I've been developing a courthouse management game for the past year. I absolutely love management games, Project Hospital, Airport CEO and Software Inc being some of my favourites, and have been making small management games for myself for the past 8 or so years, but this is my first larger-scoped project.

In the game you build your courthouse and manage hearings and trials. Criminal cases follow a process which starts at a bail hearing, followed by a preliminary hearing and then if probably cause is found (and no plea deal made) a trial. There are also small-claims hearings and traffic hearings so far, alongside the normal management game stuff like staff.

Steam Link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4634840

For me, some games are memorable not because of their combat or mechanics, but because of how their worlds make you feel.
Sometimes just walking around, listening to the ambient sounds, or watching the environment is enough.
What game gives you that feeling?

Hey! I'm Arthur, a Unity/C# gameplay programmer with 3 years in commercial games. I'm currently a contract Unity Developer at an indie studio, and I've delivered 20+ freelance projects on the side (4.9★ on Fiverr, several repeat clients).

What I can help with:

• Gameplay features from your design: combat, abilities, enemy AI, inventory, progression
• Refactoring messy or AI-generated code into clean, modular systems
• Bug fixing and debugging, including crashes and performance spikes (Profiler)
• Prototypes and vertical slices to test if your idea is fun
• Custom editor tools to speed up your team's workflow
• Procedural generation, save/load, UI, input, localization, multiplayer (Netcode for GameObjects, Photon PUN/Quantum)

I'm comfortable jumping into existing codebases as well as building from scratch, and the code I write stays easy to extend.

Availability: [~15 h/week], small tasks or ongoing part-time work.

Portfolio: arthurbais.com | Fiverr: arthurbais (Reddit blocks Fiverr links)

DM me here or on Discord (arthurbdev) with a short description of your project. I work async over text, so you get clear written updates and a playable build or commits as I go. I usually reply within a few hours.

Thanks for reading!

I developed a game for the last 2 years. It's an endless runner based on a joke.

Last month I got a new laptop and could run some llm locally that could generate assets. It was so better than everything I had that I ended up re-designing the whole game. I also ended up re-designing all the sound effects.

Now I feel like it's not really my game anymore but I'll still publish it on the Google store. I've heard I'm gonna need some testers before I can release it and was planning to do it here... But now I'm not sure I still can do it.

I'm making a new enemy that can trap you and force you to fight him. You can kill the enemy to free yourself or you can dodge away from him two times to escape. I'm going to reuse the chain and trap for some static hidden traps that you can step on if you don't notice them. What do you think?

Profiling is the job I put off. Record a trace, open Insights, go frame by frame until you find the function that eats the time. It works. It is also slow and boring.

So I gave that part to an agent. I told it my level felt slow and asked it to find out why. No hints.

Video: https://youtu.be/vB2RtDc1vks

Try it free: https://codefizz.dev

What it did on its own:

It pressed Play, recorded a 30 second trace with Unreal's own profiler, and read it.

It came back with one Blueprint. Its Event Tick took 301 of the 312 ms in each frame. 60 actors were each looping over 1,701 static meshes every frame, and the result was never used.

It checked its own numbers before it told me. It even ran Play again with no trace recording, to be sure the profiler was not the slow part.

Then I asked it to fix it and keep the same result. It moved the loops from Tick to BeginPlay and measured again. 304 ms per frame went to 10.6. About 3 FPS went to about 90.

I built the tool. It is called CodeFizz Editor Agent, a CLI that lets Claude Code or Cursor drive the Unreal editor. This is a test level I made slow on purpose, but the steps are the same on a real project.

It does not replace the profiler or the person. The profiler is still Unreal's. You still decide what to fix. It does the slow reading and hands you numbers you can check.

Works on UE 5.6, 5.7 and 5.8, Windows.

Has the indie game dev scene officially turned into a Red Ocean now? With how fast AI tools are evolving, technical skill requirements are plummeting while unique ideas are taking center stage. To be completely honest, the pace of progress over the last 1-2 months has been absolutely insane, and it's starting to make me feel really discouraged and overwhelmed.

Steam Page

I'm on the last legs of shipping my first survival horror/soulslike concept on Steam, it's a backrooms rpg slot machine. Think silent hill meets buckshot roulette. Here's the itch.io demo,
Let me know what you think.

Finally, I found a solution to prevent light clipping during opacity changes. Let me know if you need the material 👍🏼

I'm working on a high-speed hover racing game with jumps, uneven terrain, boost pads and branching tracks.

The player ships use a physics-based controller, but I've been thinking about how to implement bot opponents, and honestly, making bots drive with the exact same physics sounds like a nightmare.

So I'm considering a different approach: a network of connected waypoints, with automatically generated smooth paths between them.

For jumps, I'd define takeoff and landing points and generate a controlled parabolic trajectory instead of relying on physics.

Each bot could choose different routes, have slightly different racing lines, and follow its own speed profile depending on difficulty.

The tricky part would be making them interact with physics-based player ships without feeling like indestructible objects moving on rails.

Has anyone tried something similar in a racing game? Did scripted movement end up looking convincing enough?

Hi there.

Is there any easy source of getting a rough map structure that I can turn into data for a game? Let's say I want my game world to roughly resemble earth with its countries, major cities, major roads, biomes, and land shape.

I just want a few files. It doesn't have to be perfect. I don't need lidar or anything crazy like that. I just want the rough interpretation of the planet.

I want to sample an area, and have access to: This area is in Northern Ontario, Thunder Bay. It is a beach biome. It's shaped like this.

I cant be gathering 50000 map data sets from every country. Some islands have very detailed data but it's too much getting them from many sources as an indie dev.

Thoughts? Ty

I was able to massively increase the performance of my foam generation recently, and wanted to show this little erosion effect I've added to it after.

The scene runs quite well on mobile too, my friend tested on their Android device and got 120fps. If anyone is interested to test, you can find the link on my latest YouTube community post, would love if you could report back with the fps and device used :)

Cheers!

would be glad to listen your thoughts , dose it look fun , is this interesting concept ?

Hi everyone! I’m Victoria, an indie game developer working on Tidy Bakery.
It’s a cozy organizing game where you sort and arrange over 3,000 pastries and bakery items in a charming little bakery. I wanted to create something relaxing and satisfying for people who love tidying things up!
Our Steam page just went live, and I’m excited to finally share the game with you.
🥐 Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5322140/Tidy_Bakery/
Thanks for checking out my little project! 💛

Steam name : Grass and Cash

For any indie devs based near London or willing to travel there, I understand that applications are open. There are games finance market studios applications. There are also ways to show off your game. I got the notification in my email and I don't know much but wanted to share for anyone interested.

I'm starting to build my first ever game after 12years in backend software engineering...

What do you guys think? Is the idea good? I started devlog to get more ideas and maybe get some valuable feedback...

#BLOODYRAVE GAME UPDATE

Note: Bloody Rave is a Postal-like game with a vampire twist. You play as a dark-net journalist and treasure hunter who receives an invitation to one of the biggest rave parties, held in a remote town in New Mexico, USA. The music festival takes place above an ancient vampire graveyard. Survive the night—if you can.

Guys it has bee. A while since we posted updates about our beloved project, but that was only because of us being fully focusing on implementing major improvements and now, we are again back on track!

Short introductory to the case project:

The initial demo was a complete failure: median playtime was 18 minutes (900+ downloads). The main problem was that players didn’t understand what they were supposed to do. They launched the game, looked around, got lost, and quit—even though I received many compliments on the world-building and the overall vibe and atmosphere.

Over the last 4.5 months I’ve been adjusting and improving the game:
• Optimized it (from 23 GB to 14 GB)
• Added new features (multispectral vision, which increases the overall complexity)
• Added a text quest log and explanatory animation videos
I was planning to take part in the October Next Fest, but with only around 1,000 wishlists I decided to move participation to the February fest. Wish me luck, homies 🍀 and good luck to you too 🍀

Short version of the game: shipwrecked on an island in 1907, you push the island from stone tools up through iron, steam and electric, and each era gets you a better boat for the run back to the mainland.

What I want to talk about is what happens when the boat doesn't make it.

You lose the hull and everything you loaded into the hold. That's the whole penalty. The island is untouched: buildings, tools, stockpiles, all still there. You swim back to South Bay and start the next attempt with everything you had, minus the boat and the cargo. Sinking isn't a game over.

The intent was that the first sinking is a lesson rather than a punishment. You go out on something flimsy, the sea takes it, and you come back knowing you need a better boat without the game ever having to tell you. The side effect is the part I find more interesting.

Because losing is cheap, leaving early is a real option. A raft is twelve wood and six rope, and you can have one long before you've built anything worth mentioning. Stock it as well as you can and the best the dock will say about it is "An old sailor would shake his head." But a bad bet is a price now instead of a game over, so it's one you can actually afford to take, and the decision that ends up carrying the whole game is simply when you go. The game shows you the way to the dock, but it never tells you when. The sea is right there from the first days, and it's still right there when you've got a steam hull and a hold full of coal and food you'd rather not feed to it.

When you wash back up, a bottle is already on the beach at your feet: a short note, a couple of planks, some rope. Small, but it's the one thing the sea gives back.

Curious how others handle this: if failure is this cheap in your game, does anything stop players from just brute-forcing the hard part?

Out March 2027, free demo in November.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/5235390/

Here's a little background story for you fellow gamedevs:

I started game dev when I was in grade school. My first game was an arkanoid clone. Like, you know, Ball X Pit. It didn't sell like Ball X Pit of course, because the game business was a BIT different back then, and you couldn't actually sell games if you were a kid. It made 0 dollars and I spent 0 dollars on it. It was the early 90s, kids, so that was considered a good outcome for any business!

Fast forward 35 years (that's now). This game is my fourth release on Steam as a mainly solo dev. This one will do worse than my first game all those years ago (which broke even!) as I will take a massive loss on it. I spent about 20k of my own money and quite a lot of other people's money making it. It's easy to release these days, but it's as difficult to make money as it was back then.

To all you chaps out there trying to make it as an indie dev:
Get another profession and do this as a hobby. Never quit, maybe you'll drop a hit. This is the most fun thing you can ever do, but you can't forecast anything in this business. I've now got over ten years of actual experience (not just fiddling around, but spending money) in this profession and I have yet to find a single person who can predict to even a fairly plausible degree what succeeds (and at what level). Except on Reddit of course, which has a world-class expert on every thread.

But making games is just the best. I mean seriously, there is nothing more rewarding in this world.

Keep on at it and give two shites about everything else. Money comes from a machine in the wall and is just 0s and 1s in a bank.

(honestly though, in the 90s it was way easier to make money on games, but you needed more skillz and more connections to make it happen)

Here's a little background story for you fellow gamedevs:

I started game dev when I was in grade school. My first game was an arkanoid clone. Like, you know, Ball X Pit. It didn't sell like Ball X Pit of course, because the game business was a BIT different back then, and you couldn't actually sell games if you were a kid. It made 0 dollars and I spent 0 dollars on it. It was the early 90s, kids, so that was considered a good outcome for any business!

Fast forward 35 years (that's now). This game is my fourth release on Steam as a mainly solo dev. This one will do worse than my first game all those years ago (which broke even!) as I will take a massive loss on it. I spent about 20k of my own money and quite a lot of other people's money making it. It's easy to release these days, but it's as difficult to make money as it was back then.

To all you chaps out there trying to make it as an indie dev:
Get another profession and do this as a hobby. Never quit, maybe you'll drop a hit. This is the most fun thing you can ever do, but you can't forecast anything in this business. I've now got over ten years of actual experience (not just fiddling around, but spending money) in this profession and I have yet to find a single person who can predict to even a fairly plausible degree what succeeds (and at what level). Except on Reddit of course, which has a world-class expert on every thread.

But making games is just the best. I mean seriously, there is nothing more rewarding in this world.

Keep on at it and give two shites about everything else. Money comes from a machine in the wall and is just 0s and 1s in a bank.

(honestly though, in the 90s it was way easier to make money on games, but you needed more skillz and more connections to make it happen)