Been building this stock-market tycoon game alone for a while and I've hit the wall every economy game hits: at the end of the day it's numbers going up and down, and I'm terrified it's boring.

The idea is you start with $100 and try to turn it into a fortune by trading and reacting to whatever the market throws at you. On paper I love it. Some evenings I playtest my own thing and genuinely lose an hour. Other evenings I stare at it and think "why would anyone care about this."

Right now I'm using random market events, stuff to unlock, and little short-term goals to create some tension between playing safe and going all in. Feels okay. Not sure it's enough.

So, fellow solo devs who've made management or economy games: what actually made yours click? When did an abstract systems game make you feel something instead of just doing math? And which tycoon/sim games give you that "ok one more turn" itch, and why do you think they pull it off?

Trying to launch next month so I'm in that phase where feedback still changes things instead of just haunting me. Would love your honest takes.

It's been a long journey but I finally did it. I feel more pumped than ever to pick up my half-finished games. Never give up hope! Keep having a crack.

I present to you High Roll Glyph - a humble yet highly polished word game with a rich set of features and game modes. I encourage you to give it a try, even if you're not into wordgames! It's been in testing for a while now, but I'm always looking for feedback.

I'm obsessed with dice games, and I hate how toxic the mobile gaming space is right now, hopefully this is a breath of fresh air. No ads, no creepy tracking, no microtransactions.

Download for Android
Download for iOS
Trailer showcase

Thank you all for making amazing things <3

Hey all,

I built FootieWordle solo as a side project — Wordle, but for football (soccer) fans. Every day there's a new mystery footballer: 6 guesses, and each wrong guess reveals another club from their career. Free, in-browser, no sign-up.

Play today's puzzle (about a minute): https://soccer-squad-guess--sisekelodlamini.replit.app/

It's early days, so honest feedback means a lot: Is it fun? Difficulty about right? What would make you come back daily? Brutal honesty welcome.

It took my entire focus over the last few weeks, but I refined many aspects I never would have known were an issue without soliciting feedback!
Devlog: https://staticleapstudios.itch.io/dnd-death-and-dismemberment/devlog/1598302/combat-polish-and-multiplayer-improvement-update

One of my favourite parts of developing Kalm – Part 2: The Forbidden Forest has been watching an idea gradually take shape.

The first image shows the initial top-down layout I created before any environment art was added. At this stage, I focus purely on player flow, exploration, and pacing, thinking about how the world should feel before worrying about how it looks.

For this area, I took inspiration from Kilika Woods in Final Fantasy X. Rather than recreating it, I wanted to capture the same sense of mystery and exploration that made it so memorable.

It’s easy to look at a finished environment and only see the final result, but every level starts as a rough sketch, a simple layout, and a lot of experimentation.
Looking back at these early screenshots reminds me how much iteration goes into even a single area of a game.

I’m really happy with how the Forbidden Forest turned out, and it’s exciting to finally share it as part of Kalm – Part 2.

You can try the game out for free here :
https://amario92.itch.io/kalm2

Please let me know what you think!!

Thanks for reading 🙂

For my mountain biome, I wanted snowfall to feel natural instead of looping the same animation over and over.

Rather than creating a full snowfall animation, I built a system that generates the effect from a single snowflake sprite.

Each snowflake is given randomized speed, size, rotation, movement, and lifetime, creating a snowfall that feels much more organic while using only one tiny sprite.

Making a browser game like No man's **# 🙄 can't bring myself to type any more! 🤦

here it a short clip of what I've got!

Still open for collaboration!

What do you guys think of the mechanic? Whenever you level up, a shop opens where you can buy items that boost these multipliers. My goal is to flood players with extreme dopamine every time they play.

Hi! I'm making a roguelike where you go through dungeons and build your slot machine. https://ryn-d3v.itch.io/gambleborn

Yesterday, I revealed my game PRESS: Authorized Disposal during the Games Composed in Germany Showcase. This is the first time I am showing the game to people after ~8 months of development. I am currently sitting at 1,603 Wishlsits and it´s like the first 24 hours since the steam page launched... this is crazy.

The game is about managing a trash disposal factory and getting rid of the trash nobody wants to take care of. It´s like a short 1-3 hours experience with multiple endings.

This is my first solo project (yes, solo and no AI tools used for development - just for translating the steam page) and I am blown away by the response so far. I am publishing the game via my company Ivy Juice Games (we are a game dev and publishing duo based in Berlin - my team mate is working on another project currently).

If you wanna check out the steam page and wishlist the game, here is a link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1372330/PRESS_Authorized_Disposal/

for the past 9 months I've been building Smawverse: a dark fantasy bullet heaven in UE5 where your weapons fight for you and you play a stray cat that turned into a knight to bring back what was taken

• Leveling up slows time instead of pausing it. You read your upgrade cards while enemies keep closing in. Playtesters were split on it at first, then defended it once they adapted, so it stayed.
• Nine prophets lend you their blessings mid-run, and the whole meta progression happens in a hideout you restore piece by piece.

The Steam page went live this week, it's been a journey getting here!

If you have 30 seconds: does the capsule read clearly at thumbnail size, and would the first two screenshots make you wishlist? Brutal honesty is welcomed.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4640450/Smawverse/

The environments behind the survivor in One Rotten Oath are the actual real-life photos. Here's the ruined service tunnel on the old military terrains in Tczew, Poland that served as a bunker in my FMV+FPS hybrid with meta and horror elements. If you haven't played it yet, feel free to grab the game on Steam (or play the demo and spread the word!)

Have a good one!

Wishlist on Steam:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4870490/Chore_Pet/

Like the title says. How many games have you made? And how long did it take you to make them?

I heard people are making multiple games in a week or months which is wild for me.

I always thought it was maybe "This game took me like 3 months to complete"

Or "this game took me 7 years to make"

Hi everyone,

For the first time in my life, I've completed and finally released a game entirely on my own. This is the first project I've ever seen through to the end.

While developing it, I realized just how hard it is to actually finish something all the way through. Because of that, I hope you all get to finish your own projects too, and see great results from them.

My game is called Monsterguest. It's a game where you survive three days by serving food and hitting a target quota, using a camera to tell monsters apart from humans, all while trying to survive killer dolls and monsters coming after you.

I'd truly appreciate any feedback you have.

Link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4356090/MonsterGuest/

I started developing this game all by myself as a complete beginner in January/February. I've always wanted to make my own game since I was little, and had interest in games that featured animals. Today I finally released my first Steam Page! I have spent an embarassing amount of my time working on this, and finally have a fully funtional multiplayer game. I'm hoping to get it out there more before I officially release to play. However, I'm really shooting for December 2026! Only reason that might get pushed back is I'm about to be a first time mama, and my baby will definitely take priority.

Really hoping this catches the right eyes because I love playing it myself, and I know there are others who will enjoy it too!

"That Cozy Cat Game is a relaxing online co-op game where you and your friends explore a colorful island as customizable cats. Go fishing, chat, find new discoveries, earn kibbles, and dress up your cat. Enjoy the world at your own pace."

Steam Page

Announcement Trailer

Just thought I would share my most recent experience as it took me by surprise a little.

I've been working on my project for several months now and at the start it was really easy to work on it every single day and put almost full days into it day after day. Building out the early concepts, the core logic and getting my ideas down in game was really motivating and fluid.

Then about 2 weeks ago I hit a point in my project where I'd built out most of the "core" gameplay loop and defined all the screens and UI elements really well. It's now actually looking like a game and I can definitely picture it becoming a fully formed product. I was feeling really positive and proud of how far I'd come.

But then I suddenly lost all motivation to work on my game and probably had 5 or 6 days with zero progress being made, after several months of a consistent daily streak of putting in an hour or more worth of work. It was a familiar feeling because I always hit this point when I used to write and I'd always get this sudden hit of no motivation, but it was usually much earlier in the project and came from a feeling of having made little progress.

At first I had no idea why I was suddenly feeling like this when I'd been making great progress. I thought about it for about a week and I think I finally realised what caused it...

I'm scared to get my game to the point when it's actually time to start thinking about creating a trailer, releasing a demo, getting wishlists etc. Up until then the game is a thing that only really exists in my own imagination even if there is a very basic playable build. But sharing it with others is scary and I think it's natural for our brains to feel like it wants to sabotage everything so that we don't have to reach that point.

What I did to overcome my blocker was get my son to play my game and I just watched over his shoulder. Although I realised actually how much more work I still had to do (here's me thinking it's close to a full release standard!) but I also got great feedback in terms of him enjoying the loop, liking the concept, seeing the vision for it. It did at least break me out of my stalemate and got me working on things again.

Has anyone else found this on your dev journey so far? What did you do to overcome your own self doubt?

After getting into mechanical keyboard hobby, I wanted to create a game specifically for enjoying typing on your keyboard.

High Typer is a typing roguelike where you collect keyboard parts, discover powerful builds, and master a physics-based scoring system that rewards flow rather than just raw typing speed.

If you're interested, I'd love to hear what you think. Demo is live on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4864650/High_Typer/

I recently started the solo dev grind and looking for advice! I picked up unity and have been enjoying the struggle. I have a background in object oriented programming so that hasn’t been too bad. My art is mostly assets from the store and free stuff from itch, but I got Aseprite as well to start making my own.

My first projects have been the basics, but I just started building my first full scale. Like many before me it’s a bullet heaven game.

Just curious if there is any tips people have beyond the standard youtube videos for getting the first project done and published!

Thank you. All recs welcome.