﻿Summer is almost up and it's time for another Ask Gamedev Community Member Game Showcase!
In this edition, we are showcasing ten amazing games that the awesome game developers
in our community have shared with us. If you want your game to be featured in one of our
future Community Game Showcases, join our Discord Server and keep an eye out on the announcements
channel. Every quarter our team will post instructions on how to participate. Thanks again
to all of the devs that submitted their games and those who voted for their favourite.
The game submissions keep getting better with each new showcase! Keep it up, and remember:
if your game didn't make it on this showcase, that doesn't mean you can’t submit it for the next one.
You can also share your progress, get feedback on your game, and receive great tips if you delve
into the rest of our channels over on Discord. And speaking of tips, every dev featured in this video
has also provided some great advice for the Ask Gamedev community. So without further ado...
We are Ask Gamedev and these are the Top 10 Ask Gamedev Community Member Games for
September 2021 + 10 gamedev tips! Welcome back! We make videos on how to
elevate your game development and inspire others. If after watching this video you want to continue
the gamedev conversation, check the video description for a link to our Discord server.
We are now making fresh Ask Gamedev content on all of the major social networks, so
be sure to check us out there too. Let's jump right into first place with our Summer
Champion, Wirewalk. Congratulations on being voted #1 by the Ask Gamedev Discord Community!
Wirewalk()↳ by debugChicken, is a 2D 3-Color Top-Down Action-RPG where you, by the game's
description, "raid virus-riddled systems for the lols." The game takes place in the year 2060 where
a virus is taking over every electronic device, taking advantage of the internet of things. Enter
Rada, a programmer who creates a piece of software called The Wirewalker which is capable of hacking
any infected digital device. This adventure will take you through several hand-crafted dungeons
littered with enemies, puzzles, and bosses. We absolutely love the catchy chiptunes,
charming art, and striking color palette used in WireWalk!
The game is being developed in Cocos Creator 1.9.3. The solo developer behind debugChicken
has worked on Wirewalk()↳ for 10 years: 6 years prototyping, and 4 years in full development.
He created the game taking elements from his own life story, making it an autobiographical
work. Even the dog in the game is there in homage to a real-life deceased dog,
Joaninha (which means ladybug in Portuguese). And yes, in this game you can pet the dog... In fact,
you MUST pet the dog to advance. DebugChicken gave us the following advice
for fellow devs: "Do not be afraid to throw things away if they are not going as expected.
Make a workflow where you can quickly iterate and make changes. Respect your
limits and always do something that does not feel overwhelming to you. Besides that, try to
advance a bit on the game every week." Steam curator PursuingPixels highlights
Wirewalk()↳ as a game with "a ton of personality" and a "wonderful sense of humor."
We can’t wait to play it - and lucky for us, it’s Steam launch date is set for September 2021!
Congrats again to debugChicken on being voted #1! Well deserved for such a
unique looking game in Wirewalk()↳. Coming in at a close 2nd, as voted by the
community is Stormrite, by Apakama Technologies. Stormrite is an open-world action RPG set in a
fantasy world, where you choose your path through multiple questlines with several endings each.
You can also specialize your character with a wide range of spells, fighting styles, weapons,
and equipment. Stormrite boasts beautiful landscapes and excellent character animations,
all developed with Unreal Engine 4. It started as a solo project, but quickly
shifted into a team of four devs that have poured their souls into the game inspired by
the most outstanding RPGs of this era, such as The Elder Scrolls and The Witcher game series.
As a team, they aim to put Stormrite in the "hall of fame" of the open-world RPG genre.
The best part of their game dev story is that all of their progress so far has been
accomplished in just a year and a half. The team also recently wrapped up a very
successful Kickstarter campaign where they raised £41,117 from a starting goal
of £20,000. This funding will help them continue their development and get closer to their launch
date, which is due for late 2022. Regarding their experience, the devs at
Apakama Technologies shared this awesome tip with us "Keep putting stuff out there. Some
industry-defining games have come from prototypes of strange mechanics that gained traction after
being posted online, and you won't know if you've got that unless you get some feedback."
Stormrite will be released for PC and Xbox Series S/X and you can wishlist it on Steam now.
Finally, the bronze medal entry on our list is River Tails: Stronger Together, a co-op platform
action-adventure game that features a cat and a fish joining forces to survive an adventure filled
with challenges and beautiful environments. Lifelong friends Francesco Mazza (an art
director for animated television shows) and Gabriele Gangemi (an astrophysicist) decided
to leave their full-time jobs, and start "Kid Onion Studio". They invested their savings, put
together a team of seven creatives, and set out to develop a game THEY would LOVE to play.
River Tails is made in Unity and the team has been working on it for under half a year..
Showing promising work, they've already produced a couple of beautiful teasers and
also published early gameplay footage, which they are using to promote their Kickstarter campaign.
As of this writing, their Kickstarter is launching in the near future.
Here's what the devs at Kid Onion Studio have to say to other devs:
"One thing we've found useful so far is giving our main characters strong
identities, both visually and in terms of personalities. And one other piece of advice:
don't be scared of trying!" River Tales: Stronger Together is set
to launch in late 2022. You can follow them on their Twitter as @RiverTailsGame, or their TikTok
@rivertailsthegame where they push constant updates on their development progress.
Now, let's take a look at the rest of the great Summer Community Game
selections in no particular order. Next up is Slime Heroes by Pancake Games. In this
local or online co-op action-adventure game, team up with your slime buddy and save the world from
evil corruption. Explore a colorful top-down world collecting weapons and creating magic abilities
to defeat every opponent in your way. Based in Seattle, Washington, Tomas Gomez is
the sole developer behind Pancake Games. Tomas started working on the title in 2020, building
it with Unreal Engine 4. Prior to going indie, he had game industry experience in art roles on
games like Gigantic and Guild Wars 2. Sharing from his experience, Tomas says:
"If you are interested in making games and you have the time and resources to do so
I would say start right now. It could be as simple as taking an hour of your day to follow
a tutorial or try learning a new skill." Slime Heroes is set to release in 2023, but
you can wishlist it now on steam and follow its development up close by following @Slime_Heroes
on Twitter - and who knows? You might even be inclined to join Tomas on his journey.
Our next game puts a sci-fi spin on farming sims: Mech Farmer, by Tyrant Media Limited.
As the title suggests, in this game you can live a farmer's life, with one life-changing
addition - you do so while piloting your own Mech! Use it to prepare, maintain, and harvest crops in
futuristic fashion. As expected of a Mech-game, you'll also be fighting hordes of alien mobs
that will try to destroy your farm. Ant, the solo dev at Tyrant Media Limited,
has been working on Mech Farmer for two and a half years now. He’s using Unity to put his game
together, and Blender to build 3D models. The idea for the game was born when he watched an episode
of "Love, Death & Robots" and wondered how it would be to mix that with Harvest Moon and Stardew
Valley - games that he’s been a big fan of. Ant’s gamedev tip for the Ask Gamedev community::
"When estimating how long your current project will be,
come up with a rough figure, then double it. Then double it again. Then add a month."
Mech Farmer is set to launch in Spring 2022, you can wishlist it now on Steam and follow
@TyrantAnt on Twitter to get more updates on the game's development.
Next up on our list is Advent Neon, by CryoGX. Advent NEON is a fast-paced retro 2D action
platformer reminiscent of titles like Megaman and Sonic. The game’s protagonist is a spiky-haired
character capable of doing a Saiyan-like transformation to unleash all of its powers.
CryoGX is a solo developer based in North Carolina. He created Advent NEON as a culmination
of his favorite kinds of games, as well as his best abilities. Not long ago he graduated college
with a major in Computer Science and has since focused all of his efforts on releasing his game.
He’s using GameMaker Studio 2 and has already released a demo on Steam and Itch which has
amassed more than 300,000 downloads. The game has also accrued 7,000 Steam wishlists and
is currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter. CryoGX gave us this awesome tip: "Talent is a
meme. You absolutely CAN learn whatever you put your mind to if you put in the work. Gamedev is
incredibly hard, but it is something that needs patience, research, communication,
and the willingness to constantly learn and adapt -- skills that you CAN learn for yourself."
Advent NEON is still under heavy development and is set to launch in 2024.
You can wishlist this colorful retro game and play the demo on Steam now.
Continuing with our Community Games Showcase comes Svoboda 1945: Liberation, by Charles Games.
This is a very unique experience that blends live-action interpretations,
real-life antique footage and images, and very polished art elements. It presents itself as an
adventure game about the people of a small Czech town discovering and healing from the
effects of the aftermath of World War 2. Charles Games, a group of five Czech developers,
started out as an academia-affiliated team to build their first title Attentat 1942.
The game was flooded with accolades and pushed them to establish a development studio.
It’s been three years since then, and they’ve just recently launched Svoboda 1945: Liberation.
One unique thing about the team is that they all work part-time as writers, teachers,
and artists and bring along their personal experiences to their game development. The
interdisciplinary nature of the team is what helps them push the boundaries of video games.
The devs from Charles Games gave us this advice for devs watching this video:
"Create things that only YOU can make - be it about your dog,
your own memories, your own history, your own THING that nobody else can"
Svoboda 1945: Liberation is newly released and has already received an award
from the Brazil Independent Games Festival 2021 and several other accolades. You can check out
the game on Steam, where you can also play a demo available for a limited time.
Take the role of an immortal AI in Stardeus, by Kodo Linija.
Stardeus is a base-builder/resource-management sim where you, as the AI in charge, have to rebuild,
upgrade, and populate a spaceship in order to explore the vastness of a procedural universe.
Manage your resources at will, spoiling, neglecting, or exploiting humans while you
build automated factories, discover alien technologies, and more.
Tomas Varaneckas is the lead developer behind Stardeus. Before Stardeus, he released his first
full game: Bloody Rally Show. He worked on it part-time for two and a half years, and after
feeling confident with its results, he quit his job and started working on Stardeus full time.
Tomas has been developing Stardeus in Unity for 1 year and three months, taking inspiration from
some of his favourite games like Factorio, RimWorld, and FTL: Faster Than Light.
Tomas gave us some great advice regarding his game dev journey,
"The only chance to thrive is to make a hit, which is super difficult,
and highly depends on luck and your runway. In other words, don't bet your farm on your game.”
After releasing Bloody Rally Show, Tomas also wrote some things he’s learned along
the way in this Reddit post. We’ll leave a link in the description.
Stardeus is set to launch in 2022, but you can wishlist it now on Steam, where you can also
download a Demo of the game. Kodo Linija also hosts awesome streams on steam and Twitch where
you can take a look at the development of Stardeus in real-time, ask questions, and talk game dev in
general. We'll leave links in the description below, so be sure to check that out too.
Next on our list is Noir Storm, by Diskeletton Studios - a 2D point-and-click adventure with a
spot-on "Film Noir'' atmosphere. From the art to the lighting to the voice acting,
everything builds up towards a mysterious story filled with details and secrets.
Noir Storm was born in the 7-days Quarantine Game Jam 2020 inMendoza, Argentina. The team started as
a group of 5 devs but has since grown to 10 devs and counting. The game is Made in Unity and has
been in development for over a year now. It’s part of a fantastic incubator program in their country,
ADVA MPVP Mi Primer Video Juego Publicado - which translates
roughly to My First Published Video Game. Diskelletton Studios gave us the following tip:
"Always Inject some story or plot into your game, no matter what type, no matter the size,
it can be very simple, but it's an excellent motivator for the desire to keep playing."
Noir Storm is set to release in late 2022. The team is working on a playable Demo that will
be available soon. You can follow the updates and development of the game on Itch.io.
Last, but not least, in the Ask Gamedev Summer Community Game Showcase we have Project Timi:
Sasha's Curse, by Ephemeral Cube.
Venture into a magical and colorful adventure filled with fun puzzles and evil bosses. Help
Timi, the Dream Catcher, bring peace to the dream world shared by the people of Lucidity Town.
The idea for Project Timi: Sasha's Curse started as a brunch-time fantasy talk about imagining
a friend as a little witch. One thing led to another and soon enough a prototype was born out
of a Hackathon weekend. Later on, Ephemeral Cube was formed, with teammates collaborating from all
over the world. They applied for a Nintendo Development Kit and have been using Unreal
Engine 4 to develop the game during weekends during the last two years.
In July 2021 Ephemeral Cube released their reveal trailer for Project Timi: Sasha's Curse during GDC
2021. Currently, they have a poll on their website to gather feedback on their trailer,
which we think is a very smart move. For the final Ask Gamedev community tip in
this video, Ephemeral Cube told us "The biggest barrier to making a game is not
technical or artistic, it is time. So iterate quickly, scope properly based on your resources,
and find a schedule that allows you to constantly work on your game
without getting burnt out." Project Timi: Sasha's Curse is set
to launch in late 2022 for Nintendo Switch. You can follow them on their brand new Twitter where
they'll post updates in the near future. Thanks for watching! For more Ask Gamedev check
out this list of Community Game Showcases, or dive directly into our previous community showcase.