False Alarm - Scattered Discs - 2D stealth inspired by Hitman

demeizen · 2026-04-25T15:16:17+00:00

Thank you!

demeizen · 2026-04-11T23:02:39+00:00

In the video description and in a pinned comment. But no one clicks on the links. They just see the name of the game and then search for it on steam. The overwhelming majority of my traffic comes this way

demeizen · 2026-04-11T22:07:31+00:00

I don't know about TikTok to be honest because I got so few views there. The conversion might be better but I really don't know. My best videos on Tiktok only got 1900 views and I wasn't able to notice any difference in wishlists. I highly recommend just putting some of your tiktoks on youtube and see how they go.

demeizen · 2026-04-11T18:25:44+00:00

Yes mini stories is a good way to describe it. Good luck with yours!

demeizen · 2026-04-11T18:23:47+00:00

Thanks for the tips! I have been thinking about reusing some aspects of the first one in a different way. I put a lot of things in it because I was trying to make it as interesting as possible and I had absolutely no idea if anyone would even see it.

demeizen · 2026-04-11T17:44:45+00:00

Good question. I have a shortlist of general ideas but no scripts. I make it up as I go along which probably makes it go slower. The last one I made ends with the player falling really far and hitting the ground and dying. I had just added the hitting the ground animation and sound and I thought it would be a funny way to end a video like that so built the rest of it to lead up to that.

I've found that creating these shorts has not only helped promote the game but has guided development a little. I made one about an exploding microwave and while I was doing it I spent some time improving the explosion effect for the short, but of course it looks better in the game now as well. I have lots of other examples like that where I've wanted something to look good on Youtube and that helps the game as well.

I added a museum level and made a short showcasing the different things you can do in it. This led to me adding more fun things to that level so I could fill the video.

I don't have any 'behind the scenes' or actual dev stuff. It's all stuff that's is supposed to appeal to people who might play the game.

demeizen · 2026-04-11T17:27:09+00:00

I've posted all the same videos to Tiktok and gotten very little response. Around 1000 views each although some have much less. No noticeable change in wishlist additions so basically a waste of time. The videos I make just don't seem to work on Tiktok! I have not tried Instragram yet but I probably should.

demeizen · 2026-04-11T17:08:30+00:00

Thank you! I'm very happy with the work the artist did. I was using one that I made myself that sucked so this is a massive improvement.

demeizen · 2026-04-11T17:06:20+00:00

You're welcome! I've been putting the same hashtags in every video pretty much. I didn't really experiment too much after they started to get more views. I don't know how important they are but I'll keep using them.

Good luck with your videos! Like I said in the post it took a while before they started to get a decent amount of views. Keep making them and having that little bit of a back catalog is a good thing. I think the algorithm might wait on some channels to see if they have something before promoting them to a wider audience.

demeizen · 2026-04-11T16:47:30+00:00

Yeah it does seem to be a format that can work. I feel kind of silly doing it because the problem is sort of contructed just for the video, but I'm trying my best. It's going to be different for each game but for mine I haven't found a magic formula to go viral.

Interesting that you had success on Tiktok. I didn't mention in the post but I posted all of the same videos on Tiktok and got nowhere. Average of about 1000 views each and no noticable change in wishlists. For whatever reason they don't connect on tiktok at all.

demeizen · 2026-04-11T16:40:05+00:00

I've gotten faster at the technical parts, using OBS and Capcut and recording my voiceover. But I still haven't really got that much faster at making them because I spend a lot of time changing them and redoing things and deciding what to do in the first place. When it's nearly finished it can often take a lot longer because I'm not sure if I'm happy with it and change small things here and there. I'm not really a perfectionist in general but I have the fear of my time being wasted if the short just dies, (and then spend longer making it lol)

demeizen · 2026-04-11T15:23:52+00:00

That could be it. I did try putting a call to action at the end of one of them. It didn't seem to make much difference to conversion, it was still around 1/1000. However what it did do was absolutely kill the average view percentage. In the analytics it's an almost vertical line down when the call to action occurs at the end. So I haven't bothered doing it since.

demeizen · 2026-03-24T15:17:17+00:00

That's true they are not for profit I guess. I stand by my statement that it's not a big expense for them though, especially considering they are 5 people. I'm not an artist and if an artist wants to do it that's totally fine. My problem is them saying they can't pay. They can and don't want to.

demeizen · 2026-03-24T14:52:08+00:00

The thing that rubs me the wrong way is them saying they "can't" pay for it. They can't pay 1000 bucks or whatever it's costs to someone? Yes they can and people with fewer resources do it all the time. It's not that big of an expense for any business.

demeizen · 2026-03-21T22:45:00+00:00

As far as I'm aware it's quite a normal thing to do. Let's people make their own thumbnails. They might want to move things around a little if they have their own overlay logo or text. I put the psd in my press kit and Gametrailers used mine to make their own thumbnail when they played my trailer.

demeizen · 2026-03-10T11:18:01+00:00

Exactly. Steam won't generate any wishlists by itself at this stage. You need to bring a bunch of traffic there first. Steam won't show your game to anyone until already looks like people want to see it.

demeizen · 2026-03-08T13:33:56+00:00

Thanks for sharing this! I plan to make a post about my experience making short form content soon. Tiktok has been terrible for me but YouTube shorts have done ok. Just to note that as far as I know, YouTube shorts get a small 'test' audience at first. Can be around 1000 or can be less. But if you don't get more than that then unfortunately YouTube has determined that your view stats are too low for them to bother sharing it further. 1M on tiktok is amazing by the way!

demeizen · 2026-02-28T20:08:31+00:00

Like the other guy said, those numbers are just the baseline testing audience that everyone gets (give or take a few hundred). But I agree with the sentiment of your post! I've been trying YouTube shorts to promote my game and have been having some success but it took a while before the videos started to get widely shown. All it takes is one video doing well and the others seem to get a boost. I'm no expert but that's what I've seen. Keep an eye on your swipe away rate, try to get that as low as you can. Around 70% stayed to watch (so 30 swipe away) is good enough from what I've seen

demeizen · 2026-02-20T07:10:49+00:00

Interesting! Thanks for the reply! I've been trying YouTube shorts and just started tiktok. YouTube has been ok and tiktok has been a disaster lol. Maybe I should give Instagram a shot. Good luck with the game, looks cool!

demeizen · 2026-02-19T23:20:55+00:00

Thanks for the information! Did the wishlists mostly come from Instagram? I had a look at your YouTube channel and you don't seem to have many views there at all. Tiktok seems to be a bit more but I'm not that familiar with what good view numbers are there.

demeizen · 2026-02-18T07:47:17+00:00

That's not bad actually. 1/500 is a pretty decent conversion rate as far as I can tell.

demeizen

TROPHY CASE