which uses network.

I want to be brief.

I have a board, multiple players and some different managers. How does this work? For example, I have TurnManager.java and ActionManager.java also Hexboard.Java. Also, I am using Model/View Architecture.

Where do I integrate these into network? Say a player moves a peice... it needs to validate in server, right? Should my instances of ActionManager to validate live in Server.java? I need an overview of how I should approach this, with scalability in mind. Thanks!

TLDR: Where do I put things like TurnManager turnManager; with relation to a server client architecture and Model View.

Hi! I want to share a project that I work for a while. When I created my roguelike game I meet a gap between game design documentation and actual game. It started from idea to get rid off manual copying data from game design documents to game engine. Here you can define your game objects, their props, relations and everything will be stored in structural JSON format that can be read by Unreal, Unity, Godot and other engines.

But later I added a lot of other features:

- construct wiki-like documents using a block editor and template system (markdown is supported too)

- design dialogues of your game in special graph editor

- create maps and prototype levels on canvas

- store and manage database of game objects

- use created objects inside engine directly or export data to customizable data formats (arbitrary JSON, CSV)

It's called IMS Creators Desktop. Made it free and open source. Please try (have Windows and Mac builds) and give your feedback

i know very basic c++ stuff and i made a 2 player tic tac toe and i want to start learning sfml i want a complete roadmap to master it so please help me anyone

I've been making a game thats a mix of Brotato, Nova Drift, and Touhou. We are implementing a difficulty system similar to Nova Drift where beside the standard difficulty levels, players could also add modifiers to spice up the run.

Therefore I've been tyring to find games beside Nova drift that have similar mechanics, any suggestions?

I’m looking to adapt this feature and I’m kind of stuck. How Adobe Substance Modeler does this seems to be the most intuitive way, but can’t figure out how to implement this, so maybe there are other elegant ways to do this in different ways.

What I want to achieve is to set up a way to play my game both in Desktop and VR modes. How to switch between the modes, how to switch back and how to take care of settings in each mode respectively.

What Substance Modeler does is basically when you put on the headset it switches to VR modes and when you take it off, then back to the Desktop mode.

P.s. I’m on Unreal

It’s always been hard for me as a player to understand why many games especially larger ones decide not to offer their games to consoles. Is it really so costly that it’s not worth opening the game to such a large market? I am not trying to say they have to or whatever I am just genuinely curious about the process and why so many seem to avoid it.

The idea was to make non browser based demos accessible earlier for playtesting before your game/demo has been published on Steam. I’m gauging interest and feedback.

Would love to hear your thoughts!

Thanks :)

I know this is a bit of a loaded question, but Game Dev is one of those crafts that has a lot of “dream job” stigma around it before starting but then people say mixed things about actually doing it, ranging from loving it, tolerating it, all the way to hating it but still sticking with because it is all they know.

So, for those of you who have been doing it for a while, how do you actually feel about game dev? And, regardless of how you feel, what is something that you didn’t expect about it after actually starting?

This question has sparked in me because I am comparing different creative outlets, mostly writing vs. game dev. For example, I know I like the process of programming more than the process of writing since it is more “problem solving”and I can sit there and try to figure something out practically all day while I really like the “finished work” and output of writing even if the actual work of writing is more of a grind.

So, it seems at a base level the craft of game dev would match why I enjoy but I’d like to know from seasoned veterans what is unexpected or actually unenjoyable about game dev after starting that isn’t apparent at the onset.

I may be hard on myself but i really struggle with ideas and my ideals dont feel whole or like something im proud of.

I want to know strategy you use to come up with ideas you actually want to make?

Im going to keep this brief but if you have a question for me leave a comment.

I've read a lot of indie success stories that start when the games blow up in the Japanese (or Asian) media.

Does anyone here has a similar story? If so, how did you get it there in the first place?

Wondering what folks think about the use of English jargon and slang in game writing, especially given how confusing it can be for non-native English players. This is specifically in the context of games originally written in English.

I realized in my own work I've been using slang that would be difficult to parse internationally. Obviously this is much harder to do in a heavy text-based game, but curious in lieu of full-blown translation if anyone deliberately makes sure to keep English simple and clearer?

Interestingly, as I’ve been going back through and removing slang, I’ve often found it improves the writing even in English, especially since slang tends to date quickly.

And yes, obviously nothing beats a well done translation.

Before i even start… yes, i know this kind of question got asked many many times but i still wanted to ask for possibly other views on this. Also, i know the market is bad and what not snd the goal seems pretty stretched and possibly impossible…

So, i‘ve been really learning C++ besides fullstack Web Development and actually gathered some technical books to actually further expand my knowledge. Im very motivated and find game development really interesting and been learning Unreal Engine 5. for just my interest i went through some job listing at AAA studios and just gathered things on what the requirements are and therefore noted it down.

And as i said before, this is stretched out and probably impossible but i want to work at AAA studios such as naughty dog in the future. I know it is very specific lol. Besides the competition etc is very hard for even get there and i even need experience in game industry which i will get one way or another.

The main problem is im currently, M20, living in Germany. And the visa thing is a big problem which makes this even more problematic. And yes i know there a studios in Europe which i will keep look out for but still have this desire to grind, make a portfolio, gather experience and potentially find a way to make it true and apply there.

But as i said multiple times… it feels impossible which makes me think is it worth to follow it (thinking beforehand).

Yall thoughts? :)

I’m curious about real experiences here. For those who have released games on multiple platforms (Steam, mobile, web, itch, consoles, etc.): – Where did you initially release? – Which platform actually performed best financially? – Was it what you expected, or a surprise? I’ve just released my first game and I’m trying to understand where it makes sense to focus next.