This is the first time I’ve published something on Steam.
I haven't done much promotion, but I suppose for these events I need to do more than just wait. What should I focus on these days?
I’m also going to participate in the October Next Fest.
A few months ago, a Chinese user on Bilibili uploaded a couple of videos of my prototype published on Itchio. Together they surpassed one million views, which was fantastic. I received many Steam wishlists, which was a pleasant surprise.
One of the videos: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV12ULv6nENx/
Today I checked the Bilibili video and saw many new comments saying, "They already copied it," and mentioning a game very similar to mine...
https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV113t46oE29/
In fact, there are other videos of other games that are simply my prototype, almost unedited...
None of those games are mine.
I have no idea about the Chinese market. Could someone check their Google Play Store or something similar, or tell me where to look?
Honestly, I don't know how to take it. I guess I can't fight it, so I'll have to accept that if someone clones your game, it's good news... I think.
I'll be releasing the demo on Steam soon! Add it to your wishlist if you want, but don't steal it! XD
So many achievements in one image!
Not only did I reach 100,000 matches, but I'm also nearing 500 ratings. And since the last update, my daily match count hasn't dropped below 400-600!
What you don't see: 13 updates, 3 of them major (these are visible). With each update, I get a knot in my stomach, worried that I've missed something and messed up the game. Those minutes until I realize everything is okay are really tough.
Hey, I heard you wanted an idle game that would take weeks to fully complete and requires no clicking?
I've built an idle city builder game where your goal is to clear an entire forest: Forest Nothing. If there are any Age of Empires II fans here, you'll have already noticed that my game is named after a map that's both loved and hated by AoE2 players, and that's no coincidence.
It's free on CrazyGames, has no banners or mandatory ads during gameplay, and features completely optional reward ads. You receive extra resources after returning from offline play. There's also an extra speed token, although you get up to 10 minutes of those tokens for free when you're away from the game.
The gameplay has been tested twice during Friday feedback sessions, where it was well-received and I received many suggestions, which were a great help. Some of you have already finished the game in about 30-40 hours.
The game has achievements; completing them all can take weeks. The hardest achievement is completing the game without any prestige resets, which is entirely possible, but anyway... if you're up for it, good luck!
AI Disclosure : The code was mostly generated by AI. It saved me a ton of time that I used to spend balancing, testing, and drawing with Paint!
The music is CC 4.0. The art is mostly my own, with some pieces created using free 16x16 tile assets from Itchio.
This is a game I've started a dozen times over my 15 years as a programmer... this last time, I think, was the final one. I hope you like it, and I'm open to suggestions.
It's been a while since I've been here, but my digital chickens are taking up all my time.
I've compiled some animations of the chickens from my game "The MachinEGG," which is about a chicken farm where they lay eggs.
I hope you like them.
By the way, you all gave me the names for each of the chickens: https://www.reddit.com/r/chickens/comments/1sy3x5y/what_are_your_chickens_names/
I'd never published with them before, so I was completely in the dark, but I didn't have much to lose. Integrating their SDK wasn't too complicated, and passing their quality assurance was lengthy but necessary.
Once it was released, players flocked to it. The first day saw over 6,000 players, then it started to drop, but little by little I began to climb the rankings in the incremental and clicker categories. After a while, it seems to have stabilized at around 5,000 players per day.
They contacted me to offer me exclusivity for two years, but I refused because I would have had to remove my game from the other websites where it is available, and my goal is to have as many players as possible.
Getting a Steam Wishlist from there is considerably slower than with my demo on Itchio. It performs much worse, but hey, it's better than nothing, so I'm not complaining.
Finally, you'll have to integrate ads into your game, whether banners, mandatory ads, or rewards. I made them minimally intrusive; my players have accepted that's just how it is, and there's hardly any negative friction. The income isn't enough to retire me, but it's extra money I can reinvest in my game. Since you've read this far, I'll tell you: in all this time, I'm about to be able to buy my egg washing machine (€1000).
Honestly, I think it's unusual to have so many players, over 9,000 reviews with an average score of 9.4 in such a short time... I don't think that can be replicated easily.
In short, if you have a visually stunning, fun game that encourages replayability and invites players to come back another day, you can try uploading what you have for a basic launch. In a week or so, if it's well-received, you can then integrate the SDK and implement more comprehensive management.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask. This is just my experience, which I wanted to share in case it helps someone.
The game is https://www.crazygames.com/game/the-machinegg
But you can get it without ads on itchio, galaxy, viverse, and dozens of pirate websites.
Percentage = (458 / 81,600) * 100 = 0.56%
That is:
Percentage = (Ratings / Browser Plays) * 100
What do you get?
I've said it before: if you've already released a game but are still working on it, treat each major update like a new release. Don't release them too frequently, and make sure it's a real change. Visibility returns each time, and, in my experience, a little stronger.
Good luck to everyone!
Hello! The Chicken Man is back!
The MachinEGG is an incremental game about a chicken farm, selling eggs, and automation. It has a normal mode, two challenges, a time trial mode, and now, as a new feature, an endless mode.
The last time I wrote here, I mentioned that I was changing the visual design. I hired an artist; I was already at 110% of my artistic capacity... I love it, although my first impression was something like, "Oh no, my chickens!" But now I can't go back to the old design.
You can try it on itchio or Galaxy.
And if you like it, adding it to your Steam wishlist always helps.
It will also be on Google Play in a few days.
Now, after a few days of patching and publishing on Google Play, my goal is to focus on the Steam page and then create a Steam demo.
Any advice? Steam scares me a little. Let's just say I was happy in my itch.io pond, and now I'm at the gates of an ocean...
AI disclosure: Some of the code is AI-assisted; it takes me less time to review it than to write it myself. Also, regarding in-game translation, some languages have human translation, while others were generated by AI. Artwork, sounds, and this post (written in my language and translated with Google Translate) are not AI-generated.
A few months ago, I asked here for names for the chickens in my... chicken game. I received over 3,000 names. I just added them to the game, and I think it looks great and original.
I'm polishing the game, and now I see that even though there are only a few roosters, they don't have names. I know some of you suggested roosters in the other post, but I can't go through all 700 messages again.
If you want your rooster names in the game, let me know in the comments, and I'll add them. I don't need many.
Thank you so much.
If anyone wants to try the game, it's called "The MachinEGG." It will be on Google Play in a few days (more than 7 days). If you pre-register, you'll have the game ad-free forever.
There will also be a more complete version on Steam, but that's still months away.
Thanks for everything.
Every day, yes, every single day, and usually several times a day, I checked my wishlist, adding small, funny milestones. (I like history). I pretended my wishlist was the current year, so I experienced events like the eruption of Mount Vesuvius (79 wishlist) and the fall of the Roman Empire (476 wishlist).
It was like a pastime I played alone. I was really bummed when I jumped from 1490 to 1493. I missed an important date... a "wistlist delete" wouldn't have bothered me at that moment. I experienced many wars, many discoveries, and I was happy to reach "nice" historical numbers: waking up and seeing 1969 was like... we landed on the moon.
Today I've made 2026 wishlists (exactly, luckily) and my game is over.
Thanks to everyone who helped me get here, you were another year in my game!
My Steam page is a bit outdated; I've been wanting to update it for ages. It'll definitely happen this millennium!
Which comment made the biggest impression on you?
Goodbye, my friend. I hope you continue making other developers happy!
Hello, developers.
Yesterday, after many revisions, my game was published on CrazyGames, and so far, I'm quite happy.
I passed the basic launch test with a score of 12/15, when the minimum is 10. The game has been live for just over 24 hours, and although I don't have official statistics, based on my calculations, I think it has around 10,000 players and about 300 active players, which is fairly consistent.
From what I've read, I don't expect it to earn much, but hey, it's another place where my game is listed, a small step forward.
If anyone has any questions, I'm here.
For those curious: https://www.crazygames.com/game/the-machinegg
It's been a few hours and quite a few players have arrived, but I don't have anything to compare it to. Does anyone have experience here? Anyway, if you're interested, I'll keep you updated when crazygames update the metrics.
While I acknowledge that the second game had much greater visibility, what I want to emphasize is that releasing major updates with significant changes regularly prevented a repeat of what happened with the first game.
Now I plan to update every 35-40 days with significant changes, instead of releasing small changes weekly.
My advice is to plan your updates with the same care you put into planning your launch.
Your numbers will be different, but wouldn't it be great to repeat your launch figures almost every month?
If that means what I think it means, I'm really glad I'm not the only one searching for my game and finding it that way.
Hi! I'm developing a chicken farm game where you start with a single chicken and end up with a poultry empire. I didn't intend for it to be cozy, but I've received a lot of feedback saying it is, so I decided to post it here.
The game is short, about 30 minutes, although if you enjoy it, there are several challenges that can extend the playtime to almost 2 hours. It's an active incremental game, but you gradually automate everything and simply improve and see the results as you play.
I've used AI for translation and some repetitive parts of the code.
I hope you like it, and any feedback is welcome. Would you like it to be more cozy? Do you like my simple style? I'm thinking of changing the graphics a bit.
Thank you so much!
Game: https://quantumgames-studio.itch.io/the-machinegg
Steam wishlist: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4563810/The_MachinEGG/
