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