itch.io

1)

Oh, I'm aware you're able to build mega-structures before unlocking the later technologies, but the costs were completely out of whack when I tried making them. For example, the gas giant mine megastructure cost an insane amount of resources, but it provided me with about 1% of the revenue I got from my uber mine in my home system. Maybe I was missing something/I picked a bad planet, but it seemed really imbalanced.

Yeah, you're definitely on the right track with planet-size buildings. But it's very important to give the player proper tools to manage a large empire like that. Managing a single planet at the start's easy enough, but after that the UI just isn't equipped to handle the scale well.

3) In my opinion, no if it's sufficiently automated and supported with slightly more complexity. If systems are interchangable, then the game will get stale very fast, but that doesn't have to be the case. There are a lot of ways you could go about making the structure of the player's empire important. An example would be adding logistics - no magical bank of minerals, but every system has to be supplied by the empire's resource network. Also systems could be specialized into different roles, some serving as support that provide a buff to production of linked systems, some working as factories ect.. The uniques of planets and stars would still be relevant, because the player would have to decide what roles to give to each system.

These were just a few examples, but there are plenty of ways to squeeze out a lot more depth from what you already have. I'm sure you'll be able to come up with something interesting.

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Oh yeah, the graphics are good enough if you just want to make some hobbyist project on the side. I was speaking strictly in the context of making the game presentable enough to be sold for the $10-15 price tag.

>This drives away people that go "$3 game? this must be crap", but I wouldn't want them to be playing my game anyways.

I mean... there's a reason why people are less likely to look favorably on $3 dollar games. When gamers look through steam they expect the developers to know their worth and if someone's selling their game in the $1-3 range they expect the game to be a short experience without a lot of polish that was made in 1-2 months. It's nothing about cheaper games being inherently worse, people just have different expectations for them. Personally, I think you should either go for $5-7 bucks if you don't want to add any more polish (because that's roughly what your game would be worth at that production quality - it's low, but the gameplay compensates A LOT) or just release the game for free with the option for donations + a no content DLC intended to support you. If you make the game free, you'll get a much bigger community of players that'll enjoy your game. If you decide to sell the game for $5-7 dollars you'll get a decent compensation for the time you've spent on the project and you won't upset anyone, because that price is still really low. I feel like $3 is a really bad spot, because it'll mean weak monetary returns, setting wrong expectations for the buyers and it'll mean a significantly smaller community if you just went with free to play.

> Finally, a reminder that this started out as a passion project and it still is.

So is just about every indie game, but it's not a sin to want to be supported by your passion. I've no idea about your financial situation, but if making games is something you love doing and you're not insured with a silver spoon for the rest of your life, then you should strongly consider thinking about the returns from the game. After all, if this is something you want to continue doing in the future, you need to ensure that it'll provide you with financial security.

>I spent $0 making these 3 games, only thousands of hours of free time.

I'm not sure if you meant it jokingly, but "only thousands of hours" is a massive amount of time, totaling to tens of thousands of dollars, depending on where you live.

>I don't really view this as "selling a product", but finding those people who have similar interests as me.

You're an indie dev, of course you're not thinking about "selling a product". Just about every indie dev's the same way, with the exception of a few cash-grabbers that want to capitalize on industry trends. My best guess is that you just want to make a great game that you'd enjoy playing - same's the case for me! But developing games is a long and arduous process. You wouldn't expect George R. R. Martin to release his novels for free, even though he loves writing. Gamers respect the work that goes into development, especially when we're talking about indie games - people won't bat an eye, because you're trying to get compensation for something you've spent thousands of hours on.

This is all very personal and complicated, but if game development is really something you'd love to continue doing in the future, then think about how it could support you. Being able to make money off of something that you love doing is an immense privilege, as I've mentioned previously - unless you're fabulously rich, try to put some thought into how you'd like your future to look.