u/geeksou

Nas últimas semanas tenho focado bastante nas mecânicas de movimentação e plataforma de Unstrung Machine.

Já implementei Pogo, Dash, Double Jump, Wall Slide, Wall Jump e Rope Swing, e também venho trabalhando nas animações, transições e efeitos para fazer tudo parecer mais fluido e responsivo.

Ainda estou refinando bastante coisa, principalmente a sensação de conectar uma habilidade com a outra, mas a movimentação finalmente está começando a chegar mais perto do que eu imaginava para o jogo.

Unstrung Machine (Wishlist on Steam)

About six months ago, I made a post here asking for feedback on my Steam page.

At the time, the page had been live for around 6 months and I had only 134 wishlists.

A lot of people gave me genuinely useful feedback, and over the following months I tried to improve the page based on what people pointed out.

Since then, the game itself has also evolved quite a bit. Unstrung Machine is now a 2D action-exploration Metroidvania set in a post-apocalyptic world, and I've been trying to make the Steam page communicate the game, its atmosphere, exploration and combat much more clearly.

The Steam page has now been live for about 1 year, and I'm currently at 430 wishlists.

So I've gone from:

134 wishlists after 6 months -> 430 wishlists after 1 year

That's definitely progress, and I'm grateful for it, but the growth still feels quite slow compared to what I often see other indie developers reporting.

That makes me think I may still be failing somewhere, either with the Steam page itself, how I'm presenting the game, or perhaps even with the game's hook.

So I'd love to ask for your help again.

Looking at the page today, what would make you hesitate to wishlist the game?

In particular, I'm curious about:

• Does the game look interesting at first glance?
• Does the capsule art make you want to click?
• Is it immediately clear what kind of game this is?
• Do the screenshots communicate the gameplay well?
• Does the video make the game look appealing?
• Is the game's main hook clear enough?
• Is there anything on the page that looks amateurish or lowers your confidence in the game?
• If you saw this randomly on Steam, would you wishlist it? If not, why?

I'm a solo developer, so it's very easy for me to become too familiar with the project and stop noticing problems that might be obvious to someone seeing it for the first time.

There aren't many gameplay videos on the Steam page yet because I had to make significant changes to the game over the last few months, leaving me with little ready-to-show content. Since I'm the only one working on the project, progress is slow.

Please don't worry about being harsh. I'd much rather identify what isn't working now and improve it.

Here's the Steam page:

Unstrung Machine - Steam Page

Thanks again to everyone who gave me feedback on the previous post, a lot has changed because of it.

Recently it was my birthday.

I honestly wasn't expecting anything special.

But my wife surprised me with a small birthday cake she had ordered for me.

That alone would have made me happy, but what really caught me off guard was the theme she had chosen for it. The cake was decorated with artwork from Unstrung Machine, the game I've been developing on my own.

I don't really know how to describe how much that touched me.

It wasn't only the surprise or the cake itself. It was seeing, in such a simple and tangible way, that she supports this thing I've been pouring so much of myself into.

I work on Unstrung Machine in the hours I can find outside of my main job. At the same time, I don't want making a game to mean missing time with my wife and my two daughters. Because of that, a lot of the development happens late at night, after everyone has gone to sleep.

Sometimes progress is slow. Sometimes I'm tired before I even start. But little by little, I keep working on it.

My oldest daughter is 8 years old, and we're slowly introducing her to the world of games, always carefully and with supervision.

I think a lot about the fact that one day she might play the game I'm making now.

Strangely, that thought makes me even more careful with every part of it. I want her to play it someday and feel proud of something her dad made.

When I think about all of this, I realize how lucky I am.

At the moment, Unstrung Machine has 211 wishlists on Steam. It's not a huge number, and of course I hope that someday the game does well and things get a little easier for us.

But I've also been thinking that success can't be the only reason I keep making it.

Even if the game never becomes successful, I still want to reach the end of this project and be proud of what I made. And I want the people who love me and support me to be proud of it too.

That little birthday cake reminded me of that.

I just wanted to share this moment because I imagine there are other indie developers here building something slowly, during the hours nobody sees.