Making a game about lil guys is fun and hard

Here's how my game started and how it's going. Let me know what you think!
Play the demo on the Discord: / discord
My other games: radnyx.itch.io/
Twitter: / radnyx
Tools used: Godot 4, VS Code, Aseprite, Audacity, FL Studio, Canva, Sony Vegas
Music used in video: pastebin.com/M...
#indiegames #cozygaming #gamedev

[@SnakPak]

If the king can't hear you, the crown should go all the way down onto his head

[@Bluecat-mi8]

fr

[@charley12241]

the ego is blocking his ears

[@SketchBookStudiosOfficial]

but hten he couldn't see either

[@aerithwoods1295]

​@@SketchBookStudiosOfficial the blind lil guy who is a coward but somehow a king

[@Warkan47]

I haven't played yet but i love to see the updates! Here are some ideas: -A forge to make armor and weapons for lil guys. -Gates that allow allies to enter your building. -Traps you can set that triggers when an enemy passes over it. -Useless decor to add a little bit of razzle dazzle to the base.

[@pestrusiariopaezmengoso2868]

I enjoy the razzle dazzle, good suggestions.

[@-TV8773]

I got like to 69

[@averagesnail]

I LOVE RAZZLE DAZZLE

[@Noah-td1tj]

YES!!

[@pixelzebra8440]

Omg I would play this to death if I could decorate everything

[@realitycleaver6754]

the little guys

[@DangerDurians]

o/

[@tenma8797]

“It’s just a little guy”

[@BananaBotanists]

Little Guys😊

[@SpiceLettuce]

so true

[@Hamdidittoo]

Lil guys

[@verysadcatc7897]

Is like you're controlling ants but is just a bunch of little dudes.

[@alex.g7317]

Reminds me of the ant game Lychee Games is making

[@PomuLeafEveryday]

Literally Pikmin

[@Sunrymoon]

You had on job, but you had to say little dudes and not guys

[@onebigsnowball]

looks at these little guys

[@gfj893]

I love the idea that this would be a chilled out party game where you and some friends mess around with your own little guys

[@BananaBotanists]

Yes

[@daffer_real]

add frogs so the little guys have friends, -the frog man

[@amphibiau]

the frogs are in agreement

[@cuddlecakes7153]

add ponies so that little guys have friends - a horse

[@frogman1]

agreement

[@pixelzebra8440]

And a zebra!

[@therealflorpepic]

Add a hampter so the little guys have transportation bc a horse would be too tall - a hampter

[@DougFromTheBayou]

I love the amount of personality youve managed to get these lil guys to display with so few frames of animation, amazing work!

[@PenguinjitsuX]

Pvp or co op multiplayer would be so cool for this! I imagine co op being easier to implement - rather than adding new features, friends can just multitask and have more over controlling smaller groups of units

[@BananaBotanists]

Yes

[@kartopod]

The section from 5:10 is so good! Incredible story telling, really enjoyed it!

[@kaasronald3623]

agreed

[@Knightly_Noob]

Idk how the game is going on but here is some ideas: 1-lil guy breakdowns (small group of lil guys in colony attacks each other for no reason) 2-archery,wizard and summoner soldiers (basically type of soldiers like archers do low damage but can shoot from distances wizards can heal or create explosions and summoners use crack pieces to summon tiny *not little* guys) 3-Ant attacks (ants loves what? candy so lil guys look like candy so you can make suprise attack from ants) 4-Bee Alliance (you can make some bee colonies in rock walls which you can steal eggs or give some crack pieces to a queen bee to get some eggs to help our lil guy castle) 5-some furniture (to get some good look on our bases like lamps or chairs and tables or some stuff) 6-guys (a not little guy you can make with bigger bakerys and it will be bigger and stronger but slower think like giants) 7-sacrifice (sacrificing lil guys to defeat monsters with power of gods like thunder bolts on enemies or a boulder falls on foes) 8-mud monsters (random mud puddles when a lil guy steps on it the mud turns into a mud lil guy) 9-turrets (some turrets getting controlled buy lil guys and uses pieces as ammo) 10-lanterns (lanterns to found colonys of foes and explore for more powerful and stronger resources) 11-forests (using wood for fire to make foes scared or attack a bit late and also for combat like burning clubs or arrows) 12-bait (using ham monster's meat to make monsters busy to eating the ham) 13-bob-ombs (putting bombs on little guys to make kamikaze attack or a enemie like in super mario) 14-Chess monsters (like rooks or bishops made out of rocks attack or move in a specific way) 15-disasters (earth quakes or lava pits stays for some time and get burned out and turn into a stone) 16-weather conditions (like stormy weather makes some of your lil guys blown away for couple seconds or rain which makes your lil guys wet and become slower) 17-weapons or tools (swords for better combat or pickaxes for better mining and hammers for faster building etc. etc.) 18-different enemies (bunny or flying enemies jumping or pass the walls) 19-colored enemies (foes that can be killed with only specific lil guy color or tool to kill but thay will be pretty slow to let the player catch the breath for think)

[@CrabO2]

These are great

[@ultimaxkom8728]

When imagination is the limit, the resources ceiling becomes ever clearer. Effort health time and money. Ofc, money can replace the other 3.

[@Owhousefan402]

Honesty fantastic ideas! Great job

[@tetracube5089]

A lot of these are in rimworld, which is probably good since this game is more focused on Colony-sim for now.

[@Knightly_Noob]

@@tetracube5089I didn't even play Rimworld

[@zxcvbnmjkilpopph]

0:07 lobter

[@Yawnmaster500]

0:07 lobter

[@SandiegoEden]

“He can’t hear you he’s got AirPods in” 😂😂😂

[@tadohara]

The art style is sooooo sooo good man, and this actually looks really fun, keen to see you work on this further!

[@mr_bob_brick]

dude, this game as POTENTIAL!!! mark my words, this is gonna be huge.

[@dang-xf3ri]

👆✅

[@Niftyturnip-]

. . .ive been in the mood for a chill city builder, THIS WILL BE PERFECT (also 100% if you can, add little hats the lil guys can wear :3)

[@drdrub]

This game looks sick! I love your breakdown, simplicity is everything. One thing I wonder is whether you should have to find ores for the little guy materials. Right now it seems like any walls will drop jiblets, which encourages hiding in place. Maybe ores would encourage riskier behavior - sending out crews of little guys into the unknown to search for some valuable deposits? It would also lead to players tunneling in straight lines to get the ore as efficiently as possible, which would lean into that ant farm aesthetic you’re rocking rn. But game looks absolutely amazing and charming. Very juicy!

[@mariovelez578]

This video made me smile almost the entire time! It’s so goofy and a really fun concept!

[@H3_remix]

I could see this being massive with a pvp mode, be it teams or just 1v1. (I as a developer realize that adds such an immense workload though) no matter what this looks incredibly interesting and I love the way you put this video together. It’s a combination of informative while being funny, and creative. Great work

[@brusatv7983]

I love the idea of a more casual colony sim. I feel like i always get way too overwhelmed when trying to play these kinds of games

[@ALHJ1997]

I've always dreamt of making my own little Rimworld/Dwaft Fortress because I feel that coding these types of games is as fun as playing them. I love the simplicity of this and yet I can imagine how much effort went into it, good job!

[@captainkawaii666]

Yeah, I've always wanted to make one of those myself

[@eliontheinternet3298]

I think it’s interesting that at first you said the game wasn’t intuitive, because it was combining multiple genres. I actually think some of the best games are created that way. I think your points towards the end were more informative: players weren’t just confused about what to spend their attention on. They were spending it on stuff they didn’t enjoy, and didn’t have time for the more fun parts of the game.

[@cassius_scrungoman]

i love this project, it's adorable! i noticed you going through something super similar to what I have constantly found myself facing while making videos: assuming every single aspect needs to be as engaging as physically possible, when realistically, people don't care that much. it's way too easy to overthink. as for the game itself, I think I would mainly just recommend thinking about some end goal to chase. i found colony Sims like rimworld and factorio post ending to be extremely easily to fall off of with no direction. this doesn't necessarily have to be a you win screen, even just end game resource sinks like, hear me out, Big Guys. but also probably a you win screen, too. :>

[@antonionii]

A video update!? Let's go! Radnyx is like that! I've been busy so I'm stoked you put this out so I can catch up. Still impressed by that moth you drew that one time lol

[@ReminiscingIs]

"What's that? Is something knocking? Good lord, they're in the walls!" - slayed me hahahaha

[@karlsundkvist6603]

would be fun if the enemies with different mentalities that you use to defend yourself. Like in maze scenario where the king is at the end, some enemies would take their time and walk through, maybe even sometimes going the wrong way, while some brute enemies would not care and try to bust the walls down to get there faster

[@justamicrowave5297]

You should add different types of candy like cookie crumbs or chocolate shards or something that can be used to make different buildings as well as different lil guys that specialize in different areas. For example, a cookie lil guy might be better at mining, so they’ll always be the first to act when you need something destroyed, and chocolate lil guys might be better at fighting, so whenever there are enemies they will be the first to act and deal more damage, or marshmallow lil guys which are faster so they’ll be the first to transport any materials, etc.

[@Mangaka718]

I recently got back onto my Rimworld kick, so this is RIGHT up my alley rn. The lil guy bakery keeps me hoping you'll continue to add or change things to make it distinct from the Rim, and the bouncy animations are sustaining my life force. sharing immediately with my other Rim-nerds, thank you

[@OliverPhythian]

i've watched so many devlogs in my time (and I'm not even a game developer myself) but this is far and away the best looking game i have ever seen an indie developer make on KZbin. i love the art style, the characteristics of the little guys to rush into battle, their facial features (mores so the lack of them). i've never played a game like this but when this releases I'll make sure i do

[@rappytap948]

Oh this is very cute ! It'd be neat to have mod support so we could turn the lil guys into mayhaps Ants or perhaps Patapons potentially

[@Crumba_Cakes]

Yooo, this looks awesome! One lil’ idea for the game could be that you can make different bakeries that produce different classes of lil’ guys, but could cost more or less to make depending on how good their roles are. Keep up the good work!

[@FloatingOer]

those little guys look like they need a few little doggos to keep them company

[@nanoalt8127]

I've had this in my feed for a week or so now, didn't expect such a good example of why friction is the key element of game design.

[@cxhuy]

I'm making a game with a bunch of little guys as well, and I can't express how much this video has helped me. My biggest question was how much automation the game needed, and I think I've found an answer now. Thank you!

[@BasicallyHollow]

The world needs more wee guy games, good work. Love to see good responses to feedback like this.

[@ŕíćéAvarice]

The most famous game in my country (Uruguay) is a tower defense, this game definitely has a lot of potential, I hope you are giving it a try with those little guys

[@grynte1]

LITTLE GUY! i feel what this game could need was little minigames that gives you some kind of resource or help or something, like a canon you have to load with a popup screen, an arcade mashine that gives you *tickets* for special buildings, and so on, looks like there could be some really cute popup minigame content for this!

[@SAKronikle]

Wow even from the early stages your game just oozes charm and polish. You've clearly been making games like this for a bit and it shows and is frankly inspiring. Easy subscribe from me!

[@igrb]

The way you go over the problems and how you approached them, even when not making the right decision is so good, amazing vid

[@piecanl]

This is very cute :-D I also love that you trust the player to make their own fun instead of having to hold their hand through the entire thing. The concept is simple to understand so it's also easy to get into the fun stuff!

[@olgasokolova5289]

Honestly the idea of work prioritization is a neat idea, one thing that could make it easier is a visual distinction between the little guys with assigned roles in the castle and ones without (which as someone who is NOT a programmer, that sounds like a lot of work ngl). This is such a cool looking game though. Reminds me of those lifesavers type candies.

[@tuckerkunkle9137]

“He’s got AirPods in” bro that montage was actually so funny 😂

[@thenumberIX]

I love the music choices in this video

[@jcola477]

Yo, a bunch of goofy little guys! A bunch of rambunctious little rascals!

[@ieatmud24]

they look like theyre made of chalk so i think itd be fun if little guys left (impermanent?) smears on the ground when they die. also classes? let guys put on a wizard hat and lob fireballs at monsters? probably a late-game feature, happening alongside the difficulty increase in enemies... and maybe sooner or later you just have a Constant Stream of bosses filtering in, just seeing how long the player can last. maybe a bit like balloon tower defense endless mode

[@gp8268]

Obsessed with this. Idk if "little guys" is a placeholder name but please never change it. It's perfect.

[@kanethedev]

The story telling is so fitting! Keep up the great work, man

[@monarchdrumandbass8700]

This is just so charming! What a great game! That Storytelling bit was magnificent!

[@quincykoala3309]

This game has so much potential holy moly

[@Connorses]

So there's a couple solutions to the problem. I like how the little guys decide for themselves who should do a job. It's like Dwarf Fortress, and Oxygen Not Included. The other example is an RTS like Age of Empires, where when you select some little guys, you don't have to choose a tool; you use the right mouse button to tell them what to do, such as "harvest this resource". And when they finish, they look for more of the same resource type nearby and harvest that. The guys you selected will keep harvesting until they can't find more nearby or your tell them to stop! Now I'm curious, will you be able to tell some of your little guys that they aren't allowed to do every type of job? What if someone wants a few guys to stand guard so that they are available at all times to fight off monsters?

[@migueldeclercq7535]

You could make a catapult building that can shoot lil guys and resources great distances and over walls, maybe even bombs as defense. I think this goofy transporter will fit the game and castle building theme.

[@nom6333]

This looks so cool. Its like the clay soldiers mod from old minecraft, very nostalgic. I hope you continue the project to add little clothes/armor and items.

[@Burger14]

I feel like there is so much potential in the is game. This feels like a beta version of what the full game could be. You should keep updating it!!!

[@haxtrad]

HOLY SHIT I'VE BEEN FOLLOWING THIS ON TWITTER FOR SO LONG THIS IS AWESOME DUDE!

[@HeavenPiercingDude]

I love this! It reminds me of the old clay soldiers Minecraft mod, which I've always adored. Maybe take some inspiration from that for updates, with armor and weapons made out of silly things like that!

[@ShawcatDev]

This game looks frikkin awesome. Can't wait to play!

[@calebmichael6433]

This is by far one of the best devlogs I have ever seen

[@H3_remix]

It always amazes me how much can be done with so little. I realize watching other developers that often my scope is far too broad. … all because I started with wanting to build a roguelite because I thought - naively - that it would be “easy”. Then realizing to make any good game is clearly not but fell in love with game dev because of these silly bugs and of course solving issues! That is the biggest hook for me. Coding is like a puzzle except the puzzle has a million ways it can be put together (and a million and ten ways it can’t be put together lol)

[@OdinWright]

this is the most inspiring video I've seen in a while lmfao. I love those little guys

[@damori3604]

This game looks absolutely stunning! I absolutely LOVE the style

[@slasher3428]

*Watching the video for 10 seconds and I immediately see it is an RTS survival game. Here have my appraisal* "ABSOLUTELY SUPERB WORK! MAGNIFICENT!"

[@johanwettergren]

“Forgotten in the back pocket of life. And then sat upon” - Radnyx, 2024

[@AnimatedGlitch]

I am already extremely interested in this game Big fan of the funky lil' guys

[@Scarlet-jq5gt]

The bugs you mentioned in the beginning felt more like funny little guys just being funnier little guys, the only thing I would add to this game is a little "nyeh" sound effect if they're being slowed down while moving through large crowds.

[@NickVS]

reminds me of the old clay man mod for Minecraft combined with Pikman, love it, I wanted a game like this in VR where you make the little guys out of clay

[@lordmegatron7263]

Clay soldiers?

[@hoonjig]

this was my first thought

[@FakeforFaith]

Minecraft clay soldiers

[@yanick0207]

Remember bothering my dad to help me install that mc mod such a longgg time ago haha

[@Terrahex1]

I can never escape the clay soldiers

[@Phyllean]

Yess!!

[@estebanalzate7609]

This has a ton of potential, I think it would add a ton to the game if the player cant see the complete map and instead needs little guys to look around, some guys could be kind of scouts to protect the sorroundings and there could be raids where a bunch of monsters come at once to fight

[@briandigiovanni6159]

One small change is that I think the king should have a little animation of giving orders like pointing and opening its mouth. Otherwise, it just standing there most of the time makes it feel like it could just be replaced by an inanimate object. To expand on this, you could have the little guys stop following orders until and make a bee line for the crown until there's a new king. You could even bring back the battle royale idea and they all fight over it until one puts it on.

[@Foxuniverso]

This reminds me of an old mod in Minecraft, it was little clay guys and you can dress em up and give them horses. It was really fun

[@nextProgram]

Love the artstyle

[@Kalightortaio]

Wishlisted and subscribed! Support indie devs!

[@TinyRobotED-tm9rs]

6:46 “he’s got AirPods in”

[@gardenheadexe]

I love this current version but the old school style of the original version's UI is amazing

[@NeroTheAngel]

I like the face expressions and attack animations of the little guys

[@Kongozzy8412]

Heres my ideas for a few new features 1) rock candy insects. From what i can see, the lil guys are made out of the rocks from the grotto, which is candy like. However, the guys are made from heated rock fragments, so there might be natural animals that are made from less refined fragments, giving them a simular apperiance to rock candy. These insects like ants or bees can be either a usefull asset, or a pestering nuisance. Each one can be tamed so their purpose can be better controled and be pushed to its full potential. I wont give examples cuz i think that you would probably have better ideas than me. 2) give a way for the lil guys to arm themselves. The snail tank will be a good weapon, but adding a building that alows you to make the lil guys weapons or armor would also be a good idea, from simple stat buffs like damage increaing swords, hp increasing armor, and so on. But also more unique weapons, such as a high end crowbow that rapidly fire fragments that can be picked back up. 3) deffencive structures. Structures that will attack monsters would be a nice later game way of deffence, these structure would be fairly expensive to build and would require fragments to fire, but they would be quite powerfull, with either high damage for the strong monsters or slpash damage for the swarm monsters. 4) a way to make renewable fragments. Eventualy players would have to fully scrap their castle to move it becuse rocks that could be turned into fragments would just be so far away. So renewable fragments via a building or one of the rock candy insects would help prevent a forced relocation. And thats all my ideas that i made at 11pm. Hope they helped with idea storming!

[@Zol_H]

This is a really decent devlog! I love the theme and the possibilities here. +1 subscriber

[@sixty5notch796]

"Really decent" is such a strange way to complement something

[@Phyllean]

Hey, this is like the Clay Soldiers mob on Minecraft!!

[@Tempo_The_Cat]

I hope you continue working on this! It looks awesome

[@Daragonal]

The li’l multi-coloured guys building a castle reminds me of the Minecraft little clay guy mod

[@biedaktokox]

I'm currently working on similar colony simulator game and I over complicated everything, I made the same mistake as you did in your game beginning. This video opened my eyes, thankss!!

[@argore9709]

been following this project on twitter since august last year seeing gifs and videos of the little guys just waddling around doing whatever was always super fun!

[@Doogleton]

This seems like such a fun little game, I cannot wait for it to come out!

[@seaweeddol8171]

This game looks so silly and fun! It was inspiring to see it go from a random little idea to a full-fledged game. I definitely need to experiment with silly random ideas more

[@Oenarion]

Another day thanking the yt algorithm, great work! Game looks sick, keep it up

[@HeuzyGameDevYT]

This looks super unique. Not to mention any game with lil guys is an instant A Tier game!

[@PiercingSight]

Depth should always be an option, never a requirement~ I love this idea so much~

[@Eleged-hy31_]

I love this idea so much and I think you should stick to it. Although I have some ideas. 1. Select an area to call all lil guys even if they have a job. And 2. Make a feature to separate all colors so you can have for example, red mine while blues build. Just a few suggestions.

[@BluePanda_]

This reminds me of the claysoilders Minecraft mod. This mod gave the player some smol clay people in different colors. You could upgrade those by giving them sticks or iron or different materials. A claysoilder would always fight if somebody from another color is near. (Also I might understand now why the mod isn’t up to date anymore xd) But yeah maybe look into that I would love to see some clay soldiers inspired stuff

[@beidero]

I love the art style, so simple but still detailed. It looks amazing. I also really like the video content how you break down going from something simple, to something complex back to something simple. I think this is a skill that is so hard to learn as a gamedev. I could really see this game going in multiple directions. Personally I love roguelikes so I think like roguelike elements and making it survival (kind of like rimworld) with random events and random upgrades could be amazingly fun. Finally a question, what kind of AI do the guys have? Personally I always wanted to try GOAT and this seems like a perfect game for that, but also GOAT is kind of slow so might not work too well with many little guys unless you do it threaded or something.

[@Gnomable]

I love the color palette! It reminds me a lot of the game that Lychee Game Labs is working on.

[@maszugsh9009]

WHAT IF THE LITTLE GUYS DID SILLY THINGS ALL BY THEMSELVES. lIKE MAKE A FARM, OR BUILD A WINDMILL. Selecting those things adds them and their functionality to your build que/ idle guys will do things all by themselves and has a small chance of doing something creative and useful. One of the things is a school that makes little guys more creative with what they do when idle. .

[@compyz74]

This is amazing, I love little guys, I’ve been trying to make a little guy maker game where they walk around and interact with the environment but you did it! This is beautiful thanks for making this

[@LostWarden]

I saw “little guys” in the title and I was like “yeeeeaaaay!”

[@StKildaFan]

The bit about the earpods was perfect.

[@frothfie2952]

this game sounds like mindustry which is another game i absolutely adore

[@jaxfrank]

Wow, I've been thinking about making a game kind of like this for a while now except with resource acquisition and automation closer to factorio. It's cool to see the idea has merit

[@ToastedGears]

I like how the game turned out sofar, I remember following your start and progress on Twitter/x

[@ceej5690]

show this vid in game classes. awesome description of how to get into hobby

[@icicleditor]

Congrats on getting into the algorithm! Looking forward to the amazing little guys you have planned :)

[@Imagine1nfinity]

It reminds me almost of Kenshi genre wise and i think you could potentially take a lot of inspiration from that and how they do jobs and stuff.

[@mckrissls35]

Reminds me of the minecraft mod 'Clay Soldiers'. Love the little guys