Strong Indie Gaming

March is Women’s History Month! This month we will be sharing women led games, the stories of women empowerment in gaming, indie content creators and so much more. Who’s a woman in gaming that you look up to?

@FrameRodge82092 You need therapy.

@CrevLMTV @Brick_Suit @BNONews Fuck up you absolute weapon .

BREAKING: Ship collides with Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, causing it to collapse

@GemcraftGames I do love me some cat hide and seek games! Super cute. Thanks for sharing

@StrongIndies Thank you for the host! A sneak peek from our upcoming new game. twitter.com/GemcraftGames/…

Happy #wishlistwednesday to all of our favorite #indiedevs what are you working on? ❤️ - Like 🔁 - Share ✍️ - Comment And don’t forget to follow us for more indie celebration!

Alright here’s a check in for our SDV friends. How are we feeling so far about 1.6? Do we love the meadow farm?

It’s Free Game Friday! And this week we’ve got an adorable roguelike to get out all your stress. Devilish League buff.ly/48xPG8E Play as Bash a cute little devil as you swing your oversized bat to crush your enemies. With upgrades and progression it’s the perfect combo

Today, I’d like to announce a big bunch of impress.games marketing toolkit updates, including ✨Press Kitty: Plus✨, but first some back-story: I started this IMPRESS project back at the start of 2021. I’d been running a lil Discord coverage bot since 2019 through Patreon after adapting some prototype tech I’d made for my old games studio originally around 2015… It’s been 3 years of dedicated hard work so far, but in reality, this idea has been bouncing around in my head for a lot longer. 9 years is quite a timespan! It’s been a long road to getting here today, and to understanding my place and purpose in the games industry, and I’m happier than ever to be supporting your games marketing efforts with my tools and articles. There's almost 500 of you now! But here’s the thing, I went all in on IMPRESS about 12 months in, quitting the full-time work I held through the Covid-19 pandemic. There was some very promising early-stage growth, and with reasonable projections, I had enough savings to see it through. And I did – I really did… But then came the games industry bad news that we’ve all been seeing lately: mass layoffs, publishers closing up, funding running dry, budget cuts across the board, and loads more I’ve likely forgotten. I’ve also been heavily affected. My revenue from Coverage Bot started going in reverse, and has dropped over 30% in the past 5 months. Cue existential panic! So alongside these new product/feature announcements, I am also asking for your help, if you are in a position to do so. Press Kitty is still a completely free service, but it now has a few extras for Plus supporters. Multi-language Press Kits 🌍 You can now add a second language to your press kits – this is free for everyone. If English isn’t your first language, I recommend doing this for your native tongue: this will help communicate your game/message in your domestic markets, e.g. for local press/creators. With Plus, you can now add as many languages as you like! (To be completely honest, I’d like to remove this restriction in the future and truly level the playing field here, but as above, I have to balance staying alive and keeping things running…) Massive thanks to members of the community who have contributed translations: German: @PixelProphecy French: Evian from @eternal_twin Dutch: @MrPeanutBelly Ukrainian: @Rayfulrand from unlocteam.com Croatian: @CrucialUpdat3 Japanese: @cuz_traveller from @StudioAsahiDev Simplified Chinese: @RickWePlay Polish: @MichalGem Please be sure to check out their projects, studios or services too. And if you’re able to localise to any other languages not listed here, please hit reply and reach out! Custom Domain Support 🔗 With Plus, you can now set up your press kits on your own domain / subdomain. This provides an extra layer of professionalism and credibility to your brand, as well as a few extra SEO-related benefits. I’ve set one up as an example for my old studio here, but keen to receive feedback and keep progress going! Dark Mode 🌚 A few folks asked about press kit customisation options, and this is the first step on that path. More font and colour options will be made available soon! PSD Support 🍰 This isn’t technically a Plus feature, I just forgot to announce it, ha! I want to make sure that creators get everything they need from you to play and promote your games, and layered thumbnail templates are really helpful time-savers for that, so here you go. It’s a freebie! Increased Limits 🚀 If you support the project with Plus, you’ll have your Press Kit limit increased from 4 to 10, and your Cloud Storage limit increased from 100MB to 1GB. You’ll also be able to upload large assets up to 50MB each. There’s still a lot to smooth out; from improved onboarding, image gallery views, pdf export options, and other remaining feature requests from a survey I sent out last November, not to mention Coverage Bot updates (saved for a future post). I’ll keep doing my best to support you where I can, and I only ask for a little help in return. How much? 🏷️ Press Kitty: Plus will be ordinarily $9 / €9 / £8 monthly or $90 / €90 / £80 annually for two months free, but as an early supporter, here’s a code for 25% off for life, redeemable until May 1st: PLUSFORLIFE If you’re headed to GDC next week, please think of me and consider spreading the word. I won’t be there unfortunately, but my calendar is open for anyone for the week and the week after, whether you’d like to chat for the first time or it’s long over-due: calendly.com/ashleygwinnell… I think that’s everything from me. I hope to strike the line between “amazingly free” and “even better with your support”, or “simplified perfection for indies” and “advanced greatness for established outfits”. You can find Press Kitty – along with some reviews and example press kits – here: impress.games/press-kitty Please share! Best wishes, many thanks, and onwards! Ashley

@studioanisa This is such a common occurrence at cons in general. The same thing happens to streamers at TwitchCon. When I was an affiliate I had someone look at my badge and walk away from me… same company that tried to work with me after I hit partner. It’s gross behavior

SUMMERHOUSE, my tiny game about building sunny houses is out now on Steam and currently still in launch discount! Give it a try if you're looking for a little interactive reminder that Sumer exists 💙🌻 s.team/a/2533960 #indiegame

I can only imagine the way this could help game artists!

We have been on a roguelike deckbuilder kick for a few months now. Some of our favorites have been: Balatro Spellrogue Cobalt Core And so many more of the older classics. What’s the genre you’ve got yourself invested in right now?

And if you found us through the post that went a little viral about the dev complaining that he has to fix his own bugs.. Welcome! I’m @CrevLMTV an indie game lover and very slow indie dev. I’m studying game design, development, and sound design as well as a streamer!

We love indie devs. But we will not support devs who are blatantly arrogant, complain about consumers, or blame game bugs on other people. It’s not unconditional. There are crappy people in this space. We, however, will uplift the good ones.

@ParaDymeTV Hey that’s what we’re here for!

@StrongIndies Holy crap, what a great find! I pride myself on being on top of this stuff but I def hadn’t seen this one! 👏👏👏 Thanks!

It’s Free Game Friday! Finished no-lifeing FF7 Rebirth? Well we’ve got a treat for you! For our action roguelike fans out there: Ruindog: Prologue buff.ly/3SUbBBa Alien hunts have returned and it’s your mission to push them back. Build and upgrade to take on more maps!

@rhysmorgan @pixeltroid1 It is your responsibility that when a bug arises that you fix it. If you want your game to succeed. No one wants something broken. And it’s not just one person. So 🤷🏼‍♀️

So Steam hasn't approved my game because apparently the game crashes if controller is disconnected mid-game. Game works fine under normal circumstances. Why am I responsible if it crashes when players do unusual things like unplugging controller mid-game? #gamedev #IndieGameDev

@pixeltroid1 Your game crashing when a controller is removed? It’s literally right there in black and white. If it’s repeatable by more than one user it’s an issue with your code. And it doesn’t matter if it works fine on your system.

@StrongIndies What bugs? The game works under normal conditions. I've run the exe without Steam and unplugged the controller several times without crashing it. But I'm being told it crashes when the same is done while running on Steam. So why assume that the issue is stemming from the game?

@AlexMonfortfer1 This is so vibrant and colorful! Thank you for sharing!

@StrongIndies Hi I'm Ofihombre, and I'm the developer of the game #RandyandManilla. Will soon available on steam in #EarlyAccess #wishlistwednesday x.com/AlexMonfortfer…

Happy #wishlistwednesday to all of our favorite #indiedevs what are you working on? ❤️ - Like 🔁 - Share ✍️ - Comment And don’t forget to follow us for more indie celebration!

@SORDeckbuilder You know we have been on a big roguelike deckbuilder kick recently haha! Looks awesome thanks for sharing

@StrongIndies Thanks for Hosting! x.com/SORDeckbuilder…