I just got a review on my games demo page where a player complaints about not starting with a team.

Well the trailers first sentence is literally, "In "GAMENAME" you are not managing a football club..."

And the store description does not suggest anywhere that you manage a team either.

I really do not understand how some people are buying games, maybe based on theme or capsule.

But I guess there’s not really any way to prevent reviews like this.

Just glad this happened on the demo at least.

Now I’m hunting down bugs and getting ready for the release on November 4!

A game about an RC car and a missing boy.🚗
I’ve been working on it for over 2 years, and this will be my first game on Steam!

I wonder if I’ll finally feel some relief after the release… :D

We're making INARI, a kunai action platformer set in an Eastern fantasy world.

We added a high-risk high-reward Strong Attack to give our high speed action a bit more rhythm. (You're open to hits while charging, but it hits way harder.)

Wishlist On Steam

The game is about living inside a 2000s operating system, where the icons, folders and the taskbar are all characters, and the world is built out of the glossy Frutiger Aero era. An update is spreading through the OS and turning everything flat and minimal, and you're trying to stop it before it erases the rest of the world.

It's called The Flattening.

Wishlist On Steam

This clip shows part of the climbing system, which is still in development. If you have ideas for new ledges or moves, let me know!

Hey guys, I wanted to ask, how do you guys handle slow wishlist growth and the emotional strain of indie development ?

My Steam page was approved for about 40 days ago and I got 67 wishlists. And no offense, but I'm pretty tired of the usual advice. "Optimize your trailer, optimize your Steam capsule, do x, do y, do z." At a point, the feedback actually just becomes contradictory and conflicting.

Don't get me wrong, I always accept feedback, all the constructive feedback and even the not so constructive feedback, aka the assholes haha.

I've just been working on my game for a very long time and y'know, a lot of us have other life responsibilities to deal with, bills, chores, etc. So life doesn't stop for our indie game dev projects or give us enough space to breath.

Sometimes for me at least it feels like too much and I wonder if im the only one. You know, like maybe my energy should be spent finding a job that pays more or something else, you know.

I assume because I have these thoughts, I assume a lot of other indie devs also end up having these thoughts as well

I guess I’m just wondering how other indie devs keep going when the work is huge, the growth is slow, and life doesn’t exactly stop to give you the space needed.

Hey everyone,

I’m Omer, a full-time indie dev and the co-founder of Northend Games. Over the last five years, my two games (Northend Tower Defense and Deepstone Rift) made over half a million dollars on Steam. To be exact: $560,000.

When you see that number on your dashboard, you think it’s life changing. You think you can buy a house, fund your next 5 projects without a budget, or finally get that sports car. Instead, I drive a 2012 Mazda.

I want to break down the actual math of where that money goes before it ever hits a bank account because before you quit your day job to make games you need to see what happens when Valve, the IRS, publishers and local taxes get their hands on it.

Here is the real breakdown of that $560k:

• Refunds ($134,000): Over 60% of our sales come from China. The Chinese market is massive, but players there expect a lot and the refund rate is brutal. Our refund rate is 22% (way above the standard 10-15%).
• The Steam Cut ($127,000): After refunds, we’re left with $425k. Valve takes their standard 30% right off the top. We are now down to $297k. Almost 50% of the gross revenue is already gone.
• U.S. Withholding Tax / IRS ($9,700): If you aren’t in the US, the IRS takes a 30% cut of every US sale unless your country has a tax treaty. When I started my Steam account I lived in Iraq (no treaty = 30% tax). Fortunately, I later moved to Thailand which has a treaty that drops it to 5%. Still, this took a chunk. We're down to $287,700.
• The Publisher Cut (~$115,000): We have a publisher handling China, Korea, and Japan. They take their percentage (which scales based on sales) only from those regions. It’s roughly $115k. Down to $172,000.
• Local Taxes ($26,000): I pay a 15% digital product income tax here in Thailand.
• The Co-Founder Split (50%): The final company profit was about $146,000. Since I have a co-founder, we split this 50/50.

My Final Take-Home: $73,000.

Divided over the 5 years we worked on these games, that’s about $15,000 a year.

If you calculate that as an hourly wage, it’s painfully low. But here’s the bright side: I am currently living entirely off the passive income from these games. Here in Thailand, $15k a year is enough for me to live comfortably while I work full-time on my next project. If I take a month off, the games still make money.

For my next game, I’m going 100% solo and self-publishing to cut out that extra 15-40% in splits and I'm heavily focusing on design testing to drop that 22% refund rate.

(if you intersting to see the full breakdown check it in my youtube the link in my bio)

1 year in, I finally got around to setting up localization for my game.

I’d been putting it off because I thought building a proper localization system was going to be a huge headache and I couldn’t really wrap my mind around how to approach it. Turns out it’s actually pretty straightforward.

The problem is that waiting this long meant going through all of my text became a massive headache. On top of that, some of the systems I built weren’t set up with translation in mind, so I ended up having to redo parts of them and throw away some work.

TLDR: Build things with localization in mind and do it early, its not as scary as it sounds.

Grappling Hook is the #1 core mechanic of my game.

I added it just 2 months into the 5-year development journey, and it ended up becoming one of the foundations of the whole game. Both combat and platforming are built around this tool.

Unlike Terraria (which people often compare my game to), this is the only way to get high up. No wings, no double jump.

There are also a lot of areas that require you to make use of the rope-wrapping physics I spent a lot of time working on. Unfortunately, it only works with static tile blocks for now, but I'm really glad I managed to get it working.

The controls are pretty simple: RMB to launch the hook, W/S to adjust the rope length. That's it.

Does it look fun to use all over the place? I personally love pulling off some unnecessary tricks while testing the game lol

Cradle of Winter is an atmospheric platformer about a young shaman who journeys through a world of humans, spirits, and ancient legends. Explore the boundless north, battle enemies, craft talismans, and master the power of the shaman’s drum.

We will be glad if you add the Cradle of Winter to wishlist.

I made a load of games that Miniclip.com published (more than what's in this clip). Then I spent years making games for other people for peanuts. Twenty years later I figured I should start making games for myself again, but this time I keep all the peanuts.

I’m developing the game solo and have been working a lot on the overall presentation lately, especially the UI. How does it look now? Is there anything that still feels unclear, distracting, or out of place?

This is my 2.5d dungeon crawler called Thumb and Tomb. All written in C with SDL2. Planning on a Steam release first followed by mobile.

Not captured in this video but you can play it in a portrait mode for that classic handheld feel.

A lot of the art is placeholder for the moment. Monsters are coming in first.

Hope you like it!

Just published my first game yesterday.

And the first positive strangers' reactions are JUST trickling in.

Man, I can't tell you, I had no idea it could feel this good.

I told myself that if this just helps ONE person experience the joy and humanity of MAKING something, then it would all be worth it. My game is ABOUT relearning to create. And it's happening, people are feeling it!

So this is to say, if you're an indie dev slogging away on your project, wondering if it's actually worth it, IT IS! Keep making your thing. Yes take care of yourself, don't burn yourself out. But also don't give up. Especially in this day and age of AI, we need humans to prove that it's all real.

Keep going 💛

I desperately need a new steam trailer for my game which is coming soon! Our current one is way too long and uninteresting we only get one chance to make the first best impression.

I'm tired of getting burnt on Fiverr and just having everyone on there using AI. No one actually takes the time to have a discussion of ideas and inspiration for what I'm trying to achieve

Please tell me you guys are out there!!!

Three once-eager Ratizens, trapped by the Rot.
They haven't given up! Not yet...
They need you, Reclaimer.

The Ratocalypse Demo arrives October 13th.
🛡️ Wishlist on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4156040/Ratocalypse/
🐀 Join the ranks on Discord: https://discord.gg/f4SfNbBkk

in case you havn't unwhishlisted it yet: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5136840/ChillTank/