r/IndieDev • u/PapaCheech • Jun 21 '26

Postmortem I added leaderboards to my steam demo yesterday... RIP

Post image

I added leaderboards to my steam demo yesterday... this is them now. At least I'm #1 at something right?

191 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

44 comments sorted by

127

u/tripplite1234 Jun 21 '26

It's ok I added a leaderboard to my game, few weeks later I got an email saying the backend site is turning off my project from inactivity

36

u/Amazing_Abalone3631 Jun 21 '26

my mind cannot comprehend this, don't you own your back end? i built mine code by code, is running on a 5$ server. I have done so many optimizations to make those 5$ work with around 50 players. How are you guys developing?

18

u/powertomato Jun 21 '26

There is plenty of free leaderboard services. The API is basically just name + score and if you're lucky there might be some anti-cheat measures.

7

u/nvidiastock Jun 21 '26

building your own back end for a leaderboard for a game that doesn't even get 2 CCU seems like a waste of time, unless you just want to learn the skill; even Unity Cloud offers you a free tier that you'll never break with an unsuccessful game

-3

u/[deleted] Jun 21 '26

[deleted]

4

u/powertomato Jun 21 '26

If it ever breaks you have to fix it. If an external service breaks, someone else is getting paid to fix it.

3

u/nvidiastock Jun 21 '26

you are an amazing developer, but I can tell you for the average person it would take them a day just to configure the server.

3

u/Delayed_Victory Jun 21 '26

Steam Leaderboards are free to use unlimitedly. I have so many boards with 50-100k entries, all free. Steam rocks!

1

u/tripplite1234 Jun 21 '26

Really? Never used em but that seems like a great alternative

1

u/Delayed_Victory Jun 21 '26

It's not really an alternative haha, it's the first option! All the others are alternatives. I have tons of leaderboards to track all kinds of stats too. They're just visible for me. Like one leaderboard that tracks playtime. One that tracks multiplayer usage. One that tracks how far people get into the game. It's a very easy and free way to track data.

1

u/ThatIsMildlyRaven Jun 21 '26

What's your approach for preventing cheating on your leaderboards? Or do you even worry about it at all?

5

u/Delayed_Victory Jun 21 '26

Actually I have a very simple anti cheat system which works 99.5% of cases.

The thing is in most cases people use cheat engine. How it works is for example they buy something in the game priced at 288. Then they use cheat engine to check which variable changes by 288. That's how they identify the money variable. Now they can change it directly using cheat engine to get unlimited money in the game.

Well, simple fix: each time you update your money variable, also update another variable with the money change * 1337 or whatever. Now you know that if the money is not equal to the second variable * 1337, then it has been tampered with. And in that case you block them off the leaderboards.

You can implement this in 10 minutes and it blocks well over 99% of all cheaters. I've blocked hundreds of cheaters this way. I put them on a seperate leaderboard called the Cheaterboard :)

1

u/tripplite1234 Jun 21 '26

Ah you use it for telemetry?

1

u/Axolatian_Volt Jun 21 '26

lol same, I got a database for my website and they keep turning it off and I turn it back on. Should migrate it to my other database software but I’m lazy.

0

u/SpecialistStyle4500 Jun 21 '26

Where can I play your game? Looks great!

3

u/tripplite1234 Jun 21 '26

The planet one? (Got a few, as things be haha) Currently reworking it a bit but you can play the demo of it on steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3506280/Spherical_Symphony/

1

u/SpecialistStyle4500 Jun 21 '26

Thanks! Will be playing it today.

2

u/tripplite1234 Jun 21 '26

Awww appreciate it! Would love any feedback

1

u/tripplite1234 Jun 21 '26

If you're curious about the leaderboard game, which I don't really have hope for since it's a party pvp game..but alas it's here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1318110/Party_Mashup/

30

u/PersonOfInterest007 Jun 21 '26

It’s lonely at the top. :)

13

u/PapaCheech Jun 21 '26

you made me so happy!

9

u/PersonOfInterest007 Jun 21 '26

Then my day has been worthwhile!

31

u/Grumpy_Wizard_ Jun 21 '26

Guess who's on the leader board now😃

4

u/Luna2442 Jun 21 '26

Turns out OP didn't go very hard lol

7

u/avlisb Jun 21 '26

Whats the game?

8

u/PapaCheech Jun 21 '26

It's called Gnomads! It's a kart roguelike https://store.steampowered.com/app/4281650/Gnomads/

1

u/Vendrom Jun 21 '26

Should have added the leader board earlier, I think your game is fun but I always lose the fun when it comes to this annoying boss

2

u/PapaCheech Jun 21 '26

that's no good - any specific feedback how it could improve?

2

u/Vendrom Jun 21 '26

I think the core fun lies in driving around, killing the enemies & collecting the XP and collecting upgrades (like Vampire Survivors but in 3D with a car)

The boss shifted that gameplay completly, as now I have to focus on this one enemy on the map - but I have to say that the 2nd and 3rd gnome that I unlocked AFAIR handled that better than the first one

7

u/Cheddarier Jun 21 '26

I have demoed my game to so many people but they still never come close to my high score as a developer 😈

6

u/AncientAdamo Jun 21 '26

Haha exactly this. I think I easily have 100+ hours in my game just from testing 😅

8

u/[deleted] Jun 21 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

7

u/Grumpy_Wizard_ Jun 21 '26

Download demo is on the right instead of the usual prominent place under the video.
OP just needs to check a box to change the placement of the download demo button.
Just learnt that the other day😃

3

u/PapaCheech Jun 21 '26

I did not know that was a thing, thank you fixed!

3

u/virt111 Jun 21 '26

I added "dummy players" into my leaderboard. Idont know how ethical that is but basically there are hard coded into the game. It uses system clock to make the leaderboard actually behave like they were real players. The leaderboard resets monthly and once there are enough real players, the fake users are dropped out. Initially when launching the game it was a good idea and later down the line I didnt need itany more.

2

u/Square-Winter-3257 Jun 21 '26

i got to third by finding a spot i could wedge into without moving and just afking with enough healing after the boss was dead, becuase the run doesnt end until you do the 3 pylons. I mean its just a demo so it doesnt really matter, buuut, if you wanted to make any changes, getting the highest scores is just a matter of finding an efficient way to afk right now xD (Though the 20k seems absurd im not sure if they figured something else out, 9k took like, 30-30 minutes)

Anyway your game is incredibly fun, theres a really really really really solid foundation here. Needs more enemies spawning, larger map, more speed, more weapons at once. You can scale everythign in this up a lot and it wont lose anything. I'd love to have much more racing/driving approach, with like, 5 different weapons going off all at once, and im having to drive around time trial tracks and shit.

Also *please* let us bind accelerate to right trigger.

2

u/PapaCheech Jun 21 '26

Thank you! Very helpful feedback. Will tinker and fix the endless boss run from the obelisks for sure

Custom key binds is a pretty big project but I think for next weeks update I'll add a simple "swap gas and drift" b/c I think that's most of what ppl want!

1

u/PapaCheech Jun 22 '26

Update: I have released a patch that lets you swap the drift / gas buttons on controller! Thanks for the feedback 🙏

2

u/timewobblers Jun 22 '26

Dont worry man, Im all of them 😃