While my partner Sergey is busy with last-minute bug fixing and polish before we release the demo, I took a few days off from the main development process to create promotional material for the Twitter marketing campaign which I plan to constantly do 1 month before the release and 2 weeks after the release(the release itself will be in 2022).

I will make a plan for each day what tags to use when to post, where to post, and so on, and by that time I want to already have all promo material so I can concentrate more on real-time engagement.

I used 600x600 for best res for Twitter, nothing spectacular, I will also do some in-game gifs and more.

Preview:

I used both zoom and real size footage so each one got 2 versions.

And here are some mixed ones(I do plan to have a total of around 30 of these pics and around 10 solid gifs)

oh and we also work on adding the second big boss with unique mechanics, still trying to mix RTS with horror.

Forgot about this one

So much work to do

On the last mile of development, I am adding a few shock scenarios with unique twists. 

For example, here the intro will say that just after you deployed the strike team you fall asleep, a weird nightmare where you encounter the "ancient one", the mechanics here are a bit twisted, as in you can ask questions, curious players will surely ask a lot of questions from the question pool but the twist is that the strike team soldiers will constantly lose HP during this state, will the answers be more important than your strike team health?

UPDATE

Working on the game endings.

I must warn you by now that I used minimal style for all artwork in cutscenes, to have more time to work on other features + I like it this way (windows paint ftw)

The game got 3 paths, basically, 3 entire different scenarios based on player choices(+ a lot of random content), so each path will have its own ending but also secondary ending screens based on some actions player took trough out his journey.

And this is the example of the vaccine part(fail state and win state) of the ending(I hope I do not spoil to much just in case some of you actually want to play it when it is done)

That's it for today

The first exclusive first impression video of Chromosome Evil Beta Gameplay 

UPDATE

After this marketing round, we noticed a few issues with our game that were not discovered during testing.
So based on the feedback we now have an extra 1 month of dev time delay because we are implementing these new features:
- The game interface must automatically be zoom in x 2 on large interfaces
- all the text from the game must automatically be zoom in x 2 on large interfaces
- manual reload button on the interface


Also, we noticed some people are a bit skeptical about the save game costing resources, we decided not to remove this feature but we do plan to make it more accessible for example on morale zero the cost of save game will not require food resources just action points and will only cost additional resources when the morale penalty is high.

The difficulty choosing screen is out of the question since we want an exact player experience and by having such difficult options some may choose to go on easy even though the good experience only comes on normal difficulty.
So yes, the game balance will remain at the principle: the game difficulty adjusts according to how you play and what decisions you make.

UPDATE

getting close to the end of development.

Working on achievements

We want to release in 2, max 3 months so you will need to excuse the basic icons for achievements since my time is required on the marketing plan and marketing execution after this.

We also make each achievement with extra rewards for example:

- destroy 100 zombies: gives + 2 bullets on each new game

- upgrade rifle to max LVL: gives + 2 weapon components each new game

and so on... to increase the re-playability factor, along with the multiple paths, multiple choices, and the randomly generated content.

NEXT:

I will work on the release marketing plan, I will also make posts about that too in the hope that it won't be too boring since it's not actually game dev material

Now on to marketing.

The organization is important for me.

When I start the campaign I want to use my time to respond and adjust to all responses so all promotional material will be done ahead of time in order for me to be more efficient.

I will concentrate all the marketing funnel on the Steam coming soon page. And from there I plan to redirect already existing fans to my Discord to keep growing my community.

I split the campaign into 2 parts: Critical & Secondary

Critical

These are tasks that I consider to be essential in the overall release campaign, without them I think the chances of success are considerably lowered.

1. Email list updates

Target: my old custom email list needs an update, some of the content creators may no longer be active and some new content creators may have appeared

Type: part of email marketing

2. Email marketing

Target: youtube content creators, journalists, streamers

Type: slow-burn/fast-burn according to the video release timing and userbase flow.

3. Twitter

Target: Journalists / Curators / content creators - networking

Type: fast-burn campaign, regular/constant posting

5. Gamejolt and Itch.io

Target:  exposure

Type: early access release one day before the Steam full release. And full release on Itch.io and Gamejolt one month after.

Secondary

These tasks I consider to be secondary, the campaign can still do decently without them but surely they can give that extra boost(especially the Discord MK).

Also on some of them, I am doing an experimental approach so I don't know the exact results and some are more aimed toward Branding.

1. Facebook "Chromosome evil"(game) page 

TARGET: for people who already know about the game but search for more information, the extra story presentation will boost the prelude element/slow-burn and can be viewed even after release for extra lore

Type: slow-burn campaign / Branding - Story (close to comic book aproach, extra lore, episodic) hints/artistic/atmospheric marketing campaign.

2. Facebook Pixelart groups

TARGET: extra audience

Type: Indirect Marketing / fishing for audience / fast-burn campaign

3. Facebook "16 BIT NIGHTS"(company) page

TARGET: experimentation/Branding - I want to experiment a bit with minimal investment in some facebook Adds campaign

Type: official news of the release, fast-burn campaign

4. Gamejolt (similar to Twitter mechanics)

Target: The aim is to gain extra exposure from Gamejolt closed community + there are many small/medium size YouTubers on GJ that will also boost this effect.

This campaign is meant to also draw attention to the Gamejolt version release. 

Type: both slow-burn and fast-burn, includes regular posts that will end in a  release

5. Deviantart

Target: extra audience + old DeviantArt subscribers fans refresh

Type: fast-burn and slow-burn, one round, post 10 picture art from game in one day in order to get all new submission section 100% covered. This also helps with Branding.

6. FORUMS

Target: extra audience

Type: slow-burn, I made a post about the game on aliens forums, 40k forums, and other external community forums and now I will bump all threads for a refresh

7. Keymailer & Indieboost

Target: extra audience

Type: fast-burn, The demo will be available for most content creators one day before release to increase exposure.

8. Discord

Target: extra audience, target entire gaming communities

Type: fast-burn, will mostly post links from other campaigns in art, self-promo, and other allowed rooms

9. Itch.io

Target: extra audience

Type: fast-burn, release free version 1 day before Steam release to increase extra exposure and full release 1 month later

10. Reddit

And there is also: Reddit although I do not have much experience there so I will need to improvise along the way

11. Steam news/annoucements

Target: This campaign main goal is to "resuscitate" older wishlist players that forgot about the game and to show activity before release

Type: fast-burn campaign

12. 16 BIT NIGHTS official site

Target: community

Type: Branding, official news

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I cannot enter into details on all points in just one post but for example, I will take:

3. Facebook "16 BIT NIGHTS"(company) page

TARGET: experimentation/Branding - I want to experiment a bit with minimal investment in some facebook Adds campaign

Type: official news of the release, fast-burn campaign

This is meant just for official news to already existing fans and JOurnalists that are interested in our projects.

https://www.facebook.com/16BITNIGHTS/

I will make an announcement post on the official Facebook page of my Company regarding the release and other critical news only. I will also make an event countdown for the release.

Example of content that I will be posting(please note that I am not 100% sure I will release in March but I made this so you understand what I mean)

1. Facebook "Chromosome evil"(game) page 

TARGET: for people who already know about the game but search for more information, the extra story presentation will boost the prelude element/slow-burn and can be viewed even after release for extra lore

Type: slow-burn campaign / Branding - Story (close to comic book aproach, extra lore, episodic) hints/artistic/atmospheric marketing campaign.

This is a bit experimental.

https://www.facebook.com/ChromosomeEvil/

I did not enter this page in any of my marketing funnels but I noticed I get some new views from time to time, mostly I suspect that after people hear about the game and they are interested they do an additional search for it on social media and they stumble upon this page. My goal here is just to solidify already existing fans by posting lore-related content. For example, I took the intro cutscene images and modified them a bit to fit the Facebook criteria and when fans enter this page they will have a nice story to read in order to be more informed by the game's lore. In a long term, this can also help with the branding but this will not cause additional exposure unless the already existing fans are impressed and they do a bit of organic exposure to their friends.

And these are the promotional material that I will be posting for this task, 1 post per day in order not to mess up with the Facebook algorithm

Now if you have any questions please feel free to ask and I will do my best to answer.

Also if you have any suggestions please x 2 tell me so that I can improve, I still got time until February to do so and I don't want to miss anything.

UPDATE TIME

this one is regarding marketing.

What did I do last week while my partner was fixing the last few bugs left? I did a bit of email marketing.

And this is how I split my email marketing priorities until 24 March:

List 1 (past) - for Exclusive Beta footage (I think I posted about these results in the past, I only sent the press kit to 5 YouTubers that I have been following and engaging in their communities for some time such as Nook, Frazz, Splat, and so on) aim here was to create quality branding, not quantity. This list got converted 5/5

List 2 (present) - here I aimed for YouTubers that do upcoming indie games announcements, my list was custom made, again with engagement in time but unfortunately from the 5 YouTubers I aimed, only 2 responded but still, I consider this a success. Please note that for this category I haven`t sent the game only the trailer, release date, and a gameplay video from one of the YouTubers that did one during Beta.

Because indie games fans:

Because strategy game fans:

List 3 (Next) - Here I will target game Journalists, again my list will be small(5-6 Journalists) but I will do solid research first and active engagement. I will also include here a game version with locked content(I don't want too many spoilers out there + I am still doing the exclusive approach not just because I want better chances at bigger people but because I aim for quality in branding)

List 4 (after) - Here I will target very big Youtubers, it will be a 50-50 shoot in the dark because I did not have time to research and engage in all their communities, this list will probably have 10-15 people and if even 1 of them will make a video the goal will be reached.

List 5(after) - here I will target medium size YouTubers, this list will probably consist of around 30 YouTubers, I will also not have time to do many engagements but if branding from List 1 and 2 worked then this should not be a problem and should increase the exposure more as we are getting closer to the release date

List 6(same time with the release) - here I will target the people who subscribed to my site with their emails, ofc here will be just an announcement so there will be no actual game press kit attached. I aim for a big boom so I will try to synchronize this with the Gamejolt & Itch.io free vertical slice release and probably I will also give some keys on Keymailer and Indieboost although TBH in the future I plan to stop using  Keymailer and Indieboost entirely, exclusivity works so much better than paying YouTubers and risking your keys to end up on third party sites on sale.

List 7 (removed) - here the aim was people who do Streams, unfortunately, I will skip this one because I am lacking time & I am exausted, I hope it wont bite me in the ass at the end but I do hope some streamers will pick it up organicaly

As an extra note:

I will be using Gmail when sending out the pres kit because it is most likely not to get into the spam folder.

If you have anything else do check your email chances of reaching into the spam folder here: https://www.mail-tester.com/test-kc6vi0zve or just google for any mail testers.

After you send your email I also recommend dropping a message or a tweet politely asking if the email reached in good condition and if they need additional info, mostly this works best if you already established engagement in their community or a Twitter account. On my list 1, I had this luxury but for future lists, I did not have time to establish a basic engagement with everyone.

What do I scan when creating my email lists for YouTubers:

- the number of subscribers

- the amount of engagement per video(likes and comments) in the report to the subs

- the flow on which videos are released

- the type of content must include my target audience

- the quality of his videos

- last time he was active

This being said, I had a long chat with my partner Sergey who does the programming and brings my design to life(I have huge respect for this man, in 4 years he ALWAYS provided 2 updates per week, no breaks no computer broken no shit excuses) the chat was in regards to the future after release. For me, it is too much to do both A. art, design, testing, story and B. PR, marketing, community management, so after this project I want to choose just one of them, either A or B, I personally incline more for Marketing and PR but we shall see, the decision is not final yet.

I hope you Gentlemen found some useful information through my post.

I salute you!

Thank you guys for all the kind words and support!

A lot has happened behind the curtain last week, my partner might go indie full time sooner than expected because of various reasons but I will let him post about that when the time comes.

Meantime a small brief of my past week tasks

- Press kit / Landing page update/polish: https://16bitnights.com/chromosome_evil/
Because next week I will be on List 3 - Journalists, I need to have the press kit at its best quality, Journalist require a more polished approach when coming to press kits.
My aim here is to get 3 Metacritic approved Journalists in order to get a Metacritic score. I will probably search for similar games reviews and contact those journalists, I only need 3 but TBH my hopes are very low, they are mostly already bombarded with many emails and have very little time + many of them require early engagement and scanning for their preferabilities, this translates into time, time that I have a very limited amount of. I used to be in contact with Owerpowerd noobs but unfortunately, they lost the Metacritic approval a few years ago.
This step is not critical but it is a very solid addition for branding & can help open doors easier for the next steps from my email marketing list.

- Steam Developer Page: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/25256606?snr=1_5_9__2000
I also managed to establish my Steam developer page, I should have done this a long time ago but better late than never.

- Update official site news: https://16bitnights.com/
Just a simple update, I created entries regarding things I already posted here, such as a case study on "How to evaluate a publisher", case study on "Email marketing" and the first gameplay video of Chromosome Evil.

- Social media posts regarding my latest entry. https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=73024.0
Since I made this email marketing template I decided to share it in some places like Tigsource, Itch.io, yoyo forums(game maker), and Reddit.

- Twitter: https://twitter.com/16bitnights
I did some posts regarding CHromosome Evil, I also engaged with other people's posts with some likes and minimum comments and I had a few private conversations with some people in the market, basically a bit of networking.

- Discord https://discord.gg/J2E2YWK (PS: feel free to join)
I did a bit of chat with people in the industry(not related to chromosome evil) just for more networking & engagement on external Discord rooms + some community management on my own Discord(I do have a nice level-up system on my community that I will probably also share the template in the near future)

- Tiktok
Yea I installed TikTok, it is very toxic if you ask me but I want to experiment with marketing, I know that most people there are very young and my target audience is mostly 20+ but I still want to try it out.


And that`s it for now gentlemen

So much has happened, I don't even know where to start ...

So I try to stay away from Political topics but unfortunately, some also affect my Game dev career so I will try to describe the events as neutral as possible.

The first event.
Last week my partner Sergey D. decided to quit his main job and go indie developer full-time, he got money for 3 more months but this, in theory, should not be a problem because the game is now finished and the release is just around 25 days away so he should start receiving income from the game sales within a maximum of 3 months and our worst-case scenario on sale projection covered his risk factor.
His worst-case scenario is to make his share around 15.000$ profit within the first year, mainly with all expenses and my share we need to make 50.000$ profit within the first year.
I was so happy for him and I got excited and also started preparing my own job quit moment, I planned main for 22 of May since that is also my b-day even though things are very hard on my day-job I wanted to wait a bit to see the exact release results.
BUT ...
The situation from Ukraine - Russia will affect our situation and we are trying to adapt. Especially since my partner is from Russia and I am from a UN country. Mainly:
1.1 If SWIFT will get banned how the hell can I send him money?
1.2 we discussed a worst-case scenario of him coming to my country to give him cash but then again he cannot take more than 10k $ through Vamal customs + the flights might be banned so he might not be able to come.
1.3 50% of our target audience is from Russia so many of our fans will not be able to use bank aka won't be able to buy the game. How will this affect our game sale projections and estimations?

This is a bad situation for my partner since he got 2 kids to raise and he is the head of the fammily and got nothing to do with the conflict.
After working with him since 2010 on different projects I can clearly say he F***ing deserves to finally get his full-time game dev career independence.
So we keep going forward and see how the situation evolves.



On to the second event.
A few years ago I made a game TAURONOS( https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=59788.0 ) with another programmer from my country Tudor Vaida, we managed to find a Publisher from Ukraine( https://restlesscorp.com/ ) that helped us publish the game on Nintendo Switch and Xbox. He took care of both marketing and the porting process and was very transparent and cooperative so we truly enjoyed working with him. He is one man army, as indie as it gets.
So due to recent Ukraine conflict events, we decided to let him keep all income on Xbox and Switch as effective immediately. He will not be able to make giveaways of our game and porting to PS would require a new contract but with all the income TAURONOS makes on Switch and Xbox he will keep it non-recoupable.


And the third and final event
Marketing, lots of emails sent lots of work I don't feel capable of doing a constructive post about this now, I am exhausted.
But as a small side-event, my partner finally made a social media account on Twitter if anyone wants to drop him a follow https://twitter.com/DovganovskiyS

I don't know what the hell will happen now with this worldwide situation and how will this affect our release and game dev career, I will admit I am a bit scared.



Gentlemen, I salute you!  

12 days until the release

Good news!

Vertical slice/early access is now available to download for free on Itch.io

https://16bitnights.itch.io/chromosome-evil

Good news.

The game was released on Steam.

We still work on improving it based on the players feedback

Work on new content continues.

Here is a preview.
We plan on making an entirely new system for inventory/crafting

Main game version of inventory(old one):





 expanded version of inventory(new one)




and

+ Just made a post about community management if anyone is interested.

https://itch.io/t/2072083/community-management

Today I finally reached my dream and quit my job. Now I am a full-time indie game developer. I only had to invest 10 years of my life to reach this point but it was worth it.

Thank you Itch.io for contributing to this outcome!

We are now working on some extra content for the game and we hope that soon we can release the full version on Itch.io too

we just got accepted into the Fearfestival powered by Feardemic