u/ned_poreyra

"What's the point of sending my game to youtubers nobody watches?", you ask. The point is that initially nobody knows about your game either - especially Google. So when you start promoting your game and someone googles it, very likely it won't even show up, because google's crawlers didn't see the title enough times to consider it a real thing. And you NEED the first result to be your Steam page. No, people won't type "<game title> steam" to narrow the results, people are fucking lazy. They'll think "probably some amateur shit" and close the tab. You just lost 98% of potential wishlists right there. And that's were meek, tiny, sub-1000 subs youtubers comes to save the day - they're absolutely stoked to receive a key. For any game - yes, even your shitty survivor clone. Nobody talks to them. Nobody cares they exist. They often post 1 boring gameplay video a day, get 30 views, 1 bot comment and that's it, that's their life. And then you send them a key, a closed demo or beta access, and holy shit, Christmas came early. Some get so excited they will post about your game every day for the next month. You'll suddenly get hundreds of independent pieces of content about a game that previously had no internet footprint. So the next time someone searches your title, a nice, plump, juicy page full of results will pop up, very clearly about your game and your game only and not some restaurant in Oregon that just so happens to also be named "Dragon Breeder Simulator".

"Clones" is maybe a bad word here, because most of these games seem to genuinely bring something new to the table - even if just theme - but nonetheless, lot of them resurfaced in the last year/two:

No, I'm Not a Human (2025) - kind of Papers Please, but horror

Thank You For Your Application (2026) - you're a job interviewer

Prescribe & Pray (2026) - you're a doctor

That's not my neighbor (2025) - you're detecting dopplegangers

Starvedge (2026) - you're the guy in charge of rations in a post-apo world

Security 51 (2026) - you're a guard at Area 51

The State of Nowhere (2026) - you're controlling a population not a border

1998: The Toll Keeper Story (2025) - basically a clone, different story

Gate Guard Simulator (2027) - you're a medieval toll gate guy

And that's just the ones I know, there's probably way more. I remember Papers Please being relatively successful at the time (and remained relevant over the years), but I don't remember any copycats. **And that was 2013**, mind you. So why the hell this 'genre' stayed dormant for like 12-13 years, just to show up this year with so many copycats? Is it all because of "No, I'm Not a Human"? That game isn't even that much similar, it's much closer to Japanese PC-98 ADV games. I can't recall any other clone gaining massive success in 2025-2026 that could explain this influx.

I mean, otherwise wouldn't it be "Everything is a crab"?

Serious discussion.

You wake up. You need to eat breakfast, go to school/work, go shopping, meet people, watch a movie, get things done. On the way home you encounter a creepy tall man, with exceptionally long arms, staring at you from the playground on the other side of the street. What the hell was he doing this whole day? What is creepy tall man's daily routine? Ok, let's say I accept the theory that it's not actually a creepy tall man, it's a paranormal entity that just takes the form of a creepy tall man because that's what you fear the most. What about all the strange creatures caught on camera, that very clearly have biological origins, walk on legs, are bound to the laws of physics, run, hide, scream? What are they doing the whole day? What do they eat? Where's the poop? What was the Gollum-like naked smiling dude doing in your basement up to this point? Why do they always seem to 'wait' for you, as if they exist like NPCs in a game, waiting for you to look and despawn when you're not around? Why does the cameraman never happen to find the creature in the middle of going about their day, but it's always the other way around?

1. Get one Physical/Ability attack
2. Pick only and only evolutions that give you bonus to Physical/Ability.
3. If you can, choose a new evolution instead of upgrading an existing one.

Virtually nothing else matters. Once you reach around 40 in the chosen stat, you're unstoppable. Dodge, charming, affinities, none of that matters once you one-hit every enemy. Bosses die in under 5 seconds every time. Damage trumps everything else in this game.

Surprisingly hard to find. All survival games tend to be "stationary", going out for the supplies and back to improve the base. I'm looking for a survival game where you're keep moving, where the goal is to go from point A to point B (finding and surviving the road to point B is the main challenge). You know, like "The Road", "The Revenant" etc. Death Stranding is somewhat close gameplay-wise, with traversal mechanics, planning and resource management, but the other half of the game is a movie and combat is very rudimentary.

His kid is at the house at the time, what was the point of letting Pussy know "he knows"? What was the plan here? "You've got options, you've got friends". "Ok Tony, here's a thing, I've been a rat for over the year, you want some coffee?". He can't kill him right then and there. When he leaves the house, now Pussy knows he's not safe. I can't see the "win" here.

For anybody who didn't play these games: levels are very short (below 1-2 minutes, sometimes even seconds), you go in and you have to execute the plan almost to perfection, because smallest mistake = death. You repeat the same level tens, maybe hundreds of times, until you nail it. So - this, but with turn-based RPG combat.

A game that's immediately easy to understand, with short levels, where you have to execute a plan as perfectly as possible. But with RPG mechanics.

Just a question, that's all.