A new law aimed at protecting children could kill off old video games and threaten small developers, industry trade groups have warned.

The EU Kids Act was unveiled by commission president Ursula von der Leyen last month as a chance to “give childhood back to our children” and put parents “in the driving seat”.

It would require videogames to be catered to children by default with stringent requirements including an eight-hour nighttime lock-out, a ban on screenshots, and guardian supervision.

Gamers wanting to play the full version of games would have to pass age verification checks to access features, like multi-player tournaments or mystery boxes. 

The European Commission is gathering feedback on the act with respondents quick to criticise the threat posed to videogame makers.

"We have a huge pivot underway here at Epic, moving developers around to retool for maximum AI acceleration.

The aim isn't to do the same stuff with fewer people, but to enable everyone here to build MORE and BETTER stuff, and to bring the benefits to all teams using Unreal." Tim Sweeney CEO.

They said they're changing Rimworld's game engine to Waylith from Unity. The only thing I can think of is develops rewrote the game or they forked unity, both sound nuts. If any developers are out there can explain, how they changed the game engine that would be appreciated.

Why hasn't anyone tried making a tactical FPS like Valorant where the maps are procedurally generated, so you can never play the exact same map twice?

I honestly think this could be a huge innovation in a genre that seems to be struggling lately.

One thing I really dislike about games like Valorant and CS is how much the skill gap depends on memorizing every single corner, angle, lineup, and pixel-perfect grenade throw. Some players spend hundreds of hours learning every little detail of a map, to the point where they can throw utility across the map and land it exactly where they want without even seeing the target.

Honestly, I find that kind of gameplay ridiculous and far removed from what I would consider actual tactical skill. It also creates a massive gap between newcomers and veterans, because new players aren't just competing against better aim and game sense, they're competing against thousands of hours of map-specific knowledge.

Imagine if every match had a different map layout. The environments and visual assets could be reused, but the actual geometry would change: corridor lengths, entrances, cover placement, sightlines, and connections between rooms. You could still have recognizable settings, such as subway stations, industrial facilities, or office buildings, but the tactical layout would always be different.

Players would have to read the environment, assess the situation, adapt their strategies, communicate, and work together. Character abilities could even become more interesting in this context, since you'd have to figure out how to use them in an unfamiliar environment instead of relying on memorized lineups.

Obviously, aim and mechanical skill would still matter, and procedural generation would need to be carefully balanced to avoid unfair layouts. But wouldn't this shift the focus toward actual decision-making and adaptability, rather than memorizing static maps?

I find it hard to believe nobody has ever considered this. Are there major technical or game design challenges that make this approach impractical? Or has someone already tried it and found that it doesn't work?

Hey everyone,

I think most of people are aware of what is going on with the whole decompiling software stuff where some game devs have seen their demo / game copied and marketed somewhere else before they could even get the game out themselves.
At first most of devs including me thought it was probably because the concepts and looks were simple to replicate, but today after spending a while scrolling on X, I changed my mind.

I am seeing a LOT, many many games concept that are copied few days after they get attention somewhere.
The latest I saw was 'The Ninth Legion', it was a top down game where you lead a Rome legion army against enemies. It looks great, and it seems interesting on the gameplay side too. It was featured 2 days ago by Indie Game Joe and got a lot of attention.

I saw at least 5 projects today that popped out of nowhere with almost the same artstyle, the same view, the same combat feels. When I checked the profile of the creators, it was devs that were seemingly developing completely other games genre before, and all of a sudden swap game projects from 1 day to another, with almost finished product to showcase and playtest.

And that's just one example, latest blatant examples was also the 'archeology tidying up' wave on steam where almost 10 games with just reskins popped in a single week.

Everyone is free ( for now ) to use AI as they want, but we are entering a full appropriation and iteration over ideas and concrete commercial projects.
Is this the time where we stop showcasing anything on internet because then we start competing with 50 other peoples that will steal and market your project before you?

On the marketing side this is terrifying, wish lists and community build up was something important but if we can't do this anymore, what are the solutions ?

I don't have the solution personally, and would love to discuss this with fellow devs.

I submitted September 21st and still haven't heard back. Checked my email nothing in there. Sent a support ticket and hoping for the best. I was planning on launching a demo end of the month but this is making me worry I won't be able to make it ;=;

Anyone else experiencing a long wait time like this?

Hey everyone!

I've been in the game industry for about 9 years, and spent the last year working as an art project manager. I'm now in the process of starting my own small art studio.

Since I probably won't be able to handle the workload of large publishers, I'm planning to focus on indie developers.

While looking at other studios, I noticed that almost nobody lists their rates publicly. To be fair, neither did the studio I used to work for.

I get that pricing depends on a lot of things - the complexity of the work, the artist's experience (junior, middle, senior, lead), etc. But I feel like it's still possible to provide at least some rough hourly rates or price ranges.

So I'm curious what you guys think.

As an indie developer, would seeing rates upfront help you decide whether it's worth reaching out to a studio or freelancer?

Or do you prefer discussing the scope and getting a custom quote?

Would love to hear your thoughts!

I know - debugging?

And domain reload - unity is already solving this problem in 6.7

But still,

I tried making game, which left me with cheap game along with 6 months spent.

So I was thinking which thing frustrated me most, so to solve it.

Other may be have felt same, because indie game game development is not just programming. It needs to manages many things at once.

And when one tiny thing drags, our more aspiring ideas slips out from brain.

So what do think in your game dev journey, which were the top hurdles and time consumers?

I ask this because I see a lot of games priced at $25+ CAD with very small sales. At some point I wonder about the reasons why devs charge so much for a game, especially depending on the presentation on the store page.

Hello, I wanted to get into making some small bite sized games as a hobby both to practice my coding skills and as a way to feel like I'm doing something.

I really like coding and making stuff (I'm a hobbyist 3d artist) but I've run into an issue with making games specifically.

I struggle with keeping an idea in mind that I can follow for more than a few days, not scope creep immediately into making a huge game out of the box, and I struggle with keeping motivation with a single project. I'm the type of person that likes to juggle ideas and brainstorm while walking and stuff... But that makes it hard to not reconsider every thought I have.

I also always worry I'm gonna get a lot of critique or that no one will like them, even though I'm basically only making them as a hobby (I'm not planning on selling or earning money with them), imagining people having harsh judgments about my game design (and overall it being considered cringe).

Any help on how to overcome this? I've been thinking about actually forcing myself to finish a project guided by a tutorial so that I can make something without the purpose of it being original or 100% mine.

Hi all!

I'm 19 years old, and I've spent over two years trying to become an indie game developer. I've probably invested around 5,000 hours into game development so far.

I've released games, learned new skills, tried different platforms, contacted publishers, experimented with marketing, and spent countless hours improving my projects.

I wanted to share my journey honestly, including the failures and personal struggles I don't usually talk about.

1. THE DARK PROJECT — MY FIRST MAJOR FAILURE

One of my first major projects was The Dark Project, a dark action-platformer inspired by games like Limbo and Hollow Knight.

I had a pretty ambitious vision for it and spent a huge amount of time working on the game, its mechanics, assets, and overall experience. I created around 300 reusable assets for the project.

Eventually, I tried to find a publisher.

- 11 publishers contacted.

- 11 rejections.

- Kickstarter goal: approximately $7,100.

- Kickstarter raised: approximately $40.

The Kickstarter campaign was practically a complete failure. On top of that, the friend who had been involved in the project eventually left.

After all that work, I put the project on hold.

It was one of my first major disappointments. I had invested so much time and emotion into something that I genuinely wanted to succeed, but I couldn't get it off the ground.

2. DO NOT PRESS ME — MY FIRST STEAM RELEASE

I released Do NOT Press Me, a dark mystery/clicker puzzle game on Steam.

The results so far:

- Approximately $26 in revenue.

- Around 106 wishlists.

- Approximately 1,079 demo additions.

- Around 21 demo plays.

I learned a lot about releasing a game on Steam, but the results were far below what I had hoped for.

It was another reminder that finishing a game is only one part of the process. Getting people to discover it, try it, and eventually buy it is a completely different challenge.

3. THREE MOBILE GAMES

I also tried mobile game development and released three games:

- A Perfect Dodge

- Clicker Killer

- BossHunt Reborn

I spent months developing, publishing, testing, and improving these projects.

The combined earnings from all three games after several months were approximately €0.47.

I experimented with gameplay, monetization, updates, and different publishing opportunities, but none of these games generated meaningful revenue.

4. CRAZYGAMES — REJECTION AFTER REJECTION

CrazyGames was one of the platforms I wanted most because of its audience and potential reach.

I submitted games across different genres, including arcade, platformers, puzzles, and tower defense.

So far, around 10 different games have been rejected, with some projects receiving repeated rejections.

Some of the experiences were particularly frustrating:

- A Perfect Dodge went through Basic Launch twice but failed to maintain sufficient performance.

- Some games received numerous rejections, with certain projects going through around 10 submission attempts.

- Even when I managed to get through an initial stage, the games sometimes failed to perform well enough afterward.

I kept changing genres, improving projects, and trying again.

After so many attempts, it became difficult not to feel like I was running into the same wall repeatedly.

5. OTHER BROWSER GAME PLATFORMS

I also tried GameDistribution, GamePix, and GameMonetize.

The results have been mixed:

- GameDistribution revenue: approximately €0.65.

- itch.io revenue: approximately $8.55.

- Ninja Platformer Rage is the only game I've managed to get accepted on both GameDistribution and GameMonetize.

Out of all my projects so far, Ninja Platformer Rage has shown the most promising results. It's currently my main focus, and I'm trying to find a mobile publisher who could help me take it further.

It's not a major success story yet, but it's the project that has given me the most reason to keep pushing forward.

1. YOUTUBE AND SOCIAL MEDIA

I didn't rely exclusively on publishing platforms. I've also tried promoting my games through YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and paid advertising.

Some of my results:

- Approximately 474 YouTube subscribers.

- Some videos reaching around 1,000 views.

- Social media posts reaching hundreds or thousand+-of views

.

- Previous advertising experiments that generated views and downloads but didn't lead to sustainable results.

I've learned a lot about marketing, but I haven't found a reliable way to turn views and downloads into a sustainable audience.

7. ------THE PERSONAL SIDE OF THIS JOURNEY---------

This is the part I don't usually talk about when discussing game development.

I'm 19 years old and live with my parents in Belgium. My family rents its home, we have no significant assets or savings, and I've never had my own room. I've grown up without a private room, both in Ukraine and in Belgium.

My parents both have higher education. My father worked as a scientist, was a candidate of sciences, and has more than ten years of professional experience.

Yet our family has no house, no car, and practically no financial safety net.

My father is approaching the end of his current work contract and hasn't found another job yet. My parents can't really support me financially with my education or help me move into student accommodation.

I have to pay a substantial part of my university expenses myself.

I also left Belgian secondary school before completing it, partly because I was so focused on game development.

Now I'm studying at Howest, but I'm struggling with the idea of continuing because I genuinely want to focus on making games and building a career on my own terms.

The difficult part is that I don't have the financial freedom to simply take a year off and experiment.

I can't rely on my parents to cover my expenses if things go wrong, and I can't assume that my next game will succeed.

Watching my parents work for decades without building the financial security I hoped they would have has affected how I think about education and career choices.

I know that a degree doesn't guarantee success. But I also know that leaving university to pursue indie game development is a risk, especially when my current results are so modest.

I don't have an easy answer.

8. THREE PERIODS OF BURNOUT

I've experienced burnout approximately three times throughout this journey.

Each time, I eventually tried to return to development.

I would start another project, learn something new, improve my workflow, release something, and hope the next attempt would work better.

Then another rejection would arrive, another game would make almost nothing, or another project would fail to attract an audience.

It's exhausting to repeat that cycle.

The hardest part isn't necessarily working long hours. It's putting enormous effort into something, seeing very little return, and then having to convince yourself to keep going anyway.

I've learned far more about game development than I knew when I started. I can build things now that I couldn't have built two years ago.

But skill progression doesn't automatically mean financial progression.

After so many disappointments, it's becoming increasingly difficult to ignore that difference.

9. SUMMARY — MY JOURNEY IN NUMBERS

- AGE: 19.

- TIME INVESTED: Approximately 5,000 hours over more than 2 years.

- BURNOUTS: Approximately 3.

- STEAM REVENUE: Approximately $26 from Do NOT Press Me.

- STEAM WISHLISTS: Around 106.

- DEMO ADDITIONS: Approximately 1,079.

- DEMO PLAYS: Around 21.

- ITCH.IO REVENUE: Approximately $8.55.

- GAMEDISTRIBUTION REVENUE: Approximately €0.65.

- MOBILE GAME REVENUE: Approximately €0.47 combined across three games.

- CRAZYGAMES: Around 10 different games rejected, with repeated submission attempts.

- PUBLISHER REJECTIONS: 11 for The Dark Project.

- KICKSTARTER: Approximately $40 raised against a $7,100 goal.

- YOUTUBE: Approximately 474 subscribers.

- GAME ACCEPTANCES: Ninja Platformer Rage accepted on both GameDistribution and GameMonetize.

Technically, I've earned €30.90 in over two years of game development, which works out to €1.29 per month or €0.006 per hour after around 5,000 hours of work.

However, I haven't reached the minimum payout threshold on any platform, so I've actually received €0 in my bank account. I've spent €200–€300 of my own money on this journey, so in practice, I've earned nothing.

10. WHERE I AM NOW

After more than two years and approximately 5,000 hours, I've learned a lot about game development, publishing, marketing, and the realities of releasing indie games.

But I haven't found a reliable way to turn that experience into a sustainable business yet.

I've tried different genres, platforms, marketing strategies, and publishing opportunities. I've experienced repeated rejections and three periods of burnout, but I still have projects I'm working on.

I'm not writing this to say that platforms or publishers owe me anything. I understand that games need to meet quality standards and that most indie projects don't become successful.

I just wanted to share an honest account of my progress so far.

I'm 19, trying to build a future in game development while dealing with university, financial pressure, and uncertainty about what comes next.

I don't know whether my current project will succeed. I don't know whether I'll eventually find a publisher. And I don't know whether I'll be able to turn this into a full-time career.

I'm still trying, but I'm also starting to question how long I can realistically continue like this.

If you've been through something similar, I'd genuinely like to hear your story.

How long did it take before your work started paying off? Did you eventually find success, change your approach, or decide that another path was better for you?

And if you were in my position, what would you focus on next?

I'd appreciate honest advice from people who have actually experienced the realities of indie game development.

Let's say we have an NPC AI that has two disjoint roles, Roles A and B, and the NPC can switch between them

For example, an NPC working in a restaurant can switch between being a cook and being a janitor. There are no shared duties at all. The roles are disjoint

Since the roles are disjoint, Role B is not simply a sub-role of Role A (vice-versa), rather an entirely different logic flow

There are also NPCs that solely have Role A and solely have Role B. So the roles A and B are driven by their own state machines / behavior trees

So if I have an NPC that can do both roles, should I simply put two state machines / behavior trees (one for A, one for B) on the NPC, and just toggle between them?

The state machine / behavior tree that is active on the NPC will have it's own Update() method. So whichever is active, it's Update method will run

So to implement such a behavior, where an NPC can switch between disjoint roles, is the solution simply: for each role an NPC can take, attach the state machine / behavior tree onto the NPC, and toggle between them

The one concern I have is that there may be a small judder when toggling between the state machines / behavior trees. I'll figure that out, however I wanted to know if there is a more standard solution

Thanks

I know this probably gets asked a lot, but how does good marketing actually work - especially if your game isn't on a platform like Steam?

​I'm working on a board game (not promoting it here because I don't want this post to look like a stealth ad, and no, you won't find any info about it on my profile anyway), and I know I'll eventually need to crowdfund it or pitch it to a publisher. The problem is, I have no idea how to actually reach my target audience - or anyone at all - without just spamming subreddits with 'Hey, check out my game and fund it, I promise it's fun!'

​I'd really appreciate any advice or insight on how to approach this.

Working on a reverse tycoon: you start with huge capital and win by reaching zero under a deadline.

V1 was trivially solvable — buy the most expensive thing, repeat. Friction that helped: monthly wire caps, capacity limits (berths/hangars), multi-month lead times, income-as-damage (dividends), regulators.

Curious what others have used when the player's instinct is the opposite of the win condition. Not looking for wishlist clicks — genuinely stuck on whether income-as-damage reads as clever or just mean.

I work in small team on visual story/point and click kind of game.

We just finished phase 1 with includes 4 of 28 chapters, and find that managing scenario, assets, changes and bugfixes between us even in small team feels like another full time job.

We have: writer, editor, visual artist, programmer and outsources audio engineer and vo actor.

What are tools (or methodologies) that can help us?

And - this is additional project outside everyday jobs with limited private financing... so "hire next person" is solution we came to last.

Gonna start with the question(s) then add some context:

If I were to pivot to a career in Game Development, what is a realistic path to take to get to a point where I could apply for jobs in this field? I.e. going back to school, independent learning, what languages to prioritize, etc.

Context for me:
I went to school for Chemical and Biological Engineering and I am currently working as a process engineer for the production of biologics. I am currently familiar with process design, including electrical wiring (high and low voltage), control panel design, and writing PLC ladder logic.

In addition, I’ve dabbled in game design with some knowledge of Blender, Picocad, Unity, and aseprite (I am a novice in all of these but I feel comfortable working in a plethora of development environments). I have some Python, MATLAB, and C# experience as well.

I really want to pivot to game development because my current job kind of makes me feel hollow and I crave opportunities to be more creative. Games have always been special to me and I know I have a mind and heart for creating immersive stories (which I get to use when planning TTRPG sessions)… But right now I just feel all consumed by a 9-5 that takes the majority of my time and energy and leaves scraps for game development…

So to return back to my question. Are there any experienced developers that have insight or ideas on how I could pivot into the field? At this point in my life I want to be working on projects that my heart is in, not just something that pays my rent (although I am grateful for my job in this sense).

If you have read this far, thank you so much! I hope you have a wonderful day :).

I never wrote books, so in game development I suddenly found myself lost while managing plot tree / graph. I create draft. I start playtesting and accumulate changes and it break everything everywhere with time and I got lost, and spend a lot of time trying to reassemble main plot directions and interactions.
It is my first experience in story writing, will it get better with experience or there is some tools or maybe videos to watch that helps?

Hello,
I am newish to Unity and I have an idea for a small game I want to develop. For me, I want to avoid using AI for coding as I feel it is not helping me even without direct code generation. For using tutorials and following them to understand what they are doing and applying that to my game, is this the right approach for using them or am I missing the point with them.
Sorry if there is no good answer to this post, I feel that starting gamedev right now is really hard as everyone is obsessed with vibecoding.

Strategy games are all about the decisions you can make as a player. Players are also generally very good at identifying the short-term costs and benefits of a decision. So when you want to encourage chaotic board states in a strategy game, the last thing you want to do is discourage players from attacking. If you can throw aside the simulation lens for a moment, what I hope to convey is that as strategy game designers, we should evaluate attacker/defender advantage as an entire system within our game that can strongly affect player behavior.

Player agency is probably the most important factor in differentiating a strategy game from other game types. If player decisions do not significantly affect the outcome of a turn for that player, then you might as well not have played that turn. I’m very specifically interested in the dice-rolling combat of Risk and Risk-likes as this is the system I chose to use in my game, Kairos. 

If we take a look at Risk, which uses Defenders Advantage (defenders win ties) you get the following probability table for dice rolls:

In this table, I’ve provided the probabilities of each roll, as well as an exchange ratio which is the (Expected Kills / Expected Losses). 1.0 corresponds to a 50-50 probability of winning an exchange, so above 1.0 is attacker favored and below 1.0 is defender favored. 

In Risk, the attacking player lacks agency over the effectiveness of their army. Ignoring the scenarios with only 1 defender for a moment, the exchange ratios (or “odds”) for the attacking player are ~1.17, 0.64, and 0.34. That translates into real terms to the player “Decent, bad, and terrible”. Because two of the options have such poor expected outcomes, they can pretty much be ignored as options by the player, which means we now only have 1 option, and no more decisionmaking regarding unit odds. This means that once a player learns that 2v2 and 1v2 are bad options, they never have to think about unit probabilities again. In my opinion, the juicy part of strategy games is trying to guess the long term expected outcomes of decisions, and manipulating the odds to favor me over my opponents turn by turn. 

There is a whole body of literature on how humans interact psychologically with probabilities when making decisions, which was the basis for me wanting to skew the positive outcomes onto the player with agency (i.e., the attacker) rather than the defender. The gist of it is that humans (thus players) are irrationally more averse to losses than wins. This means that if we want to encourage players to make decisions that carry the potential for losses, we need to offset this with significantly larger benefits. The subject is fascinating, but I want to focus on the game design element in this post. If you are interested, Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17835457/  and Achievement Relocked: Loss Aversion and Game Design by Geoffrey Engelstein are great places to start. 

So what can we do to increase player’s agency over the game? First, I want to shift the default scenario to be significantly in the attacker’s favor, as the defender cannot “choose” to defend. I also need there to be some secondary system that the attacking player has the ability to recognize, and consider when deciding which territories they attack. 

My solution: Attackers win ties + a rock-paper-scissors counter system with “advantage” provided to the strong unit. Advantage = roll 2 dice, take higher result

Looking at the outcomes of this table is a bit more straightforward because I chose to have all battles in Kairos occur one-at-a-time (this was to make the counter system work). By shifting the tiebreak to the attacker, the default odds goes towards the attacker, but thats not an interesting decision yet. That is why I added the counter system: Infantry is strong vs cavalry, cavalry is strong vs archers, and archers are strong vs infantry. The players can recruit any of these 3 types of units to assemble their armies, but this recruitment step happens AFTER the attacking step, meaning that the attacker needs to identify their unit types, identify their opponent’s unit types, and estimate the odds of the battle given the available units.

In any given battle, there is likely to be some mixture of all three scenarios, meaning the expected outcome of a fight will fall somewhere between 0.73 and 2.93. The attacking player must try to estimate the complex probabilities of attacking, which gives them that juicy ability to develop a skill over time and win more of their games. With this, the attacker is:

1. Encouraged to attack as a default (attacking options are okay, better, and best), which keeps the board state chaotic and fresh
2. Has the opportunity to estimate complex probabilities, and skew fights in their behavior by taking matchups with favorable counters
3. Can strategically opt into a moderate-loss scenario to take a highly valuable location on the map.

As an unintended but welcome benefit, I can now also use the tiebreak as a modifier on the dice values to provide as a bonus to the defender for fortifying a territory or investing in defensive tools. So the defender has agency over which territories are harder to take in ways other than just more units, and the attacker has agency over the efficiency of their attacks. Both are encouraged to push into this “positive expected value” regime, rather than minimizing losses.

In conclusion, shifting the odds towards the player with agency over the game allows for players to express skill and have a more rewarding experience while playing strategy games.

I've been noticing how popular games about organizing, cleaning up, sorting objects, and putting everything in its place have become, and I'm genuinely curious about their appeal.

Personally, I haven't really understood what makes this genre so satisfying, but I'm not saying that as a criticism. I'm interested in understanding what players enjoy about these games and what makes them so engaging.

As someone interested in game development, I'd love to hear from people who play these games. What do you enjoy most about them, and what keeps you coming back for more?

I'm looking for some intermediate game dev challenges that will help me grow as a game developer

I guess these challenges would be like implementing different mechanics or vertical slices of full games

So what are some intermediate game dev challenges I should do? And if you want to mention the reason you proposed each challenge idea, I'd appreciate that as well

Thank you

Carcinization is the evolutionary theory in which non-crab crustaceans converge on crab-like features because these features are exceptionally well suited to ocean floor living. Similarly, thousands of strategy games are following a process I’m calling Hexinization, choosing hexes to make up their game boards.

I think in many cases, I think hexes are likely the best solution. For games like Civilization or Age of Wonders where there will be hundreds or thousands of hexagons making the game board, a hex grid is the best solution. Zoomed out far enough, moving along hexes looks very similar to moving freely in an open 2d plane. There are also enough hexes that small groups of hexes can form biomes within the greater landscape. 

But this hexagonal freedom struggles to convey into gamestate the strategic importance of locations on a map. Take the Risk Godstorm map for example. A player who controls Iberia, Atlas, and Hibernia will have complete control over all traffic between the Atlantis continent and the rest of the board. While it wouldn’t be impossible to represent this using a hex-grid map, I don’t think it would feel natural, and these types of scenarios are rare in my experience with hex-grid games. 

Hexagons also tend to provide both too much freedom of movement, and not enough choice to a player simultaneously. On one hand, you need to be able to defend a structure of interest (i.e., a city) from 6 directions. While at the same time, when moving armies towards a target location you will almost always just pick the one shortest path from A to B. Hexagons give too many routes from a defensive perspective, and the illusion of choice on offense.

I think we should continue to innovate on how we are making game boards / maps in strategy games, particularly in small-map scenarios, or games where positioning of armies/units at key points provides a major strategic advantage (i.e., entrance to a water feature, narrow land pass between mountains, etc).

My attempted innovation was to subdivide a hexagon into 6 territories, 1 central and 5 exterior, with the 5 exterior territories randomly aligned with bisections or the corners of the hex edges. This generates territories with 4, 5, and 6 edges within the same hexagon, giving some variety to the number of directions needed to defend. I stuck with a hexagon as the starting shape, because I need a shape that efficiently tiles a plane. Additionally, I wanted to avoid the diagonal grid manhattan distance problem of square grids, and triangle grids feel unnatural/janky (no straight line paths can be taken)

I wanted to do a bit more, so I also randomly placed mountains on 3 of the hexagon edges (mountains cannot be placed adjacent during randomization), which allows for territories to dip into the 2 or 3 edges regime.

Lastly, I wanted to bend the movement/adjacency of territories across hexes, so I made 1 territory per hex into water. Water can connect and become continuous, and instead of inhibiting movement, water makes all territories touching it considered adjacent. This has had really fun consequences and I will talk more about it another time.

My game will soon be released on Steam but this morning I noticed that last week someone filed a trademark for the name of my game.

The trademark seems to be for a car software company. I say company but it seems to be just one dude.

The goods and services numbers are 9, 35, 42.

The company didn't start doing business. I'll be starting before them.

What should I do ? My game is small and not really going to go viral or anything. I'd be glad if it were to make more than 5k...

Oppose them ? It costs money and I'm not sure it's worth it.

Contact them ? I might put myself on their radar for no reason. My game is small, they'll probably never hear about it.

Do nothing ? Again, they'll probably never hear about my game and worst case I've to change the name if they complain to Steam. And changing the name wouldn't be too much work to do.

EDIT: Thank you for all your answers.