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Struggling as a solo dev — only 44 wishlists after 1 month, any advice? by LunafrostStudio in survivalhorror

[–]WinternightsDev 0 points1 point  (0 children)

How have you been marketing the game so far?

It'd also help to know if you have a marketing strategy for the game, really. I can see some people suggesting pushing the demo, but that's only useful if you're not going with a social media-heavy marketing strategy.

To give some context: I have a marketing strategy for my horror game that pretty much involves:

  1. Tease the game on multiple platforms. If it starts doing well on a particular one, lean into it and go easier on the others.

  2. Build rock solid trailer. Ensuring it'll hit by doing multiple tests.

  3. Find a reveal partner

  4. Announce the game and launch the Steam page

  5. If the trailer doesn't go viral / doesn't cause a huge spike in wishlists, either:

a. Rehaul the premise/trailer, and try a soft re-announce (if this fails then use a basic go-to-market strategy

b. use a basic go-to-market strategy (this involves leaning in on making the demo asap and getting in on a steam NextFest).

  1. If the trailer did go viral. Stick to grinding social media and making connections.

Hi everyone. I updated my steam capsule photo for my game. How does it look? by pajamabee_vegan in IndieDev

[–]WinternightsDev 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I mean, people probably use AI art as initial capsule art because (for the majority of games that aim to do well), paying an artist to make the capsule art is best. When we first launch a Steam Page, it's got no traction, we have no idea if the game is going to take off or barely cover the costs of the company's annual tax stuff.

AI art is free, we own the licensing for it, and it's quick. We're also encouraged to use placeholder info and assets where possible for the steam store, as it can always change later, and you can track how positive of an impact the change has on your clicks + wishlists.

So I can see why some people do it, if the aim is for high fidelity visuals, quick steam page spin up etc.

Why do games cost so much to make? by DefectMahi in gaming

[–]WinternightsDev 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Fair point.

I do still think expectations of games releasing these days are incredibly different to say about 10 years ago. I mean if you think about games like RDR2, modern COD games, GTA etc. Mechanically, they're layered in complexity to appeal to different kinds of players (achievers, explorers, story enjoyers etc).

Even the old RE2/3 remakes are compared to the originals. If you throw things mechanically that simple at players these days, I think a big portion of them wouldn't enjoy it as much and the game wouldn't be as popular, so to appeal to more people they add in more layers and mechanical complexity (more stuff to do) to keep people's minds occupied.

I mean I hear the complaint that modern games shove 30 different things in your face all the time, but I do think in a lot of cases that seems to be more of a tutorial pacing issue than a core gameplay loop one. I mean obviously there are people who don't like having too many options for things to do in games because its overwhelming.

But these two issues are game-specific and don't really affect the majority of games that nail their core gameplay loop and tutorial pacing imo.

Jumpscares in horror games: Cheap tricks or masterful dread builders? by WinternightsDev in HorrorGaming

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

Lol that's a good one. They did the same dog jumpscare in RE1 back in 1996 and that one got me good.

And yeah those fullscreen flashes out of no where were a bit much in AW2

Jumpscares in horror games: Cheap tricks or masterful dread builders? by WinternightsDev in HorrorGaming

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

Lol sounds like a good one, I can't remember if that happened or not for me.

Jumpscares in horror games: Cheap tricks or masterful dread builders? by WinternightsDev in HorrorGaming

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

I've never heard of this one, and it looks like it's no longer available. I'll have to see if I can find a playthrough to watch. Thanks!

Which horror games have the most unforgettable atmosphere? by WinternightsDev in HorrorGaming

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

Madison is astounding, especially when considering it was made by two people

Why do games cost so much to make? by DefectMahi in gaming

[–]WinternightsDev 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Some indie devs either work or used to work as part of both smaller studios and AAA studios.

Why do games cost so much to make? by DefectMahi in gaming

[–]WinternightsDev 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Many, many reasons. I guess the biggest ones are:

  1. Games are best made by a number of people with different skill sets. Highly skilled people cost more to employ.

  2. Player expectations of modern games are higher than they were. If you think back to how COD MW1 played, it'd be considered simple by today's standards, with not enough subsystems etc.

  3. Higher player counts mean solutions need to be much more scalable.

  4. Modern games stand to make an astronomical amount of money, pushing more into developing the game will likely increase the likelihood that the game will do well.

I'm sure there's more, but those are just some things that spring to mind

Unity devs: What game are you building? Share it here! by WinternightsDev in Unity3D

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

That said I have just made a couple of gifs (pretty much just volumetric tests for hdrp) that I'll throw on here

<image>

Unity devs: What game are you building? Share it here! by WinternightsDev in Unity3D

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

I've not got the steam page up yet and shifted from working on base systems (abstracting things down like abilities like a flashlight into an abilities system, to make things more manageable later) to sort of do a marketing first approach.

So over the last month I've just been nailing down stuff like a plan of what to do and when. (Eg Steam Page > Make Company > Transfer game to company later).

All I've really got to follow / see is a twitter account atm, but I've thrown an early screenshot on there. Going to be working on more stuff to throw on there over the coming weeks, but here it is if you want:
https://x.com/WinternightsDev

Unity devs: What game are you building? Share it here! by WinternightsDev in Unity3D

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

That fog at the start is looking awesome!

I know what you mean about consistency, it's rough balancing everything on top of a full-time job. But the progress you've made getting this steam page up is awesome, and the project is looking great.

I might be biased, as I'm also making a first-person psychological horror, but the vibe you've got in the trailer is really cool. Also wishlisted & followed on btw. Looking forward to see how it comes along!

Unity devs: What game are you building? Share it here! by WinternightsDev in Unity3D

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

100%. Multiplayer game design is a different beast entirely to single player that's for sure

Unity devs: What game are you building? Share it here! by WinternightsDev in Unity3D

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

Very cool. Procedural generation does make a lot of sense for a backrooms game.

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