Played a few rounds just to get an idea of what the game's like. Seems interesting. It took a while to actually figure out what controls were available and what the cards might do. Sometimes the stickmen would group up in the left corner and stay there for a good while, and there was seemingly nothing that could be done about it. The mechanism for scrolling felt a bit awkward to me, especially since the screen scrolled by such a large amount per click. Just some general notes about my experience, take them into account in whatever way best suits your game's vision.

You're constantly running out of oxygen or holding your breath and have to find stashes and tanks. Kind of like the underwater bits in Sonic 2, but all the time.

Thank you so much! Seriously, man, this helps me a lot! I invite you to post this gameplay on YouTube and put it on the game's itch.io page as a comment for others to see too! And yes, I will make the Linux and Mac OS versions. Remember to leave your review (if you want) and thank you very much! Have a good day! 😊

Hi, currently setting up basic recording. Would you mind creating a build for Linux? Godot is very versatile in that way.

Thanks! Will post video for download soon.

Edit:

• audio is key and I love every button press/interaction
• make sure to make it more clear that you can scroll in the shop
• linux build would be much appreciated (really really)

Video:

I suck at editing so here is the raw footage of my quiet rage.

https://odysee.com/A-Survival-Game-gameplay-for-Daniel_Game_Dev:9ebd509df45959646e73a29a166f285710eaa640

^ Only place I could think of uploading -> press the three dot hotdog menu to open download options

These are the 2 I follow the most and usually buy games recommended from them. They're specifically for horror games, mainly indie ones.

https://store.steampowered.com/curator/28221963-The-Horror-Network/

https://store.steampowered.com/curator/43650382-Good-Indie-Horror-and-others/

Thank you so much, man! 😆 This means a lot to me. I'll definitely watch it 😁⭐

Het Daniel! I'll save this, and I'll try to record something this afternoon (GMT+2)!

Personally, I am an experienced beginner, I in no way have expertise in specifics but I'd like to think I have some learning experiences that can be shared.

TL; DR

Make stuff, if stuck change approach, continue learning.

What to make when starting - make teeny tiny simple games

Doing one full game from tutorial is great way to learn how to solve regular problems in game projects.

The simpler the better. Make tiny games. Some random examples

• 2D Cookie clicker without upgrades ( just click, number go up )
• 2D Enemies run for mouse cursor, you need to dodge enemies
• (bonus) 3D FPS where is Waldo, walk around level, click with crosshair when person is found

For example from official documentation "Dodge the creeps" https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/getting_started/first_2d_game/index.html

Of course there are many more tutorials like that

Pitfalls while learning

At least in my experience, there are some areas that are easy to pick up and start implementing in the game but can get you stuck on details when you're just beginning. For any of points below, I would recommend to attempt, but also recognize when you're stuck and better to move on, and return to this topic later in your learning journey:

• Physics - if you have very specific behavior in mind and default physics don't behave as you expected, it might create some problems, and solving them will make all of the development get stuck. For example, it's quite easy to make 3D vehicle using in-built nodes like VehicleBody3D ( https://docs.godotengine.org/en/latest/classes/class_vehiclebody3d.html ). But it's relatively hard to make car to drift and in some cases can become too complex problem while you're learning.
• 3D camera + mouse pointer - while working with mouse clicks in 2D Godot project, you'll learn it's very easy to get mouse position, object mouse is clicking on. But when moving to 3D you'll see that you have to account for more things and 3D Vectors are involved. There are many examples that give you code to solve this, just be ready for relative spike in complexity

Useful stuff to learn about early

There are some topics I would recommend learning about early as it can help you to solve basic problems. Give at least cursory glance about these topics, so you know what's available. None of these are required, but in certain situations can be a game-changer: Signals, groups, Collision layers and masks, Globals/Autoload, Shaders, Tweens

Learning resources

• Godot Recipes (https://kidscancode.org/godot_recipes/4.x/) - there you'll find bite-sized solutions and instructions for popular problems, like "Top-down movement", "Shooting projectiles" and so on.
• Official documentation - it have helped me many times. Remember you can also open it within Editor with F1 then search for Node or method you want to read up on

Assets

Personally I like to use pre-made assets while I am prototyping and checking out the idea. For me, it helps greatly if you can see your game concept coming together. Much better than using default Godot icon everywhere or plain shapes.

There are many places to get assets

• Itch (https://itch.io/game-assets/free) - this is the simplest way to get your initial assets. Eventually I got tired trying to find assets for every idea, and I bought (paid asset pack) https://kenney.itch.io/kenney-game-assets. Now even if I am not planning to leave the aesthetic in finished project, while I am prototyping, with this pack I can be sure that I will find something for every type of idea that comes to mind
• Polyhaven (https://polyhaven.com/) - Textures, Materials, HDRIs
• AmbientCG (https://ambientcg.com/) - HDRIs, Materials
• The Base Mesh (https://www.thebasemesh.com/model-library) - assortment of random meshes
• Gamedev Nexus (https://gamedevnexus.com/resources/assets/) - filterable list of various asset stores/lists
• Godot Shaders (https://godotshaders.com/) - Shader gallery for your Copy+Paste pleasure

Extra

When your very first game is ready, you can use itch.io to publish it either publicly or only for certain people. Makes easy to provide game for testing and share with friends

It's not covered by NDA as far as I could tell, and that part was pretty clear, basically says "if the game is sold on other platforms, make sure the price is the same". It's one of the first things you sign when making a Steamworks account.

Thanks for the explanation!

Thanks! Your last argument was a pretty clear and good argument for why it feels a bit icky. I think it’s most convincing when comparing against the developers personal site.

It’s less clearly bad (to me) when comparing epic games vs steam or some other storefront. In what is probably a bad move, I mostly use Steam for gaming. It’s convenient and just works. Having a game available for less on a different, but considerably worse, platform would be a hassle.(because the platform has a better kickback for that developer as a temporary way to boost their platform) At least this way, they’ll have to offer it for the same price on Steam in most cases.

To add to what you're saying: To be fair, most of the lawsuit I don't really agree with, but maybe it's just laying it on thick.

Part of the argument is them trying to separate the Steam "Store" from the Steam "Gaming Platform", and in many ways that's obviously not possible. But they say that because of Steam's monopolistic-ish position, publishers can't not be on the "gaming platform", because it's where most people want their games, or else they'll lose out of a large chunk of money. (And without it, these games likely would not be made in the first place.) Thus Steam can force these unfair terms on developers.

There was also this portion on discounts that was quite revealing:

20. For example, Valve has set up visibility in its Steam Store to focus on games that are nominally “on sale” to gamers. Knowing that the best way to reach their audience is through discounting, game publishers must artificially inflate their list prices so they have headroom for discounting. But the “sale” price is not consistently available, and therefore some gamers pay an artificially inflated list price for the game. These supracompetitive prices increase Valve’s cut, force gamers to overpay, and prevent publishers from setting the most efficient game prices they could in the first place. Even worse, these supracompetitive prices are transmitted across the broader market by the contractual restraints discussed above.

They're admitting to inflating games' prices, so they can then offer a fake discount that's closer to the actual price they actually wanted the game to be. And then they complain when Valve doesn't let them list a game on sale for an extended period of time, just so they can essentially scam people. (Probably, once again, standard in the industry and elsewhere, but I feel like that's gotta be banned by EU pro-consumer laws.)

While there are legitimate grievances in this lawsuit, they do also complain that Valve doesn't let developers generate as many Steam keys as they want, and then sell them on other stores at lower prices than on Steam (see p. 35, "Valve Distorts Competition Through The Steam Key Price Parity Provision").

Keeping in mind that Valve lets developers generate keys for their games for free, this amounts to Wolfire complaining that they cannot offload the costs of hosting/services to Valve, while at the same time minimizing how much Valve earns. And that just sounds ridiculously entitled to me.

If Wolfire somehow were to win the right to undercut Valve in this manner, then I would not be surprised if Valve responded by charging developers for keys, or otherwise limited the ability of developers to generate keys. Which would have wide reaching consequences for PC gaming

I know we all love valve and in many respects they do good for linux and all that jazz but they also pretty much refuse to shut down skins gambling shit that gets kids hooked on gambling, because it makes them money.

They're a company, and companies aren't your friends, even when they're less anti-consumer in some respects than other companies

Steam

• offers services
• takes a 30% cut on products sold on the Steam Store
• offers free Steam keys, within broad limitations, for you to sell on other stores, or distribute in other ways (free review copies, etc)
• requires you to sell the product at the same price even when Steam is not involved (different store, no Steam integration)
• the implication is that this also applies to discounts (I don't know for sure myself, and the post does not give evidence of it, but the "fair to Steam" implies it)

You could sell a product DRM-free on your own website 30% cheaper, and get the same money, while providing a cheaper, DRM-free alternative. Steam currently denies that, restricting your choices. You can still sell it on your website at the same price, of course, and the customer still has a choice.

I think what feels unfair or maybe immoral is that they make demands, even requirements, upon your decisions and distributions that do not involve them at all. They're taking your product hostage. And they can do so because they're so big you can't not publish on their storefront too if you want reach.

Everytime there is criticism of monopolistic and greedy behavior that affect us as human beings:

"nobody is forcing you to live in the city! You can live off the land in the hills or jungle or deserts or rural areas!"

Arguments like these imply that the market is equally distributed across store fronts. But we all know thats not true. In order to survive as a PC game company it is necessary to list on Steam.

Itch is less a storefront, or even a social site, and more a developer playground. And real competition is no holds barred, bar-room brawl, knock-out drag-out free-for-all. People think "oh, if we just let people compete, everything will work out splendidly". But the truth is, the strong will always overshadow and overpower the weak with "real competition". It's not fair play and love is the truest standard, it's king of the fucking mountain. And whoever has the biggest wallet is often the biggest winner. That doesn't mean Steam, or even Itch or GoG, that means Microsoft and Epic and EA. That means the bullies win.

No one really wants that, they just want a pipe dream that can never exist.

Itch is lower and would have grown much more by now if people could actually sell games cheaper there. That's how real competition works.

Steam has the lowest price because they force you to use the highest price, their price, on all other storefronts. It doesn't give you any better pricing on Steam.

Right now a game is $10 on both Steam and itch. If Valve didn't abuse their position it would be smth like $8 on itch because their fees are lower. Valve pretends this is allowed in their contracts but instead bullies devs into price parity.

Whether this also applies to sales depends on how much Valve likes you, on that particular day.

If it could be argued that it’s close to the difference in percentage Steam takes vs. other storefronts, I’d have a hard time saying it was unjustified

Don't they take roughly the same as any other storefront, aside from Epic? And Epic mostly just does it as a marketing tactic, rather than to act in some way ethically.

This is literally how Costco and Walmart keep such low prices. If anyone has a lower price than them they will just drop your contract

Not sure honestly. It was a few months ago now. I bet you can see it somewhere, considering how many games get uploaded.

I’m a dumb dumb. Can someone explain why this is bad?

I’m sure there’s some reason. I’m just missing it. Wouldn’t this mean that steam will always have the lowest/same price as other storefronts and I’m most likely to pick the storefront that I prefer?

I assume this doesn’t apply to temporary sales?

The EU can and should force Steam to get rid of the MFN clause. All Valve needs to do is to let competing stores price games cheaper than on Steam. (So long as Steam services are not involved with that off-Steam purchase.)

There's still plenty of benefits Steam provides to customers that many may choose it over a different store even if they could get the game for cheaper. And Steam also provides developers with tools that make Steam worth it, like Steam networking and cloud saves. As Gabe Newell famously said about piracy, but I believe this applies in this case too, it's simply a service problem.

It's possible (probable, even) but I'm not really sure what the recourse would be there. The EU can't force Steam to let games onto their platform.

I'm kind of torn on this, really. I do think Steam needs competition, but none of the ones that've popped up seem to understand that a lot of the appeal of Steam is the extra features they offer to users, it's not just a storefront. And to game developers, they offer a lot of free marketing that's expensive to get outside of Steam. I'd be interested to see studies on how much value the marketing Steam provides brings. If it could be argued that it's close to the difference in percentage Steam takes vs. other storefronts, I'd have a hard time saying it was unjustified.

Obviously that marketing is so valuable because of the market share Steam has, so if another reasonable competitor who were at least attempting for feature parity for end users, that marketing might come to be worth less, and there'd be a better argument against Steam taking such a large cut.