Soul Date's dev here! 

I'm noticing a lot more traffic to this page recently - would you be interested in playing an updated version of Soul Date with improved UI and graphics? 

This game has not yet been updated since the game jam during which it was created, and it still contains a number of bugs and poor UI choices made during the original game jam. If there's interest I will happily release an updated version.

Sorry to hear you're in the same boat. I'll give your game a play and share it with my circles. Best we can do is try to help one another and advocate for a better system here

Thank you for passing it along. I'd second that the documentation should be updated to give devs an accurate expectation of how indexing works here. 

I am obviously promoting my game as hard as I can in other channels, but for very small devs like myself, indexing has a significant impact on my traffic and my ability to grow, due to both being included on category pages and coming up in search. With the way the internet is set up these days, plenty of people are going to search for a game by name after seeing a post or stream or demo about it instead of clicking through to someone's bio for a direct link or scanning a QR code, and then give up when it isn't a result. I've seen plenty of people find my other games via direct name search in itch or on google. I'm being very clear that you can only find my game by direct link in all my communications, but people often don't fully read captions and descriptions.

I'd also love clarification on what the "threshold" is for an established seller since the documentation implies it's just someone who has had a game published and indexed with no issues before. But I've gotten multiple comments saying that you have to have a significant following, charge money, have an account older than 1 year, and/or list executable instead of browser-based games. I enjoy putting out small free games that are playable in browser but if that's somehow hurting my ability to get indexed I'd like to know. 

I understand this is a problem of volume that can't really be avoided, but there's a lack of transparency and miscommunication of expectations from itch that could be addressed and would solve a lot of headaches for all parties involved. I'd also hazard that given the randomness of the games that are flagged for review, itch's algorithm could likely be improved. I've seen and read through a lot of the other posts from unindexed and de-indexed devs over the last few days and all that really tells me is that this is a pretty big liability for devs on this platform. I think myself and everyone else stuck in this boat is pretty rightfully upset that the games we put a lot of time and passion into can be hidden at the whims of a completely unknown algorithm even after we've done our due diligence in following all of itch's public quality guidelines. And I'd like to think we can advocate for ourselves a bit here and ask for a better system.

I published my 4th game on this platform, Ode: Prototype, 5 days ago at a significant launch event. I had no problem with my first 3 games getting indexed but this one has remained unindexed and support isn't responding. I'm an established seller who has complied with all of the guidelines set out in itch.io's documentation on indexing requirements and quality guidelines. This game is not NSFW. According to this documentation, this game should have been automatically indexed, and the fact it is still not indexed is significantly impacting me as an active contributor to itch.io's game catalogue. To quote:

"Established sellers with no history of issues will skip this review step and will be indexed immediately. If you have any questions or need to be expedited, then please contact us through our support page."

So I waited 2 days to make sure my game was actually held for review not just slow to index, and then I did that. My support case is 360768. I'd love a response on why I'm not being indexed so I can address it, or if this was a mistake, to be properly indexed so people who attended my launch event can actually find my game. Anything else I can do here?

Ode: Prototype

Play Ode: Prototype!

You kneel at the altar of a dead god. But there are no gods now. Only monsters.

You seek to avenge the greatest loss of your unending life. But Fate has other plans. What kind of Fury will you be?

Ode: Prototype is a short prototype of and prologue to a larger game currently in early development, Ode. It is a branching choose-your-own-adventure game with choices dependent on skill points you gain throughout the game -  your WILL, WONDER, and WILES.  

This prototype features at least 12 unique paths, each taking about 10 minutes to play through.

If you encounter bugs or have feedback for the full release of Ode, please let me know through the official Ode: Prototype Feedback Form.

COLDER is a Winter Solstice riddle-solving mini-game about survival and what makes us human. All of the riddles in the game are based on items submitted by the community as cherished objects. 

What would you do for a little warmth on the longest night?

This game has been a solo development project, with completely original riddles, hand-drawn art, and music composed by myself, without the aid of generative AI. While the game is in Early Access, it would mean the world to me if you'd fill out this feedback form after playing: Official COLDER Feedback Form.

Thank you so much! Definitely planning to optimize the display and clean up some things post jam. Appreciate your feedback!

This was a fantastic first game! Congratulations. It was very fun and I would personally love to be a snail on the moon.

Thanks! Kudos on getting started making games so young

I appreciate it! Thank you for playing.

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

I love  my little robot! Great spin on the theme and I like the mechanics. I didn't realize initially that I needed to keep pressing on the crystalline rocks and thought I had to get a laser to break them, I don't know if that's a common point of confusion but it made me worried I was soft locked initially. Otherwise I had a lot of fun digging to the stars!

Thank  you, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

I appreciate that a lot, thank you!

Thank you very much!

Thank you! Credit for those goes to Kevin MacLeod and The Awkward Daughter. They're great!

Thank you! I'm sorry to hear you found the gameplay confusing - I suggest just picking the dialogue that feels right to you and seeing where it takes you!

This is such a charming game. I love the concept, the theme interpretation, and the art and character design are as delicious as the sushi. I think it would be helpful if you made the interactable portions of the UI more obvious, maybe a higher contrast color or highlighted in some way. I also had trouble figuring out how to actually play the game well, I tried mixing up a few  pieces of sushi to put out at once and all the guests just stared at the sushi - I guess none of them liked those flavors in particular, but a bit more structure or hints (maybe reference Coffee Talk) might help too. Any way I'm giving you a ton of feedback because I love this game and I hope y'all refine it because I would love to play it more! Impressive work for 4 days.

Ribbit. Beautiful little game. Krok.

The theme and art style  is incredible. I'm very excited to see y'all turn this into a narrative game. I agree that the loop reset back to day 1 felt a bit harsh but it was worth the trouble. Great job!

Extremely polished, fun, and I love the concept too. Well done!

This is so creative and I think you have one of the more forgiving mouse-loop mechanics I've played. It was fun and I got competitive with it pretty quickly. There were times I thought I should have gotten a loop but didn't, I think if anything could have been a bit clearer in the tutorial it would be the importance of ending a loop to start a new one to make sure no enemies touch it. Overall super fun and a great job!

I love the spooky vibes and anything with pancakes! I really struggled with the controls and couldn't make it through orders. I still went out and explored  some and I'll have to come back to get some answers.

This game is delightful! The sound design is beautiful and it's very easy to pick up while still being an interesting puzzle. Lovely art as well. Great work!

Very fun and creative! It gets to be quite a challenge after a few rounds. The sound design is very relaxing.

This is a super cool puzzle loop! Great art and sound design. I wasn't able to crack it but I'll happily come back to it and try again.

Fantastic sound design and a really creative concept! I liked the looping mechanic but it took a lot of time to traverse a level. The on-screen text is lovely storytelling and the art is gorgeous.

All the fish scared me when I first spawned, then I realized I was the danger, not them lol. This was so fun and addicting. It would be nice to see new variations on each loop in the future. Great work!

Thanks for giving it a try anyway!

The crystals track your affinity score with your partner - totally forgot to explain them in-game! I'll do so post-jam. More crystals, more likelihood of proceeding to the next stage of the conversation with the same partner. I'm glad you liked the art! Your soul mate is surely just a psychic shop away

Thank you! This was the first game I ever did my own art for and I'm definitely still finding my style. I'm glad you enjoyed it overall!

The crystals! I totally forgot to explain them. They track your affinity score with your partner. More crystals, more likelihood of moving to the next round of conversation with the same partner.  Post-jam I'll add an in-game explanation for them. Thank you for your feedback!

Thank you so much! I am sorry to hear you experienced load issues, I've had that problem with the other game I made with Twine and I need to do some more learning on how to fix it. Thanks for sharing!

Thank you so much! I'm considering incorporating this dialogue mechanic into a larger game for sure. I'm glad you enjoyed it

Thank you! Sorry to hear it was a bad experience for your screen size, after the jam I'll be optimizing it for mobile and I'll also try to optimize it for larger screens so it's less of a pain in the neck

Thank you! I'll add that to my bug fix list, not sure why it happened since all the text (except credits) should be black. Likely I have something redundant in my stylesheet

I appreciate it! I was definitely burning the midnight oil

Thank you! Definitely considering taking this mechanic and using it in a larger game

Thank you thank you!

Thank you so much!