It's been a little over a week since we launched Feed the Scorchpot . I'm over the moon that so many people have bought the game and are having a blast playing it. We've sold over 16,000 copies at the time of writing this. That's just an incredible number. Huge thanks to everyone - you can't imagine how much it all means to me (and really, to all of us involved!). So, what's ahead of us? I've g…
Every indie dev faces the same challenge - you have to wear so many hats at the same time: programmer hat, artist hat, designer hat, marketing hat, and many more. My wife and I were lucky that we had most of these hats covered between the two of us. We gladly offloaded the marketing to our amazing publisher, but there was still one other hat that didn’t quite fit. Music was never my strong suit…
I have no idea where all the time went. It feels like only yesterday I came up with the idea of making a game about feeding a dragon, and now it's suddenly almost ready. There are only a few last tweaks and fixes left on my to-do list. I've been busy polishing everything into something I can truly be proud of. I've also built on the previous big addition - the Codex - and added Statistics and T…
Alright, Steam Next Fest is over, and I'm quite happy with how we did. Our game attracted quite a few new players, and the reception was great! Seeing how much new players enjoyed the demo, I can't wait to show you the whole thing... which brings me to the release date ! Feed the Scorchpot will officially launch on Steam on August 20th . Less than two months away! That's both scary and exciting…
The Dragon is hungry, and we want to see how you feed him. To celebrate Steam Next Fest, we're giving away 10 launch keys for Feed the Scorchpot. Here's how to grab one : · Play the demo and reach at least year 20. · Screenshot your end screen (any score counts). Big, small, gloriously terrible, we don't care. We just want to see you fed the dragon. · Post your screenshot in one of these spots:…
Wow, it’s been a month since the last update. Time for another one. We’ve been busy, to say the least. A lot of planned features have now made their way into the game. I’m especially happy with the new rare dice , they change the gameplay quite a bit. Chiseling their faces to make them more consistent and reliable has turned out to be a really fun mechanic. The biggest feature I’m currently wor…
Probably most surprising thing about making a game for me was how hard it is to make a good tutorial. I knew about many of the pitfalls of game dev, but introducing new players to the game has been quite a challenge. The old tutorial still managed to bring a lot people to the game, so it did it's job. But after a lot of feedback and watching new players learn the game live, I’ve decided to comp…
I first came up with the idea for a board game-inspired roguelite last winter, but it wasn’t until April that I made it my main project. So, about a year… and I still have a hard time believing how far we’ve come. What a journey! Now the demo is out for everyone to try, and a dedicated community of testers is already sinking hours into finding new ways to feed the dragon. The game is here, and…
This update took a while, but it was worth it. There’s a lot of new stuff: new visuals, new sounds, quality-of-life improvements, balance changes, bug fixes, new dice, and more. Also good news for those who sank dozens of hours into the old demo: there are now three new seeds to play. The changes made the old seeds less fun than I would have liked, so I replaced them with new ones. Don’t worry,…
Demo Success – Thank You! It’s been over a month since the demo dropped, and I’m really happy with how it went. More than 3,500 people have played the demo so far, and some of you have sunk many, many hours into it. I’ve gathered a lot of great feedback and I’m already using it to improve the game. My plan is to release a big demo update later this spring , adding a lot of quality-of-life impro…
The Feed the Scorchpot demo has been live for over a week, and I’m really happy to see so many people playing and enjoying the game. Some players have already surpassed what I thought was possible in the demo. I even saw someone reach Year 46. In just a few days, we gathered a lot of great feedback, which gave me a much clearer idea of what to focus on next. There is always more accessibility w…
I have been teasing the demo for a while, and the day is finally here. Surprisingly, right on schedule. You can jump in and play the game right now. Even though this is just a demo, it offers several hours of board-building gameplay. In the full release, each run will be generated from a random seed. For the demo, I hand-picked several seeds to showcase different gameplay scenarios, but you are…
This update took a bit longer than intended, but there was a reason for it (apart from just taking a break over Christmas). Well… Dragon Fodder is no more! dramatic pause Yeah. As it turns out, out of all the names I could have picked for the game, I went with one that was already taken. Even though I researched the name before committing to it a year ago, I missed a point-and-click adventure c…
This post will probably feel trivial to a lot of people, but for me, learning how to get a game to feel right was possibly the biggest “aha” moment in my gamedev journey. Before I delved into game development, I honestly didn’t think about games outside the context of which genres I liked, which visual styles appealed to me, and how many hours of gameplay they offered. Now I realize how much mo…
One of the reasons I picked up game dev was my years of being a dungeon master in Dungeons and Dragons. I always made my own campaigns, created entire worlds, and eventually our group even built an entirely new ruleset. After years of DMing I felt confident in my storytelling, crafting obscure and cryptic plots and weaving in philosophical, sociological, and psychological dilemmas. So I thought…
When I first came up with the idea for Dragon Fodder , it was supposed to be a small game – just a few months of development before moving on to something bigger. I wanted to finish a smaller project before committing to a larger one. I sat down and designed the core mechanics in a few days. The first prototype was done over a weekend. That was back in February. The plan was to have the game on…
I didn’t expect to be writing this announcement so soon – just one month after revealing Dragon Fodder! It still feels unreal. Originally, my plan was to dive headfirst into promotion: posting on social media, trying to look like a cool indie dev – the usual routine. But once I got in touch with a publisher, my priorities shifted. I realized that if I could deliver a polished, fun alpha build,…
It’s the first of September, and I can finally show off a game I’ve been working on for several months – this time with my amazing wife and her lovely art style. Now the time has come to feed the DRAGON! I was originally hoping to have the Steam page ready by June, then by the end of July… but the extra polishing has been so worth it. I love all the subtle touches, even if most people won’t not…
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Announcements are the developer’s own posts to the game’s Steam news feed: updates and their patch notes, in-game events, releases and sales. The important ones are marked on the players chart.