No one reads oldschool curators like RockPaperShotgun anymore. They’re barely afloat.
Generic algorithmic social media like YouTube tends to snowball a few games.
Forums are dead. Reddit is dystopian.
That leaves Steam’s algorithm, and a sea of sparsely seen solo reviewers. But there are billions of people oblivious to passion projects they’d love, and playing AAAs or gacha phone apps instead.
I will take this opportunity to recommend Crosscode, one of the best action RPGs of all time according to 90% of people who play it.
But yeah even amazing games like that fly under people’s radar in the huge deluge of games. I wish it were easier for good games to find their audience
I like CrossCode, but I am going to bat for Phoenotopia Awakening, one of the best game almost nobody has heard about. Slightly different perspective but similarly massive game full of secrets, puzzles, fun characters and a consistent world where even the tiniest bit of banter can lead you to discover something on the other side of the map.
Not having a quest log made that game hell for me. Massive world with tons of little quests that take you all over the map and no way to track progress or see what the last part of the quest is asking for.
It was not a huge problem for me, but I play lots of metroidvania, and I am used to memorizing stuff for later. And for stuff that I know will be hard to remember, occasionally, I might take notes or screenshots of hints.
Though most of the time, there are more than one hint for a single quest. The game does a very good job at updating every related NPC dialogue when something has changed.
But if you want to find everything, yeah you have to talk to absolutely everyone. TWICE. Almost everyone has two lines of dialogue at any moment.
I love that game but I made the mistake of putting it down for a year. When I came back I was completely lost and had no idea what I had already done or what to do next. The game does not have quest logs and does not hold your hand this way. It’s a game where people might benefit from documenting their progress as they go, especially in case they ever take a break from it.
The 8/16but style is overused I feel. Don’t get me wrong I liked the look of it, but every indie game out there uses it.
The SVG style is still relatively new and it’s much easier to animate.
If you’re going to stick with pixel art aesthetic then you want to do something to differentiate your game from all of the others, such as having more animation frames and going for the Prince of Persia look.
Stardew Valley totally would have taken staff and money if you can’t live in your parent’s house forever. edit: I didn’t want it to sound mean towards Barone, it’s great what his family did for him, but this game was made possible with a very strong support net – a luxury not many have.
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I like Ron Gilbert.
the interview that was mentioned:
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2025/12/after-40-years-of-adventure-games-ron-gilbert-pivots-to-outrunning-death/
He’s been talking about it on Mastodon for quite a while now. It’s a shame.
It’s a shame, but also, there’s billions of games and RPGs out already. The game industry is so oversaturated, it’s not even funny.
And the discoverability pipe is breaking.
No one reads oldschool curators like RockPaperShotgun anymore. They’re barely afloat.
Generic algorithmic social media like YouTube tends to snowball a few games.
Forums are dead. Reddit is dystopian.
That leaves Steam’s algorithm, and a sea of sparsely seen solo reviewers. But there are billions of people oblivious to passion projects they’d love, and playing AAAs or gacha phone apps instead.
I still enjoy Yahtzee on Second Wind since the whole Escapist debacle. They seem to be trying to stoplight more indie games which I really appreciate.
I will take this opportunity to recommend Crosscode, one of the best action RPGs of all time according to 90% of people who play it.
But yeah even amazing games like that fly under people’s radar in the huge deluge of games. I wish it were easier for good games to find their audience
I like CrossCode, but I am going to bat for Phoenotopia Awakening, one of the best game almost nobody has heard about. Slightly different perspective but similarly massive game full of secrets, puzzles, fun characters and a consistent world where even the tiniest bit of banter can lead you to discover something on the other side of the map.
Thank you both for the recommendations
Not having a quest log made that game hell for me. Massive world with tons of little quests that take you all over the map and no way to track progress or see what the last part of the quest is asking for.
I can kind of see that.
It was not a huge problem for me, but I play lots of metroidvania, and I am used to memorizing stuff for later. And for stuff that I know will be hard to remember, occasionally, I might take notes or screenshots of hints.
Though most of the time, there are more than one hint for a single quest. The game does a very good job at updating every related NPC dialogue when something has changed.
But if you want to find everything, yeah you have to talk to absolutely everyone. TWICE. Almost everyone has two lines of dialogue at any moment.
Hey a fellow Phoenotopia Awakening fan!
I love that game but I made the mistake of putting it down for a year. When I came back I was completely lost and had no idea what I had already done or what to do next. The game does not have quest logs and does not hold your hand this way. It’s a game where people might benefit from documenting their progress as they go, especially in case they ever take a break from it.
Wow this looks incredible actually! Definitely giving it a go, thank you
And there are so many games that never got finished or polished properly.
Using a screenshot of Stardew while quoting a developer saying it takes money and staff to finish a project is diabolical
That’s not Stardew Valley
That’s further proving @[email protected]’s point.
The 8/16but style is overused I feel. Don’t get me wrong I liked the look of it, but every indie game out there uses it.
The SVG style is still relatively new and it’s much easier to animate.
If you’re going to stick with pixel art aesthetic then you want to do something to differentiate your game from all of the others, such as having more animation frames and going for the Prince of Persia look.
From the article.
Stardew Valley totally would have taken staff and money if you can’t live in your parent’s house forever. edit: I didn’t want it to sound mean towards Barone, it’s great what his family did for him, but this game was made possible with a very strong support net – a luxury not many have.
No idea why you’re being downvoted, the guy who created Stardew literally had his wife take care of his whole life for him while he was working on it.
I also thought it was Stardiew but after 3 seconds looking it’s evident it’s not.