r/GameDevelopment

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I'm doing research on what players actually want from mythological games.

Imagine an indie studio creating an original game inspired by Indian mythology.

What would matter most to you?

• Combat?
• Exploration?
• Authentic mythology?
• Original story?
• Temple architecture?
• Boss fights?
• Music?
• Art style?

And what would immediately make you lose interest?

I'd genuinely love to hear your thoughts.

I don't know if this is a good place to talk about roblox development but I was wondering if theirs any roblox developers here that have made games that have made money. My main reason for being here is to ask how would you improve on map design aswell as ui design aswell as how to be original and make an original game

I am getting into gaming development, and I want to make a biology based learning game that is fun and interactive.

There are so many games for other subjects that are exciting, but biology/science is really lacking. There are websites, but they are all old or boring.

I have had the idea to create a learning app for science that is free, but I am not even sure where to start and I feel so lost on the creative part of app development, so I wanted to ask.

What would you look for in a science videogame/app that would make the content feel digestable and cool? This could be UI ideas, game ideas, or anything along that line.

I recently released my first-ever commercial video game, Necromancer Delivery Service, a physics-based delivery game inspired by Crazy Taxi, where players take on the role of a struggling necromancer forced into a delivery job in a chaotic city. The game was created by two other developers and me, with me taking the role of project lead and handling much of the overall direction, design decisions, and coordination. After the initial launch week, sales slowed down significantly, and I wanted to share what I've learned so far as a small indie team handling development and marketing. The game has not reached my initial sales expectations, but this project was never only about making a profit. My team and I originally created it as a portfolio piece to showcase our skills and prove that we could bring a complete game from concept to release. One thing I still think about is that I wasn't able to compensate my teammates for their work. This was a volunteer project created as part of our portfolio experience, and everyone understood that going into development, but I still wish I could have provided them with a proper paid opportunity. My teammates put a lot of time and effort into bringing this game to life, and I am extremely grateful for everything they contributed.

The biggest challenge after launch has been marketing. Promotion and spreading awareness were completely new experiences for us. I have always believed that the game should speak for itself, and I realized that making a good game is only one part of releasing something commercially. Getting people to discover it is an entirely separate challenge.

Before release, playtesters were generally very positive about the game. We also brought the game to a public convention where players could try it, and the feedback was very positive. Most of the issues we found were smaller glitches or polish problems, which we fixed before launch. Since release, we have continued supporting the game and are planning additional free updates in the future. However, balancing development, post-launch support, and promotion has been difficult, especially without the budget to hire someone specifically for marketing.

My next game idea is more ambitious, but I want to better understand how to approach scope, development, and marketing after this experience.

For other indie developers who have launched a game:

-How did you handle marketing when you didn't have a budget?

-Did you find anything that helped your game gain traction after launch?

-How did you decide when to move on from a project versus continuing to support it?

I'd appreciate hearing about your experiences. If you're curious about checking out the game, feel free to ask, and I'll send the link.

Hi everyone!

I'm a solo developer and recently reached Open Beta for my RPG after working on it for the past few years.

The Closed Beta went well: a small group of players tested it, found some bugs and balance issues, I fixed what they found, and now the game is finally available publicly.

But I reached a completely different challenge that I honestly underestimated: Getting people to even know the game exists.

I started posting short gameplay videos on TikTok and Instagram, and while they get some views, most people just scroll away in the first one or two seconds.

It feels strange spending years building systems, balancing combat, creating content and fixing bugs... and then realizing that getting someone to stop scrolling for a few seconds is a completely different skill.

For developers who started from zero:

How did you get your first real players?

What actually worked for you? Reddit? TikTok / Instagram? YouTubers or streamers? Discord communities? Something completely different?

I'm not expecting some magic viral trick, I'm just interested in hearing what worked for real indie developers trying to find their first audience.

Thanks!

Hi everyone! I have absolutely no experience and I just feel that reading all the articles and all the research I’ve been trying to do is just confusing me even more.
I want to start developing a 2D game a little bit like Stardew valley.
The problem is, I have found a lot of contradictory views on which game engine would suit my style of game best. Such a Godot or unity. Or which programming language would be the best to learn.

I also have saved up for a computer / PC but I don’t want to spend a lot on something for it to be a waste. And all the posts I’ve read about PC setups haven’t helped, because the language around it is very confusing.. So any advice would be much appreciated!

Any tips about game development in general are welcome!! 😊

I’m thinking about building an AI platform specifically for indie devs to speed up prototyping and asset creation. Before I start coding, I want to get your brutal honesty on whether you'd actually use this.

The core features would be:

• Img2Sprite: Turn a single concept image or prompt into clean, sliced 2D sprite sheets.
• VFX Generation: Generate animated visual effects (spells, impacts, explosions) ready to drop into your engine.
• SFX Generation: Text-to-audio for UI sounds, ambient noise, and combat effects.

Quick questions for you:

1. Would this actually solve a bottleneck for you, or do you prefer existing marketplaces?
2. What export formats or engine integrations would make this a "must-have" for your workflow?

I know AI can be a divisive topic in gamedev, so I'm genuinely looking for practical feedback. Thanks!

EDITTT: Just to be 100% clear—I am NOT selling pre-made asset packs. You will use this AI tool to generate the assets yourself, the output will be completely yours, and you will own the full copyright.

Hi all. I've got a very intricate RPG called Astral Gamer mapped out and am working on completing a full codex including game play notes, lore, and aesthetic etc. When I'm finished and have taken the game as far as I can on my own, what's the best method for building a good team of developers? The game is part of my life's work so I don't want to sell it off. Also would love to just hire the best people for the job but would need an investor first. What's your process?

Is there anyone out there that made a classic

"what engine should I use?"

post and then actually gone on to make a game?

First of all, I’m not looking for people to agree with the use of AI. I’m genuinely interested in hearing opinions from different perspectives, whether you support it or oppose it.

I understand that some people believe any use of AI in game development is unacceptable, and I completely respect that viewpoint. At the same time, AI-powered tools are becoming more common, so I’m curious where people personally draw the line.

For example, this is how I’m currently learning programming. I describe a feature I want to create to an AI, and it generates example code. Instead of copying and pasting it, I type it out myself. While doing so, I try to understand how it works and modify it to fit my own game. By repeating this process, I’ve gradually learned enough to write simpler code without AI.

So I’d like to ask a few questions.

What do you think about this way of learning programming?

If a game still contains code that was originally generated by AI as part of the learning process, do you think that code should eventually be rewritten entirely by the developer?

More generally, where do you personally draw the line? What uses of AI in game development do you consider acceptable, and which ones do you think cross the line?

For example, how do you feel about AI being used for learning programming, brainstorming ideas, debugging code, writing gameplay code, creating textures or materials, generating 3D models, creating music or voice acting, or building most of a game with AI?

I’m not trying to argue that AI is good or bad, or convince anyone to change their mind. I’m simply interested in hearing where different developers personally draw the line and why.

I appreciate any thoughts or experiences you’re willing to share.

Thanks!

Edit:

I realized my original post was a bit too broad, so I’d like to clarify my main question.

I’m most interested in hearing what experienced game developers think about this specific way of learning programming. The broader questions about AI were mainly intended to understand where different developers personally draw the line.

I’m not looking for validation or trying to prove that my approach is the right one. If you think this is a poor way to learn programming, I’d genuinely like to know why and what you would recommend instead.

Created this simple game to play in class or whenever you need to kill some time. I'm planning to add interactive background graphics and more polish in future updates. I'm an indie developer, so I'd really appreciate any feedback or suggestions!

Hi! Im a bit new to itch and I really want to make a game :> are there any beginner friendly game creation websites that are targeted towards mobile/tablet users?

Repost to more communities

I'm not trying to use AI just to make development easier. The reason is that I often can't find materials that match the quality I'm looking for on asset websites, and I don't want to lower the overall quality of my game.

For example, I might take a reference image of a wall, use AI to transform it into a straight-on view, make it seamless, and then use specialized tools to generate the normal map and other texture maps needed for a material.

Would this kind of workflow cause any legal, ethical, or commercial licensing issues, especially if the game is released commercially?

I'm not sure how those of you who build apps here do it but I really can't do this anymore.

If you have to reject any review request, please say why.

I have gone through the docs, written privately (chats), and still no one can tell me why my API url is rejected. If I do not know why, I cannot correct it.

Once again, I have gone through the docs and have done everything right. Would it really be the end of the world to include a text along side the rejection button/label to say why it was rejected? The reviewer already knows why and can simply state it so the developer can fix whatever the issue is. You can even just have checkboxes the reviewer can click on to reference the violation and show it to the developer. Anything at all.

Its okay if my app idea does not work but at least I can come up with something else, do a YouTube tutorial video or advice someone else on how to build apps for Reddit. How do I do that if I have no idea about what is going on?

I'm done. Sorry, but I am not good at Guess Driven Development.

To those of you still building, good luck 🙏🏻

[UPDATE]

An admin has looked into it and the issue has been resolved. Thank you all for your support 🙏🏾.
The feature request however still stands as it will make development easier for future devs. I also believe it will make things easier for the reviewers on the long run. Thank you.

Hey everyone,

I’m currently single-handedly developing Homeris, a custom MUD (text-based RPG) engine written in Java with a PostgreSQL vector database. The entire game world, room descriptions, and NPC backgrounds are dynamically generated and enriched on the fly using a local Meta-Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct-GGUF (Q5_K_M) running on a local mini-PC.

Up until last week, whenever the game engine needed the local LLM to rewrite a room description based on the kingdom's shifting economic state, it relied on standard async threads (CompletableFuture).

It worked, but it was a disaster waiting to happen. Blasting a local 8B model with dozens of concurrent requests completely melted my RAM, caused frequent API timeouts, and if the server crashed mid-generation, those world-building tasks were just lost in limbo.

Enter RabbitMQ.

I completely refactored the AI pipeline into a strict Producer-Consumer pattern using RabbitMQ.

• Resilience: The game engine now safely dumps world-generation and character-enrichment tasks into a persistent queue. If I need to reboot the server or if something crashes, the queue doesn't care—the tasks sit safely in RabbitMQ and pick up exactly where they left off upon restart.
• Rate Limiting: The consumer fetches tasks via a strict rate-limit (basicQos(1)), feeding them to the local RAG module one single prompt at a time. No more resource starvation.

The Monthly World Shift: I hooked this whole message pipeline straight into my EconomyManager. Every game-month, the engine checks the health and wealth of each simulated kingdom. If a region decays into poverty, its rooms are quietly queued up. RabbitMQ passes them to the LLM, which dynamically rewrites the descriptions on the fly—adding visual cues like peeling plaster, rotting wood, and extinguished torches. If the kingdom recovers, the text shifts back to luxury.

Umanizing the Agents: To make the text-based environment feel alive, I also built a few features to make the NPCs mimic actual human players in chat:

1. NpcTypoGenerator: NPCs now occasionally fat-finger words based on their state (e.g., typing "helli" instead of "hello") and immediately fire a correction in the next line (*hello).
2. SimulateAfkAction: If an NPC is exhausted or lacks stimulation, they flag themselves as AFK, freeze their utility brain, and will hit you with a quick "brb" if you try to talk to them.

Would love to hear your thoughts on this architecture, especially if anyone else is orchestrating message brokers with local GGUF models for dynamic agent simulation!

i’m making a 2d game in ts + phaser 4. the game base resolution is 1280x720 and i use bitmap text for the ui

the weird part is that the font looks good at 720p, 1440p and 4k. at 720p it is 1x, at 1440p it is 2x, at 4k it should be 3x. but on 1080p it looks different and worse, like some glyphs are uneven or broken

i think the reason is that 1280x720 to 1920x1080 is 1.5x, so the bitmap font gets scaled by a non-integer value. i tried forcing integer scaling, and the text gets cleaner, but then the game runs at 1x on 1080p and there are black borders around the game. i do not want 1080p players to play with black borders

what is the normal way to handle this in a phaser 2d game?

should i keep 1280x720 and accept 1.5x scaling on 1080p? should i stop using bitmap text for small ui text and use normal text instead? or is there another setup people usually use for pixel art games with readable ui?

I was thinking about making a small metroidvania type game I have the bear minimum coding skills I’ve take 2 beginner code classes I have a new Nimo laptop,
And I was just wondering on what will be the best gaming engine for me.

Hi everyone,

I’m a game artist / designer and while working on my personal projects, I realized I was spending way too much time on level blockouts. Traditional game engines or heavy 3D software like Maya and Blender are fantastic, but their tools aren’t strictly optimized for rapid level prototyping.

To solve my own frustration, I built a custom 3D Level Design Toolkit. Because it’s a web app, it’s incredibly lightweight, and I can work on my layouts from literally anywhere without needing a beefy rig. My ultimate goal is to build a completely noob-friendly app that anyone can use easily, without needing any prior knowledge of 3D modeling.

It has been a massive timesaver for me, but I’m at a crossroads. I’m not sure if there’s a real demand for a tool like this outside of my own workflow. I’m writing this post to gauge your interest: If this is something the community needs, I’m willing to commit serious time to develop it further and release it publicly for everyone.

Here are a few core features I’ve implemented so far:

• Rapid Prototyping: Built-in tools designed specifically to let you block out levels in minutes.
• Dual Viewports: Both 2D and 3D views for intuitive layout planning.
• Non-Destructive Modeling: A complete non-destructive workflow so you can tweak, iterate, and change shapes on the fly without ruining your progress.
• Easy Export: You can seamlessly export your meshes directly into your favorite game engine or 3D software.

What do you guys think? Would a web-based, rapid blockout tool fit into your current workflow, or do you prefer sticking entirely to your engine's native tools?

I’d love to hear your honest feedback, feature suggestions, or thoughts!

https://reddit.com/link/1uor5hr/video/wbhlvdgsikbh1/player

https://reddit.com/link/1uor5hr/video/2wtmnvptikbh1/player