Steam Demos Are the New Early Access

This is a conversation with the Australian game developer Tommy, co-creator of the tower defense game Gnomes. Thy made it in a custom Rust Engine with just 10 months of time and 0$ marketing budget. It looks like a game anyone could make, but is it? I was curious to learn more. Links to my Guests ➤ Gnomes on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/31... ➤ Sea of Survivors on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/23... Listen to the podcast on the go (Spotify, Apple Podcasts, etc.): ➤ https://tyrollerjonas.podbean.com/ 0:00 - Intro 2:29 - Prototyping, Timeline, Demo 6:11 - Next Fest, Early Marketing Wins 8:25 - Early Access and Launch Strategy 12:23 - Switching Teams, Going Solo, Moving to Godot 15:06 - 3D vs 2D: Marketing and Development 22:11 - Solo vs Team Trade-Offs, Is it Luck? 29:16 - Roles, Content Pipeline, Localization 35:05 - Core Loop: Moveable Towers, Guilds, Shop, Endless 38:49 - Game Design: Economy vs Defense 41:45 - Difficulty, Guild Matchups, Swamp Map, RNG, Power Fantasy 47:03 - UX-First Design: Minimal Tutorial, One-Hand UI, Juice, Pacing 52:59 - Constraints, Limits Shaping Design 56:05 - Marketing: Go Narrow/Deep, Reddit, Creators Timing 1:03:20 - Fulfilling Fantasies, Don’t Chase Trends 1:11:18 - Designing Doable but Deep 1:20:49 - Regrets and Post-Launch Changes 1:30:43 - Cheat Mode, Jank, and Nostalgia 1:31:59 - Copycats on Mobile: Kingshot 1:34:29 - Mobile vs Steam and Why Gnomes Isn’t on Mobile 1:39:27 - Life Changes, Workflow, and Team Plans 1:42:32 - Generalists, Triple Threat, and the Coming AI Era 1:48:44 - Nostalgia Sells; You Only Need the Crumbs 1:50:29 - Solo vs Team Itch; Don’t Engine-Shop 1:52:02 - Do You Have to Suffer for your Art? 1:54:20 - Godot Navmesh, Sunk Cost, State Machines 1:55:16 - Trailer-First, Vertical Slice, and Variable Scope 1:57:08 - Testing Appeal: Playtests vs Trailers and Honest Feedback 2:00:30 - Appeal-First vs Gameplay-First 2:04:47 - Build a Playtest Community; Observe Actions, Not Words 2:08:46 - 500 Testers, Steam Playtest vs Keys, Superfans 2:12:40 - First-Time Players Are Gold; Demos and the First 15 Minutes 2:17:40 - Treat Your Demo Like a Launch 2:18:36 - There is a Playbook and a Splash of Luck 2:20:07 - Outro My game "Thronefall": ➤ Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/22... ➤ Discord:   / discord   ➤ Nintendo Switch: https://www.nintendo.com/en-gb/Games/... My game "Will You Snail": ➤ Play Will You Snail on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/11... ➤ Join the Will You Snail Discord:   / discord   For the game developers among you: ➤ Join our creative game dev community on Discord:   / discord