A month ago, Aestra: The Last Wish was just the game I wanted to play. I had no idea how to code, but I started building it anyway.

Today, over 17,000 people have played it. And while that number is wild to me, what really gets me is opening the game and seeing the minimap full of players.

People trading in the main city, dueling, finding groups and heading out to do content together. Seeing people actually spend time in this world, meet each other and come back to play more… it’s hard to describe how good that feels.

For anyone who missed my first post, Aestra is a real-time pixel action RPG with permadeath. You pick a class, quest, find gear, explore dungeons and take on raids. And then you get a little too confident, die, and start getting attached to a new character.

The first version cost me around $100 to build over a weekend. Since then, I’ve spent about $1,400 in total expanding it, with 9 classes, levels 1–100, talent trees, professions, world bosses and raids over the course of around 3-4 weeks.

I still have a list of probably 50 things I want to add. But seeing the game alive like this is already something I never really imagined. To everyone who’s played, shared feedback, brought a friend or lost a character to permadeath: thank you ❤️

If you’ve played, I’d love to hear your favorite moment so far. Or the story of how you lost your best character :)

Play Aestra free in your browser or on mobile

I wanted to see how far I could get by vibe coding something that normally takes deep demoscene knowledge. Ended up with a small FPS that fits in 16 KB

I used Fable 5 High for the initial planning and Opus 5.5 High for implementation, polishing and optimization

The game: You’re blind, underground. Your scanner fires sonar pulses at three frequencies. A pulse briefly lights up walls and enemies, then the map fades back to a faint trace. Every pulse is also noise, and everything down there hunts by sound. 3 levels, 3 enemy types plus a boss, pits and bridges, generative music

Optimization techniques:

• The level is a 64×64 cell grid, ray-cast in the fragment shader (2D DDA). That freed ~430 bytes, which then paid for pulse shadows, fake AO and procedural wall patterns
• Every frame the CPU rewrites one float texture (64×90 RGBA32F). It holds the cells, the enemy list, the pulses, the lamps, the HUD text and even the font bits. The camera’s yaw, pitch and aspect ratio ride in on the texture coordinate of a single glRects. Zero uniforms, zero matrices, one draw call
• Enemies are signed distance fields built from parts (rounded boxes and “limb” segments, 7 bytes per part), smoothly unioned and sphere-traced. The crawler has six jointed legs that actually walk. Close-ups were slow, so each part got a bounding sphere the shader can skip
• x87 instead of SSE2, stdcall instead of cdecl, inlining turned off, and a 300 MB Crinkler hash table instead of 100 MB
• Music is generative. Every bar a tiny LCG picks a chord from a diatonic progression, then pad, bass and arpeggio play it through the same synth as the sound effects

Platform: Windows

Source code and executable: https://github.com/zTrojan/blind-sector

I've been thinking about how much a game's success depends on its quality versus the attention it receives from influencers and content creators.

Imagine two games: one is well-designed, polished, and fun to play, but receives little online attention. The other gains massive exposure after a popular YouTuber or streamer plays it and quickly reaches a much larger audience.

Both games might have their own strengths, but the difference in their reach raises an interesting question: how much does visibility influence a game's success compared to the experience it offers?

I'm curious how other developers see this. Is influencer exposure simply another part of making a successful game, or can it sometimes have a greater impact than the game itself?

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4631490/SU93_Survivor/

Hey everyone! I'm an indie game developer working on my game all by myself, and unfortunately, I don't have a budget for marketing.

I'd really appreciate it if anyone would be willing to give my game a try! If you decide to make a video about it, I'll add your name to the in-game credits as a thank-you.

No pressure at all — even just trying the game would mean a lot to me!

Do you think it's too simple? In my opinions this looks pretty good. But I wanna know how others would feel to this.

Hey all!

Zane here :) I've been going hard on something I'm really proud of, and I'd love some fresh eyes on it.

Nightfall is a dark fantasy PvPvE extraction RPG set in the cursed castle of Dawnhold, once a city blessed by the Light. Up to four raiders go in to uncover what happened there, find powerful relics, fight the dead and each other, and get out before the sixth bell.

The idea is to take the class fantasy of classic RPGs (WoW-style controls, abilities, talents and specialisations for each class) and blend it with the tension of an extraction game, where you can lose your best gear. The map is the main character: you learn more about Dawnhold every time you go in.

A few things that make it its own:

- Light keeps you safer from the dead, who grow stronger in the dark. But your lantern also shows you to other players.

- As the night goes on, the bells ring. Lights fail, the dead wake, and anyone still inside at the sixth bell is consumed by the dark.

- The story is told through places and items, never cutscenes.

How it's made: it's my first game. I'm building it in Godot 4 with Claude Code writing most of the code while I design and direct, and learning as I go. The 3D art comes from asset packs and the icons are AI-generated for now.

It's still early, but I'm gathering people in the Discord for our first playtest. If you'd like to be among the first into Dawnhold and help shape the game, come join 👇

discord.gg/EN933HVEb

I'd especially love to know: what would make you want to try it?

Sometimes you have an idea that sounds amazing in your head. You imagine the mechanics, the world, the atmosphere, and all the possibilities. You're convinced it could become something special.

Then you try to explain it to someone else, build a prototype, or imagine how it would actually play, and suddenly it doesn't seem so great anymore.

How do you know when an idea genuinely has potential and when you're just in love with the version of it that exists in your imagination?

Have you ever had to accept that an idea you really loved just wasn't working? Did you manage to save it, or did you eventually move on?

Hey fellow solo game devs!

This is Nullwatch, a base defense game with shooter elements. I loved the old flash game Elona Shooter, and this is my take on it: you defend a wall night by night by shooting enemies coming at it. Between nights you manage your base and maintain your economy. It's basically about keeping a good balance between your DPS and economy.

I realised that balancing your own game is harder than I initially thought. I’m a pretty competitive player myself and I love the roguelite genre, so I tuned it to take a few runs, with meta progression, before you can actually beat it. For me and a few friends that worked out pretty well. But here’s the thing:

I released the demo this week. Lots of people started a run, which made me really happy. But most runs (around 80-90%) end in the first 2-4 nights. The demo has 25 nights with a boss at the end.

So now I can’t tell and I need your dev opinion: is it too hard, or just not fun enough to keep trying?

If you have a few minutes, the demo is free on Steam. I’d love to know:

• Is this game worth playing? Or does it feel just unfair?
• Are there any things might do differently to fix it?

Brutal honesty welcome, I’m ready for it :-)

You sit down to relax with a game, and it asks you to watch a 30-second ad for a reward. Then another one to keep going. At some point I stopped grumbling and started my own project. It has no ads at all.

I'm a solo developer: a C# programmer by trade, but new to gamedev. I'd tried making games before, but they never made it to release, partly because of art. I can write code; I can't draw.

Roadweave is built in Godot 4, and it's the second product of mine to make it to publication.

Roadweave

It starts with a single road between two towns. Cars start driving, the towns grow, and soon the road can't keep up. From there it's your call: build a highway, route a bypass around a mountain, add an interchange at the city entrance, or run a ferry across the strait. At night, everything you've built lights up the map.

What it's built around

• Every car drives its own route, and you can spot traffic jams right on the map by the color of the road.
• Each area gives up to three stars: for completing the task, for finishing on time, and for a network with nothing extra built.
• Tools unlock gradually: ring roads, forks, one-way traffic, tunnels, air links. Each new one explains what it's for.
• You can't lose. Missing the deadline only costs one star. You can pause at any time and undo a build within ten seconds.
• Maps are procedural: my own generator builds coastlines, rivers, mountains and swamps from a seed. Once a day there's a daily map, the same for everyone.

About the art

Some of the visuals were made with generative tools. I'm not a designer and my budget is limited, so it was a necessary compromise: the idea matters more to me than the pictures. The map, roads, towns and cars in the game itself are drawn in code.

Demo and release

The free demo is on Steam now: the mainland of the first island, 14 areas, about an hour of play. The full game comes out on November 11 with four worlds, from a 16-area island to a 120-area map.

I'd really appreciate an outside view, especially of the first ten minutes. Is it clear what to do? Where did it get boring?

If you've tried running a solo campaign with ChatGPT or similar, you've probably hit the same wall I did. Around session three the AI forgets that you gave the lantern to your companion, that the innkeeper hates you, or that you already found the cellar door. You end up keeping a notes doc and pasting it back in every session.

So I built Sagaweft. The AI still narrates, but the world state is tracked separately from the chat. After each action it records what actually changed:

Item custody: Hooded lantern, Player → Brenna
Quest: The Black Hollow, Unopened → Cellar door found
Disposition: Brenna, Neutral → Favorable

Those changes carry into the next session. Each session is also saved as a searchable journal, and you get a recap when you come back.

It's a closed beta, so expect rough edges.

I'd especially like to hear from people who already play solo, with or without AI:

1. ⁠What's the first thing that breaks immersion for you with AI GMs?
   
2. ⁠Do you want the AI to handle rules and dice, or just narration?

Beta signup is at sagaweft.app if you want in. Brutal feedback is more useful to me than upvotes.

Hello everyone

16 months ago I planned to make a quick app for just me and my wife but then my kids found it useful and then friends so I started to expand and feature build and now it's something I'm rather proud of.

In a nutshell, the "problem" it solved was finding movies that my wife and I BOTH wanted to watch. We would spend forever scrolling through options, each trying to guess what the other might like.

ReelOnes is essentially a movie matching app. You build lists for whatever you want, comedies, best of the 90s etc. We've also got a fair few curated pre built watchlists (and happy to get suggestions for more!). You send the list of things you want to watch to your friend, when you get a match, both sides have it in their Playlist so whenever you're next in the mood for a movie you've got your shared watch list already.

THANK YOU FOR READING! I would love you to give it a go, it's completely free and just a bit of fun 🙏

https://reelones.co.uk

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/reelones/id6760552930

Solo project, worked on it nearly every day since March.

I spent a long time polishing genres that weren't working. It went from a Balatro-ish score attack to Slay the Spire-ish battles to an idle game before I found the version I liked. Currnently, the enemies are the pegs and they climb the board each turn.

The other thing that kept me going was the art. Building the board out of real cardboard and photographing it was way more fun for me than drawing, and it gave the game a look I couldn't have made otherwise.

Free demo (browser): https://hughchen.itch.io/pachirogue

Wishlist: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4658910/PachiRogue/?utm_source=reddit&utm_campaign=solodev_progress

Hello everyone!

I’m SJ, a solo creator from England!

For the last year I have hand drawn my own cozy pixel game, which has just launched on Kickstarter!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/s-j/the-spirit-apprentice-east-asian-fantasy-rpg

As a indie developer I have no marketing budget or publisher… so your support means the world! We’ve already hit 30% of the goal and any support be it sharing with freinds, pledging or just engaging with this post means everything to me!

The Spirit Apprentice, inspired by East Asian folklore and the magic of Studio Ghibli is a cozy RPG. You'll explore the village of Moshu, learn magic, form contracts with spirits, and get to know the mysterious villagers.

Hi, I’m the dev of a queer historic mystery/puzzle game about a vampire falling for a serial killer and asking “who is she?”. All assets are illustrated by me or sourced from the public domain (because I’m a sucker for mixed media!)

It’s up now for wishlists :)

This is the fastest drone in my game, max speed of 90 km/h
Using such a fast drone in an intense obstacle course?
Not a good idea unless...... you are really good!

Play MAVI demo and test your skills
https://store.steampowered.com/app/4708510/MAVI

I've personally been enjoying the double jump, it lets you air stall just enough to chain your next grapple perfectly.

It has 9 likes and 96 views, thats almost 10%!
The average watch time is pretty good as well, but the thumbnail was just too bad. I hope I can still change it.

Bonus: I learned a lot by making a full game with a small scope.

I started this in July as a beginner, knowing nothing about shipping a game. Today the demo is on itch, free, for Windows and Mac.

It's a party RPG about a dwarf who came home from the road with a storm in his hands, and the friends who follow him anyway. Real-time with pause or turn-based, you pick. Dialogue rolls skill checks in the open. One companion remembers what you did.

What I'd tell myself in July: write the test and the doc with the change, every time, or the project eats you by month two. Measure instead of eyeballing. Play your own build every week and write down the five worst things. And ask for help with the parts you can't judge yourself, which for me was everything about hands holding weapons.

I used generative tools for the voices, the models and the art, and Claude Code for most of the code. That's all disclosed on the page. The decisions were mine and so are the mistakes, so I'd value blunt feedback on the demo, especially the first fight and the characters.

Free demo, Windows and Mac: https://aedgamesdev.itch.io/chaos-awakens

Bitiverse Studio is a game creation system for Windows, built in the spirit of STOS on the Atari ST: a pixel sprite editor, rooms and maps, animation, sound effects and music, and game logic you snap together like building blocks (with a JavaScript block for when you want more). Press Play and the game runs right there.

It's free, offline, and needs no account. Eleven extension disks come with it, also free: particles and physics, lighting, a combat kit, a database, inventory, dialogue and cutscenes, a UI designer, AI behaviours, local multiplayer, procedural generation, and a STOS importer.

If you want to ship, the Exporter ($19.95) turns your game into a Windows program or an HTML5 game, royalty-free. Steam Release, 3D, IK and Net are add-ons too.

I built it on my own, so it's version 0.4.4 and there will be rough edges. Come break it and tell me what you make: https://fortisq.itch.io/bitiverse-studio

Solo dev here. My Steam page went up as Coming Soon in September, and the capsule was pretty much just the logo on a dark background.

Two weeks later I checked the traffic numbers. Almost all of my impressions (97%) came from search, and only about 1.6% of people actually clicked. Looking at the capsule again, that made sense. It didn't say anything about the game.

For the new one I went with an orange background, put the name on a sign and lined the characters up behind it. It shows up tiny in search results, so mostly I wanted people to see it's a game you play with friends.

The description at the bottom of the page was also one big wall of text, honestly not very readable. I gave each section a header and added short gameplay clips under them, that's the second image.

The game is an online co-op puzzle platformer for 2-5 players, you can't play it solo.

I only just changed it, so no idea yet if clicks will go up. What do you think? I'm mostly curious about the small version you see in search.

Hi everyone! I'm Devluv, a solo developer working on an online RPG.

After spending several years developing this game on my own, I'm finally making my first post here!

This week, I implemented a tooltip system that appears when you hold down a skill or buff for 2 seconds. I also added items that let players change their character names and guild names.

I'm trying to keep my Firebase costs as low as possible, so the response time is a bit slow 😅

These might look like simple features, but realizing they took me an entire week makes me feel like I still have a long way to go.

Let's all keep pushing forward and make even more progress next week! 💪

PRISM – Roguelite | Fast-Paced One-Thumb Action for iOS

Game Title:

PRISM – Roguelite  

Playable Link:

[https://apps.apple.com/de/app/prism-roguelite/id6819073071]

Platform:

iOS  

Description:

PRISM – Roguelite is an action-packed mobile game crafted specifically for smooth one-thumb gameplay on iOS. Built around the unique core mechanic where recoil is movement, every shot you fire propels your character across the arena. With simple "pull and release" controls, you aim, attack, and dodge in a single fluid motion as you navigate through fast-paced encounters.  

Survival in PRISM depends on mastering physics-based momentum and reacting quickly to hostile targets. As you push further into each run, you must calculate recoil trajectories, manage movement speed, and adapt your strategy to defeat increasingly challenging foes. If you are looking for an addictive, thumb-friendly action game with engaging physics, check it out and share your feedback!  

Free to Play Status:

 [x] Free to play  

 [ ] Demo/Key available  

 [ ] Paid (Allowed only on Tuesdays with [TT] in the title)    

Involvement:

I am the developer of the game.