Let's talk about being visible, My experience so far ...

Ok, so you need to accept something which is whether your game is on (itch.io - gamejolt - etc…) (gamejolt is kinda dead now, because it’s turning slowly into a store rather than an indie game place, the community is not as big as itch.io and there isn’t that much traffic out there).
So, whether it’s on biggest store out there or smallest one,
whether you work on it for 10 years or 1 month,
whether it’s big or small .
(YOUR GAME WILL EVENTUALLY DIE ) Yup it’s the hard truth, everything has an end also your game.

But the thing here is how long can you keep it alive?
Why I’m bringing this up?
I made Miko’s Adventures in about 5 months and I made lot’s and lot’s of mistakes (it’s bound to happen on a first game)
and the game lived on Itch.io for about 1 months in the top games there, it didn’t get featured but it was on top of 10 tags.
before releasing I was like (MY GOD PEOPLE WILL GO CRAZY WHEN I UPLOAD THIS GAME AND I WILL MAKE MILLIONS OUT OF IT)
No, no one got crazy and I made about 4$ from donations which is pretty good for me (But I can’t request a payout though untill it reaches 5$ :neutral_face: )
So in the second day I got about 2 downloads (Which was the beginning of my story) … It was going to die when I first released it and I was going to die from inside, how could this happen?
Then I learned the hard way, to be out there, talk to people about your game, engage with many people as you can, make lot’s and lot’s of friends.
Your game doesn’t need to be the next Minecraft to make it alive for about 1 month but you need to make yourself out there, you need to know that no one cares about you until you go out there and care about everyone.
And after about 40 hours of not sleeping talking to a lot of people and sending the game to hundreds and hundreds of people, BOOM!!!
The game exploded everywhere and it actually reached a big Russian youtuber and lot’s and lot’s of small youtubers, and people loved it thank god for that.

When I released Miko there were another 3 games released at the same day (and I think at the same time) can you believe it ?
Like how can 3 people from different places around the world release their game at the same time and at the same day?
This is reality …
It’s big out there and If you didn’t work for it, trust me you’ll be killing your game in no time.

when you release your game, the clock is ticking, you want to stay up there? you want to make it alive? then work for it:-

0- First, make a great game (If you don’t have something good to share, you need to work a bit more)
1- Update your game at the first 2-3 weeks of your release IF NEEDED (fix bugs)
2- TALK TO EVERYONE (I can’t express how important this one is!!)
3- RESPOND to every single comment, review and video you get from everywhere on your game (Be thankful)
4- Make people know that you care for them, If someone hated your game, don’t just go ahead and explain everything, just say thank you for your feedback, so how can I improve this (thing) you hated in the game, be calm (very calm) with everyone.
5- Don’t think about going into featured games or make people care when your game is Flappy Bird clone.
6- First game? make it free (this will help a lot gaining people)
AND THE MOST IMPORTANT THING …
7- BE CONSISTENT in the first month of release. now what I mean about this is to always update your game, always talk to everyone and all of the above (YUP that’s it), just don’t release your game and go to sleep.
8- Keep learning, I mean in about 4 months I’ll start working on the next game and I’m sure I’ll get stuck at something and I’ll ask here, you always learn.
9- If you’re releasing on itch.io then Keep track of the very big jams there and make sure you publish your game about a week after the voting has ended. (Thanks MeX1Co)

Mistakes I did and I’ll fix in the next projects :-

1- DEVLOGS … something I forgot about, I was so into development that I forgot there is a world out there and trust me you’ll get there when you love what you create.
SO always post devlogs (when you find possible) DON’T post codes of your game and stuff that people won’t understand (Don’t flex on people) … you have a picture cool upload it, have a gif? awesome release it and talk about it, made a new type of mechanic in your game? very nice go for it and show it to people.
(Now this will create audience and people every single time you upload), there was a game developer who said “If you got 2 people to see your game every day, this means at the end of the year you’ll have 730 know about your game, now let’s say you make 5 people see your game every day ? Think about it :slight_smile:

2- Thinking big without working for it, now :-
you don’t think about making millions and your game is Free-to-play.
you don’t think about people going crazy when people don’t even know that you exist .
you don’t think about reaching out to big companies when your are a small indie game.
you don’t think about learning when you keep making the same mistakes.
(Make your story) ETC…

3- Have a plan, don’t just go and release without any plan for the future.

4- Eliminate distractions as much as you can.

5- Think small and create big, start with a simple mechanic and build your game on this mechanic.
DON’T start big and fall in the ocean of ideas.

And a lot more but I can’t remember now (just don’t make the mistakes that no one told me about :slight_smile: )

Note: I’m no expert at anything, just sharing my story for the past 1 month and I hope this helps anyone out there.

Miko’s Adventures now (Is kinda over on most websites) and those 3 games I was talking about that released with me (They are over as well, their time is gone as well as mine).
Time for me and them to move on and make better,bigger and great things, things that live more than 1 month :slight_smile:
The future is bright as long as you work for it …
I have faith and I’m going to keep going until Miko shakes the ground, he managed to shake it that one time, why not again :wink:
I’m thankful for the experience and I’m SO ready for another one :wink:

If you have any other tips to say from your experience, please share it so that people know about it.
If you have any question ask and I hope I have an answer for it …

Have a nice wonderful day and always keep making games, I want to play them so bad :slight_smile:

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hi
there are too many Fishes in the sea :cry:
I mean you can donthe best game in the world but if you don’t have support, publicity, etc you are done.
I’m not a pro, I do this as a hobby, but if you think about a new game probably it is already done.
My opinion if you like gi for it. If you pretend to live of this, it is different.
Anyway thanks foe your advice :sunglasses:

Well it’s a hobby for me too, but if you spend a lot of time working on a game why not turn this hobby into something a lot more.

Yup that’s the sad truth …

I don’t understand you too well here but like I said, I’m just someone who made a game and I’m sharing what happened and mistakes that I fell into and how to fix them in the future so that I can help other people not to fall in those mistakes :slight_smile:

Thanks for sharing your experience.
This is basically the same which I felt when I released my WIP game Sakawochi.
I was very excited too, posted on social media (mastodon/reddit) and also regularly wrote dev logs on Itch and Gamejolt and Ubuntu Touch open store.
But even though my game was (an I guess still is) pretty unique, it didn’t get popular. Not even for one day. On the release day, a lot of other games were published as well and Sakawochi quickly moved down in the list of recently added games.
Unfortunately I never had more than about 3 downloads per week on Itch.
I still believe that the game has great potential and I think I’ll go on with development in the future but currently I’m more interested in getting a few more features into GD5 than working on a game.
The game is still not finished and I still love my baby but I haven’t managed to put any time in this project for the last couple of months since the motivation to spend my free time on making a game that no one want’s to play is pretty low, and thus my priorities changed. Most people from my family and friends that test-played really liked it. Even my father who usually doesn’t play games at all asked me for updates for several weeks. So publicity really seems to be the most important thing when releasing a game. But the big issue is “How to get followers?” My accounts on Mastodon and Reddit were new and I’m not the type of person that regularly writes blog posts or such stuff, so gaining followers is very hard.
I think finding a niche could also help in getting attention. Sakawochi has about the same amount of total downloads on Linux than on Windows even though the percentage of Linux players on a PC is still around 1%.
The biggest success I had was on Ubuntu Touch Open Store with over 200 downloads and around 50 active players that downloaded the updates I released.
Congratulations on the 4$ you have made, I haven’t even earned a single cent with my own game. :laughing:

I totally agree with you. I wanted to say that it is really hard but if you dream to do it, just do it :smiley:
Thanks for sharing your experience.

Wendigo, Thank you for sharing your experience my friend.
I saw Sakawochi when it released and it’s a really good looking game and It definitely has great potential.

I know that feeling, it’s bad and it’s hard but you have to push through it, you need to have faith and keep going for it, I know it’s really hard.
you know for me I can leave game development at any moment but I just can’t, every time I try to leave I come back, It’s beautiful and fun and I love it, The real reason I’m here into this is because I love it, I have this passion about everything about it.
Don’t ever leave your baby and make an update, share it with the world and make yourself happy, and trust me every single one out there would love to play Sakawochi, they just don’t see it, like I said it’s just not visible, It’s hard I know but you can get through this trust me.

Yup it’s the most important thing in game development, I saw a lot of indie game developers out there releasing a game and after 2 days it’s just gone and buried down there, and that’s because they just stay in their basement making this game and thinking in their head that when they release it, Itch.io or whatever will explode with their game.
So what they find? the opposite, less than 2 days and the game is dead, why ? well no one cares, people don’t know you, people don’t care about what you do, so like I said people care for you when you care for them.
Just talk a lot every where, people love this.
I remember this youtuber when he said in his video about me “go check out miko, the developer seems pretty active and that’s a great point in my book, it makes playing the game worth really a lot”
So yeah the more you care for them the more they will care for you, after all you need them but they don’t need you, they can go and support anyone out there.

With TIME and CONSISTENCY, I hate talking on social media and this other stuff but it won’t hurt posting about your game every once in a while, how about a big update every month? how about a very small update every day?
see what works with you and go for it but just be CONSISTENT (people love it).
I still don’t have a twitter account (I hate twitter) but I will very soon, I have to, it’s the way it is, sometimes you just need to do things you don’t like to gain stuff you like :wink:
Just know that gaining people takes a lot of time, months and years.
keep making great game and great people will show up trust me.

That’s very awesome, congrats my friend :slight_smile:
My biggest success so far in Miko’s Adventures is about 630 downloads on (Windows, Linux and Mac OS) with more than 2100 views, and I got like 20 followers.
You know it’s still very small compared to others but it’s our success and we are proud of it, very proud :wink:

Thank you a lot :slight_smile: but you know I can’t request a payout until it reaches 5$ so yup we are the same side :laughing:
Miko’s Adventures wasn’t about the money after all, it was about going out and reaching to an audience, next game I will start to think about money though and I will have a goal to reach … I hope.

Just keep going and don’t stop because you faced a wall, you can make things great again :wink:
Hope you a wonderful day and thanks for sharing :slight_smile:

Oh yeah I understand you now :laughing: , It’s hard yeah but I’m going for it.
You’re very welcome, hope it helps :slight_smile:

First of all congrats on your game… Ever since i tested it for the mac i kept track of it on itch.io eventhough platforms are not exactly my favourite genre.

I believe you made a lot of things right. Just remember that due to the many jams that take place on itch, there are way too many games made weekly and these are games that get played alot for the voting phase of the jams. So, the fact that I kept seeing your game on the front page of itch for a few weeks, is a great accomplishment.

This is also something I would add to your suggestions. Keep track of the very big jams on Itch.io and make sure you publish your game about a week after the voting has ended.

Keep it up…

Thank you so much MeX1Co
That’s a very important advice, I will make sure to add it to my notes for sure and actually I will add it in the main post up there so lot’s of people know about it :slight_smile:

Hey Diana, I’m really glad you liked the post :slight_smile:
I really hope it helps you when you release your game.
Also if you want to release your game on Gamejolt go ahead for sure but I’d say start with itch.io first then move to Gamejolt, after all you have to try different stuff and see what works and what doesn’t :slight_smile:

Oh btw This is my old account so I’m not really active on it but I have a new one over here Profile - CorianderGames - GDevelop Forum
I use it mainly to post new devlogs and updates about my next game “Miko Mind Dreamer” :slight_smile:

Also if you want there is a discord server over here that should help you a lot with your game and also to know more very cool people :slight_smile:
Invite: Discord

If there is anything you want while creating your game, just ask here or on discord and a lot of people including me will help :slight_smile:
Gdevelop community is the best thing that happened to me!

Wish you a great success with your game :slight_smile:

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Do you have an updated link to that Discord server? It’s expired.

Thank you

Thank you for the link! :smiley: