You should probably put the red 'external link' notice on the Amazon, Google and similar badges too.

It depends on the game. I deleted my devlogs and no longer write them because they didn't translate into views or downloads. 

I found there was no overlap between the people who would play my games (casual games) vs the people who would be interested in reading devlogs (other game developers).

When you upload a zip for a browser game, you must tick the box that says this file will be played in the browser. It won't work if you didn't tick that box.

I'm not sure if it will matter if other files are included, probably not.

Inconvenience: It's very difficult to find full-length games (at least 3 to 5 hours of game play). You have to go through pages of game jam submissions (despite the option to exclude them), someone's 2-minute first game, yet another flappy bird or some other popular clone, prototypes, wrongly tagged games and duplicates.

The site is flooded with games that take longer to download than to play.

The average session length is used differently. Some people will show average session as 2-3 minutes when they mean a level takes two to three minutes. You can't really accurately filter on "average session length" to get to games that will take a few hours to play.

The founder of itch.io.

I'm not sure if this falls in "I've tried resizing just about everything..." but in case it doesn't:

Right click on the screen - select display settings. 

Check your settings under scale and layout. 

'Advanced scaling settings' will let you set a specific scale, and it's possible that a game changed the scale and was shut down before changing it back.

• If you can play the game from start to finish and there are no glitches, then you did well.
• Your graphics look amazing but 622mb for an Android game is about 550mb too big. 
• There's not a great market on itch.io for Android games you could consider releasing a PC version if you want feedback here.
• There are already hundreds (if not thousands) of pong clones on itch.io, if you want people to play your game, you may need to do something original.
• Tip: stats on videos say people only watch the first 30 seconds - so show your game in the first 30 seconds, not the history of the game.

You can try to download it directly. https://unity.com/releases/editor/archive

You can also delete your temp files and try again - Appdata / Local / Temp (I think the installation files are placed there.)

Also exclude the folder you're installing Unity in from your anti-virus, because Unity writes 100s of small files, and the anti-virus can interfere with this.

Some people will click on your profile to see who you are. If you have a single profile, they'll see your games. If you use two profiles, you will find it more difficult to market your games because your activity won't automatically increase traffic to your itch.io page.  

You can rate a game without even playing it. So, it's likely many games with a 1- or 2-star rating have nothing wrong with them - someone was just having a bad day, or the game didn't personally appeal to them.  

You'd probably be better off reading the comments, or reading reviews on sites that only allow "players" to rate the games.

You missed one step. 

Itch.io requires you to fill in a tax interview. They charge a fee of $3 (the company who handles the interview) which will be deducted from your first payment. Based on this tax interview, you will be given a withholding tax rate. If the UK has a treaty with the USA (which it does) there shouldn't be any withholding tax. In this case, it's up to you to declare the amount on your tax return.

PayPal does not charge me to withdraw the money into my bank account - but my bank does. I'm in South Africa, but I'm going to guess you'll have the same situation. If you use the PayPal funds to buy stuff, rather than transferring it into your bank account, you won't pay any further fees.

You don't need to trade through a company though, you can trade under your own name. Any income will then be added to your other earnings and taxed at your marginal rate - but you probably can deduct your expenses incurred in writing the games from your income (like your computer costs, software etc). 

https://www.gov.uk/set-up-sole-trader

You only get a payout if the amount you will get after all the deductions is $5 or more. So, if the amount you get is only $2.50 the payout will be cancelled and the funds will stay in your account until you earn more money.

I don't think Itch.io has any problem if a developer loads all their own games onto itch.io on the same day (pretty sure I did that years ago when I first discovered itch.io).

It may be that the country you're in requires Itch.io to add VAT or GST to the price which is why its increasing for you by 20%. 

I like the backgrounds; your foreground pictures stand out clearly. 

I'd suggest you change the colour of the character's face, because it's almost the same colour as the background.

If your mouse works on Steam games - then it's probably not your setup or PC. 

It may be that Steam requires certain features before they'll release the game. 

The Json file is normally only used to save certain data, so you probably can't make the game work by messing with that. 

But it is possible that the games were not efficiently coded, or coded for machines with higher specs than yours, and so use up all the available memory which may cause it to freeze.

I checked on one of my games that's written in Unity - the mouse can move freely, but will do nothing unless you click on something, because I haven't coded mouse movements into the game (I have an onscreen joystick for touchscreen or keyboard controls). 

You can test if on your machine if you want (it's free): https://evolutionarygames.itch.io/cloud-calming-3d  (There are several layout options, you can select whichever you prefer)

It sounds like it's just that game. The person programming it probably wrote code to disable the mouse - or failed to write code that triggers if the mouse is moved. If, as you say the WASD keys work, then the game is probably programmed to only work with keyboard and mouse buttons when needed, and not mouse movement.

If you write in the comments or the actual game or contact the game developer for support, they can probably tell you.

I have a few games that are in English and Spanish. I don't speak Spanish myself but worked with some friends in Argentina who translated them. We actually put the English and Spanish together so you can learn phrases from the languages as you play (although that's not the purpose of the game).

Scroll down for the Spanish descriptions on the store listing page: 

https://evolutionarygames.itch.io/undersea-confusion  (free - but only for Android)

https://evolutionarygames.itch.io/pizzantropia (PC - there's a free demo)

https://evolutionarygames.itch.io/pizzantropia-android  (Android - there's a free demo)

I suggest you include screenshots and a video and tell people what your game is about.

There are over 500 000 games here - which means there's 1000s of games that nobody is playing, or viewing. You can't decide your future based on your games' popularity here. If you love making games - keep at it. 

It's not actually a bug - it's the way the system is setup. Itch.io takes their cut off the top, and then deducts all the expenses thereafter. So in your case they are taking 100% and leaving you with the expenses - like PayPal or credit card fees. You should probably reduce the itch.io share to reach a break-even point.

Alternatively itch.io should consider taking their cut after deductions, not before deductions - which will also solve this problem. 

The music's nice but it sounds sad to me.  It would really depend on the actual game - whether it fits.  But it's mellow, it would not be too intense.

Unfortunately the game does not work for me. There is just a long intro - where the picture fades in - but then  there are no instructions and nothing I clicked or pressed on my keyboard worked  There is a press c or f in the corner - but that did nothing.  

For me it was about making a game from start to finish, and adding in a new feature every time. So it would have a start screen, basic menu,  a final level, a win screen and a way to restart. The first few games I wrote did not have a save, but they were short enough that someone could play it through in a single session. They had at least 10 levels, and it takes about 2-3 minutes to complete a level and two to three difficulty settings so that there was replay ability.  Every game was a little longer, had more options etc.   

With an adventure game - work on how many scenes, or how many interactions, so consider each scene a level, and how long the player is going to walk around for i.e. how big the scene is and how much dialogue there is.  It's also something you learn with experience - you need to first create a playable scene and then time yourself - if it's taking you 10 seconds or 10 minutes, there's a problem.  (the first is too short - put more obstacles in the way, the latter is too long - players will get bored, have more scene changes.)  

My criteria for free games is that it should not take someone longer to find, download and install the game than to play it. And it should be a game they can replay to make it worth their while i.e. it will be different next time because of random elements. (That's a little harder to do in adventure games.)

My personal criteria for the the paid games I develop is that it should be at least 5 hours of game play (which includes reading the stories - those that have them in) - to justify the price. (That's more or less the benchmark for casual games - I read a lot of forums / reviews to get a feel for what people liked / disliked - and below that benchmark people often ask for their money back - longer than that adds more value, you can charge more or they feel that they are getting good value for money - this is at the $2.99 - $6.99 price point.) 

You can find good quality adventure games here (free) that will give you an idea. 

On the third level the arrow keys were swapped - I had to press the down key to move up and the up key to move down - when moving vertically. They worked as I expected when moving horizontally. You need a skip tutorial button - people who regularly play games, do not like hand-holding tutorials. 

(I don't play violent games, so I liked your concept (teaching maths), but shooting at a tank and being shot at - put me off before I could properly evaluate the game.)

If you're looking at 3D, have you considered playing around with the tutorials on Unity learn? You make small prototypes during the courses which gives you insight into the software and gaming fundamentals.

It does sound like you're aiming to make a time management game. They are particularly complex in terms of how many things must work together and work separately at the same time.  It's a difficult game for a starter game.  Games like point and click adventure games - where people simply walk around and click things - or games with simple game play like Sokoban / space invaders are easier to make the first time round. 

 There's nothing wrong with making a complex game first, but you need a lot of motivation to keep going because as you say, it will take months before you can play it - and with starter games - there's normally many bugs which specifically are things that you did not foresee happening, and therefore did not provide code to cope with it due to a lack of experience. 

When I started I set myself a goal of creating 10 small games - at least 30 minutes each, each one had different game play and graphics features,  before attempting a full length game to gain the knowledge on coding and game play.  That way I was creating a playable game much faster which kept me motivated. It also meant that I had  own examples of most features that I was going to put into a larger game.

Tip: Play a lot of games in the genre you're writing. That is the best way to know if what you're doing is fun or tedious.  Avoid the aspects of those other games that you find annoying, and keep the aspects that you find fun.

Squarespace is an independent website hosting company.  It means that they used a template from Squarespace and did not correctly update all the fields. (In other words, it's an honest mistake.)

The twitter one I can answer too - if you follow someone there's a good chance they will follow you back, so the more people you follow, the more followers you get.  It's one of the ways to get followers quickly. 

Yes, there is a button create new project on your dashboard.

You need to upload demos to some place that you can link to. Browse the music offerings here to get an idea of where to host. (If all else fails, use YouTube).

 Once you have samples or demos that people can listen to, you can upload your music as a zip file and follow the instructions on the itch.io page to place it for sale (set a price for it.)

You can offer your music in exchange for a cover illustration or simply ask. Many artists offer their services for free - here. 

However, a cover illustration is not that important for music - what is important is that there are demos that people can listen to (the first few seconds or similar songs - but with a beep or sound placed strategically so that people cannot steal it.

For games, it is important that the music loops and that you provide info on the length of the tracks and the type - .wav / .ogg / .mp3 etc. 

There are so many music offerings here - really great stuff and many free ones -  just browse the site and check what others did - then do the same.

The stone servant. Both characters look interesting - looking at it, I thought their stories were intertwined.

If you make a better video showing actual game play and that your game is fun to play - it may help.  People are spoilt for choice here - you need to do all you can to entice them to choose your game. Barely any downloads is normal, rather than the exception.

I don't think Itch.io automatically know show you made it - but it can be triggered by a keyword that you selected.

Go to your game - At the top there are tabs - Edit - DevLog  - Metadata.

Select Metadata - on the side select: Engines and Tools.  Change or delete it there.

Add the demo project in twice. 

Select the option for the first one: this is a demo can be downloaded for free. 

Then for the second one set the price to $5.

Then people can choose to get the demo for free, or pay $5 for it - in which case you would have to manually send them a download key for the full price project. However, if you're going to do that, you may as well just change the price to $5 because everyone will most likely choose that option and you're creating extra work for yourself.

This is what I have. The zip file is what I upload - and it contains everything else you see in the screenshot.  Theoretically anyone can just unzip it and run the game .exe.

In other words - select everything - right click - send to zip

https://evolutionarygames.itch.io/cloud-calming-3d

You can download the zip if you want to see an example.

Which game? It may be showing released to you - but I can only see the game you created in August. 

If you did that on a game that is already released, it probably won't work. But if you released a new game, that feature is working, I cannot see any new game on your profile page.

What itch.io shows the developer is different from what itch.io shows to the general public.  They allow you to see the full page and share a link if you want with people.  

It can mean a few things:

1. There isn't enough space for the app to install - clear your cache / storage and try again 

2. It's been blocked by Google Play - turn off Google Play and Protect

3. It's the same version that is already installed on your device and your device doesn't see the need to reinstall the same version.

You can release your game with an installer - that way they have to accept your EULA or terms and conditions before installing the game.  However, it won't allow them to play the game through the itch.io console. 

Alternatively you can just put a disclaimer in your description that states what your terms are with the clause - by clicking download / or playing this game you agree that you have read these terms and will abide by them.

There really isn't much you can do about those fees - except increase your prices to cover them.  If someone buys your game or asset using Paypal - then there is a charge from Paypal for processing that transaction and that's what you're seeing under payment processing fees.  It's the payment method your customers use. 

There is a small charge for the payout - but you'll see that under adjustments and not under payment processing fees.