Post by Rakudajin in On Jams, Motivation, and Letting Go comments

On Jams, Motivation, and Letting Go » Comments

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Hello hello!

I also decided to go for the full-game development last year, and this was really a year of learning!

I never had games rated as high as yours on GWJ, and my best game so far - Final Form, the only one that ended up in the top-10. So the first half of the year I spent trying to bring it to a full game...

But then I participated in another jam - GMTK - our game was very well received, and I persuaded the team to make that one into a full game. And largely because I recognized that we have some marketing/visibility potential that Final Form lacks.

So I've made a trailer, it went micro-viral, we got ~1000 wishlist in a week, and we are still working on bringing a bigger version of the game... This is the game btw: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3959020/Imagine_Sisyphus_Happy/

So, besides development, the second half of the year was all about learning to market and feature your game on Steam :) Happy to share some tips and experience based on what I learnt - I'm very far from pro, but I do think I mostly figured out the most basic steps. And figured out where to look for good advice :)

CCadori12 days ago

Hey, Rakudajin!

I really like the idea of "Imagine Sisyphus Happy"; it’s a clever concept. I’ve already added it to my wishlist 🙂

Congrats on the results so far, and thanks for sharing your experience.

Marketing is definitely a big learning curve, and I still have a lot to learn

Rakudajin11 days ago(+1)

Thank you!

Also, about marketing - sorry for unsolicited advice, but if you decide to get into it - I highly recommend this guy:

In short, the main lessons are:

Steam festivals + streamers are almost the only way to get your game seen. Festivals are by far the easiest - you just need to get in
Demo is a must, and it has to be at the very least 30min+
Capsule art is super important - more important than almost anything else in getting people to see your page
You need to have your page and demo up for at least half a year (and actively promote it, i.e. contact streamers and participate in festivals) before your game releases
To get into "popular upcoming", usually you need ~7000 wishlists by launch

I really wish you good luck in all this if you decide to dive in! I found it way less frustrating in terms of trying to market when you feel like you know what you are doing, so actively engaging with this guy's content really helped me with motivation after a few months of posting stuff on reddit and twitter and getting nowhere :))

itch.io

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