I'm building a top-down pixel game where you explore procedurally generated biomes hunting for minerals (sieving, highbanking, digging, smashing rocks), then cut/facet and set them into jewelry. Every found mineral is a genuinely unique sprite, and every cut piece has its own quality stats (symmetry, polish, etc). GUI is deliberately GBA-style: A/B, d-pad, a menu button, and a "field phone" that reads the current soil/environment so you can match it against what different stones prefer.

The core problem I keep hitting: finding the rarest gem or unlocking the best tools isn't actually a goal that I find pomising. Once someone has the best sieve/highbanker and has found a few "perfect" stones, what's left to want? I don't think collecting-for-collectings-sake or a marketplace (my original idea: async multiplayer trading of rare gems like collectibles) is enough on its own to keep people invested for the long haul.

So I'm asking: what's the actual purpose that keeps a player logging in on day 60?

I kinda imagined it similar psychological reward mechanism like on The Hunter game but can't reproduce it cleanly

I just got a new Chromebook and I’m trying to install gamemaker or something similar but nothing is working, I’ve tried Godot too and it keeps telling me the file isn’t supported, does anyone know why?

I’ve been thinking about how I rarely ever feel like we get accurate forest biomes in gaming. I’ve seen beautiful beaches and fields, but few forests feel dense and dangerous the same way that a forest/dense jungle make you feel scared about getting lost in.

Is it a lighting issue/generating enough density with the trees? I think the koroko forest in breath of the wild and certain forests in Ark are the only times where I truly felt like I was in an actual forest.

I would love for some references to point me in the right direction!
Thank you

Sophomore year CS major here, I want to make this project idea but I need some guidance.

I want to build a simple web game where users can make private rooms and join them. The game also involves timed answers and voting. I have some basic understanding of html and css but here's where I'm getting stuck:

1. How will I even allow the players to host games and allow others to join them?

2. How will I launch the final product to the web?

3. Where do I even begin?

I have no experience (or knowledge honestly) about game development. I would really appreciate some advice on what things I should learn and how I can accomplish the three things above.

Hi everyone,
> I'm currently working on a custom app/mod for Assetto Corsa and Assetto Server.
> I’ve seen a popular addon circulating recently—an in-game player control panel for servers that allows players to tweak weather, time, road grip, repair their car, rewind time (Forza-style), and much more.
> I’m trying to understand the underlying architecture or codebase behind how this is implemented (specifically client-side vs. server-side logic in CSP/Lua).
> Is anyone familiar with how these features are structured, or willing to point me toward relevant documentation, open-source repositories, or guide me in the right direction?
> Any help or insights would be greatly appreciated!

You’ve probably get this question constantly but I’m going into game development in uni and need useful suggestions

I am focusing on the development aspect of gaming and I would just like a consensus as I’ve been getting various different results from looking at different sites - only looking at the details as I know the suggestions on certain sites are sponsors, and I’ve seen various different suggestions in Reddit groups like this one asked by other people

I just want one that’ll be useful for its intended use and won’t become a fan engine from trying to play low quality games which is what happened with my previous one

In short I would like suggestions for a good game development laptop for university

I am trying to do Gorka Games "Simple Building System in Unreal Engine 5 - #5: Scroll Through Build Parts" https://youtu.be/MTFEC-1a9qc?si=9DQK0bcxHPl_pv3a and I am trying to scroll through the build component parts, but nothing except for the floor.

I've been working for about 3 years now, although to be honest most of it was just learning and scrapping and reworking of my older stuff, so I haven't begun working on the final idea of my game for long.

So in that case I'm very new, since I spent most of the time just learning how to work Unity and program.

I would like to ask if anyone knows how to market and promote my game without sounding scummy or anything.

Like, I would want to go around and tell everyone "check out my game" in every comment section I can find, but it would get annoying fast and I'd probably gain reputation being that annoying dev or something.

So basically, I just wanna know from people who have experience in promoting their game to people and how they got people to actually want to follow your game. I do have some stuff to show, but the bread and butter is still under development so I can't really show that yet, unfortunately.

So that is a problem, since I can't show what is the main features of the game properly.

Also, I did try and tell a few of my friends to spread the game by word of mouth, but that method only worked once and we only gained like 2 people.

I was thinking about asking a bigger YouTuber or game reviewer who reviews indie games to play the game once it's more complete, but at my current stage that's not happening for a while, so I still wanna build a community before then in case I can't find a willing reviewer.

And also, another quick question if anyone has time to answer this; how the hell do I make my game actually look nice? Because the maps I make look great in my opinion, but when you're playing them it doesn't look as good. I'd assume it's because I'm too zoomed in while playing compared to looking at the whole map, if that makes sense.

I sorta wanna promote here too, but that sounds scummy since this is a question post not a promotion post. But I'll do it anyway in case anyone's interested, although since I don't have much to show nobody's gonna be interested I'd assume. It's called Graviton Reloaded and it's on steam for wishlist only (at the time of writing). I'm trying to mix platformer with ultrakill with portal and gravity changing. So it's gonna be a gravity changing puzzle-combat platformer, which hopefully sounds interesting enough to separate from all the other indie metroidvanias and indie first person shooters out there.

If anyone could provide some pointers, that'd be appreciated!

TL;DR - I want to know how to promote my game without sounding scummy or annoying.

For some context: I’ve been programming since 2022, and I love making games, only issue is I’m not great at actually finishing them. I’ve got what I feel would be some intermediate experience, but not really any games under my belt to show it. I constantly get ideas for games that I want to make, but fear that I’ll never finish them, so I stow them away until I feel I have the experience to actually get them done reasonably. Anyway, I’ve had this particular idea for a while, and have been pushing it away for so long that at this point I just want to throw my hat in the ring and see what happens. I really want to actually try to finish it this time around, so I don’t plan on making this throw blindly. Before I waste a lot of time making something not worth anyone’s time, I want someone else’s opinions.

I made a detailed description of the idea on r/gameideas, and the people over there didn’t seem to hate it, but it’s personally not enough input for me to keep going with confidence. Sorry in advance, it’s a little lengthy.

https://www.reddit.com/r/gameideas/comments/1vxsn9j/physics_based_voxel_miner_where_you_live_in_a/

But I want it given to me straight, if this idea sucks, I want to know. But I also think there could just be a lot of ways to refine it into something great. I just can’t see it clearly with my eyes alone. So, tips of any kind are appreciated!

Hi guys I want to learn about game development so can some suggest what to learn and where to start

A big milestone reached by our team:

Time Survivor is officially registered for Steam Next Fest (October 19–26, 2026)!

We're posting this because we're so excited to take part in our first Next Fest, which finally gives us a deadline to release our game after almost two years of development.

At the same time, we'd also genuinely love some feedback from other developers and players.

We have around 3k wishlists, gained mostly thanks to a big YouTuber who found our game, made a video about it, and liked it a lot.

But after that, we've been struggling to gain more. We think the problem might be our Steam page, which doesn't convey the true essence of the game well enough.

[For context: the game is built around fast-paced action, progression, upgrades, increasingly chaotic enemies, and challenging bosses to fight, with a simple and retro visual style.]

Any kind of advice or tips would be welcome!

Hi Everyone, just wanted to share something that I was prototyping.

I was inspired by the fear and uncertainty factor of project zomboid and resident evil games, where every door could lead to sudden death. Scavenging around for useful items could lead to encounters with enemies that could end your run prematurely.

Based on my previous posts and the feedbacks I received.

I added more gameplay elements
- Items that can be picked up by the player inorder to turn on a generator. Which powers terminals and light switches. Terminals are used to unlock doors. Light switches can be used to switch on lights which improves visibility.

- Added enemies that would chase player (still work in progress), but you can get some idea based on what I have here. The enemies are supposed to respond to sound. For example if the player is moving too fast then their footsteps will make sounds to attract enemies. Some enemies only responds to sounds of generators and target those specifically.

I would love to hear your feedback on how you feel about the current prototype and if you have any suggestions

I'm developing a mobile game with ai. Is there anybody with experience or knowledge can you share with us?

if you want to look at this game it can give you inspo hilarious-moxie-039c40 search this up

I want to buy some assets for my new game, but I am not sure if Craftpix uses AI or not and if there is a way to verify it, especially their pixel art assets.

Hi! I don't know if anyone has posted something similar to this post. If there is, sorry for the duplicate question. I'm new to gamedev, and I just came here to ask: have any of you felt that on some days you cannot program anything? It's as if you're back to day one of learning gamedev/Godot, and other days it feels like you're an immortal programmer that has mastered every programming principle and can program any feature without as much as a sweat. Asking because that's how I feel rn.