itch.io

I play mostly rhythm games, and usually I don't care with story, maybe unless i'm already hooked to the game. The idea of making the lore optional is good imo, if I like the game, I will try to understand better what is going on, and if you force a lore in me, maybe I will just leave the game lol. But I often play games with no lore at all, and normally i'm fine with that, as I usually like the game itself enough to keep playing it. 

Last thing, imo environmental storytelling is cooler, with subtle hints on the story and all, so that players need to explore more the game to truly understand everything + it's easier to make a more hidden story game-dev-wise

idk, maybe your definition of successful is different from mine. But imo a sucessful game is one that have a good amount of players that really enjoy your game, and maybe your game even got a community around it. And a sucessful game dev imo is one that can use game development both as a fun hobby and a potential source of income, so that they don't need a boring job along making games (basically being self employed, like a freelancer or smth).

I think you just found the concept of itch.io's ✨ Randomizer ✨... Like, playing games chosen randomly for you isn't a super new concept, plus I would like to be able to set one thing or two as parameters, like game genres, if they must be playable on web, etc. So if you're proposing a better randomizer, let's see what you got for ideas...

Btw, that short you just linked screams AI lol

the link you gave apparently launches me to a random discover tab in sound cloud. Maybe you could put some of your best songs on youtube, so people can get to know what your style sounds like before contacting you (no one contacts a random person that just exists but have no portifolio lol)

i will spend the rest of my life to understand what was that lmao...

Ok, i understand that for a while you wanted to make your own music, but because of life, AI ended up being the only thing you could use, but there is an issue with AI music: rn i can generate loads of AI music if i wanted to. Yes, AI will never sound what you want, because, technically, is not your sound...

As a guy that makes music myself, i think you should try making your own music again. Try to replace irl instruments to synthestizers. You have skin issues and stopped playing instruments, i never played instruments at all lol. I would recomend you to try making trap - if you have a cool sample pack, you can easily make an entire beat in minutes. I like this kind of genre that you can kinda mass produce - you learn faster, you will have more material to use if you want...

Also, sad reality check: no one cares with AI artists, while people would care with you a lot if you made your own music, and made good music. Plus, earning money with music is possible, if you're really good at it

uhm... this game is definitively something... firstly, the menus of this game is... idk how to describe these menus lol, they're just terrible. Also, in the main menu, there is a song, but the song is singing "I am an AI, I was born from digital...", like, would you mind giving me some context about who is this AI? and what it have to do with the game? and the only map that works is the "bee tycoon", the other one just spawns an error in the development log (also, why did you build your game with a developer build?). In the bee tycoon, there are some oddly animated material, and after some time, not only I stepped into something, what caused me to beyblade spin forever, but also I noticed that I was softlocked (mocking my keyboard got me to a panel with a "back" menu, but I can't click, my cursor is locked). The player is painfully slow, and apparently, i'm really big too. I slowly moved towards a mountain, outside the yellow yes I spawned in, and after some time, I reached the mountain, but ended up rotating a lot and lost control of myself. That was kinda scary tbh.

This game is really weird, like first of all, if I go to the abount menu, I get softlocked, as I can't go back. And like, why do you just made the build a development build? me no like seeing scary console while playing games lol. The art style of this game is really weird, it kind looks hand drawn, and you just got a really metalic paint and used it to draw childish drawings as sprites. On the level editor, not only anything works, but if you zoom out, there are weird sprites scattered in the editor, and that's really weird lol. In the middle button of the main menu, I go to a weird page, where the right middle image (a metalic square) don't do anything, while the left middle image (the person looking yes) launches me to a broken editor

this game kinda looks a weird remake of rolling sky imo. There is no menus, you just start straight into the game, where you get an orange rolling through some deep fried yellow tiles. The level is also really repetitive, like lmao you just got some random level design and copy-pasted it until you had a bigger level? There are better ways to do that. And i don't like how the path just suddenly decides to end at the end of the level lol. Btw, this page is kinda ugly, like you didn't added a description to your game, no webgl, no screenshots, no trailer, no nothing? people won't download your game then. And pls change these background colors, like the bg 1 is grey and the bg 2 is pee weird yellow? I see that you tred to get the color pallete of your game (the game really needs a better color pallete tho), but pls change this page colors.

i don't understand why the downloadable is called "atum clicker mobile" (atum?), as downloading it gives me a webgl instead. Plus, opening webgl builds is kinda boring, so if you want downloadable files, make a downloadable build. And this game should have a webgl in itch? because there is a pop up saying that the dev didn't upload any game yet...

Are you talking about games made in 2025? because geometry dash got several top ones in 2025. And most ordinary people like me aren't even doing a few clicks in these.

Also, not trying to self promo or nothing, but I also have a couple of really hard games, I even made a post about the hardest achievements in my games lol

ok, since you said you're new to game development, maybe you could start by making some pretty minimal and simple games, like platformers, to get used on how to actually make a game. Imo pratice makes perfection, so if you can, try making lots of small projects, to get used to all the things on game development (like coding and arts). 

You don't need AAA graphics, as an art style that is good enough only for understand the game already is enough for a while. I would recommend color palletes. 

Avoid using AI art (unless you know what are you doing), it usually never is what you want, plus often your own art will end up being better.

Starting a game but getting tired of it is very common, so if you notice you're getting tired of your game, stop trying to add more features and focus on doing the bare minimum your game needs to be playable (often UI screens like a main title, a level select, and a game over are enough, plus 5 levels should be good enough).

Don't spend money on anything game dev (at least not as a beginner), not only because everything you need to make games is free, but also because getting money with your games is pretty challenging.

Do you need tools? i use unity for making games, vs code to make codes (way better than visual studio, lighter, easier to understand), blender if you need to make models, and sites like beepbox to make music (i used beepbox to make the songs of my games, until i started to become an actual music producer lol), jsfxr to sfx sounds (way better than sfxr and bfxr, just saying), ambientcg for public domain textures, and piskel for pixel art. I'm also using more obs studio to record my games after i build them (tho you can record them inside unity by using the package unity recorder), and shotcut to edit the videos. (Note that all the programs i just mentioned are free).

kinda curious to know if you still remember this challenge actually, and to see who won

pretty cool game actually. The red lamps floating were pretty funny but soon they will lose context lol. The game is too hard, like i don't see a beginner properly remembering the right squares in a 6x5 grid, maybe add a difficulty system with easy/medium/hard, where the harder = the more squares, and the easy mode coupld only have a 4x4 grid or smth. I also noticed that the keyboard mode is easier, as you don't need to mentally map the position of the squares, but instead just 3 keys. The idea of adding codes was kinda cool too. The biggest issue with this game imo is that it was made with scratch apparently, and i think you should switch to an actual game engine like unity, not only because you will be less limited, but also because you will be able to build your games to several platforms, including mobile (this could easily be a cool mobile game imo).

vn? your profile only has a project called test.exe, which apparently is a downloadable game. Plus, if you want someone to download your games, you should make at least a video of your game and a couple of screenshots, although webgl builds are always the best, as people wont need to do nothing but click some buttons to play

ooooh i understand why you need more gb lmao... i usually don't have 10% of all of that open at once (rn i only have edge with one tab and notepad open lol) 💀

tbh 8gm of ram isn't too slow imo, like yes there are some tasks that take a long time, but i already got used to that, i usually don't have too much things open simultaneously, and considering that i use an older version of unity, the programs i use aren't too heavy (+ i don't play AAA games, so i usually don't need too much ram anyways)

Like yes, not being able to use a better program because your pc can't handle it is sad, but once you live with little, an average computer seems good ig lol

as a solo dev myself, i think that making games alone have some benefits. You get to do mostly what you like, you find ways to make boring tasks less boring, you can end up becoming very good at something, and there is always AI to help you learning and bug fixing.

One thing that a school project made me notice is that if you try to make a group of people that don't know to make games do some project, it will have the same fate as a project from a solo person that don't know how to make games - bceome a big pile of assets that doesn't work at all. So you should join a group of people only after you start to know what are you doing, otherwise lol

i would mention platformers, particulary ones who aren't lore based (like some rage games and those hard kaizo games), as platformers are simple to code, and are pretty much carried by game and level design. Puzzles are a little bit harder to make, so i would go with some challenging games instead

well, your computer either seems pretty good, or my computer is pretty average lol. You have twice more ram than me...

I personally would only upgrade my pc if it starts getting impossible to use it, like when my pc had 4gb of ram and opening unity could easily take literal hours. If your computer already have a hardware good enough for everything you need to do, then i don't think you should be upgrading all the time - too expensive, and it's also risky for you to break the other pieces of hardware from your computer

ngl, if that's the first time you're doing a game, or coding at all, maybe before doing this cat lady thing, you should finish one or two smaller learning projects, just to get a hang of the game development yes. Making your first game is a bit harder than it sounds like, but after some time you end up getting used to it, so maybe do a couple of learning projects before trying something bigger.

Also, i didn't understood the exact kind of game you want to make, or if you want to do a visual novel instead, i personally use unity, as it's pretty learnable and very versatile, but i wouldn't recomend it for someone who wants to make a vn

Last thing, i don't think there is an age where is too late to learn game development, like, for older people, i see coding as a pretty hard chokepoint, but nah not only AI exists, but also you can make games with relatively minimal coding (or just get an asset pack with some scripts)

i think that you could use apps like struck3D or itsMagic, but lmao make games on a pc. Trying to make games on a mobile is kinda boring, slow, your battery will be eaten, and there is no game engine for mobile that is as good as a pc game engine imo

I MADE A GAME CALLED WORLD 0, A SCARY MINECRAFT LIKE GAME WHERE YOU NEED TO SURVIVE IN AN EMPTY ENDLESS WORLD WITH A RED CUBE TRYING TO KILL YOU. THE GAME ISN'T VERY GOOD STILL, BUT I UPDATE IT SOMETIMES

btw, if with late you mean "i answered a comment from one year ago", yeah you're late

i'm personally a pretty competitive person, so i would join a ranked jam, even without prizes, just to have the satisfaction of trying to be the number 1 (not as it ever happened tho).

The sad of starting a new jam tho is that as no one knows you, your jam probably won't have more than 3 submissions (if it end up having submissions at all btw). A couple of people will join your jam, but only a few will submit on it... sad

ngl i personally think that a good game page is a page where you don't even need to read too much to understand the game, and decide if you want to play it or not.

I don't play too much lore-based games, because of that, the format i like the most is: the short description already have a hook good enough to give a sense of the game, there is a webgl demo so i don't need to download anything i don't know if i will play again, there is a video showcasing some gameplay element that maybe i couldn't unlock or do, and a small, compact description of the game (AND CONTROLS).

Not trying to self promo, but as this format works for me, i use it to my game pages. I also make games with pretty minimal visuals, and i put screenshots in my game pages, so because of that, i also try making the game page have the same color pallete as the game itself, to make it cooler

idk, some people (me included) could find strange needing to put their irl house location as a tag for their games. Plus, if you want network, you could go to communities, there is a couple of good things that you could get by talking to people far from you - maybe different countries see games with different ways, some genres could be more common than others, etc

i didn't even understood what DR is, could you give a bit more context?

nope, i don't know any co-living houses, i just know about people meeting in calls or sometimes doing live talk about a project. And tbh, i'm pretty sure co-living houses aren't a thing, like unless you find a group of extreme extroverts that are willing to live with you to make a project, idk if this is happening.

You said you want to make games with others because it feels more painful as you will need to do things you're not used to for others and if you don't talk with them enough you will just be a number in group so you want that extra anxiety and pressure exciting, well in this case try joining an online community ig, you won't live with anyone, but you will get what you want

I already collabed with a group in school to make a game (not enjoyable or exciting imo), but never with someone online, and if i ever decide to, i would just talk to this person on messages, like email...

wdym?

you really should say more stuff about the game you want to make, like i'm not going to dm a random person i found on itch.io to join a random game developers group that i have no clue what they are doing... Also, "game developer" is a pretty large area, so what exactly do you need - people to make levels? art? music? marketing?

lol thx! and wdym using it's own songs instead of ncs?

he made this comment before quasar rebound and alt quasar came out lol

yeah, sometimes. The funniest part is that when my power fails, my internet fails too lol.

hello! could you play my game Quasar? this is a rhythm game made by me (the songs are copyright free, don't worry), where you just need to beat the levels. I'm going to the free options

ok, the thing is: even if you want to make a psychological horror game, making another program stopping working, or limiting what tasks the task manager can manage or not is a bit too much.

Just think about it: you're talking about making a game where one of the features is to make the task manager don't work on the main menu of your game. Other person could make a similar game, except the task manager is always locked, even inside the game. This person could also make it's game purposefully laggy, destroying the computer resources. And i also think that making your game load on initialization is easier than breaking the task manager. There could also be the possiblity of a "pay to remove this game from your computer", and an expensive IAP in the game. Now that game is more of a ransomware than a game, even if someone could argue it has the same features as your game :>

Also, there is the topic "why should your game stop the task manager". Do you don't want players to kill the task of your game? but realistically, why? people only kill unresponsive tasks, any normal player would go to the quit of the menu to leave the game. Or at most use alt + f4.

The idea of stopping the task manager, even if just for your game, will always be too hard to do, too uneeded, and too risky, as your game could be a virus or something.

pls give more info on what happened, why you can't comment, if it shows an error, maybe attach some images...

poor of me that thought this would just be a silly game about a girl and a crow :skull: pretty cool game, pretty cool story, and i liked the graphics

(don't pay me pls, i can't trust a random survey i found online) hot take: AIs are a bit overhated imo. Like, i understand why some people hate them (e.g., as someone that makes music, i understand the impacts of suno in the music industry), but like, you cannot just ban stuff like chatgpt from your life only because it is an AI.

AIs wont replace artists because AIs are simply bad on making art, no matter how much you train your AIs, they will always make generic art comparing to something an actual human would do. You cannot just say that AI content is going to replace humans because is possible to say when something was AI generated or not.

A guy here also mentioned that making an AI run takes a lot of irl resources, but nah any big company needs a lot of irl stuff to work, so i think that if ecological issues get serious, they will simply move on to stuff that takes less resources ig (like, paper in theory also needs trees to be chopped down to exist, but there is also the possibility of making paper out of used paper, or even reducing the amount of paper you use soooo).

Of course, there are cases where using AI would be a bad idea, like if you use copyrighted material to train an AI, but in general, i think that AIs are a great way to get some placeholder art, learn something new (e.g., you can use chatgpt to learn to make art), and others.