You head towards Castle Obvious, hoping you're on the correct path to your beloved Spudley. "Spudley... Spudini !" you cry out, "Soon we will be reunited". From the bushes, you hear, "No Spud here, bud, but if it's the castle you seek, come look at my magic trick, and I will show you the quickest way there."
Watch mysterious voice magic trick
Follow only way to castle sign
Amazing trick! 🤣
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Thank you so much for sharing that video.
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So I looked at the game for a bit and it seems pretty solid for what looks like your son's first game. Maybe you should suggest to put it on a Steam sale next time you or someone else tries to promote it. Also, I think you should review the game with a bit more detail for people who are on the fence since it seems like it has only reached 1 Steam reviewer that wasn't a key and I think that was your review.
What engine did he make it in? If he wants some free advice for marketing a game next time, I have some helpful suggestions and resources to check out if he is interested.
The gamedev community on SteamGifts links some here.
How To Market a Game has a ton of videos and articles that could be helpful
Marketing and guide for a successful steam launch by a well-known youtuber who has made around 8-9 Steam games
Simpler checklist for a launch on Steam
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thanks for the advice. He made it using gamemaker code, Now hes trying to learn how to use unity also. He got mad when i reviewed it lol said it dont count so i shortened my original review. He said his main goal was to learn how to release on steam to prepare for his RPG, Im just happy the low sales and lack of reviews didn't detour him from making more games. I will save this marketing release advice for when he finishes the RPG
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I make games in Unity, too. I've been using it for about a decade now and planning on releasing a few new commerical games made in Unity 2022.3 within the next year. If he wants Unity tips, I suggest Code Monkey, the youtuber I linked above, and there are lots of tutorials on Youtube, but not all are made with decent optimization in mind. So, learn but try to pick the highly rated ones and improve upon any problems mentioned in comments.
If he has any specific questions, feel free to ask and I'll get back to you in a bit. Or you can send me an email: obsidianspire AT gmail dot com I tend to check steamgifts and my email pretty often while my games compile and build, so either option works.
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thanks a lot i really appreciate it. I will let him know about code monkey and if he has any questions to ask. And good luck on your games as well, let me know when they come out would like to check them out. Do you have any games already released
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I have released a few games, but I took them down when they were commercial flops. I kept them up for around a year or two and then took them down when they failed to get even the minimum 10 reviews for a steam rating and boost in the algorithm. I didn't know much about marketing at the time, so I didn't do the majority of the video tips mentioned above, but I'm going to try a lot harder for my new games.
I'll probably post about my new games on the appropriate Steam Gifts forum or you can follow on social media/mailing list for when I post news.
Socials and Mailing list.
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I did not even know about that 10 reviews gets you into into the discovery queue. Do you know if reviews from games you received for free count. If so could start a group to help indie developers get honest reviews on here. I subscribed to your youtube channel ill be on the look out for your game trailers
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Only reviews from Steam purchases count, not keys. So if you generate a bunch of keys and give them away for free/cheap in hopes of reviews, none of those reviews will ever count to the 10 review threshold. Also, even Steam purchases can mark their review as a free game, which means they either do not count at all or have a significantly reduced effect. Not sure of which, tbh.
Similar question on reddit that has some other dev's opinions.
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Thank you for all the info. I will promote it when its on sale like you said hopefully get some reviews.
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I'll keep an eye out for your post. Does your son post devlogs on youtube, itch, or indiedb? Could find a small audience that way as well. It's relatively easy to record a quick section of gameplay and turn it into a short or tiktok as well, so look into those for potential marketing materials.
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he does have it on itch and he made a youtube channel for the trailer. Im not sure about tiktoc I told him about the 10 reviews he needs. I thought maybe a seedrun video will help get attention. You been on SG for a long time, do you think I would be allowed to make a discussion/train saying the game is on sale and that i have a special train for people who leave a review (good or bad) on steam.
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Speedrun video is a good idea. There are lots of speedrunning communities but your game has to attract that audience, so maybe a giveaway specifically for a speed run community/group would work. Try reddit r/speedrun or similar groups, but message the mods on reddit/group for approval.
You should be able to promote his game when you make a train. Also, you can make a thread on this subforum to promote the game - Game Showcase.
I am not sure about the special train for reviews. I would ask the admins about that because they might view it negatively and potentially influencing reviews unfairly even if the train is open to both negative and positive reviewers.
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thanks again for all the advice ill check out reddit never thought of that and make sure to check in with admins before I make a special train.
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No problem. Also, had a thought today. What you could do is offer a giveaway specifically for followers of the game on Steam. That's the Steam feature where people can learn about news for a game and stay up to date, which correlates with but it is not the same as wishlisting. Maybe could giveaway a different game every X number of game followers or something. I'm not sure how effective this would be but it would be allowed and easily done through Steamgifts built in group selection feature.
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that's a good idea to try. Im not sure how to do that on here. Would i have to make a steam group for people following, or is there a way to make a giveaway exclusive to people following a game.
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Just follow the game yourself and sync on Steamgifts, then pick the built in Steam game’s group in the options when making a giveaway.
You could also suggest to make your own developer group on Steam and use that for giveaways instead. Up to you, but if people are following they will likely be wishlisting at a decent rate too.
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Im following the game but cant see where to select the games group section, would it be under whitelist/steam groups. But that is a good idea. I can also make a steam group for his games when he releases the RPG he's been working on.
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Yeah, it would be under whitelist/steam groups. Following a game is really just adding you to a kind of hidden but still public steam group. If he is almost or already 18, then I would suggest he make the general dev group rather than you since he should learn about promoting his games on his own as well as with your help.
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I did not know that thanks. Yeah it would be good for him to learn how to market I'm not a lot of help I don't know what I'm doing lol. He said he wanted to take a online marking course forget the name of it right now, but wants to wait till he gets farther along in new game.
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If it is a paid course, be careful. Almost all good marketing will only show results with a decent game anyway and there is a ton of free content available. Marketing in particular is tricky because it varies so much in results.
Check out howtomarketagame - https://howtomarketagame.com/ there are free videos breaking down marketing and lots of articles for free as well.
The various GDC videos about marketing on their youtube are good, too.
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I saw parts of a video my son was watching and I pretty sure the guy on the webpage is the same guy in video. He was rating peoples steam game pages. Thanks ill go over it later today.
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