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I think those are solid titles, but you could swap the more common words with ones that are a little more unusual:

Back From the Tavern -> Return From the Tavern

Deer, You Are Being Hunted -> Deer, You Are the Prey

Red Balloon of Happiness -> Scarlet Joy Balloon

I think you get what I mean, you can sometimes try to look up synonyms for the words in your title to make them stand out more

Thanks!

Hey folks,

This is something that came to my mind recently and which I did for my own project after careful consideration: Changing the name of your game.

Of course, when a game is already successful and generating revenue, there is no real need to retitle it. This post goes out to all those working on beta versions or even prototypes and are unsure if their game's name will be beneficial to their marketing strategy.

After putting some thought into it, here are the key aspects of a good game title I came up with:

• Unique
• Memorable
• Well-sounding
• Representative

Unique: This can be checked easily by using the itch.io search or going to steam. If there are many results with a very similar name to your project, chances are it won't stand out well. For example, there are already tons of games with "platformer" or "rpg" in the name, so "[...] Platformer" will not make for a good title, since it won't appear high in searches and will not stay in the heads of your audience. This brings us to the next point

Memorable: "Extraordinary cactus man and the swashbuckling adventures of the King of Romania" is a fun title, but nobody will remember it (now that I think of it, this would be a banger game). Keep your game's name short and interesting, try to use words that are not found in every day vocabulary, but don't use words that nobody knows.

Well-sounding: A game's title needs to roll of the tongue, even for none native English speakers or people speaking another language, if you're planning to reach a large audience. A good rule I found is to start with a harsh consonant to catch the player's attention. An awesome example of this is the "Kiki" "Baba" experiment I saw once in a youtube video. When given the two options, people will name a pointy shape "Kiki" and a roundish shape "Baba". You want that pointy shape, because that grabs attention

Representative: After all, a game title serves no purpose if the title has nothing to do with the game. This can also be a little nuanced, since a poor choice of words might convey that your game is more brutal, more comedic or more peaceful than you intend it to be. 

Always think carefully about your game's title before publishing, I made this "mistake" with my project currently still named Gorilla Driving, but I will rebrand to a more unique animal soon, since gorillas have been fairly overused and there are many similarly titled games on itch already.

Maybe this was helpful to anyone, see you in the next one!

Cheers,

PionProjects

The first beta version of Gorilla Driving is OUT NOW!

Have you ever wanted to become a gorilla that drives a taxi for a living? Well now you can! Drive through the city, pick up passengers, give them a ride and avoid other cars crashing into you, the police arresting you for murder and watch out for the train! Have fun!

https://pionprojects.itch.io/gorilla-driving

This is the first beta version, so expect a few bugs here and there and possible performance issues. Please let me know if you encounter any game breaking bugs, I will fix  them as fast as I can.

I was thinking of instead of just clicking on a building to start production, the player could have to perform some action specific to the building, e.g. chopping wood by dragging the mouse cursor to produce timber

Awesome game! As a big Dungeons & Dragons fan, this includes some nice references to the game. I really think the only issue lies in the graphics and the UI design, but that can be improved quickly. Gameplay wise it's a good blend of 3D movement and UI navigation! I feel like it would improve the visuals a lot if you used a pixelated font instead of a regular one, some more combat animations would also be very cool. I hope this gets more traction!

This is so funny omg

This is fun already! I can really see this going somewhere, obviously it's still a prototype, but if you add more features this can turn into a full on strategy city builder. I like the clicker-like gameplay in the beginning, if I were you I would focus on developing some mechanics that force you to directly interact with the buildings to generate resources, most strategy and city builder games lack that, you usually just press a button and the thing starts producing forever. Good luck!

The free, first beta version of "Line Of Shrines", a small project of mine, is out now! 

In this fast-paced, 2D, dungeon-crawler-like game, you have to connect all shrines in a level without getting killed. Good luck! 

I'm open to all suggestions and criticism, please leave your opinion on the game in the comments!

https://pionprojects.itch.io/line-of-shrines

Nice work! The concept is really interesting and you should surely continue working on this. Just two things to consider in case you do so:

I'm not colour-blind personally, but someone with a colour deficiency might have a hard time differentiating some elements in the game. You could add icons to the cards in addition to the particles and make the red and blue soldiers look a bit different.

Finally, as another user pointed out already, the game really sustains itself, so the player cannot change that much. You could fix this by adding a bit of randomness to the soldiers, with some being stronger / faster /... than others. Then, the player would actually have to make an effort to decide on what cards to play when.

Keep it up!

A really nice short puzzle game! I love the artistic and creative side of this, good luck on your future projects!

No, it's not! Computers often times detect itch.io games as viruses if there haven't been that many people who downloaded them in the past.

Does a casual, relaxing 2D strategy game sound interesting to you? If so, check out the beta of Project: Strategy Game! https://pionprojects.itch.io/project-strategy-game-beta

The game is set in a medieval environment in which you take control of a city. You will trade, build structures, fight off bandits and complete missions for the king. Interacting with the map functions through a unique unit system in which you combine characters to overcome all obstacles the game world may place in front of you. A mountain? No problem for the mountaineer. Want to build a harbour to buy all resources you can possibly think of? Use an architect once you have enough building materials. The game's map is randomly generated and each computer-controlled city has randomized preferences changing its play style. One of my main goals with this is having the experience be different each time you play. Have fun!

It's really fun! Although the difficulty curve suddenly spikes a lot with the final boss xD. Besides that the game's great!

Really nice idea! I think it would be cool to have a bit of a story or a "goal" for the game, right now you are just lighting up the darkness for the sake of doing so. I also think the UI could be a bit bigger, I didn't see the help button at first. Good luck with the game!

Made a small summary video showcasing what I got done over the last two months! Be sure to check out the prototype if you haven't alre

Hi! Here's what I got done over the last two days:

• Added ability to see resource changes in resource menu
• Farm now shows connection line to city properly
• New city texture
• City name is smaller now
• Trade routes now show trade routes to player city
• Trade route lines are smaller now
• Construction site textures updating correctly now
• Added ability to see funds in trading menu
• Added characters stats info in drop down menu

Here's what's still on the list:

• Add unit icon for colour-blind friendliness
• Add ability to change unit characters
• Add option to hide city name
• Clay pit overlapping with city names

Also: Feedback is greatly appreciated! -> The prototype's goal is to get feedback on the game, a few people have played it already, but I haven't got any feedback via the comment section. So, if there's something you want to point out, feel free to leave a comment!

Well, I did play a lot of Minecraft in the past - That might have carried on into my pixel art 😅

Hello there! I've been working on a 2D Strategy Game for the past two months and have finally managed to release a prototype! If that sounds interesting, be sure to check it out and leave me some feedback! https://pionprojects.itch.io/project-strategy-game

The game is set in a medieval environment. You can create custom units to build new structures or trade goods with other cities! The prototype is of course, well, just a prototype, but it already features all core gameplay mechanics, being:

• Randomized terrain generation
• Pathfinding
• Unit creation system
• Trading system
• Basic control of city districts

Enjoy!

Finally released my first prototype today! I'd really really appreciate it if you took a look at it and gave me some basic feedback!

https://pionprojects.itch.io/project-strategy-game

Finally got the trading menu done!

I've updated the visuals of the game! Here's what it looks like at the moment:

I'm now six weeks into development! Here's how far I've come:

I think this forum should concentrate on the fact that you can post devlogs here for games that you haven't put up on itch.io yet, so for the projects that are not finished games yet (at least that's how I've experienced it, correct me if I'm wrong). Maybe you could build on that aspect and add additional features for promoting a not-finished product, I feel like itch is still lacking features for that

Hello hello!

I have implemented the option to build and destroy districts in your city that directly impact a city's population and income:

Every second turn in the game will take place at night, here's whatthat will look like:

Hello hello!

First of all, say hello to the new character, the mountaineer! Characters make up units which area a key component to my new game and all of them have their own special abilities! The mountaineer will allow you to cross mountains with your units.

The trading menu looks (and works) a lot better now, you can send out a trader character to another city to establish a trade route.

I gave the combat interface a brand new and wayyy better look!

Subscribe to the Youtube Channel! 100% of people watching are not subscribed, which I can tell, since I'm my only subscriber 😂

Hi there! I hope you're all having a great day!

For the past two days, I've been working on creating a trading system allowing the player to trade with other cities. You can already buy resources from other cities, selling to them will be implemented over the course of the next days

Additionally, here's some art I made for the different characters that can be combined to create custom units: Can you guess what they all represent?

The art looks really nice! I'm looking forward to seeing the finished project

I updated the trees to make them more realistic and bring some dimension into the otherwise flat-looking game. What do you think? Is it an improvement or are the old simplistic tiles better?

There's still a lot to do but I think I've made great progress for just doing gamedev casually on the side. This game will be packed with interesting new mechanics once it's done - I'm making sure everything is done with attention to detail and without copying from major games in the strategy franchise! Be sure to follow me on itch.io or subscribe to the youtube channel if you want to stay updated on development

I've started development about a week ago, the game is going to be a 2D PvE shooter set in a desert environment. I've made all of the pixel art myself, the pictures above are in-game screenshots. What do you think about the general appeal of the visuals so far?

I've made a small prototype over the course of the last days attempting to mimic the experience you get on a rollercoaster or a similar fun fair ride! This is of course really difficult in 2D, but I'd like to know if this is an idea worth continueing. 

You play as a ghost in a haunted mansion, every 30 seconds, a new event starts, which alters the game in just a small way that might mess with your perception. You need to keep moving to avoid touching an enemy following you and your goal is to score as many points as possible by collecting orbs.

Test the prototype here

I'd really appreciate it if you checked it out!

Great! I'll join the Discord and keep an eye on the development

Cool! I think a bit more variation in the overall pacing would be very beneficial, the game so far either gets too overwhelming with the amount of enemies or too boring if you are too strong. Maybe consider spawning the enemies in waves instead of all of them spawning "at once". A volume slider would be good too!