Hi everyone!

If you love cozy hidden object games, hand-drawn art, and cats, we wanted to share that Curious Paws is getting a 25% discount starting August 17th!

Think of it as a cozy, hand-drawn Wimmelbuch (picture book) brought to life — but with a twist: you explore the world through the eyes of a cat to search for hidden items and interact with cute scenes.

If you're looking for a relaxing, feel-good game, adding it to your Steam Wishlist is the best way to catch the sale when it goes live!

Steam Store Page:https://store.steampowered.com/app/4843440/Curious_Paws_hidden_objects/

Thank you for checking it out!

Music credit: "Deep Relaxation" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License.

Ever since childhood, we liked picture books, all kinds of puzzles, riddles, and brain teasers. My wife and I worked remotely-she drew illustrations for literally anything and everything, and I’m just a guy who likes trying different stuff, and lately was making 3D models for games and doing various things in Unity. But somehow all the projects either wrapped up or lost funding, so we were left without jobs. After a short job search, having a small financial cushion that would last until September, back in April we decided-"why don't we try releasing our own game in a couple of months?".

We decided the game should be simple-a chill hidden object game. And during one of our brainstorming sessions about visuals, we came up with the idea that the cursor would be a cat paw, with bees flying around the level, and if you touch them, an annoyed "mew!" plays, after which the player temporarily loses control of the camera, and off it went... after a couple more brainstorms like that, our cozy game turned into a souls-like. How good that we came to our senses in time and didn't do any of that, leaving only the paw and the bees.

Since I’m not a programmer, we decided to use Gemini's help, naturally its free version... building the first level took a whole month! I sat there crying, I wanted to punch the monitor, punch space-time itself, how much it drove me crazy with that-"you are absolutely right... that's my bad...". Meanwhile, my wife was giggling, drawing with a round brush whatever came to mind, and was clearly enjoying the process-no wonder, when you're making a game for yourself and there's no client standing over you demanding to move a pixel to the left and then put it right back where it was. Pure bliss! After my eye started twitching, a strategic decision was made to pay for the cheapest coding subscription plan for Gemini. Oh! I was crying with happiness, I was ready to divorce my wife and marry this guy! Of course, not without issues and hallucinations, but with careful supervision, it writes code delightfully; the rest of the game was assembled in 6 weeks.

And here we smoothly transition to distribution.

We decided that there was no point in setting up a store page without a game ready for release, so we kept pushing off Steam registration until we needed to implement achievements into the build. So, the build is ready, we register on Steamworks, and then it turns out that for registration you need to provide a tax residency certificate, which takes up to a month to process if you don't pay a fee. After that, the page goes to moderation, and once approved, a timer starts, and until it expires, you can't release the game-and we really wanted to do it sooner (Evil laughter). In the end, we missed the item about game controllers-"well, a controller is a controller, our game only uses a mouse..."-and happily went back to spitting at the ceiling and fixing minor polish issues in the build, leaving our store page hanging in limbo for several days. Also, for some reason, we stuck the "Adventure" tag on the game page.

In the end, Steam approved our earliest release date for July 2nd. Giggling a bit nervously, we ran off to create social media pages for our studio! (Evil laughter intensifies and turns into coughing). Comment karma, mmm. And naturally, by the planned game release, we had a post and a half in the few subreddits where account requirements weren't as strict, which miraculously farmed us 100 wishlists.

Who would've known that releasing during the Summer Sale is a crappy idea, but no big deal, new games get shown in the "New Releases" tab, right? They do, right? Especially since the game is released in English, and every Steam user has English in their account settings, right? We probably shouldn't have completely ignored Steam features like the "Curator Connect program" and cold emailing keys to targeted streamers, even those with just 1,000 subscribers. But who would've known))) On the first day, we sold 73 copies of the game. On the second, 37. The remaining ninety took us another month to scrape together!

Be that as it may, starting from the second day, the first reviews started coming in, and I must say we got most of them in the first week. Not a single negative review! There were some complaints about our bees; during development we had a lot of fun dodging them and didn't even think that it might annoy someone.

In the end, after collecting reasonable feedback about the game, we rolled out an update adding localization, an optional timer, and a couple of hints to make achievements clearer to complete.

On August 5th, we received our 10th review! To say we were happy is an understatement! This is now our favorite human on earth (sorry mom, but you had your chance)! Steam started moving, but since the game is currently not on discount, we simply farmed 27 wishlists; the snowball effect didn't happen, and the next day Steam stopped recommending us again.

In the end, 6 weeks after release, we have 212 copies sold and 506 wishlists, 5 refunds (but I sincerely hope these were copies bought by Mac and Linux users), and 62 minutes of median playtime in a short hidden object game.

Right now we are working on our next game, a bit more complex, but just as chill. Hoping to make it in time for the next Next Fest, while simultaneously trying to find a job.

Now all hope is on the weekly sale on August 17th, along with pressing the "Update Visibility Round" button. By the way, experts, tell me, can you even press this button if the update came out 2-3 weeks ago? And in general, how are you guys doing? Anything to say about our case? Maybe give some advice? Maybe there's some work available?

Hi everyone!

We’re working on our next game and are excited to share a little sneak peek of our development process with you! In this installment, our curious little cat will set off for a cozy village where he’ll make plenty of new friends.

While you wait, feel free to check out our already released game, Curious Paws! Also, here’s a quick fun fact about how Steam works: until a game reaches 10 reviews, Steam doesn't recommend it to players on pages for similar games. If you’ve already played our game, please consider leaving a review on Steam—we’re currently sitting at 9!

In the meantime, we’ll get back to crafting a cozy little world for our fluffy explorer!

Hi everyone!

We’ve been reading all the feedback from the community, and today we released a major update for our hand-drawn hidden object game, Curious Paws!

Here is what’s new:

- Optional Timer: You can now toggle the timer on or off at any level!

- 10 New Languages: The game is now localized into 10 languages.

- Redesigned Victory Screen: We updated the victory screen to introduce everyone to our lovely princess, Terry the cat!

- Main Menu QoL: Added a few extra polish details on the main screen.

We read every single review and comment, and releasing this update based on player thoughts feels amazing. If you have played the game, leaving an honest review on Steam would mean the world to our micro-studio and help us out immensely.

Also, we’d love to see your furry (or non-furry!) companions! Feel free to share photos of your pets in the comments below - Terry and I will be looking through all of them!

Thank you all for the support!

- The McMaush Games Team

Hi everyone!

We’re a micro indie team of 3 cats and their 2 humans. Today we’d like to share our game, Curious Paws - a relaxing hidden object adventure filled with hand-drawn details and cozy vibes!

What you can expect:

• 100% Hand-Drawn Art: Every plant, cozy corner, and little creature was drawn with love.
• Non-Linear Exploration: No rush or pressure - explore scenes at your own pace and jump into whichever level catches your eye.
• A Tiny Secret: There’s a sweet little easter egg hidden in the game for the most attentive players... let’s see if you can spot it!

We’re already hard at work on our next game to keep expanding the Curious Paws universe. It will be a bit different in terms of genre and mechanics, but our hand-drawn art style will definitely remain untouched.

Since we’re a microscopic team with no big machine behind us, we rely entirely on player support. If you decide to give Curious Paws a try, leaving a short review on Steam helps us immensely - it’s the main way for our work to stay visible to other cozy gamers.

Thank you so much for checking out our trailer, and we hope Curious Paws brings a little warmth to your day!

Curious Paws on Steam

Attribution Code"Deep Relaxation"
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License

Hey everyone!

Two weeks ago, we released our little project—a game that we actually thoroughly enjoyed playing ourselves even during the long development process.

We really wanted to create something that simply lets you relax. It’s a very cozy experience with non-linear progression. You can play as much or as little as you want—your progress across the levels saves automatically, so you can safely close and reopen the game whenever you want. There is absolutely no pressure or rush.

We also tried to keep the interface as clean as possible: no cluttered screens or heavy menus. Just hand-drawn art and a relaxing ambient track in the background. The tiny timer doesn't affect gameplay or penalize you in any way; it’s just a helpful feature in case you need to keep track of time and get back to your daily routine.

If this sounds like your kind of vibe and you're looking for a quiet way to destress, feel free to check out our Steam page:

Curious Paws on Steam

We hope our little creation brings a bit of peace to your day!

Music credit: "Deep Relaxation" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License.

Hey everyone!

We recently launched our first cozy, meditative Hidden Object game, and I wanted to share our "ultra-late start" experience, ask for some advice, and clear up some confusion about Steam’s backend.

Our Backstory & Current Stats:

We made a classic rookie mistake: we basically did zero marketing and set up our Steam page just 2 weeks before the release.

Despite the tiny runway, here is where we stand after ~2 weeks on the market:

• Lifetime units sold: 157 copies (mostly organic Steam traffic + a couple of Reddit posts).
• Wishlists: Started with 100, currently at 320.
• Median play time: 1 hour 2 minutes (which we are super happy with for a casual game!).
• Top region: USA (46% of sales).
• Refund rate: Extremely low (only 1.9%).
• Reviews: We currently have 8 positive reviews (from direct Steam purchases).

Our launch discount has just ended, and as expected, sales have slowed down to about 5 copies a day, while wishlists are steadily growing.

The Confusion: "Learning about this game" vs. the 10-Review Threshold

We are trying to understand our next steps, but we’ve read a lot of conflicting information. Some sources (and AI assistants) claim that hitting 10 reviews magically helps get rid of the "Steam is learning about this game" status and boosts your visibility in the Discovery Queue. Others say it's pure myth, and that the "learning" status is strictly tied to a revenue threshold (like $1,000+).

Since we are sitting at 8 reviews, we want to ask the veterans here:

1. Is the 10-review algorithmic boost a myth or a fact in 2026? Did you notice any actual change in Steam impressions after getting your 10th review, or is it mostly a psychological thing for buyers?
2. How does "Steam is learning about this game" actually go away? Is it purely revenue/sales-based, or do reviews play a part?
3. Any advice on getting those last few organic reviews? Our review-to-sales ratio is quite tough (1 review per ~20 sales). We have a polite pinned thread in our Steam Discussions, but since sales slowed down after the discount, we are stuck.

Would love to hear your experiences and thoughts! Thanks!

Hi everyone!

A few days ago we shared a sneak peek of our hand-drawn hidden object game, Curious Paws, and the response from this community completely blew us away. Your kind comments gave us a huge boost of confidence. Thank you so much for the upvotes and the incredibly warm welcome.

Our game has just officially launched on Steam and is now available with a launch discount.

For our tiny indie team, the launch of the game is a massive milestone. If you decide to pick it up and play, we would be deeply grateful if you could take a minute to leave an honest review on Steam. For a small project like ours, early reviews mean absolutely everything and help other cozy game players find us.

Thank you again for your amazing support.

Steam Page: Curious Paws: hidden objects

Hi everyone. Since this is our very first game, it’s a very exciting moment for us. We ourselves like how it turned out, but that's not a very objective indicator, so we’d love to get your feedback on a few things:

• How do you like the art style?
• Is 6-7 levels enough for a full game on Steam, or do you think it needs more?
• Do you ever try to beat your own time (speedrun), or does speed not matter at all in chill games?

We'd love to hear your thoughts and chat in the comments!

If you’d like to see more, here is our Steam page: Curious Paws: hidden objects