Character Limit’s Steam demo goes live after WWDC chaos

The developer behind “Character Limit” rushed a demo onto Steam Next Fest, working through TestFlight timing, ultrawide UI issues, and frustrating Steam submission rules. On June 9, after an additional Steam review, the “Character Limit Demo” finally went live

When the work started, it felt almost too close to the edge.

The developer of “Character Limit” slipped a demo into Steam “just in time. ” then faced the stressful part: the game went live in Steam Next Fest. The timing mattered because, in April, the project reached the point where it could finally be tested by actual players. It did fantastically well at Dreamhack Birmingham, and the developer also began testing on iPhone and iPad through Testflight.

But later in April, Steam Next Fest registration was closing. The event is a promotional festival held a few times a year, focused on getting players to try out demos for games that have yet to be released.

Since the goal was to finish the game well before the busy fall iPhone season, the next Next Fest that could be joined was in the middle of June. The plan was to use the extra time to get the Dreamhack demo into a better and more robust state—something players could download to their computers.

Then came WWDC.

Because WWDC was happening the week before Next Fest. the developer expected a busy stretch from AppleInsider. and development would take a hit. The response was bluntly practical: leave the Testflight build ticking along on iPhone. then return to it only when the game would be in a much better place. The developer said they instead allocated their time to focus on the Mac and PC demo.

It was “both a very good and very stupid decision,” the developer admits.

Shoring up a demo that would survive the public

Getting the demo working well enough for Next Fest wasn’t just about promotion on a major digital storefront. It forced the developer to shore up the demo so it could handle real players, with real hardware—and real ways things could break.

So far, “Character Limit” had been made with the developer’s own hardware and setups in mind. To make it work for practically any player in the world, anything that could fail or show up as an edge case had to be handled gracefully, since any combination of hardware would be thrown at it.

The developer described several rounds of fixes: bugs in number distribution, an actual tutorial screen, and localization foibles that had been missed before. The revised build was sent to colleagues and friends for testing.

The feedback also revealed a problem the developer hadn’t considered.

William Gallagher—identified as working on this very site—tried the demo and pushed into an ultrawide display issue. Because of how the game functioned. playing full-screen meant the bottom and top sections of the interface were missed for Gallagher’s setup. For a word game. the developer said it helps to see the letters being turned into words. or at least see the Quit button on the main menu.

The fix came quickly: the developer made a floating interface section with the correct aspect ratio. When viewed on an ultrawide, it sits in the middle of the screen, and all game content is anchored into that box.

The developer said this worked surprisingly well and was practically the last stumbling block for the demo itself. While not everything had been fixed, it was now “just got enough ‘done’ to be usable as a proper demo.”

The work didn’t end there. The developer said they now have many changes to transfer from the demo into the full game. They also framed it as work that would have had to be done anyway before release—so doing it all now rather than later was a good move.

Steam submission turned into its own battle

The developer said that building the game and working with Apple’s Notarization system was one struggle, but Steam became another.

The process of setting up a Steam page for the game was already done. The developer explained that they could either create a separate store page for the demo or just add the demo download button to the main sales page. They chose the main sales page approach. aiming to focus traffic onto one page and. they admit. partly out of laziness.

But Steam’s requirements complicated that choice. The developer said Steam requires submission of effectively everything needed for the separate store page for the demo—even if that separate store page doesn’t exist. That includes the text for the page, which the developer had to write.

Other elements made sense in their view: platform specifications, capsule art images, and the name, since those would be used elsewhere.

Then came the demo upload, which the developer described as a chain of problems.

First was administrative work. The developer had to transfer the game from one Steamworks account to another because they signed up wrongly at the start. A personal account and one owned by a limited company differ in many ways. so a second account had to be created and the store listing transferred.

The developer said it turned out that a game listing can be transferred, but the demo is a separate listing and does not necessarily transfer over with the main title. They spent a long time failing to upload the demo because of this missing element, then waited most of a week for the transfer.

Second was Steam’s uploading system. There is an option to upload from the website, but the developer said there’s no documentation explaining how to use it properly, so it was a no-go.

The usual method is SteamPipe upload using the Steam SDK. The developer described it as a process involving a lot of work: installing a command-line version of Steam, constructing a build and an upload script, and setting launch options.

They said the system feels designed for large developers with massive teams—“massively intimidating” for a first-time indie—until they discovered that the SDK download includes a graphical interface that does much of the heavy lifting.

But that interface was Windows-only and not available on Mac. The developer said they had a Windows PC nearby, so the procedure wasn’t difficult, but they still felt disheartened there isn’t a macOS graphical interface available from Valve.

After the demo upload, both the demo and the store details were submitted for review. The developer said the demo itself was fine, but the store section wasn’t.

Steam’s rules around capsule art caused the next delay. The developer said they were encouraged to make the images of the capsule art different so players can tell the demo apart from the main game. but they also cannot add more words to the art other than the game name. Steam objected to the developer using the words “Demo Edition” in the art. Steam also objected because the developer’s logo was being covered by a demo corner banner that. they said. wasn’t really mentioned previously.

That required tweaks and a re-review, followed by “a few more days of waiting.”

On June 9, the second day of WWDC, Steam’s email confirmed that the store page met its requirements and that the demo could be published. That evening, “Character Limit” became available to play in demo form on Steam.

A happy release—followed by fear

The developer previously wrote about how Steam is a big deal for them. They described being a gamer with a Steam account value that could buy a reasonably priced car at current prices, and said they’ve used Steam for many years.

They said registering and having a Steam listing for something they made was an emotional experience. And they expected the demo going live to be even harder.

They described the moment of opening their Steam library on their Mac and seeing “Character Limit Demo” among the long list of games—“mostly unplayed.” They said they could click it and open the game on their Mac or on their PC.

The developer said seeing it on Steam made them weep “a little bit.” They called it a “stupid little game” they’d been “noodling on” for most of a year, now sitting inside an application they regularly open.

They compared the feeling to what authors might feel when seeing their work on Amazon or in a local bookstore, except it’s a game—and they can’t walk into a physical location and hold the game in amazement.

After walking around the block for air, the developer checked it ran OK and said it does. They described it as an extremely big and happy moment—cut short by the immediate realization that this isn’t the finish line.

The rest of the game has to be put into place for the final version, and the developer also mentioned research into more languages and modes for future updates. There’s also the ongoing slog of marketing and promotion before the game’s release.

But right away, the worry is simpler: fear the demo won’t be well received. The developer said the last thing anyone creating something needs is people complaining about your “baby,” even if it’s entirely justified.

They said they’ve had a thick skin for criticism of their words after writing on the internet for over a decade, but this level of apprehension is something they haven’t felt in a long time.

They also pointed to the next battle after Steam: getting the finished product into the App Store.

And with Next Fest underway—“this week’s all-important Steam Next Fest”—the developer closes with one hope: that Gabe Newell’s audience will be “somewhat kind.”

Character Limit Steam Next Fest Steam demo indie game development SteamPipe Steamworks ultrawide display Testflight WWDC iPhone demo macOS demo Windows PC