For our roguelite Tile Crawl, we wanted our meta progression to stand out, so we designed it as a planet to explore. But our run map was already designed using hexes, so for consistency's sake, we wanted a globe out of hexes as well. We did not want to have pentagons but rather somehow achieve full coverage by equal hexes (even though it is geometrically impossible).

So how it works:

This is actually a plane with objects placed on it. Then, using camera position, vertices are recalculated in a shader (all objects must share the same bending subgraph or shader code with the same values to look consistent). This technique is used in Animal Crossing, as far as I am aware, but just not tuned as heavily.

Okay, so this gives us a bent plane that looks like a sphere. Next challenge is actually allowing it to rotate properly; rotation is achieved by just moving the plane in the X and Y axes while the camera stays static. To achieve looping of the planes, I am spawning 8 more planes with copies of the objects and then teleporting them as I am crossing the edges (this part for sure can be done way, way better with some vertex magic or just fewer clones).

Next challenge is that shadows are broken as vertices are recalculated but normals are not; to calculate a new normal, we need to get two neighbours of the vertex, then bend them with the same logic and use the results to calculate the new normal. This allows us even to have proper shadowing from clouds above.

Last thing to do is clicking the nodes on the map. As objects are actually in very different spots from visuals, just raycasting from the mouse won't work. So I'm using one big sphere collider to detect the mouse position on the sphere, then recalculate it backwards to where it would be on the plane and find the closest node in radius.

There are still some things left to do (VFX support is quite bad, and there are some artifacts with water waves on the edges of planes). But in my opinion, already looks quite good and stands out.

All of this is in Unity3D, but I am quite sure the same approach would work in any engine.

Thank you for reading! If you like what you saw, consider wishlisting Tile Crawl on Steam!

Okay guys this is an odd one

My friend is the guy who led the creation for Star Wars Battlefront

The first game, the second game, and what would be the canceled third game.

The guy is a legend, and is helping me as a mentor for my indie games,

But here’s the thing….

He doesn’t think anyone in the games industry would care about what he has to say about game development.

Let’s prove him wrong! I want to show him this post and all the questions from the community under it to convince him to start the YouTube Channel he’s been thinking about starting

This is not a drill guys, the real story about what happened to Star Wars Battlefront 3, how the first 2 games were made, all the design, level, and balance choices, the guy can talk for hours and has already told me some amazing stories, let’s convince him to share them with the world!

Game - it's a weird source engine movement inspired thingy

I can't believe how good these guys look. I was forcing myself to endure using blender since I needed a new enemy. But for the first time ever, I almost had fun!

The shaders are doing a lot of heavy lifting for the low poly model, which is perfect because I learned a lot about that stuff when making the levels.

I also prefer to work backwards, visuals and audio first, and then coding. For these enemies I made the audio first, recorded crazy sounds to help me imagine what they'd look and behave like.

I'm making a nostalgic game about Water Ring-toss + Roguelite elements

- You use oxygen to push buttons and land rings on spires.

- You can equip Assistants that modify the game & Equip up to 8 items to experiment.

The aesthetic of the game is primarly "Frutiger Aero" like

What do you think?

Quite clearly the biggest difference (in this level) is the volumetric lights!

From the beginning we tried to get ~80% of our results from lighting only and added the effects later.

Our cutscenes (I will post later) have similar effects but with more bloom and depth of field to give it a more cinematic look. It also has some color grading to get a "Y2K" feel

Done on Unity 6.1 URP. Performance wise, we're optimizing it to get to work on a 2013 GTX 770 laptop that we have at home. If it runs on that, we're _more_ than happy!

Our game is called SHOCKFACE. We're on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4705980/SHOCKFACE/

PS: We recently missed our 27th Aug planned release. So we took the opportunity to polish the game further and maybe market it a little more. If this looks like your jam check it out!

We’re working on accessibility options for Quantum Quartz, our 2D steampunk pixel art precision platformer.

A big part of the game is switching colored platforms on/off to create paths, avoid hazards and move through the level, so being able to quickly tell the colors apart is pretty important.

Instead of relying on color alone, we added a unique gemstone shape to each color. The icons can also be resized, repositioned and have their opacity changed, and there’s an optional control glyph mode too.

I’m not colorblind myself (no one from our team is), so I’d love to hear from people who are: would this actually help during gameplay? Is there anything you’d change?

A little while ago, I asked this community to compare two key-art directions for my game.

After reading the comments, the most common suggestion wasn’t simply “A” or “B.” It was to keep B’s dynamic composition and card framing, while making the character brighter and easier to read like A.

So I changed the lighting and value balance, reduced some of the visual noise, and made Alice’s face the first thing you notice.

Here’s the revised version. Thank you to everyone who took the time to explain what was and wasn’t working.

For context, here’s the original A/B feedback post that led to this revision.

I’ve been working on this physics co-op game for a while now.

The pitch is really simple: you all have to work together to get the baby safely back home.

(and, ideally, avoid a Pawtential Disaster hehe.)

I released the first trailer and the Steam page today

Pretty happy to finally have it out there :)

It plays when you host a game and transition from the main menu into the character selection area.

At first, I thought it would be a pretty small task.

Move the camera, make it go through the opening, turn into the room, reveal the characters... done.

Of course, it wasn't that simple.

I kept changing the camera movement, timing, environment, lighting and little details until the transition finally felt natural. By the time I was happy with it, almost the entire day was gone.

And the funny part is that players will probably watch this for around 10 seconds and never think about how long it took to make.

That's probably one of my favorite things about solo game development though. Sometimes you spend hours on something tiny just because you know it makes the whole game feel a little more polished.

I'm developing Riddled Together, a two-player co-op puzzle game, and I've also been documenting the development process on my YouTube channel.

The Steam page is already live as well, so if this looks interesting, you can find Riddled Together there.

Still can't believe one tiny camera animation stole an entire day from me. What do you think about the animation? Was it worth it?

About a month back I posted asking for some feedback on the visuals of the unannounced game I'm working on and got some great feedback from the community. Thank you! It helped give me the confidence to land on a visual style and pull the trigger on getting the initial trailer and Steam Page out for... TIDY TOWN! Ta-da!

Tidy Town is a third person cleaning game where you combine everyday objects to tidy up messes and transform spaces. Help Percy lend a paw one room at a time as he saves a friend’s cafe, rebuilds a city park, refreshes an artist’s studio and tidies his way across town and into his community's heart.

There's no AI in here. Tidy Town is being lovingly crafted by our small team of creators based in Vancouver Island in Canada, with original artwork, audio and music.

I would love it if people would check out the Steam Page and once again be totally honest with their thoughts and impressions. Thanks again! :)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/4994380/Tidy_Town/

This is a fairly huge day for me. Honestly I am doing my best to wear my marketing hat and post this everywhere but I have the jitters something fierce lol

The demo for Bumper Bout!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3938260/Bumper_Bout/

I’ve been developing Bumper Bout, a competitive PvP pinball game, for roughly two years and tonight I finally pressed the button that made its first public Steam demo available.

I’ve shown it at festivals, conventions and local events plenty of times, but there was something completely different about watching a friend find it in Steam, click download, and have my game install on their PC like an actual real videogame.

The last couple of weeks have also been my first proper experience with the less glamorous side of shipping on Steam: setting up the demo App ID, SteamPipe/depot builds, Valve review, store assets, release configuration, etc. I actually missed the festival I originally wanted the demo ready for because the first store review failed over one missing library header image that Steamworks hadn’t marked as required. That was a great learning moment lol. (in case it helps anyone - it ISN'T required but if you have any of the optional assets then you gotta have them all. Go figure.)

But I digress. It’s live now.

You can go and play it. Right now. whaaaat

The demo itself has local PvP and 1P vs CPU modes availabel with two characters and two stages. The full game is planned for 9+ characters, 20+ stages, online multiplayer and more.

Mostly though, I just wanted to share the milestone with other people who understand how much work can sit behind pressing one stupid green button.

I pushed it. yeeee

As a small indie team at Releaseplay Studio, we have finally crossed a major technical milestone we've been focusing on for a long time: We've successfully integrated the online battle mechanics into our game! (Though it's still a work in progress, of course... ⚔️)

As you can see in the video, we've come a massive way both visually and mechanically since the early prototype stage. Now, players will be able to clash with their custom-designed steelblades in the arena in a fluid, real-time, and competitive way. We are super excited to share this huge step in our indie development journey with you all.

If you'd like to support our indie studio, don't forget to wishlist SteelBlade Shop Simulator on Steam! 👇

(Note: Our Steam page currently has older screenshots/footage, but we'll be updating them very soon!)

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4265160/SteelBlade_Shop_Simulator/

EDIT: did not expect this post to blow up like this haha, thank you everyone!! if you want to follow the game more closely, I post more development stuff on X: https://x.com/ray_ervian

been spending some time on the water shader lately for my small sailing game, Beneath the Dying Sun. reflections ended up doing way more for the atmosphere than I expected, especially around lit areas at night

I actually tried planar reflections first and they looked beautiful, but absolutely destroyed the framerate lol. they also got pretty unstable once the weather system started throwing high tides and bigger waves around, so I ended up going back to the tried and true SSR instead

haven't optimized it much yet, but so far the performance hit is pretty negligible. the downside is the usual SSR stuff though, reflections around the edges of the screen can look pretty weird sometimes

still plenty I want to tweak, but pretty happy with where it's going!

If you're curious about the game, there's more about it here:
https://ray-ark.itch.io/beneath-the-dying-sun

Also, Beneath the Dying Sun is currently competing in Round 3 of Rising Tide 4, and voting ends today! I'm trying to make the Top 2, so if you enjoyed this little clip, I'd really appreciate your vote 🌊
https://blueoceangames.com/challenge/voting/rising-tide-4/genre/rpg_fantasy

Is there anything that stands out visually or feels out of place?
I’m also curious whether the objects without outlines are still clear and easy to distinguish from the backgroun

Hello everyone!

my name is ali, i'm a cs student (and former security guard) turned gamedev!

i started game dev around 2 years ago i think but i could never dare to attempt to develop a full game, until someday i decided i've had enough and committed to pursue my passion and this is the result!

i released my first game ever on steam this month and it didn't do too bad i think :).

i had way too many sleepless nights, way too many days where i haven't left my house, but to me, even ifs not a massive success, i think its worth it, not for the monetary gain, but the feeling that i have done something in my life that people have fun playing, something that has my name in it, something that if something were to happen to me, i know that atleast i didn't go without a trace lol.

i love vampire survivors, i love RPGs, so i decide to combine them both into one game and this is the result, Echoes of Kyria:

[https://store.steampowered.com/app/4914620/Echoes\\_of\\_Kyria/\](https://store.steampowered.com/app/4914620/Echoes_of_Kyria/)

Guys i am a game character animator and tried to make MJ dance moves. To be honest this is all i can do and i think it is pretty cool. But GOSH moonwalk. It is hard as hell. I am so suprised that MJ did it in the flesh.

What the title says! I have been developing Economicon for a while now (and it's been many more years since I first tried making it and repeatedly failed). It's a mix between the logistics gameplay of something like Transport Tycoon or Locomotive (Chris Sawyer GOAT) and the automation gameplay of Factorio.

Do you have any feedback about how the game looks either in-engine or in the Steam Page? What features would you say are a must in this type of game?

You can check the Steam Page right here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5037110/Economicon/

Guitars are fun, but playing for a crowd is always more enjoyable than playing for yourself. I added guitars and songwriting to my life simulator, but there wasn’t much to do other than try to impress people with it. Now you can take your guitar and a hat down to the street and try to earn a little cash! Just a fun simple mechanic

We're four people making a horror game set in Gdańsk, 2005. One of its locations is a falowiec, one of those enormous curved prefab blocks with external access galleries and a few thousand people living in it.

On Sunday we posted a single screenshot of it to our city's subreddit, with one question: what's the one detail without which a Polish block of flats doesn't look like a Polish block of flats?

We expected a handful of replies. We got around fifty corrections in one evening, several from people who live in the building ours is based on.

Some of what came back:

- Our stairwell light is too cold. It should be dirty yellow, behind frosted glass, with every other bulb dead.

- Our lift has a digital floor display. In 2005 those lifts were plywood and plastic buttons with no display at all. If we keep one, it has to glow red, the way retrofits did.

- Street lighting should be sodium. Sodium is nearly monochromatic, so it doesn't tint a scene orange, it kills every other colour in it.

- Our external galleries are completely empty. No junk, no bikes, no pigeon netting, no washing lines. Thousands of people supposedly live there and not one of them left a trace.

- A jar of water on the gallery, for stubbing out cigarettes. Nobody invents that. You have to have seen one.

What surprised us most: a lot of it was sound. Voices from the basement, pigeons cooing through the ventilation grille from the roof, fluorescent tubes buzzing, a security grille screeching. That's the cheapest work on the entire list and we would never have got there on our own.

If your game is set somewhere real, go and ask the people who live there. It cost us one post and one honest question ;^)

Genuinely looking to hire people for work. I've been on/off developing an open world farming management game. Currently need someone with all around experience to take a look over the project and give an honest review. I don't make millions of dollars, but I'm fair, appreciate honest work, and believe in the project enough to shell out for it.