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u/No_Arm7292

▲ 154 r/Trackballs

I bought a trackball as a joke for my marble game and now I genuinely think it's the best way to play it

Been developing this marble game for around 3 years. During the public playtest I noticed a lot of people were trying to play it with WASD and having a pretty hard time steering the marble precisely.
Since the camera is mostly automatic anyway, I tried switching the controls to direct mouse movement instead and it immediately felt way better.
Yesterday I bought a trackball as a joke and somehow it became the most natural and comfortable way to play the game.
In hindsight it feels incredibly obvious that controlling a marble with another ball just makes sense, but somehow it still took me 3 years to realize this. :D
Public playtest for Marblearium is currently live in case any fellow trackball people want to try it.

u/No_Arm7292 — 4 days ago
▲ 98 r/IndieDev

I spent 3 years developing a marble game only to realize the trackpad/mouse feels amazing

I have been developing my marble game for around three years now. It is recommended to play it with a controller, but through the recent public playtest I noticed that quite a few people were playing it with keyboard and mouse and having a hard time steering the marble with WASD.
Since the camera is handled automatically anyway, I thought maybe the game could just be played directly with the mouse itself.
It took me maybe one minute to implement.
Now jumping is on left mouse button, menu on right mouse button and steering by simply moving the mouse.
Somehow it feels weirdly natural.
Especially on a laptop trackpad it almost feels like “petting” the marble through the environment or gently nudging it with the mouse.

u/No_Arm7292 — 8 days ago
▲ 1 r/NewTubers

My game gets positive feedback, but my Shorts flop. What am I missing?

Hey everyone,

I’m a solo developer working on a calm physics-based marble adventure called Marblearium. The game itself has actually been getting very positive reactions so far, especially from people who played the Steam playtest.

What I’m struggling with is short-form content.

For the past months, I’ve been experimenting with TikTok and YouTube Shorts using gameplay clips from the game. Usually I take longer recordings (around 40 minutes) and cut them into short ~12 second clips.

The game is visually atmospheric and revolves around steering a marble through nostalgic environments that slowly become more surreal and strange over time.

I’ve experimented with: voiceover vs no voiceover, overlay text vs no text, music vs no music, facecam vs no facecam, different hooks and captions.

But honestly, the performance still feels extremely inconsistent to me. Sometimes a clip gets slightly more views, but often it feels almost random.

So my question is:
Can this type of content realistically work on Shorts at all, or do some game concepts simply not translate well into short-form algorithms?

I’m especially interested in hearing from people who’ve gone through a "low view plateau phase" and managed to figure out what changed.

reddit.com
u/No_Arm7292 — 11 days ago
▲ 2 r/gamedev

How do you handle feedback asking for explanations/tutorials when the design intentionally avoids them?

I currently have a public playtest running on Steam, and while most feedback has been straightforward, I’m unsure how to handle players asking for explanations or tutorials for things I intentionally want them to figure out themselves.

At the same time, other players specifically seem to enjoy that aspect and leave comments like:

“I like how the game doesn’t explain the controls and lets me figure out how to move around and solve things.”

How do you other devs usually deal with this kind of conflicting feedback?

reddit.com
u/No_Arm7292 — 14 days ago
▲ 39 r/GyroGaming

A few weeks ago I asked here what I should keep in mind when adding gyro controls to my marble game, and which controller to get for testing. Someone recommended the 8BitDo Ultimate 2 Wireless, it that worked great! I basically just connected it through Steam and gyro was up and running immediately.

Now I’ve opened a public playtest for my game on Steam.

It’s a calm, physics-based experience set in a nostalgic marble run world that gradually becomes more strange and surreal the further you go.

Right now it already feels pretty good with the default Steam gyro setup. However, when I watch the recording, it looks like I’m moving the controller quite a lot. Probably because my sensitivity is set too low? I can definitely imagine going further and implementing something more tailored.

So I’m mainly looking for people who are into gyro controls and would be willing to try the playtest, share honest feedback and suggest ideas for improvements or features I could implement on the engine side

If someone would be interested, I’d really appreciate it.

u/No_Arm7292 — 17 days ago
▲ 11 r/Games

Marblearium is a calm physics-based marble adventure where players become the marble itself, rolling through a whimsical world that grows stranger over time.

The focus is on satisfying movement, atmosphere, and flow.

A public Steam Playtest is currently live if anyone would like to try it.

Planned for PC. Full release TBA

Trailer:
[link]

Steam Page:
[link]

u/No_Arm7292 — 19 days ago