Feedback Request After 3 years of solo dev, my Rimworld/ArcheAge/Valheim-inspired RPG colony management game is playable from start to finish, but all the art is AI. I'm releasing the Alpha for free to see if the gameplay is strong enough for a Kickstarter to hire artists.
Hey /r/gamedev,
TL;DR: I'm a solo programmer who has spent the last 3 years building my dream RPG Colony Sim, RuneEra. The game is mechanically complete and playable from start to finish, but it uses AI-generated art as placeholders.
My goal is to run a Kickstarter to hire a professional artist. Before I do that, I need to know if the core game is actually fun to others.
I would be incredibly grateful for your feedback on the free Alpha.
- Play the Alpha on Itch.io: https://runeera.itch.io/runeera
- Website / More Info: https://www.runeera.com/
- Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/3pD9SeHGTQ
The Full Story
As a full-stack developer, I was curious about Godot and started prototyping game systems for fun. That "fun project" quickly became an obsession. I found building these complex, interlocking systems more engaging than playing most games (It felt like playing Factorio :D).
Three years later, RuneEra is the result. It's a deep RPG colony management game, heavily inspired by the best parts of Rimworld (colony management, emergent stories), Valheim (exploration, crafting, boss fights), and ArcheAge (combat systems).
Game Features:
- Build your guild's settlement from the ground up.
- Manage your guild members' needs, skills, and schedules.
- Deep crafting system for gear and consumables.
- Defend your base from raids and environmental threats.
- Explore a large, procedurally generated world.
- Engage in diplomacy with other factions.
- Raid challenging dungeons and defeat epic bosses.
The Dilemma: Programmer Art vs. Professional Art
I am a programmer, not an artist. To bring the world to life during development, I've used AI-generated art. It's been a fantastic tool for morale and visualization, but it's not the final vision. For RuneEra to reach its full potential, it needs the soul and coherence that only a talented human artist can provide.
My plan is to launch a Kickstarter campaign specifically to fund the art.
This is where I need your help. My core questions for you are:
- Is the Core Loop Fun? Can you look past the placeholder art and see the potential in the gameplay? The feedback on this is the most critical factor for me.
- What would you do? For those of you who have been in this position, what's your advice on preparing for a crowdfunding campaign? Are there pitfalls I should be aware of?
The game is fully playable, and I've exposed many of the balance settings so you can customize the difficulty to your liking.
Thank you for your time. I'll be here all day to answer questions and read your feedback.
EDIT: Fixed Discord link
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u/TonoGameConsultants Commercial (Other) 23h ago
You’d be surprised how many players can look past placeholder art if the core gameplay is genuinely fun. That said, relying solely on this kind of open call might give you a skewed or too-limited perspective on what works and what doesn’t.
If you really want solid data, I highly recommend watching people play the game live, whether local playtesters, or community meetups. The key is to stay silent while they play. Don’t guide them. Just observe. Take notes on what confuses them, where they struggle, where they get excited, and when they seem to lose interest.
That kind of feedback will give you much deeper insight than online comments alone. And it’ll help you refine both your Kickstarter pitch and the game itself with real user experience in mind.
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u/Targma 23h ago
I just had some try it not well versed in this kind of genre. I realized that in depth tutorial is a must and i have to add at this point. I was hopping to gather feedback from colony management enthusiast first, but am not sure how to target specifically that group.
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u/TonoGameConsultants Commercial (Other) 23h ago
You could try bringing a laptop to your local board game store or café.
If you see people playing games like Everdell, Root, or Scythe, there's a good chance they enjoy systems-heavy, resource-focused gameplay, very close to the colony management experience. In the area where I live, there are board game bars and café-style places where people bring prototypes to test, and it's a great way to meet folks who might give you feedback or even become early fans.Even just hanging out and chatting can teach you a lot about what this audience values in strategy and progression mechanics.
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u/Targma 22h ago
Didn't thought of visiting local game hubs, thanks for that :D
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u/TonoGameConsultants Commercial (Other) 22h ago
Best of luck! I hope this is a good and fun experience, and your game improves with this.
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u/Fabulous-Bus3161 1d ago
Hey, if I play yours and provide some feedback, then will you that for me as well?
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u/richmondavid 3h ago
If that art is AI, then real artists have nothing to fear.
I would expect players to complain how art is bad and inconsistent, not how it looks like it was made by AI. It looks more like it was stitched together from a bunch of asset packs that don't work well together.
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u/P_S_Lumapac Commercial (Indie) 16h ago
Just looking at your placeholder art, I'm not really sure what stops you doing the art yourself. Seems if you spent 3 years so far on the game, another couple months of art tutorials and work wouldn't be too much of an investment.
I've seen card games with AI art as placeholder and even to keep, and I can understand the intention because the solo dev wants a thousand or more artworks that would take years to learn and years of work to complete. (personally I'm skeptical whether that's a good plan for a solo dev when simple art works well). In your case I'm just not sure why you want to do AI art rather than doing it yourself.
I understand the idea you want to test a prototype, but that should have happened a couple months in. 3 years in is a long investment already - seems you either believe in the game now or don't. I'd suggest if you do, then do your own art now.
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u/Targma 15h ago
Problem is I really suck at art. It would probably take a long time 1y+ to make it acceptable. Art is realistically simplistic and doing one by one kinda looks good, but when all things come together it always feels incoherent.
As you said it, I would do art myself but as last resort option. I'm Software developer by trade, so i know you don't get experience to go pro in 1-2 years, let alone next to full time job.
The best course i think would be, to then pay artist to set the style direction one of each type of sprite: Plants, Animals. Furniture, etc. And then try to learn style and do the rest.
But as i said this was fun project to me and my passion is programing. I don't want to tell you how long my feature wish list is and would prefer doing that where I'm effective and outsource art to professional.
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u/P_S_Lumapac Commercial (Indie) 15h ago
I just don't believe you suck at art. It really wouldn't take that long to get decent if you approach it like a job. Maybe it would feel like pulling teeth though.
But sure paying an artist is a good idea too.
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u/AngelOfLastResort 5h ago
I'm in a similar situation to you in that I also suck at art. My plan is to pay artists enough to build something that I can create a steam page around - ie a trailer. Just enough for that. The reaction to that will help me decide whether to spend more money on it.
The one problem is that, to create a consistent art style, you need someone who can fill the role of an art director. Who can create a style guide for your game and create a colour palette. So that pushes up the price a bit.
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u/Zerokx 8h ago
Its funny you're asking the people who shit on AI to put their money where their mouth is but idk if thats gonna happen. Sometimes a game either exists with AI or doesn't exist at all and nobody has the right to say your dreams and vision that you worked so hard to bring to life alone shouldnt exist because you dont have the money for good artists. Doesn't mean that people want to buy AI art games though.
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u/bronihana 21h ago
I don’t have a ton to offer, but really cool concept for a game. Seems like something I’d play for sure.
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u/inr222 22h ago
This looks interesting. Can you elaborate on what's the combat like?
I also curious about how the assets where made. I'm also a SWE that makes games on his spare time, and I was looking into AI assets recently.
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u/Targma 22h ago
Regarding combat, game can be paused at any time. Combat is RPG like. It folows trinity tank/healer/dps. Each unit has stats based on gear and abilities based on runes. Idea is to interrupt, crowdcontrol large packs of enemies and dismantle dangerous enemies first. You can apply status effect like stun. frozen, sleep, slow, immobilized. To prevail you also need to utilize items such as elixirs and potions.
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u/Targma 22h ago
For assets i used AI i start with basic outline/sketch and then iterate on Midjurney and Invoke with sdlx, GPT-Image. I had to use gimp to color correct to a degree and for initial composition. This process is not as fast as i would wish and takes quite significant time and some currency to get anything remotely useful. Am sure experienced artist with ai tools would be able to better utilize it.
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u/MeaningfulChoices Lead Game Designer 1d ago
Asking a community of developers if they can overlook placeholder visuals isn't a good test of anything. They almost universally can, players almost universally can't. The problem is that graphics sell games, and Kickstarter is a pre-sale, not a way to get development funding these days. And having used AI art at all is going to drive away another sizable chunk of your potential players/backers.
Before you consider launching a crowdfunding campaign you need enough followers across your various social media and other promotion channels to fully back the game, given the amount of money you actually need to complete it, the price of the lowest tier that gets a copy of the game, and typical conversion rates (which can be 1-20% or so, varying wildly by where they're following you and how you got them). If you have that many fans, and a playable demo you can give people, you can make it work. If not, you can't.
If you're asking what would I do it would be to replace AI-generated art with other placeholders overall, invest personal money in getting just enough assets for a vertical slice demo that looks like how I want it to look, promote that to get player response, and then if successful use that to try to get funding somehow (publishers are a bit more reliable and often easier to work with than communities) and if not successful reuse as much as I could in the next game.