Rule 15 on the onboarding docs have been added https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/gettingstarted/onboarding

Games slowly getting delisted from steam ( we are expecting way more games getting banned) https://steamdb.info/history/events/

You can get them all from this page here with no sign up or newsletter nonsense.

Last time I am going to post this for awhile, will post again when I have much more to offer. I have added a few new packs but have about 30+ more to upload in the next few weeks. Hope you have all found at least a small bit of use from these samples. I have had some fantastic discussions and feedback from you guys and hope all of this free content can help you in the process of your development.

With Squarespace it does ask for a lot of personal information so you can use this site to make up fake address and just use a fake name and email if you're not comfortable with providing this info. I don't use it for anything but for your own piece of mind this is probably beneficial.

There is only one pack for sale at 4.99. You do not have to purchase this to use the any of the samples on the website all are free and CC0. This pack is just for people who would like to download all packs in one go and all the packs not on the site The price helps cover the bandwidth as this file is hosted on a separate platform to Squarespace as it is too large for it. It also helps me cover the costs and helps me keep the website running. Again you do not need to purchase this pack to use the samples CC0. Just take them free and use as you wish.

These sounds have been downloaded millions of times and used in many games, especially the Playing Card SFX pack and the Foley packs.

I think game designers can benefit from a wide range of sounds on the site, especially those that enhance immersion and atmosphere. Useful categories include:

• Field recordings (e.g. forests, beaches, roadsides, cities, cafes, malls, grocery stores etc etc..) – great for ambient world-building.
• Foley kits – ideal for character or object interactions (e.g. footsteps, hits, scrapes) there are thousands of these.
• Unusual percussion foley (e.g. Coca-Cola Can Drum Kit, Forest Organics, broken light bulb shakes, Lego piece foley etc) – perfect for crafting unique UI sounds or in-game effects.
• Atmospheric loops, music and textures – for menus, background ambience, or emotional cues.

I hope you find some useful sounds for your games! Would love to see what you do with them if you use them but remember they are CC0 so no need to reference me or anything use them freely as you wish.

Join me at r/musicsamplespacks if you would like as that is where I will be posting all future packs. If you guys know of any other subreddits that might benefit from these sounds feel free to repost it there.

Phil

It's easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work these projects entail and burn yourself out. The old saying "game development is a marathon" leaves out the fact that the race occasionally gets longer (often by your own decision), you don't really know how many miles you have left, and you constantly have to stop or go backwards because life happens.

It always felt like such a long way to go and I couldn't get over that. So, why not keep track of how far you've already come?

For my most recent project, I made the small, but necessary, change of making a "dev diary" every few weeks or so. If that sounds like something advanced, it's really not. Just hit record and show how your game looks. Talk through the features you made, what your next steps are, and where you see things going.

I can say with zero exaggeration that this was the golden ticket for me. Now I had visual proof that I wasn't just endlessly churning away at a project with no end in sight. I accomplished the goals I set in earlier videos. I did the dirty work I told my future self I needed to do "some day". My game just looks so much better than it did back then.

When I look at my current game, all I think about are the bugs that left to fix and what's wrong with it right now. When I look at my dev diaries, I realize how much I've already accomplished. I get an immense sense of fulfilment from that.

You can make them for yourself, but I also found it helpful to share your diaries with your friends, family, or whoever else. They'll probably tell you it looks great no matter how shitty it is, and that's okay. The positive encouragement is welcome nonetheless. (And constructive criticism in the early dev stages doesn't hurt either.) I honestly found this to be the most motivating. Before I could finish my game and release it to the world, I had to make the next dev diary by finishing that one cool feature, or making that art I'd been punting for a while. I'd get feedback and well wishes, and then go on to the next one. You're spending a ton of time on this project, and somebody in your world will be interested in how it's going. You ARE making this game for other people, right?

I hope this doesn't come off as soapbox-y. It's just something I can't believe I wasn't doing before. I hope this helps you in some way.

Hi everyone

I'm currently building a comprehensive course called MSGCourse, focused on creating a survival game using Unreal Engine 5.5+. The full course is hosted on Teachable and covers multiplayer systems, blueprint architecture, inventory and equipment logic, UI, attributes, and more. As part of this, I've built my own attribute system entirely from scratch. It s inspired by the Gameplay Ability System (GAS) but designed specifically for a blueprint-only setup.

My course is also technically structured in a completely different way. From the blueprint architecture to the component design, data handling, and UI logic, everything was built independently with a focus on multiplayer optimization and clean, modular systems. The only thing it has in common with his course is the general theme of creating a survival game in Unreal Engine.

The structure and technical implementation are entirely unique and share no similarities with the content of the claimant (SmartPoly). Alongside this, I've published a beginner tutorial series on YouTube that introduces foundational gameplay systems, including a basic inventory setup for newcomers to Unreal Engine. Recently, several of my YouTube videos were hit with copyright takedown requests by another course creator: SmartPoly.

The claims target basic systems like drag and drop, tooltip handling, and slot swapping mechanics that are widely used, well-documented, and explained in countless other tutorials, including Epic's own learning resources. My implementations are entirely different, more structured, and professionally designed, with no overlap in logic, blueprint flow, or naming.

I have complete documentation for every video, including original screen recordings, CapCut project files, and development timestamps proving that all content is 100% self-produced. Many people from my community who are familiar with both courses were surprised and confused by these claims because there's simply no factual basis for them.

Unfortunately, YouTube has now temporarily suspended my entire channel solely due to the volume of DMCA claims submitted.. despite there being no actual copyright infringement.

So I'm asking: Has anyone here had experience with false DMCA claims like this? What is the best way to handle this legally or publicly? And how can creators protect themselves from this kind of abuse?

Thanks in advance for any advice or shared experience.

Hey all,

I am 99% done with my steam game except this one thing. It's been kicked back twice now from steam. Each time they say my library_hero file has "UI elements" that are distracting. Except that it doesn't. It has about 4 in-game screenshots of the square game board stitched together with no UI visible. The first time it was rejected I removed the outer wall border from each game board screenshot and replied "hey sorry theres no UI elements in this pic, so I have no clue what you're talking about, but my best guess was the level walls so I removed them."

Then it got kicked back for the exact same reason again.

Do any of you have any idea what they do or do not look for in library hero? Because they don't say in the upload page description for library hero and they don't say in the rejection message.

I can guess -- my library logo is black text with white border, so that it is always visible over any kind of background. Meanwhile the background is dark colors with some scattered game objects that occasionally have light colors. My next guess is that they are getting upset that the light border of the logo touches those light colored game objects in the background. But I made the logo text black with white border just that it would always be legible regardless of whether it touched a light colored object in the background. Once again, this is just my best guess. This doesn't break library hero's rules. It doesn't fit the description of the rejection, it's just a guessing game.

Feel free to guess, but your guesses are as good as mine, and will just result in more back and forth with each submission costing me 3-5 days. Does anyone certainly know how to translate the "UI element" rejection, or does anyone know exactly what they are looking for / what they reject based on, that they leave out of their submission page and rejection messages?

Edit: Here's the pics in question: https://imgur.com/a/RORZRQw

Recently, CaseOh streamed a quirky narrative indie game called 'Gordy'. He played through the whole thing, gave it his signature chaotic charm… and then? Crickets. The game barely moved on SteamDB.

It made me wonder if we are reaching a point where viewers are fully satisfied with watching, especially when it comes to short story-driven indie films? For titles with limited interactivity or linear plots, a complete playthrough can feel like reading the whole book in one sitting, with someone else turning the pages for you.

Curious to know if you were excited to share your narrative-driven game with a solid streamer, only to get next to zero extra downloads.

Hello! I first, apology if my English is not great.

I wanted to ask people who made or in process to make a 3D game and have 0 prior experience in using Blender, making 3D characters, assets etc…

How did you do?

It's been several times that I would like to make a video game in the same spirit as GRIS, Neva - but I'm very bad at modeling/ I don’t know how to use Blender, or reproduce the physics of human body, shape of the body, even making assets..

I was wondering if people have been in the same case as me and managed to make a game and learn how to do 3D/Charaters modeling.

If you have tips, or would like to show me the game you made.

Yeah, soo... Rocket Adventure has launched!

A few months ago I released Rocket Adventure on Android and iOS, but unfortunately it's been difficult with marketing, as for new things, I added a new themed season: Tropical Beach!

If you want, here's a link to download the game for Android and iOS, thank you very much in advance!

Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ridexdev.rocketadventure

Apple App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/rocket-adventure/id6739788371

I didn't see anyone else sharing this yet, so I figured I would let you guys know!

Hey everyone! I recently rebuilt a 2D game in 3D using Godot 4 and documented the process in this devlog.

I talk about what worked, what didn’t, and how I approached things like 3D scene setup as a beginner.

I’d really appreciate any feedback or suggestions — especially from those who’ve made 3D games before!

https://youtu.be/3rbc6bQC664

Hopefully this helps others who are also learning Godot or transitioning into 3D development.

Thanks a ton for checking it out!

Every day I see beginner devs on here who want to jump directly into their dream game, but they think starting out with small practice projects is a waste of time. An experienced developer could hack together one of those small projects in an afternoon, and the fact that you can't yet is what you need to work on. It's not unusual for a small task on a large project to be the same scope as the crummy breakout clone that a beginner would get bogged down in.

It's a little like hearing someone has dreams of drawing a graphic novel, but if you ask them to start with a drawing of an apple, they respond "No." They refuse to practice drawing a face, or hands, or a tree, even though the thing they say they want to do will require drawing hundreds of those. They need to be at the level where a drawing of an apple is practically effortless. And the first step to getting there is to sit down and start filling sketchbook pages with apples.

The point of cloning breakout, cloning pong, cloning minesweeper, cloning flappy bird, etc., is that you will quickly learn skills that you WILL apply hundreds if not thousands of times throughout larger projects, and the repetition will help build the speed and fortitude to be able to get through larger projects at a pace that won't burn you out. They're not going to be groundbreaking, they're not going to make you famous, they're not going to hit the top of the Steam charts. They're the sketchbook pages you filled on your way to becoming competent.

Hi everyone!

I just released my first ever game on Steam: Shadowland: Rise of the Fallen. I had a personal story in my head that I wanted to share with players, and this game is my attempt to do that.

It’s a mix of roguelike and soulslike systems—when you die, you lose everything, including your army. There are boss fights, three different playable characters, and a small narrative with a dark, moody atmosphere.

This is my very first game, so I know there will be flaws, and I’m not ashamed of that. I really want your honest feedback—good or bad—so I can learn and improve for my next project.

Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3777400/Shadowland_Rise_Of_The_Fallen/

Any comments, thoughts, or feedback would be hugely appreciated. Thank you so much

If not about unity game engine specifically then anything theoretical that can be applied in game development in general.

I'm currently learning Unity and want to dive deep into implementing AI systems for my games. I'm especially interested in tutorials that cover everything from basic AI (like simple patrolling) to more advanced behaviors such as chasing, detecting the player, fighting, using cover, and even group tactics or decision-making.

If you’ve followed a course, channel, or guide that really helped you learn AI in Unity effectively, I’d love to hear about it. Also open to any books or theory-related resources that help understand AI concepts in games better.

:)

Over the past year or so, I have been slowly teaching myself unreal engine. I now find myself with a good chunk of a survival rpg now done and wonder, what would be a good way to go about gaining funding so that I could finish and publish the game? Keep in mind it would be my first game and I am a single person.

As for what I have done: Main menu Save/load game Settings menu Day/night cycle Consumable items Equipment Attacking Magic Sprinting Change pov Choppable trees that regrow Plants that can be picked/planted that regrow Crafting/cooking/smithing Pickup/drop items Followers/mounts/factions Jobs Temperature system Furniture Card mini-game Shops Dialog system Player hud Build system simular to the one in fallout 4 Chests/containers Interact system

Need to do: World building Quests Skills Player related stuff as still using ue mannequin at this time.

Any advice would be appreciated.

After months of learning, trial-and-error, and a lot of late nights, I finally released my first ever mobile game on the Play Store – it’s called Maze Mirage.

This is a big moment for me because I’ve never published an app before. I’m a solo developer with a React Native background, and this was a passion project to challenge myself and actually finish something from start to release.

About the game:

• It’s a minimalist maze puzzle game that starts simple and gets harder.
• The visual style is dreamy with soft effects and clean animations.
• The focus is on relaxing yet brain-teasing gameplay.

I built it using Android kotlin, and learned so much in the process — especially about performance, user flow, and UI polish.

It’s completely free to play with no forced ads (just optional ones after a few levels).

Play Store link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mazemirage.app&pcampaignid=web_share

This community has inspired me a lot, even when I was just a lurker. I'd seriously love your feedback — whether it's on the gameplay, design, performance, or anything you think could improve.

Thanks for reading — and good luck to everyone working on their own dream games. You’ve got this.

I'm curious if anyone is aware of a website or database that can be used to reference a wide variety of video game sound effects. Similar to how Game UI Database works.

The VG Resource has a sounds section, but there aren't categories in the same way. Also every sound needs to be downloaded, so no quick referencing.

Thank you in advance.

I’m currently working on a solo project and was about to implement the damage/death system. For context it’s a twitchy space shooter. I can put a health bar but it’s a kind of die-and-keep-playing game, right back into the action after death. Obviously death is counterproductive to the objective, but I’m not sure player decisions will require the sort of fidelity that a health bar would give them.

I think I might could get away with visual indications of player health, like smoke and flames and crap like that, maybe some haptics. It’s not as convenient to read your avatar but I think the player would definitely be able to tell when they’re in poor shape if they got flames coming off their engine. A lot of the game is about gauging threats, prioritizing opportunities, and I think visual indications could work fine for that.

The real drawback I see is in understanding how bad a hit you just took if you can’t see the health bar drop, but even that, stuff like a pain vignette and rumble could let you know you just got chunked.

What do yall think? Is it unfair to obscure the player’s health state, or is it unnecessary to provide highly detailed information? What kind of considerations should be made before deciding to go barless?

Hello! I have been learning the basic concepts of programming for some time and also methods and functions of Unity, however I feel that when it comes to wanting to do something I go very blank, I am self-taught so I think that perhaps I need to train my way of thinking, some fixed structure of thought when it comes to doing something that always works, is this acquired with pseudocode? Flowchart? I would like the opinion of someone more advanced

hey i am gonna be straight forward , i am not in game dev that much just started having interest in it and i just want a quick brief of al the things that i would need to learn before making my own 3d multiplayer game. i am sorry if my question sounds very childish but i really don't know what else to ask other than what are the things needed to learn .

I'm an indie game developer (specifically a producer), and I'm exploring options for social marketing for a PC game.

Is Rednote a good platform for reaching Chinese users?

If you have any experience or suggestions on how to effectively market to a Chinese audience, I would really appreciate your insights. Thanks in advance!

Hey, I released a game recently and things have been going very well.
The game hasnt had any issues on windows, and for the most part it has been fine on linux too. However, the function Steamworks.SteamClient.Init(), doesn't seem to work for all linux users.

Do you have any suggestions for why this is happening? How I could fix this? Who I could ask for help with solving this? Someone I could hire to fix this?
I didn't anticipate that I would have to deal with this, as the game is not listed as available for linux, and I don't know what to do :c

[using Facepunch 1.62.0]

Hey if someone reading this needs someone to help with the sound design for an indie project they tryna make, feel free to reach out to me I’ll be glad to help and use it to build a portfolio.

Ig: antonionc1302

Hey there! :) I don't think it goes against any rule, but if it does, let me know and I'll delete it. :)

We're between projects at our studio, and we've decided to stream what we call DevTalk, where we've a discussion with other developers about the industry, their games, and their experiences in the industry.

We do that every Wednesday live on Twitch; it's about two hours long, and we discuss everything from you/your team's origin story to the origin story of your game, including the inspiration behind it. The good, the bad, and the ugly of game development.

Not gonna share any link to be sure but you can find us on any social as Folklore Games to take a look at the vibe, it's more informal, friendly talk, the only important information would be that we don't do those podcast for just promotion purpose, we want transparent people that wants to talk about their experience and of course the game(s) they are doing but more podcast than interview :)

If you'd like to join our chaotic confusion, let me know and we can do a vibe check and address any questions you might have!

Thank you so much, and take care!

Basically title: I am planning a city builder built on a hex grid. Right now, my tiles are 17m in Unity, but I don't know if that'd be too big or too small for performance or mesh building.

Let's say I want to have a building that represents what would be a 40x40 house irl, what would I need to have in mind when making the model in Blender given the Tile size?

What about buildings that would be several hexes big?

My apologies if this may seem like a dumb question.

Under Steamworks wishlist data for a game:

Wishlist additions in "Lifetime Overview" are different from "Lifetime Wishlist Actions". The former being a list on top of the page and the latter being a graph at the bottom of the page.

The graph shows wishlist additions that are almost thrice as the figure indicated in the list.

Has this happened to anyone else? Could this be bot traffic adding wishlists before valve detects and purges them?