I wanna be able to draw tiles like that 
the terrain and the buildings look so nice, I allways stop the game i’m developing because I’m not ok with they way my textures look, your art is so awesome man 
It’s not about the textures, it’s about the code. If you stop coding a game because you don’t like textures (which is completely unrelated to the actual game development) you need to rethink something.
I’d argue that it is part of gamedev, just not the same part. It can theoretically at least be somewhat postponed relative to parts like code.
Really the most important (and hard) part anyone should worry about is the design phase.
But when i test it and it doesn’t look good due to the textures, I stop because it’s not fun to develope something when it doesn’t look good 
OT, but making it look good early on is a waste of time. It just makes it harder to change the game design and the game mechanics.
First use place-holder art that looks somewhat good, and when you’re finished, make better art. I spent about two months making art for my old project until I was happy with it. Or you can always find stuff online, or someone to make it for you.
Case in point:
…and now:
…
…
everyone’s work looks like crap at first, it’s an evolutionary process. You shouldn’t be let down by what your stuff currently looks like. Just as long as you keep working at it. 
Beautiful work ray! If the first gif was supposed to be rain, I think it would look nice if the grass turned darker after a few seconds (as if it were wet) instead of staying blue.
That’s just generic water particles, but I plan to use it somewhat with rain.
It actually does darken a bit (making the terrain look wet). I just can’t capture that in the gif since it takes too long and I typically make these for twitter, and they have a 3MB limit.
Congrats on getting the game on Steam! Do you think its possible to integrate Steam achievements/cloud saving with a Java game like this?
oh yeah, totally. I just haven’t gotten that far yet. I also plan to add Workshop support so people can share maps on Steam. But that’s all really far down the pipeline. 
Click here for help on accessing the Unstable branch!
InDev 11 Unstable 4 has been released. This build features the first release of the new particle system, refined AI, and a new monster, the zombie! As with Unstable 3, this build is brutally hard, since you really don’t have many ways to defend yourself yet. Hopefully soon I’ll get some towers added. We’re inching closer to a stable release every day!
If you have any trouble with the build, let me know!
[h1]InDev 11 Unstable 4 Change Log[/h1]
- All of the changes from Unstable 1, 2 and 3.
- “Emergency” icon when a mob is startled.
- Fixed a bug where monsters wouldn’t spawn if the void was right on the edge of the map.
- Added tons of new animations for all mobs where applicable, including; Get hit, attack, sleep, death, flee, hold and face(stand/idle).
- Re-added starvation to the game (Has been disabled since Unstable 1)
- Slimes can now split in to two, or even three slimes when killed.
- Completely brand spanking new particle system, with blood, water, fire, smoke and more.
- Improved fleeing AI.
- Mobs get stunned for a moment when hit.
Wow I didn’t think it was possible to use the Steam API with Java. Be interested in hearing how its done.
I haven’t implemented full workshop support in Steampuppy yet, mind.
Cas
But I will!
. . . eventually 
Steam is trying out something new! Up until the start of the Holiday sale, you can bid on select Steam titles, including Retro-Pixel Castles by recycling your old inventory items, like cards, backgrounds and emoticons into gems that can be used to bid on games that have opted in to be part of the event.
I’ve made 100 copies of Retro-Pixel Castles available for the event, so if you want to fetch yourself a copy of RPC for (basically) free, try your luck and go bid!
Here’s the link directly to Retro-Pixel Castle’s auction page, if you’re interested:
http://steamcommunity.com/auction/item/1273-Retro-Pixel-Castles
looks like you have a bot bidding on your game, every time I try and get into #1 spot, the bot has put 100 more then me before I even see my name as the highest bidder!
I haven’t tried it myself, but it’s possible it has a sort of ebay-like system where you put in a max bid, and it gives you the minimum bid required to be on top.
you seem to be right.
according the FAQ the bid is the max you want to spend, and steam will automatically increase
from what it looks like, steam puts it to the next nearest 100 gems
How are you guys getting so many gems? All my cards are only worth about 20 or 30, yet even “cheap” games are going for 10,000+ gems? Am I missing something here?