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Quick Start
Taking your very first step!
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Your first step is to navigate to partner.steamworks.com we strongly recommend you create a new Steam account to represent you as a publisher or developer separate from any personal account/s you might have. Remember, new Steam accounts start as "limited" put $5 in your Steam wallet to get around this.
Steamworks
steam
Step 1
Getting Started (Steamworks Documentation)
Read this ... do as it says
If you read the getting started article linked above and followed its instructions you should have already been guided to pay the Steam Direct fee which will get you your first App ID.
Technically ... for the very first step ... no.
In reality absolutely yes, you can't do anything meaningful without your App ID.
You can test some features of Steam API using the test application "Spacewars" whose app Id is 480. This is the app id we use in all of our Steamworks sample scenes and doesn't require you to even be signed up to use it.
Having said that you can't do anything meaningful with the test app, it exists as a teaching tool. To create the stats, achievements, leaderboard, workshop, etc. for your game you will require an App ID and we do recommend you do this as soon as you are sure you want to release your game on Steam ... no reason to wait.
Once you're all set up as a Steam Developer and have your App ID your next step should be to get familiar with the Steam API and what it has to offer. Heathen creates the best-in-class integration between Unity and Steam API, read more on our Steamworks page.
Steam API is a tremendous value especially for small and indie developers as it is a power set of backend services and is completely free for you to use. We strongly recommend you understand what Steam API can do for your game before you commit your design. The best and most successful games fully exploit Steam's features.
This Knowledge Base is your best source for information not just on Steam but all manner of Game Development related tasks.
Look to your left, that is the navigation panel and can be used to browse the Knowledge Base. Many articles have sub-articles so check the little > arrow to the right of an entry.
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In the Upper right corner you will find a search box
That Search box has an AI function called Lens
Like any AI tool, it is a biased search so isn't perfect but it does link the articles it found with related information in the "Answer based on X sources" drop-down at the bottom left. It also of course has a standard search function.
Linked at the top of this knowledge base is a link to our Discord server where you can get live support from the wider community and Heathen developers. This is the best method for asking a question when you can't find the answer here in the Knowledge Base.
The Discord community is there to help you as a game developer so feel free to ask questions about any game development-related topic you might have. As to support for each of Heathen's assets, each has a dedicated channel for that.
Once you join Discord you will be able to directly message the Heathen staff you see there ... they are denoted by the
| Heathen at the end of their name. We do keep DMs to a minimum so if your question doesn't require a private conversation we will answer you in the appropriate server channel. Direct Message is not a means to get a faster response, it's a resource available when you need a bit more confidentiality than a public chat forum.
While not recommended as it's slow, error-prone, and all around the least effective of the available support options Heathen can be contacted for support at
heathen dot group we will get back to you as soon as possible. Please be aware that emails may be trapped by spam, are an indirect method of communication, and will require an additional lead time to get back to you.Last modified 2mo ago