itch.io

Insomniacs: Get Some Sleep

“The mechanic is that you fall asleep in a couple of minutes, repeating this cycle as you unravel the mystery of what is causing the insomnia and how you can put your anxieties to rest.” Falling asleep over and over makes Insomniacs: Get some sleep a new take on the survival genre.

https://theappreciativeminimalist.itch.io/insomniacs-get-some-sleep

Soulshape

Soulshape is a puzzle platformer game where you control a little ghost that can shapeshift between Tetris pieces.
Your goal is to bring the shape into the dotted spot.

https://havana24.itch.io/soulshape

There are a couple of YouTube videos on the GDC YouTube channel that discusses Discord and how to use it to create a dedicated community before game release. One is called Game Discoverability Day: Building a Community for Your Game from Scratch presented by Mike Rose. 

But, I think it depends on the goal of the creator and the game. If the goal is to create a dedicated fanbase for the game that's going to be excited about buying the game upon release, Discord might be a good option.

If you're more concerned about getting your game discovered by more people, I'm not sure if Discord is an effective place to do that. But, I haven't used Discord for the purpose of getting something discovered. I use Discord to motivate myself to work on projects or to communicate with friends to play multiplayer games.

I took a look at your page for 10 Days to Jupiter. Your page is organized in a professional way. Based on the images, the game looks polished. I love the last picture posted with the tree dressed in a jacket and sunglasses.

Thank you for your submission of manic shooters.

Thank you for sharing your submission. Based on the comments, it looks like a delightful puzzle game. I see that the game is labeled as color-blind friendly. Out of curiosity, how does this work? Is there a setting that changes the colors?

My name is PixLiz, the creator and sole contributor of www.pixliz.com. I’m reaching out to the community asking for suggestions on the best pixel games in a variety of categories. 

The reason for this inquiry is because I’ll be creating a large article about the best pixel games by genre, console and platform (Examples: itch.io/steam/epic). 

These games may also get their own feature article on the website at a later date. Both articles will feature an itch.io affiliate code linking back to the game described.

The games suggested can be your own or somebody else's work. I’d prefer games that are posted on itch.io

If you wish to submit a suggestion, please respond to this post using the following template, filling in the bracket areas as appropriate:

[Game Title]

[A concise description, up to 3 sentences.]

Rating:[the rating of the game such as 5/5 as displayed on the game’s page]

Genre:[Examples: Atmospheric, Bitsy, Horror, Roguelite, Story Rich, Unique, etc.]

Console:[PC/Mac/Linux/IOS/Android]

If your game doesn’t fit neatly into a genre, I’m also looking for the best pixel games by game engine and price. If your game is unique to any other category, please type a concise summary of what makes it unique. An example of a unique game may be Perception by The Deep End Games due to its core mechanic using echolocation in order to reveal in-game objects.

**Please do not duplicate suggestions. Instead, like a suggestion that has already been posted and reply to it if you’d like to add more detail about the game suggested.**

Thank you for reading and your submissions. I’ll edit this post to say “Closed” when I have enough games. I’ll also change the post title to “Edited” if I need to look for more specific genres or other information as needed.

I played this one a while ago: From Next Door. A short game made for a jam with positive comments due to its excellent audio and atmosphere. 

Thank you for sharing your game and intimate story. Despite its simplicity, or perhaps its because of its simplicity, I found the experience gripping. I fell silent and couldn't stop playing until I got to The End. An enlightening and powerful story.

After playing the game, I searched for a link to your website as I had to know how the story ended after the last scene of the game. I'm glad to see the other projects you've made and been a part of. It was nice to be able to read the commentary surrounding the game like audience reception, the challenges and post-mortem. 

Some of the text animations reminded me of Twine Games. Twine is an open source tool used for creating interactive fiction/story games. I'm not sure how robust the system is for pictures, but I've seen some great games like Temple of No come out of it. But, Wayfarer by Idrelle Games on itch.io contains more visual assets.

Nice looking tileset. Looks well polished and clean. Thanks for sharing.

Thank you for taking the time to read and share your thoughts on the article. I value the feedback.

I agree. "Good news" and "Bad news" aren't very informative. I'll review these and brainstorm more appropriate titles.

Hello, I'm looking for people that might be interested in reading an article called What is Considered a Retro Game?.

The goal of the article is to help developers, and those interested, in understanding the differences between retro games, retro styled games and retrograde games.  Not only that, but to help explain how the general populace views these types of games and why.

I'm looking to see whether or not this article is valuable for developers. And if this article includes enough information.

Thank you for reading.

Great music! And the game works very well on my phone. Thank you for making this. I'm glad I get to play it.

I stumbled across this game while trying to find an app to play in my free time. I love the style. And, I appreciate the idle effects given to the characters rather than leaving them stagnant between movements. It's a nice touch of polish that I think adds to the overall experience.

I was wondering if I could make some things for the game on my website and YouTube. Such as reviews, let's plays and analyses. See, I'm on a mission to help gamers find free pixel art games. And I think this would be a great game to add to my mobile pixel art games list.

Thank you for making the game and for reading my comment.

Thanks for your response!

Thank you for your inquiry. At the moment, I'm concentrating solely on free pixel art games. Since Randy & Manilla is a mixture of 3-D and pixel art, I won't be making content for the game at this time.

Thanks for reading and replying.

Thank you for reading and your feedback. :)

Thank you for reading and your reply.

Thank you for taking the time to read it and your feedback. I really appreciate it.

I did some research into this question taking into account modern pixel art games like Owlboy and Octopath Traveler. But, I'm not sure if I explained everything well enough or made it interesting enough. The goal was to help people understand what pixel art is in video games and how game developers can push the medium as technology advances.

If you're interested, would you help me by reading my article? And let me know what you think?

https://www.pixliz.com/post/what-is-considered-pixel-art

Please let me know if this topic isn't appropriate for the General Discussion thread and I'll move it to the appropriate location.

Thank you for your permission. I'm very excited to make the videos. I'll have the videos posted in 2021 and send you the links. :)

Hey Mystic echodsassasa,

This thread was made with the intention of helping game developers as a youtuber and blogger. Not for self-promotion. Please, remove this comment. If you wish to contribute ideas to the thread, please do so.

However, if you want to contact Unitech through twitch whisper please private message me on twitch at pixlizgamer and I'll give you the info I have.

Hello. :D Great post idea.
There's a guy named Mike Rose who discusses this a bit. The most insightful thing I found in his talk is the value of building a community around a game and how that can help the game become more successful. 

Hello Casselwolf,

I found your game in a video on the splattercatgaming YouTube channel. But I wasn't sure if I wanted it. It stayed in the back of my mind  for months.

Then I stumbled across this demo. I ended up playing the demo for hours! Loved the game. And just bought it off of steam. Thanks for making and sharing the game. :D

Oops! Thanks for the correction and the tip.

Thank you for replying.

Ousama Plays looks like an interesting game. 

However, I was looking for some advice rather than a game submission. Like, I've had someone post that adding the names of the games and their developers on the video screen would be beneficial for helping gamers find the game.

Hello, Parenthesix.

I'm PixLiz. I'm on a mission to connect gamers to quality, free pixel art games. I'd like to make some videos on my channel about this game such as a let's play and review video with the intention of monetizing in the future. Am I allowed to make these kinds of videos with the game Unparallel?

Thank you for reading and for publishing this memorable puzzle game.

 Thank you for your reply.

But, I don't see how this helps to answer my question.

I'm looking to see if there's any kind of specific content developers are looking for that would help them. Or, if there are any kinds of techniques or specific practices I should take into account when making videos.

For instance, someone responded that it would be helpful to display the name of the game in my videos and the name of the creator. 

Although I'd appreciate a like, I don't want to exchange services for likes or watch time. I want to create content that earns those interactions from its consumers.

If you end up finding my content and liking it, please watch the video or skim the blog post all the way to the end. This is one of the things Google really values and rewards its content creators for achieving. 

Thank you for replying.

Asteroid Dodger looks like a cute game. Something that makes the images stand out from other games I've perused is the use of light surrounding the playable character and dangerous objects. 

I also see that you submitted it to the Spooky "Revival" Jam. I'd be curious to see what the others think of the lighting effects during the discord portion of the event.

Thank you for your patience. I've added the image to the article with the caption and link back to your DeviantArt page.

https://pixliz.com/pixliz-blog/f/why-do-indie-games-use-pixel-art

You may use it. However,  check the article every so often. I may be replacing images and captions over time. This is to keep the article looking fresh and to implement new SEO practices as they become relevant.

And thank you for reading. I appreciate it.

Oh wow!  The owl your wife helped with is so cute! And I love The Great Crystal Sword sprite.

I  really like your 8px Characters  design. I think that it would fit well either under the heading "Casual Gamer Accessibility" or "Less Problems to Optimize".

Here is the article: https://pixliz.com/pixliz-blog/f/why-do-indie-games-use-pixel-art

Would you mind if I changed the format of the image to be a long rectangle rather than a square?

Thanks for the response!

Do you have a portfolio of work I can look at?

Thank you.

I'm excited to watch Terra Nil develop. :D

Hello VFQD,

I mentioned your game in my article Why Do Indie Games Use Pixel Art. The reason is because of how tiny your game file is and how, even though it's still in development, it received over 300 five star reviews!

May I use an image from the itch.io page in the article? The image would contain a caption with a concise description, credit to the creator and link back to the itch.io page.

Thank you for sharing. This little guy is so cute! I want him as a plushie. :D

I wrote an article about Why Do Indie Games Use Pixel Art. In it I included your image, credit to you and a link that redirects back to this page.

If you don't desire to have the image or link included please notify me and I will remove it immediately. 

Thank you for sharing. I love the amount of detail that went into this.

I wrote an article about Why Do Indie Games Use Pixel Art. In it I included your image, credit to you and a link that redirects back to this page.

If you don't desire to have the image or link included please notify me and I will remove it immediately. 

Thank you for sharing. This image is beautiful and I love the color palette.

I wrote an article about Why Do Indie Games Use Pixel Art. In it I included your image, credit to you and a link that redirects back to this page.

If you don't desire to have the image or link included please notify me and I will remove it immediately. 

Thank you for sharing. I saw this after looking at the beautiful Paper Pixels pack. Love the colors in this one.

I wrote an article about Why Do Indie Games Use Pixel Art. In it I included your image, credit to you and a link that redirects back to this page.

If you don't desire to have the image or link included please notify me and I will remove it immediately. 

Thank you for sharing and making these available for free. I love these designs!

I wrote an article about Why Do Indie Games Use Pixel Art. In it I included your image, credit to you and a link that redirects back to this page.

If you don't desire to have the image or link included please notify me and I will remove it immediately.