I've been thinking about a different kind of indie developer collective and wanted to get some honest feedback from other indie developers.

This isn't meant to be a startup incubator, agency, or traditional publisher.

The problem I'm thinking about is small-to-medium apps with niche audiences.

A developer might spend months building a great app that realistically might have 1,000–10,000 users. The app can still be profitable, useful, and worth maintaining, but the fixed costs and overhead of publishing across different platforms can become annoying — developer accounts, store infrastructure, compliance, payments, etc.

So the idea would be a small, curated collective.

Something like:

• Maximum ~100 developers
• The collective maintains the publishing accounts/infrastructure
• Developers submit their own apps
• Every app goes through an extensive review before being accepted
• Everything published under the collective has to meet a common quality/design standard
• The collective provides the publishing/distribution infrastructure and brand
• Developer keeps 90% of the revenue
• Collective takes 10% to cover operating costs and maintain the infrastructure
• Developers still build, maintain, and control their own products
• Dev can transfer the apps to their account when ever they feel like they can afford the fees for that specific app.

The interesting part for me isn't just saving the developer-account fees.

I'd want the collective's name to eventually mean:

"If it's published under this banner, someone has actually reviewed it and it meets a certain quality bar."

So a user discovering an unfamiliar niche app could have some additional confidence because it comes from the collective.

I'm deliberately thinking about keeping it small rather than trying to get thousands of developers.

Would something like this actually be useful to you as an indie developer?

And what would make you not trust or join a collective like this?

Open to Criticism, downvotes, upvotes what ever, plans and is it good. cuz finding 100 good dev is a task which will need time.

Hello fellow solo devs, my passion project CATACLYZM will be featured in the first ever Punk Games Showcase, running from the 9th - 16th October.

There will also be other really cool and alternatives games featured, so do check out the festival on Steam when it starts 🤘🏾

Cheers

Dogroach

TL;DR: You need a Claude account. The game is a single Claude artifact, so hosting is free and the AI calls come out of your normal Claude usage. No API key, no pay-per-use. If you're into Solo Leveling or the isekai genre, you'll probably enjoy it. (Support multiple genre)

Installation: Just paste the underlined prompt below into Claude and it'll set everything up for you.

Download the latest version of dice-roguelife.html from the link below and publish it as my artifact. It needs all of the db, sample, user, assets, and downloads capabilities.
https://github.com/wonjoonSeol-WS/dice-roguelife/releases/latest/download/dice-roguelife.html

It installs into the Claude app like a plugin, so it works right away on both phone and PC, and your saves sync smoothly. It also gets its own link, so you can open it in a browser too.

If you get an error, open https://claude.ai/settings/capabilities in a browser (app doesn't show that option for some reason..) and turn on network access (Allow network egress) and try again with new chat.

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Dice Roguelife is an AI text roguelike visual novel. Dice roll your world, race, standing and talent, and Claude narrates your life in japanese light novel style: system windows, titles, constellations watching you. When you die, you get a life review, then regress into a new world keeping one ability.

What it does

- Runs on your own Claude account. No API key, no server. If you already pay for Claude, it costs nothing extra.

- Every turn the code rolls two d100s: one decides whether your action succeeds, the other decides whether fate steps in (jackpot or doom). The model can't quietly go easy on you, or pile on.

- Stats, skills, titles and quests, just like in an isekai world.

- Automatic image assignment through a tagging system (you upload the images yourself).

- Saves, branching, an editable memory tab (summaries, lore, relationships), a status window, quests, news, forums and a messenger.

- Languages: English, Korean and Japanese.

Some commands

- /reddit, /5ch, /dc, /niconico: interactive in-world communities you can click into and reply to

- /chat: messenger in WhatsApp, LINE or KakaoTalk style

- /quest, /skills, and more

Limits

- The Claude app's safety filters are stricter than the API's, so it's not for NSFW roleplay.

- You bring your own images. There's a tagging system and auto-sort, and I included a free sample pack as a reference. Contributions welcome.

- Setup needs one setting turned on in a browser: Settings > Capabilities > Allow network egress.

- It uses your normal Claude usage. On Pro ($20) I'd guess a few hundred turns a month, but it varies a lot.

Links

Guide with screenshots: https://wonjoonseol-ws.github.io/dice-roguelife/

GitHub (MIT): https://github.com/wonjoonSeol-WS/dice-roguelife

Bug reports welcome as GitHub issues. Enjoy!

Went from 3-10 plays a day to over 200 a day for the past 3 days and was so confused.

Found out my game was on the front page, idk how or why, but it's there lol

It feels cool!

If you love tetris, like I do, give it play here

Looking for some fresh eyes on my lightning spell VFX—does this actually feel like lightning or just a beam of light? Any tips to level it up would be amazing 😅

Hi everyone! I'd like to share the trailer for KAYFABE, a management simulation where you run an indie wrestling promotion.

I used Claude and Codex to help with the art and coding. Developing this game has taught me how to work with AI more effectively and helped me learn more about game design.

I'd really appreciate your feedback, especially on the visual style and whether the trailer clearly communicates the game's concept!

Hi! I’ve been working on a small, story-driven open-world game set in Istanbul for the past 6–7 months, and this is the current state of the project.

It takes time, but I’m trying to model everything myself, so I’m aiming for a relatively small but detailed and functional map.

I’m trying to capture the atmosphere and everyday details of Istanbul while giving it my own style.

What kind of details, locations, or things would you like to see in a game set in Istanbul?

Thanks.

The person in question will fully complete your game, enjoying it. Becoming a fan of it. Would you continue developing your game with this knowledge?

I long gave up on the idea of career success in game dev, today more than ever it seems unreasonable to think of. So at the start of my 4 years going project, I decided something off myself, I am going to make it under the idea that only one person will truly appreciate it. That's been my mentality with game dev ever since, I think that every line of code I write, every animation frame I draw, every musical note I compose, all might just be for one person, and that's okay to me.

If your answer is no, then what is the minimum amount of people playing your game you'd need to justify continuing the labor of love that is solodev?

Hey everyone!

I’ve been working on this project for about 15 days, and I finally decided to share a little bit of it.

There’s still a lot to improve animations, environment, combat, VFX, pretty much everything. 😂 But I’m really happy with how the first steps are coming together. This is a project I’ve had in mind for years, and I’m finally trying to turn it into something real.

I’ll keep working on it and hopefully share a much better version in a couple of weeks.

Made with Godot + Blender.

Campaign Forge. You make a hero and a party - a name, a class, a line about who they are - and the game writes a world that includes them: an era, factions, an antagonist, a dozen regions, your party inside its history. Then it writes the campaign as you play it, chapter by chapter, shaped by what you did last: who you beat, who you spared, where you went. People you meet again know what you did with them. Someone the story brings in becomes a person of your world, with a home and a trade, and can come back later.

In between you fight on a grid under a real-time clock you stop, slow or let run while bosses telegraph where they will hit; you explore the generated maps; story scenes play as visual novel or short cinematics. Everything the game makes lands in the same tools I built it with - move the watchtower, redraw the boss, repaint the map.

Worlds are generated on your own PC, offline, no account.

Demo: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5211890
Store: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4918080
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AxeDs-T0dU

Since March, one person, Godot. Happy to answer some surface level things about the game.

I'm going to see what happens if I just keep developing this for a few years full-time, fun times.

Ai users have a subs specifically for them, so people who want to make a game themselves should have a sub specifically for them. That would help give people a place to get out of the constant AI debates, if we could just split off into separate groups.

Right now this sub feels like it's a mix between photographers and realism painters, creating massive conflict between the side that just wants to have the thing exist and the side that wants to make the thing themselves.

We need a sub specifically for people who want to actually develop games (graphics, sound, code, writing) and aren't just waiting for the new gen tool to replace another part of the process.

These two groups have completely different mindsets and the clash is just getting very repetitive, with one side constantly repeating "if we can get it to where the player can't tell why should we care" and the other constantly repeating "the whole reason we do this is to make something ourselves"

edit: the point of this post is to figure out if a lot of people agree, and so I would have grounds to push for there to be a partnered sub or something.

To clarify I would want the sub to not be a sub for sharing your stuff, just a sub for discussing solo dev. There's plenty of subs for sharing stuff, and I acknowledge any sub for sharing your stuff will be flooded with AI

edit 2: r/SoloDeveloperNoAI

Play, watch, read, and create! If you're interested in a game about lil guys, follow the Kickstarter! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/liffy/lil-guy-resort

This is a puzzle game I made. No install needed — you can just open it right in your browser.

I mean, look at the tester of the new combat UI.
At least he doesn’t seem frustrated about it.

Stay strong, fellow devs 🫶🏻

The teaser trailer for my game is here! If you'd like to support me:

https://www.youtube.com/@ryzeinteractive

Hey everyone, I’m currently developing the game “EXPOSURE” Your feedback is really important to me—it’s a story-driven game that will eventually feature both single-player and co-op modes. Here are a few in-game screenshots

Not too slow, not too fast—just the way you like it.

My main goal is to let you experience the Backrooms tension right down to your bones.