I’m about 6 months (an educated guess) away from finishing my game. It is my first “big” game I will have completed and I want to put it on Steam for free. With that being said, I know it’s not the best game out there, and I know how harsh people on Steam can be. When I started this project I was not very experienced, but I have learned a lot since then. I wish I could go back and redo/fix everything that I don’t like, but unfortunately I feel it’s time to move on and make a game using LibGDX. It’s not like I’m really worried about my reputation on Steam, I sort of just want to see how many people download it and like/dislike it and see what areas I could improve upon for my next game. What would you guys suggest? When it’s done, should I put my game on Steam? Or take this as a learning experience and then make a better game?
How about itch.io instead? Which seems much more aligned with you and your game and intended audiences.
Cas 
Ok thanks for the honest response! That’s a really good idea.
There’s also GameJolt and IndieDB. I put my game on those and Itch, and GameJolt gets higher Google results. (That’s as far as my knowledge of the differences goes).
Ok thanks, I’ll look into those as well.
Desura was bought is now One Play apparently, http://www.oneplay.com/en/
On Desura you used to be able to just publish your game. It was like an open smaller Steam type.
There is also PLAYISM http://playism-games.com/
Be aware that publishing your game on Steam will cost you the greenlight free until we get SteamDirect this year. And that will involve money as well, probably more, we’ll see.
Also, why I completely understand and agree with everything you said you should be at least mindful. If the game is bad it might tarnish your name for further releases. It can go either way.
You may wanna publish this one under another dev name than a future better one.
There is also the argument for no such thing as bad publicity, like I said it can go either way.
Believe it or not, in this world where we are oversaturated with games and all mobile games are free, you have to fight for people to play your game, even if its free. People have too many choices and time is money too.
So dont expect tons of feedback unless it is of quality and you really push it.
I wouldn’t say the game is bad by any means, esp if you like old school scrolling platformers, but I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea and the game is not what a real gamer would consider “hard”. The graphics also look like a 2 year old could have made them, but at least they are more consistent now and dont look like I took a sprite from here and a sprite from there All of the character sprites and bad guys I bought online thru graphic river and pixelized them to give them a more uniform feel, and all the backgrounds and stuff are literally just drawn using awt java commands like drawOval and drawRectangle.
I was already thinking that if I did release it on Steam, to do it under a different name lol. But from your guys advice, I think the way to go for this game is not with Steam. I also tried to port it to mobile, but having done this game with AWT and not really knowing how the Android applications function, it just became a headache…one reason my next game will be with LibGDX.
Thanks for all your guys’ advice on this! I’m gonna post an update for Dodger Dog this weekend with new screen shots, demo, and try to revamp my website to get it ready for when I put the game on one of these platforms.
I stumbled across an oldie from Scott Cawthon called There is no pause button and based upon this discovery I wouldn’t release the game under a different name. It kind of gives people some perspective on where the developer came from and their skill progression in an inspiring sort of way.
Hey I made a game with AWT too and got it ported to Android though I went hard mode and learned Open GL plus made the gl Draw calls myself. It’s soooo much easier to use libGDX and I think learning to port it from AWT to libGDX would be well worth the time.
Yeah, I’m not going to release it under a different name. I’m going to put it up on Itch.io at least and see how it goes. I really tried to port it to mobile, but the code is such a mess it just became a huge headache. There’s not a whole lot of info on how to go about packaging the game on Itch.io. Would I simply just upload the jar file and that’s it?
Edit: just saw that it has to be an applet. Will that cause problems nowadays? I mean, didn’t Chrome drop all support for applets? What if someone uses Chrome to try to play it? Will they have to go through that whole hassle of putting an exception for Itch.io.com to play an applet? For us that isn’t too hard but for the average person, setting those permissions can be confusing. Or would I just do the “downloadable” option? I feel like the applet might be easier if it is seamless to launch it.
I remember reading somewhere that java applets are no longer a thing. They had this other deal called Java WebStart but I don’t think it really caught on. I went to the itch website and found a few games that aren’t web games, they actually have to be downloaded. So, why not put up a .jar or make a .exe plus a .whatevermacextensionis
Cool, that’s what I’ll do. Thanks guys.