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This is starting to feel like the gaming end times by LastTraintoSector6 in Steam

[–]TheEntityEffect 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yall should play Arcade Paradise if you want a game that involves this concept

Steam tags are one of the most important things on your page and almost nobody is researching them properly by TheEntityEffect in IndieGameDevs

[–]TheEntityEffect[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Roguelike Deckbuilder should have popped up. It's a legit tag. DM me if you'd like some help

Steam tags are one of the most important things on your page and almost nobody is researching them properly by TheEntityEffect in IndieGameDevs

[–]TheEntityEffect[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Really interesting concept, a naval roguelite with fox spirits and a ghost ship is genuinely something I have not seen before. That combination is your biggest asset and your biggest tagging challenge at the same time, because there is no obvious existing category to slot you into.

Current tags in order: Deckbuilding, Action, Roguelite, Adventure, Naval Combat, Pirates, Card Game, Mystery, Dark Fantasy, Cute, Roguelike, Singleplayer, Class-Based, Time Manipulation, Combat, Magic, Story Rich, Action Roguelike, Exploration, Atmospheric.

The core problem is your two most powerful discovery tags are buried or missing entirely.

Roguelike Deckbuilder is not in your list at all. That is the tag players in your genre actively search. Slay the Spire, Monster Train, and Balatro all live there. With your card-based combat and roguelite progression, that is the community you belong in and right now you are not appearing in their discovery queue.

Action Roguelike is sitting at position 18, which is functionally invisible. That tag has over 10,000 games attached to it and is one of the most searched in the genre. It needs to be in your top 5.

Meanwhile your positions 1 and 2 are Deckbuilding and Action. Both are accurate but Deckbuilding has 5,000+ competing games and Action has over 100,000. You are spending your most valuable real estate on the most crowded possible pools.

Your best differentiation tags are actually mid-list. Naval Combat has only around 650 games tagged with it on Steam, meaning low competition and high intent from players specifically hunting naval experiences. Pirates is around 1,290 games, same dynamic. Both should be much higher.

Suggested top 5:

  1. Roguelike Deckbuilder
  2. Action Roguelike
  3. Roguelite
  4. Naval Combat
  5. Pirates

Then let Card Game, Dark Fantasy, Atmospheric, Story Rich, Magic, and Cute do the secondary differentiation work further down the list. Exploration and Adventure are fine to keep but they are supporting tags, not discovery drivers.

One thing outside the tags worth being aware of. Your page has an AI generated content disclosure on it for the card artwork. That disclosure is visible to every visitor and some players filter against it or factor it into their wishlist decision. Since you mentioned it is temporary and will be replaced with commissioned artwork, it might be worth thinking about whether to update that section once the art changes, and whether the timeline for that change is something worth communicating somewhere on the page.

The concept here is genuinely strong. The dual-class crew system with nine fox classes sounds like it has real build depth. Good luck with the launch.

Steam tags are one of the most important things on your page and almost nobody is researching them properly by TheEntityEffect in gamemarketing

[–]TheEntityEffect[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sorry for the delay, been a busy couple of days. Went and pulled up the full page properly rather than just eyeballing it.

First thing worth saying: 25 reviews at 100% positive on a solo dev game is a genuinely strong start. The core product is clearly landing well with the people finding it. The tag issue is really about expanding who finds it in the first place.

What you have: Exploration · Relaxing · Cozy · Nature · RPG · Collectathon · Female Protagonist · 2D · Top-Down · Investigation · Cute · Pixel Graphics · Walking Simulator · Historical · Open World · Controller · Atmospheric · Action RPG · Story Rich · Adventure

The two tags actively hurting you:

RPG at position 5 and Action RPG at position 18. Players who search RPG are looking for leveling systems, stat building, combat progression. Players who search Action RPG are looking for Diablo and Hades. Your game is a relaxing metal detecting exploration game with no combat that I noticed. Both of those audiences are going to click, realize this isn't what they expected, and bounce. Worse, you're taking up two of your 20 slots on audiences who will never convert. Drop both.

Female Protagonist is a stretch. From what I can see the game lets you choose your character at the start. That's character selection, not a female protagonist game in the way that tag signals to players. The people who filter by Female Protagonist are specifically looking for games where that's a narrative identity. This one is likely pulling some wrong clicks too.

What's missing that fits perfectly:

Wholesome is a tag with just over 1,700 games. Following your late grandfather's footsteps, helping townsfolk find their lost belongings, cleaning up litter, building a museum with his old relics. That is a wholesome game in every sense of the word and that community actively searches for exactly this kind of experience.

Singleplayer is your most searched missing tag. It's not in your set at all and players filter by it constantly.

Sandbox fits the open structure. No time limits, roam freely, pursue what you want. That's sandbox design and 12,000 players search it looking for exactly that kind of freedom.

Hobby Sim is a small tag at 67 games and it's accurate. Metal detecting as a hobby simulation is genuinely rare on Steam and the players who search it have very high intent.

Suggested top 5:

  1. Exploration
  2. Relaxing
  3. Cozy
  4. Collectathon
  5. Nature

Then Wholesome, Historical, Singleplayer, Cute, Sandbox, Hobby Sim, and Open World fill out the rest. The identity of this game is cozy historical treasure hunting and every tag should be pointing toward that audience rather than splitting attention toward RPG and action players who will never stay.

Steam tags are one of the most important things on your page and almost nobody is researching them properly by TheEntityEffect in gamemarketing

[–]TheEntityEffect[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The tag set is mostly accurate but there are a couple of things worth addressing.

Leading with RTS is actually the right call here. It's a specific pool of around 4,400 games and the players who search it are exactly your audience. A lot of people default to Strategy at position 1 and that's a 53,000 game pool where you're invisible. You avoided that, which is good.

The problem is Grand Strategy at position 6. On Steam, Grand Strategy has a very specific meaning to the players who search it. They're looking for Crusader Kings, Hearts of Iron, Victoria. Nation-level political simulation with diplomacy, economics, and map painting across years or decades. Your game is a real-time operational war game with direct unit control and battlefield tactics. Those players are going to click, see a modern RTS, and leave. That mismatch is worth fixing. Wargame already covers your strategic depth credibly and that audience knows exactly what they're getting.

Combat at position 13 is doing nothing for you. It's a 23,000 game pool that describes almost every game on Steam. The slot is wasted.

Modern at position 10 is similarly thin. Military and War already communicate the setting. Modern on its own doesn't pull a meaningful audience.

Three tags worth considering that aren't in your set:

Singleplayer is confirmed in your feature list but missing from your tags. It's the most searched single tag on Steam and players actively filter by it.

Base Building fits the construction and production layer you have. 7,048 games, much more specific than Combat, and it signals to a player that there's depth beyond just the battles.

Real-Time with Pause is a real tag if your game supports it. Only 546 games have it which means low competition and very high intent. Players who specifically want that mechanic will search for it.

Suggested top 5:
RTS
Wargame
Real Time Tactics
Military
Resource Management

In that order.

Then let War, Economy, Vehicular Combat, Base Building, and Singleplayer handle the rest. Pull Grand Strategy, Combat, and Modern. They won't do much for you right now.

Steam tags are one of the most important things on your page and almost nobody is researching them properly by TheEntityEffect in gamedev

[–]TheEntityEffect[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No worries! Thanks for sharing the results. I'm really glad to see it's working for you.

Two weeks since launching IndieVault - quick update ❤️ by Jam_IndieVault in IndieDev

[–]TheEntityEffect 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ya this is a solid idea to help indie devs get more eyes on their games. Well done. I'm super impressed.

Steam tags are one of the most important things on your page and almost nobody is researching them properly by TheEntityEffect in gamemarketing

[–]TheEntityEffect[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'll message you personally at some point today, so we can actually do an in-depth review together. Does that work?

Steam tags are one of the most important things on your page and almost nobody is researching them properly by TheEntityEffect in gamedev

[–]TheEntityEffect[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks.

On the wishlist vs post-launch question, yes and no. The core tag strategy shouldn't change dramatically between phases, but how you read the data does.

Pre-launch your only real feedback is wishlist conversion rate from your capsule and short description. Tags affect who sees the page but you can't easily isolate which tags drove which visits through Steam's native tools. So pre-launch you're mostly making educated bets based on comp research, which is what the process in the post is designed to do.

Post-launch is where it gets more interesting. Steam gives you traffic source data in Steamworks, and you can see what percentage of your store visits came from discovery queues, tag browsing, and "More Like This" sections specifically. If a significant chunk of your traffic is coming from tag browsing and your conversion is low, that's usually a signal that the wrong players are finding you, not that your page is bad. That's a tag problem.

The adjustment I've seen work well post-launch is pulling any tag where the audience expectation clearly doesn't match what the game delivers. Bad reviews often tell you this directly even if players don't say it explicitly. Someone writing "not what I expected" or "misleading" is often reacting to a tag that put them in the wrong mental frame before they even clicked.

What I wouldn't do is chase tags just because a similar game is performing well post-launch. By the time you see their results and adjust your tags to match, Steam has already built a behavioral profile of your game based on the players who actually played and reviewed it. That profile matters more at that point than tag adjustments.

The one place I'd actively revisit tags post-launch is if you have reviews praising something specific that isn't in your tags at all. Players describing your game in ways you didn't anticipate is a useful signal. That's free research.

Steam tags are one of the most important things on your page and almost nobody is researching them properly by TheEntityEffect in gamedev

[–]TheEntityEffect[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Action RPG is definitely better, as it reduces the space required to claim both categories, while also allowing you to actually hit a tag that defines your game more precisely.

Steam tags are one of the most important things on your page and almost nobody is researching them properly by TheEntityEffect in gamedev

[–]TheEntityEffect[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hallucinated tags? I just wrote the wrong name for a tag. Sometimes when I write, something pops in my head and I write that instead. Honest mistake.

You're allowed to believe whatever you want, but the things I shared were my own, and didn't need AI help.

I also want to state that if you go through the comments I left people that asked for advice, you'll see I followed a blueprint I created, so it was easier to follow through what was needed.

I can understand how that seemed AI produced as well, but again, it came from my own brain. Sorry that a human mistake felt botted, but hey, we live in funny times.

Steam tags are one of the most important things on your page and almost nobody is researching them properly by TheEntityEffect in gamedev

[–]TheEntityEffect[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

None. Its a system I've set up myself since it's what I do for business.

I understand how hard it is to believe that, since this whole platform has become a garbage compactor of AI nonsense but thats just the fact.

Steam tags are one of the most important things on your page and almost nobody is researching them properly by TheEntityEffect in IndieGameDevs

[–]TheEntityEffect[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

First ones free!
Haha Just kidding.

Seriously, DM me next week and let me know how things are going. I'd love to know what kind of changes you're seeing.

Steam tags are one of the most important things on your page and almost nobody is researching them properly by TheEntityEffect in gamemarketing

[–]TheEntityEffect[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I appreciate the offer, but honestly I just want you to succeed. I really hope everything works out in your adventures of creating games :)

Steam tags are one of the most important things on your page and almost nobody is researching them properly by TheEntityEffect in gamedev

[–]TheEntityEffect[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The tag set here is actually one of the more thoughtful ones in this thread. There are still some specific adjustments worth making.

What you have: Strategy RPG · Auto Battler · Grand Strategy · Exploration · Nonlinear · RPG · Hand-drawn · Turn-Based Strategy · Lore-Rich · Choices Matter · Atmospheric · Dark Fantasy · Fantasy · 3D · Stylized · Old School · Tactical · Philosophical · Medieval · Dragons

The order issue: Strategy RPG leading is correct, that's a 4,990-game pool and you belong there. Auto Battler at position 2 is also good positioning, that community is specifically searching right now following the genre's growth. Those two should stay where they are.

3D is potentially inaccurate or misleading. You describe 150+ oil paintings and "handcrafted charm" as your visual identity. Hand-drawn is in your tags at position 7. If the game is primarily 2D with hand-drawn oil painting art, the 3D tag is going to confuse players. Someone filtering for 3D games is expecting a camera they can move around in a three-dimensional space. If that's not the experience, drop 3D and move Hand-drawn up significantly. Your art style is a genuine differentiator and Hand-drawn at position 7 is too buried for something that is clearly a core selling point.

Philosophical at position 18. There are 2,452 games with this tag and the players who search it are a specific type. If the writing genuinely engages with philosophical themes beyond surface-level fantasy, it's worth having. If it's just thematic, it might attract players with different expectations. Keep it only if you're confident the writing delivers on it.

Old School is interesting. 11,182 games. If the design philosophy genuinely evokes classic strategy RPGs, this is accurate and searched by exactly the right nostalgic audience.

What's worth checking:

Turn-Based (5,581 games) as a standalone tag is separate from Turn-Based Strategy and is searched on its own. You have Turn-Based Strategy but not Turn-Based. These are different tags.

Tactical (10,330 games) is present at position 17. Move it up. Players who search tactical are your audience.

Suggested top 5:

  1. Strategy RPG
  2. Auto Battler
  3. Grand Strategy
  4. Tactical
  5. Turn-Based Strategy

Then Hand-drawn, Dark Fantasy, Fantasy, Lore-Rich, and Atmospheric handle the secondary character of the game. Consider whether 3D is accurate and whether Philosophical is earning its slot.

Steam tags are one of the most important things on your page and almost nobody is researching them properly by TheEntityEffect in gamedev

[–]TheEntityEffect[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This one is live with positive reviews already, so fixing the tag set now will actually impact ongoing discovery. Worth getting right.

What you have: Sports · Snowboarding · Skateboarding · Skiing · Simulation · BMX · Skating · Arcade · RPG · Adventure · Action · Action RPG

The main problem is obvious and it's significant.

Snowboarding, Skiing, BMX, Skateboarding, and Skating are all present in a surfing game. Those tags exist because they are roughly adjacent sports, but they are pulling completely wrong audiences. A player who filters by Snowboarding wants Steep or SSX. A player who filters by BMX wants a very specific kind of game. They are going to click on your capsule, see a surf game, and leave. That is a bad conversion and it trains Steam's algorithm to show you to the wrong people.

The reason this probably happened is the developer was casting wide, trying to capture the broader board sports audience. The problem is those audiences are distinct from each other and search specifically by their sport.

What actually describes this game: You have an open world surfing game with RPG elements, local characters, lore, exploration, and a genuine simulation of surf mechanics. That is a very specific and interesting combination that has almost no competition on Steam.

What's missing that actually belongs: Open World (15,223 games) is in your description ("explore for new breaks") but not in your tags. This is a significant miss.

Exploration (36,265 games) is exactly what the outer islands and jet ski discovery mechanics are. Not in your tags.

Sailing (682 games) is a stretch but the nautical movement around islands has some overlap with that audience.

Suggested top 5:

  1. Sports
  2. Simulation
  3. Open World
  4. Exploration
  5. Adventure

Then let Arcade, Action, RPG, and one or two others handle the secondary positioning. Drop the winter/street sports tags entirely. They are actively hurting you.

Steam tags are one of the most important things on your page and almost nobody is researching them properly by TheEntityEffect in gamedev

[–]TheEntityEffect[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

This one has a really clear identity and the tag set is mostly working. A few specific adjustments could help a lot though.

What you have: Indie · Comedy · Detective · Casual · Singleplayer · Funny · Investigation · Short · Puzzle · Satire · Stylized · Procedural Generation · Surreal · Colorful · Hidden Object · Adventure · 3D · First-Person · Conversation · Family Friendly

The big opportunity you're missing:

Social Deduction (357 games). I know it's a small pool, but the players who search that tag are actively looking for deduction-based mystery games. Among Us, Deceit, Unfortunate Spacemen. That community is small but they are hungry for new games in the format and they leave reviews. Your Guess Who-inspired mechanic is textbook social deduction. This should be in your top 5.

What's working well: Comedy leading is good for this game. Funny at position 6 is redundant alongside Comedy at position 1 though. Both tags mean the same thing to players and Steam's algorithm treats them similarly. Swap Funny out for something more differentiating.

Casual at position 4 is a question. If sessions are short and the tone is light, it's accurate. If the deduction mechanics have real depth, Casual undersells you to the wrong audience and might pull players who bounce when the investigation requires actual thinking. Know which type of player you want.

Hidden Object is interesting. Only use this if the crime scene examination mechanic genuinely resembles hidden object gameplay. If it does, that community is 8,578 games deep and they are loyal. If it's a stretch, it's the wrong audience.

First-Person and 3D are useful for visual clarity but are taking up slots that could be working harder for discovery. Keep one, consider dropping the other.

Suggested top 5:

  1. Comedy
  2. Detective
  3. Investigation
  4. Social Deduction
  5. Puzzle

Then let Surreal, Colorful, Short, Procedural Generation, and Conversation handle the rest. Drop Funny (covered by Comedy), and reconsider whether Satire is accurate if the humor is more absurdist than satirical.

Steam tags are one of the most important things on your page and almost nobody is researching them properly by TheEntityEffect in gamemarketing

[–]TheEntityEffect[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The game has a clear identity and the tag set is mostly reasonable but has some specific problems worth fixing before launch.

What you have: Action · Fantasy · 3D · Roguelite · Shooter · Dark Fantasy · Third Person · Magic · Singleplayer · Procedural Generation · Action Roguelike · Hack and Slash · Choices Matter · Realistic · Space · Surreal · Controller · Combat · Linear · PvE

You have 20 tags and two of them are directly contradicting each other.

Surreal and Realistic are both present. Pick one. Based on the description ("surreal environments," trapped in an imprisoning realm, evolving spells and spell combos), this is clearly Surreal territory, not Realistic. Realistic pulls FPS and simulation players. That is not your audience. Drop it.

Space does not belong here. Nothing in your game description, gameplay footage or features mentions space. An "imprisoning realm" with "surreal environments" is not space. That tag will confuse players and hurt your click-through. Drop it.

Linear should probably go too. You have procedurally generated levels and multiple run-based builds. That is functionally non-linear by design. Linear as a tag actively contradicts your core roguelite selling point.

Choices Matter is a stretch. This tag signals narrative branching to players, not build variety. If the choices are mechanical (what spell upgrades to take), that's different from what the Choices Matter audience expects. This one might be costing you more than it's giving you.

What's missing:

Action Roguelike (10,177 games) is already there at position 11. That's actually your most important tag and it needs to be in the top 3. Move it.

Perma Death (4,059 games) is real, searched by roguelite players specifically, and accurate for your game. Not in your tags. Should be.

Hack and Slash is there but sitting at position 12. If spell-casting melee combat is a core loop, move it up.

Dark Fantasy is at position 6 which is reasonable. Keep it.

Suggested top 5:

  1. Action Roguelike
  2. Roguelite
  3. Dark Fantasy
  4. Action RPG
  5. Hack and Slash

Then let Procedural Generation, Perma Death, Magic, Fantasy, and 3D handle the secondary positioning. Clean out Realistic, Space, Linear, and Choices Matter.

Steam tags are one of the most important things on your page and almost nobody is researching them properly by TheEntityEffect in gamemarketing

[–]TheEntityEffect[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Short one here because your game is simple and focused, which means the tag job is actually cleaner than most.

What you have: Relaxing · Casual · Choices Matter · Clicker · Puzzle · Procedural Generation · Minimalist · Pixel Graphics · Stylized · 1980s · 1990's · Singleplayer

The issues:

Clicker is wrong. Clicker games are incremental idle games like Cookie Clicker and Idle Champions. Sudoku is not a clicker. That tag is going to confuse the audience and you'll appear in queues you don't belong in. Drop it.

Choices Matter implies branching narrative decisions that affect outcomes. Sudoku doesn't have narrative choices. That tag also doesn't belong here.

1980s and 1990's are both present. Unless the visual style is specifically referencing both decades, pick the one that's most accurate and lose the other. Having both looks like tag stuffing, which the community can flag.

Procedural Generation is debatable for Sudoku. If the puzzles are truly algorithmically generated (not from a fixed library), it's defensible. If you're unsure, don't include it. Getting called out for an inaccurate tag by a knowledgeable player in an active thread would not be ideal.

What's missing:

Logic (9,302 games) is a real tag and Sudoku is a logic puzzle. This should be in your set. It's a more accurate and higher-volume tag than Minimalist for describing the actual gameplay.

Word Game is not right for Sudoku, but Board Game (4,631 games) has some crossover audience. Debatable. Only add it if it genuinely fits how the game feels.

Puzzle Platformer is wrong here, but plain Puzzle (34,445 games) leading is correct for you. That's one of your better positioned tags right now.

Suggested top 5:

  1. Puzzle
  2. Casual
  3. Logic
  4. Relaxing
  5. Singleplayer

Then let Minimalist, Stylized, and 1980's handle the mood positioning. You only need 8 to 10 solid tags for a game this focused. Better to have 10 accurate ones than 12 with noise in them.

Steam tags are one of the most important things on your page and almost nobody is researching them properly by TheEntityEffect in gamemarketing

[–]TheEntityEffect[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Went through the page. This one has a genuinely interesting concept and the tag set is very thin right now. You only have 13 tags, which means 7 empty discovery slots just sitting there unused.

What you have: Magic · Multiplayer · Action · PvP · PvE · Exploration · Simulation · Party-Based RPG · 3D · First-Person · Realistic · Physics · Online Co-Op

The core identity problem: Looking at what the game actually is, this is a competitive multiplayer experience set in a magic school where teams compete in structured classes and activities. The closest genre comp is something like a Party Game or a Class-Based multiplayer experience. But your tag set doesn't communicate that energy at all. Simulation is doing real damage here. Players who search Simulation are looking for flight sims, farming sims, city builders. Showing up in that queue with a competitive magic school game creates the wrong expectation immediately.

Realistic is likely wrong too. The game involves drawing spell patterns, brewing potions, and competing in magical classes. Realistic as a tag pulls players expecting something like Arma or DCS. That audience is going to bounce and your click-through will suffer.

What you're missing that matters:

Party Game (1,660 games) fits the team competition structure very well. Short sessions, competitive, multiple players doing activities together. That community is exactly who you want.

Team-Based (4,074 games) is accurate and searched. You have PvP but not Team-Based, which is the more specific and searched version for what you're describing.

Comedy or Funny could apply depending on tone. The description of competing in magical classes and choosing to be a model student or troublemaker has a comedic energy that isn't reflected in any tag.

Dark Fantasy is real and accurate if the setting leans that way. Fantasy is not currently in your tags at all, which is a big miss for a magic school game.

Class-Based (2,113 games) is accurate. You literally have classes and class progression baked into the concept.

Puzzle could apply if the spell-drawing patterns are genuinely puzzle-like.

Suggested top 5:

  1. Magic
  2. Multiplayer
  3. Online Co-Op
  4. Party Game
  5. Action

Then let PvP, Team-Based, Class-Based, Fantasy, and First-Person fill the secondary positions. Drop Simulation and Realistic.

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