As the title says, is there some way that I can improve my games' short descriptions? (here)
Any kind of suggestions are welcome!
Thanks!
Is it to increase click rate? I wish I knew myself haha.
General things I think that can help improve your thumbnails. But take it with a grain of salt.
1. Using more stylized font or custom font (i.e. Final Boss fight was a good use of it)
2. Ensuring font doesn't blend into the rest of the image, making it hard to read (i.e. high command and goblin raid)
--> This could be due to the colors being close in range, or there is too much noise near the font.
Let me know if you learn some other tips and cheers~
You could look if there is a common theme for games that are very popular and are similar to your games.
Making a good cover image for a game is hard.
Specific impressions:
The text on that goblin game is not readable.
The command game promises rts.
The boss game and the sword game promise pixel art.
I can't figure out the sword game.
The boss game promieses platformer.
The goblin game some 3d stuff tower defense like.
If that was your goal, goal achieved ;-)
So you should at least preselect the target audience correctly so far.
Maybe have a look at your short description as well and not only the cover image.
A tactical RTS full of strategic decisions and
A short, fun, local-multiplayer game where one
A fun tower defence full of invading go
A retro platformer dungeon teeming
A fun, fast paced infinite flyer with p
Those read ... not very interesting. Sounds like you asked an AI to summarize your game description. I actually did not read the texts when I tried to figure out the games based on their covers. So information you give there might be redundant. And boring.
I had a look at the cemetary game. Reads AI too. You might want to have a look at your tags too. Why tag indie, this is Itch. And point & click is wrong. Every game is point and click if that one is point & click. People browsing https://itch.io/games/tag-point-and-click will not find "A subgenre of the adventure game, point-and-click games typically involve interacting with background objects, talking to non-player characters, and using an item inventory to solve puzzles that allow the player to progress through the story." in that tower defense game.
You could highlight that it is a jam game made in 5 days. The shorttext "Made in 5 days for Halloween Jam" would be a lot more interesting in my opinion than "A fun tower defence full of invading go...".
The description of that jetpack game is a lot better. That jetpack game. Jetpack. Why is there no bragging about the jetpack?! I can't decypher the item being a jetpack from the picture.
"A fun, fast paced infinite flyer with plenty of sharp things to dodge".
compare to
"Fly a jetpack. Dodge swords. The usual".
Thanks for your advice. I did not use AI for the description, but I have been told before that my writing looks like it.
About the point and click, I have played those games before and did not associate them with the name. Thanks for clarifying.
I will try and redo my descriptions. You are correct that they sound a touch dry, I guess I was unintentionally repeating myself.
Thanks again
There is two things. The hover text when you hover your mouse over a game's cover image in browse section. That is the first paragraph of the game description. At least as much as fits in the pop up. Along with the first two screenshots.
And the line under the image. That is a separate thing you can enter in your game's meta info. This will get cut off, depending on size of the grid. That is why my citations were cut off.
Short description or tagline
Shown when we link to your project. Avoid duplicating your project's title
It is under the title. If you read the title, you probably will have read the line under it. Consiously or not.
They are better, imho.
Now, if there were just not so many other game developers to compete with.
Apart from luck and active advertisements, I think there are only a few things to improve for cheap, and they might not even have that much of an impact. Probably. One would be to not have a cover image. Not having screenshots would be a big one for me. Having no comment section. Disabled ratings. A bland tagline. Inaccurate tags. An overly marketing speech as a description with empty promises and no information. AI generated texts on profile page or game description. That kind of things. Having no demo version for a paid game. They are zero cost to improve, but might deter some potential players, if they should stumble upon a game.
That list is subjective, but I just can't imagine a good reason to prefer the game that does it "wrong" over a game that does it "right", all other things being equal. But the effect can be negligible. Just look at the success of game like Baldi's Basic. Once a thing is famous enough, quirks might actually improve reception, if they are in line with the style.
Oh, and now I know, why I did not read those one liners at first. I looked at your games on your profile and a profile page does not display those. The account page does.
https://streamable.com/2dxv1b
made a short video comparing your blurbs to popular indies!
Great detailed breakdown!
I would love to add more to the short descriptions (a "twist", like you called it), but then it gets cut off and I don't think that the full thing can be read anywhere (I have intentionally reduced the length of the taglines prior to making this topic).
Thanks again for the descriptive video!
The tagline is expanded as a tooltip by hovering over it. But I guess one would not do that, if the first half is not peaking interest. Also, if someone hovers over the game, then probably over the cover and not over the tagline. So there will be a bigger thing. The popup with the screenshots and the cutted off first paragraph of the game description.
Steam uses an actual blurb. That's not a tagline on Steam descriptions. It is always displayed in full. Also, you see them only if you are already on the complete game description page. You do not see the taglines/blurbs while browsing for games on Steam. Not even in a popup. There are popups, but they show screenshots. (At least I did not find a place where they show the tagline.)
Interestingly enough, the tagline is not shown on the project page. Which is kinda lame.
You cannot influence where the tagline is cut off. That is dependant on the user's interface. It has about as much width as the image over it. And that changes, if you change zoom on the browser. The 36 item grid also changes, so you can have 3x12 or 4x9 or 6x6. And with changes in size the browser might chose a different rendering of the letters. And I did not even look how this is shown on mobile or in the Itch app.
So what to use the "tagline" for? Anything that fits. Literally and figuratively. You have little space, but you can enter information there that complements the picture or title. I see many projects that give information in the title. That's bad for searches. They could shift that information in the tagline. Or if you have a generic cover and title, you can add interesting bits to make it more appealing.
From a platform design point of view, I would have assumed that the tagline/short descripion/blurb would show up in the popup along with the screenshots. Since it is not shown in the game description, that feels like a wasted opportunity. And the first paragraph of game descriptions often contains not really helpful things to make the game appealing.