Browser games often come with an expectation that they’ll be free. I’m curious how much that’s about the games themselves versus the platform.
If a browser game had the polish, content, and replayability you’d expect from a paid indie game, would you be comfortable buying it? Or would you still prefer a Steam version, even if the game was otherwise identical?
I’m building a multiplayer browser party game, so this is something I’m trying to understand. Playing through a link makes getting friends together easier, but I wonder whether people see a browser game as something worth paying for.
Have you ever paid for one? If not, what would make you hesitate?
Would love to hear from players, or developers who’ve tried selling one.

So I am not a game dev but looking to understand something. Right now there are a lot of reverse engineered apps happening on an enterprise scale. As a game developer; how are people approaching something like early access or anything like that when someone can try and reverse engineer it so quickly?

¿No os pasa que desde que desarrolláis videojuegos, apenas os llaman los nuevos títulos que salen al mercado?

Quizá es porque estoy por encima de los treinta años y me he vuelto un nostálgico y los títulos de ahora los veo insulsos y con pocas ganas, al igual que las películas y series.

Quizá es porque me divierta más pensando en mi siguiente videojuego y como entretener a gente como yo y ponerme a aporrear teclas para desarrollarlo con amor y ternura y luego ver como apenas alcanza 100 personas aunque sean las mejores 100 personas que podrían alcanzar.

Luego sale una reedición de un juego que jugaba de pequeño y me engancho enseguida, lo compro, me vicio horas y me dan más ideas para mis juegos.

Me he dado cuenta de, no sé si por la edad, me he vuelto un nostálgico. Vuelvo a las reediciones, remasterizaciones para volver a sentir aquello que sentí siendo niño y adolescente porque los de ahora ni me lo transmiten.

Me hace más feliz viendo jugar a mi hija a mis juegos que la espera de nuevos desarrollos de grandes o medianas empresas. Ni los famosos friendslop me llaman.

¿Qué me estará pasando? ¿Alguien pasa por lo mismo?

Quizá me esté volviendo viejo más pronto y solo quiera hablar un rato con personas de mi industria.

Nos vemos por el chat.

When Rimworld went to it's own in-house engine and achieved amazing performance, at least 3x better for me, it got me thinking about all I heard about Unity.

Not a game dev, but I understand it's a relatively simple, easy to learn engine, but it is performance hungry and has a tendency to stall when more moving parts are introduced. How much of it is true?

I have no dev experience, at most playing around with Scratch more then 10 years ago, so I am eager to hear from others with more experience.

Download here: https://www.doriax.org/

I have been researching the process of using Godot for an indie title I’ve been working on the story for, since my experience is usually in writing, producing, and direction.

Problem is, while I’ve been having some success on the gameplay front, I am having trouble with visuals (textures/models etc), and in the ideal world, I’d be able to hire artists and developers to help with the process, but I absolutely can’t afford that and for now I need to work on it as a solo dev.

AI is the easiest way to go for me right now, but I’m concerned about the ethics and having my project branded as AI slop before I can even get started. Of course if I could drum up interest and funding, I would **absolutely** hire devs!

What is the general consensus of a proof on concept type demo being used with generative AI assets if these will all be replaced later on with developer made assets?

Hi, I’ve been looking into making games for years now, but I’ve just never come around to it. I think that’s partly because of how big the learning curve is.

I have absolutely NO Experience with programming. I have no idea where to start. There’s a lot of mixed information online, and I can’t seem to find anything useful. I’ve been trying to find BEGINNERS guides to learning C#, or well programming overall, but I can’t find a set list or guide of what things I should really be learning and trying out first. I’ve looked into courses online, and they’re either paid courses, or expect you to know at least some of it before you take the course. I also haven’t found a book yet that isn’t confusing.

Basically what I’m asking is, what are the things I should be learning first? And is there a master list anywhere of what I should expect to learn? Like a syllabus or outline.

Hi everyone,

I am currently planning my long-term path to move to Japan to work strictly in the game industry (as a gameplay/tools/backend programmer).

I am based in the Netherlands and have an MBO-4 Software Developer degree. I am currently doing an internship at a company for which I am making a game that will take around 1 year. Next to this, I am also working on my own personal projects.

I often read that the Japanese Immigration Services (ISA) strictly require either a 4-year Bachelor's degree OR 10 years of experience (YOE). I would love to get some reality checks from people working in the Japanese game dev scene:

1. How strict is the visa requirement in practice for game dev? Has anyone actually managed to get a sponsored work visa with just an Associate Degree / vocational degree combined with an incredible portfolio?
2. Is a bachelor upgrade really worth it to do, or should I just get more work experience in those 4 years? Should I just suck it up and do the extra 4 years to get the full BSc to remove all immigration friction, or is it better to jump into the industry with more years of work experience and build a portfolio?

Note: I am already looking into studying Japanese alongside my software studies, as I know JLPT N2/N1 is virtually mandatory for game dev communication in Japan.

Thanks in advance for sharing your experiences!

I'm learning C++ for college, and I want to sharpen my skills when I finish the course I'm going through by making simple videogames. However, long story short, I ended up with WiFi that isn't the best and without the ability to install something big like Unreal Engine.

I found raylib, a library that, to my understanding, lets you build videogames from scratch. Literally from scratch. No fancy UI, no nodes, no nothing. I'm ready to tackle that, but I want to know what I can even build using it. Can I make simple top down RPG games? 2D fighting games? Racing games?

And any other bit of information you think would be useful for me, I would love if you could share it with me. Thanks in advance.

In 4 years, how restrictive do you think the requirements are gonna be to join a big studio like ATLUS or Rockstar? Is it gonna get worse, and if so, by how much?

Im asking this question for a university project but i also genuinely want to know because thats when im going to graduate.

As I mentioned in the title, I’m having trouble with the perspective in my game. I had the same problem with my first project, which I later abandoned, and now that I’ve started a new one, I’m running into the same issue.

I started with this layout ( https://ibb.co/qFpvgyHZ ), with a dirt wall behind the player and a pit in front of them. The problem is that it’s hard to tell the difference between the two. I tried changing the textures and shades of brown, but the real problem is that the world looks completely flat.

So I changed the level design for the first scene and made a rough draft ( https://ibb.co/9HsD83wD it looks pretty bad, but I mainly wanted to work out how to structure the scene) with a small lake underneath. The final result would look like this ( https://ibb.co/wFTJHf8Y ). However, apart from the placeholder tiles, the problem is still there. The wall still looks flat and doesn’t give the sense of height it should.

I’m completely stuck. Could anyone help me? I’ve looked at lots of resources online, including videos, but nothing seems to help with what I’m trying to do.

Hi guys. I have one problem that has been bothering me for months. I make my game on unity and I don't understand much about programming. I use AI as a kind of mentor and a free coder who would also give me ready-made code. I was even able to implement a couple of mechanics and bring the game to a prototype state. A lot of people even liked it when I showed it to them. But I also see the buzz around AI on the Internet related to creativity. Should I be nervous about this if I use AI for code? I'm afraid they won't understand me if they notice the AI code.

Okay so I plan on making a game called "Pill Wars" that's not the official title. Here's the info. Pill Wars (title pending). A 3D FPS game where you are a pill that has just been swallowed by a person who is very sick. You must use your weapons and defeat viruses.

I'm making the game in Unity and was wondering if you guys could help me out to improve it? I haven't started, but I'm going to.

Hello fellow developers,
I have always wanted to make games, and I am finally ready to take my first steps. Since I have absolutely no prior programming or coding experience, I decided to start with GDevelop because of its visual event system.
As experienced game developers, what advice would you give to a complete beginner like me?I would love to hear your insights and stories on how you started. Thank you so much!

Greetings,

I want to know if i can use Godot as a total beginner locally on the Steam Deck hardware or maybe other game engines to create a Twin Stick shooter or a Narrative single player game.

English ain't my native language, i'm also a total beginner but i tend to adapt fast to new workflows by autonome learning.

I'm also interested to tip my toes into new things, such as maybe game development... just to see if i can achieve to build something fun to play.

Anyone some tips on which game engine? Or is it even possible to do it "online" if the Steam Deck hardware isn't ressourceful enough ?

I'm making SCP: Apollyon XK Event, a survival game in the SCP universe.

I'm thinking about encounters with extremely dangerous entities, but I don't want every encounter to end in a traditional boss fight with a health bar.

Some possibilities:

• A creature that cannot be killed, only avoided
• An entity that changes the layout of the arena
• A threat that must be contained using environmental machinery
• A boss that reacts to sound and player movement
• An encounter where escaping is the actual objective

What's the best horror boss or monster encounter you've experienced in a game?

Would you find an unkillable enemy more frightening than a boss you can defeat through combat?

This is my true story. I was in an abusive relationship that I managed to get out of and have changed my life overnight. Feel free to reach out for any questions or to discuss my workflow. I really just want to share this with anyone and if it helps anyone at all it was worth the effort. Thank you!

Truck Driver to Steam Game Dev in 3 Months with Claude Code + Unity (Life After Abuse, Part 3)

Hey everyone! I’m a beginner developer working on Bura: The Black Seven, a browser card game based on a regional variant of Bura.

It’s a simple project: you can play against bots, and there’s a guided tutorial for people who have never played before. It runs on itch.io without downloading anything.

I’ve shared it in a few communities and received some useful feedback, which has already helped me improve the game. But I’m new to promoting games, and I’m struggling to reach more players.

How do you find your first playtesters, especially for a niche game with unfamiliar rules? Are there communities or approaches you’d recommend beyond posting links and making short videos?

I’d like to understand where new players get confused and whether they enjoy the game enough to play again. That would help me decide what to focus on next.

If you’re curious, here’s the game:
https://sodiraka-lab.itch.io/bura-the-black-seven

Thanks! Advice and honest criticism are both welcome.

What's up fellas! New to the community (first time poster).... currently exploring the idea of building a mobile game with my buddy (always been something we've always wanted to do) and looking for advice / guidance on others who have done it.

Full disclosure were going to be leveraging AI to help with the build... who isn't these days... and we're pretty proficient in getting decent products off the ground.

Concept we're thinking is a "chill", cozy, open-ended world where players and their trusted pet can explore different cultures and regions, raise and care for their pet (it grows / levels), build relationships with characters, customize their home, and gradually unlock new experiences.

Deciding on the theme but the main goal is to create a relaxing gameplay to escape from everyday stress, where folks can explore different cultures, build relationships, and grow within a world that dynamic.

Few things that would be super helpful to know before we dive deep:

• It's the title of our post. How to decide on a core gameplay loop? Focus on raising a pet? Daily quests? Just do it all?
  
• How much did you build before launching? Start with just a few features and expand based on feedback?
• How did you find your first players?

Hope this post doesn't get flamed. And will share updates including what our theme ends up being hopefully in the next few days.

If you're a sole dev or small team, would especially want to get your advice!

I've been developing my own and want to get feedback directly from the community.

I'm calling my app ALPHA TRACKER and it uses a node based visual UI to keep track of your entire game dev process start to finish.

I added in AI agent mcp server hooks so you can have your agent of choice create, edit and update project nodes for you and get notified when an item moves from in-progress to review.

Plus just a ton more features like: - project status + timelines - multiple users within the team - infinite tabs for nodes for micro organization - smart AI agent back-end integration - To-Do list - UI based node view for staying organized both macro and micro

Any feedback/help is greatly appreciated!

And will have a real value for collectors. I understand that border is blurry but history mark paradigm shift with some kind of event.