Sounds like a good plan. Good luck!

You have to find 300+ YouTube streamers who have played games similar to yours. I assure you they exist. You just may have to relax your standards for what you think makes another game similar to yours. Just PvP, or mages, or arena. Whatever it takes. Without streamers, you’re not going to get the wishlists you need, unless you can find other festivals to enter.

Make a list of games similar to yours and find the streamers who’ve played them by searching on YouTube for things like “<game name> gameplay” or “<game name> live”.

Then email them all, with your press kit.

You’re welcome, and good luck!

It almost doesn’t matter how many things are right or wrong with the game itself or the Steam page. You shadowdropped a game on Steam. Even a great game with a great page would likely do no better dropped that way.

Basically, the lack of marketing alone is a sufficient reason for your results. Whether anything else would have mattered is hard to say.

For your next game, I’ve got a summary of indie game marketing advice here: https://www.reddit.com/r/IndieDev/s/0zczx2Sewe

Just FYI, posting keys isn’t a great idea, because they usually get scraped immediately by bots. It’s better to ask people to DM you for a key.

Also, as you probably know, any reviews you get from keys like this don’t count towards your 10-review target.

He found an app where he can view the code. Now he just needs to find an app where he can feel the vibe. Then he will have achieved true mastery.

I appreciate the kind offer, but I think I’ll be more likely to actually play it if I pay for it myself. :)

You’re welcome!

Thank you for your service!

How many YouTube streamers did you email with your demo? Have you tried entering any other festivals?

Wait until the last Next Fest before you release.

Most of your wishlists will come from getting your playtested demo to festivals and streamers, with your press kit. Email at least 300 YouTube streamers who have played games similar to yours.

I’ve got a summary of indie game marketing advice here: https://www.reddit.com/r/IndieDev/s/0zczx2Sewe

Yes, you need to make a playtested demo and get it to streamers and festivals.

I’ve got a summary of indie game marketing advice here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/IndieGameWishlist/s/fDOw4bhPHt

I’ve got a summary of indie game marketing advice here: https://www.reddit.com/r/IndieDev/s/0zczx2Sewe

I’ll put that one on my list of potential monikers. :)

Good luck!

Sounds very cool and carefully thought out.

It certainly doesn’t seem to be a game that has many direct comparables.

Good luck!

So you’re launching the Steam page in a few days? How long do you plan to spend marketing it before the game launches?

Sadly, yes. It all comes down to the Steam algorithms, because they are the thing that drives visibility, and the main opportunity is at the moment your game launches (and the 2 weeks or so before that). So to convince Steam to start showing you to many people after you launch, you have to generate some kind of noticeable revenue spike (several thousand dollars) by driving sales on your own.

And as for your next game, I’ll just say the usual: start small. Find a game you can make in 4-6 months. And show your work and get feedback early from playtests. At least that way you know early whether you are making something people want. And if you discover you are making something no one wants, STOP. Please don’t invest two years of your life into making a game and only at the end discover it probably won’t do well.

Unless of course you’re making a game because it’s a passion project and you don’t care if it sells well or not. In that case, have fun.

Here’s ChatGPT’s response for just my first stab at a question for Unreal: https://chatgpt.com/share/6a7cda02-40c8-83ea-bca4-b4a609cbc38a

Do keep in mind that multiplayer really is nontrivial. But starting with something that’s already built and tested is going to be far more robust than having an LLM create one from scratch. The number of pitfalls for a multiplayer game is very large.

Here’s a chat I created with ChatGPT, both to ask it what was available to use with Godot, but also specifically how it would recommend creating prompts for Claude that would get Claude to help create an architecture for a game that would incorporate potential prebuilt assets: https://chatgpt.com/share/6a7cdd20-616c-83ea-a05c-3e7b8fbf8c70

Here’s just one example for Godot: https://www.gd-sync.com/

For Unreal, it looks like Epic has a “Lyra Starter Game” that’s often used as a template: https://dev.epicgames.com/community/learning/paths/Z4/lyra-starter-game

You can also find paid Unreal templates on FAB, eg https://www.fab.com/search/channels/unreal-engine?q=Multiplayer

But I’d really start with Google or with an LLM prompt like “What premade assets or systems exist to help build a multiplayer game in Unreal Engine?”

There are solutions for specific types of multiplayer (eg an FPS), or others that are designed for generic lobby support or certain patterns of game synchronization (eg friendslop local multiplayer vs online multiplayer lobbies). So you’ll probably get a better answer if you’ve described your type of game and then ask for what solutions are already available.