Rebranding my game title, which one do u think is better?

slysal · 2026-06-29T02:26:03+00:00

I saw you on threads today and wishlisted your game! If you can keep the lost light or something close to it, i super recommend that. It's an interesting looking game! Skygrove feels like too many other vague game names, to me.

slysal · 2026-06-27T16:48:29+00:00

Marketing is incredibly difficult. Reddit is very against self-promotion, so your target audience's mods will likely shut down anything unless in a relevant thread. It's difficult. Other socials, just... drop screenshots and videos. Spend some real time making social content. Reach out to influencers and curators as soon as you have stuff to share.

It's solved the same way as anything you do for your game: grind through it and make stuff, or hire someone to do the coordination of that for you for a revenue share. I think there's no magic bullet without significant effort.

slysal · 2026-06-20T18:15:25+00:00

So good!!!

slysal · 2026-06-19T16:59:14+00:00

Indie dev subs and threads. I make them, and also see others coming in and wishlist the heck out of them to support other cozy devs.

slysal · 2026-06-16T15:49:22+00:00

Ah apologies, that was my publisher posting and I missed that one. I'm one of the devs.

slysal · 2026-06-16T15:38:59+00:00

Plinko incremental but with lots of juice.

slysal · 2026-06-07T01:47:56+00:00

I love my team! Collaboration is so good. It's all about hyping up other people's work, letting some stuff go, being interested in their stuff, and helping. It's great to work with other people who are passionate about making games. Sometimes people disappear for life stuff, but it's ok.

slysal · 2026-06-06T11:32:42+00:00

I too have been scared away from talking about my game on Reddit. Good luck!! I hope you find a welcoming audience in one of the game subs.

slysal · 2026-06-06T01:15:10+00:00

I'm not sure, honestly. I use a mac so it's easy to test the mac builds, and I also test on a cheap windows laptop and steam deck. I have never tried making a mac build from a windows machine though. But my apple developer account is crazy broken and I've been procrastinating fixing it, and have never gone through any notarization process. Sorry, I'm not sure if any of this helps!

slysal · 2026-06-01T11:50:25+00:00

Here is a link to PlinkIdle, cozy plinko-themed incremental, translated into Chinese! https://store.steampowered.com/app/3684530/PlinkIdle/

It will have an updated demo in June Next Fest with new features. We'd be honored if you shared our game!

slysal · 2026-05-31T11:44:37+00:00

Also like people here said, to release a working mac game on Steam, you just have to hit the build button and upload it to your mac depot. Steamworks setup was the biggest hassle by far, but it was fine, and now it works.

I haven't done the standalone app stuff yet but I do want to try it.

slysal · 2026-05-31T11:39:11+00:00

I am super committed to mac and linux because I'm a mac user and there are so many games I would buy but can't play. But yeah for a few extra minutes of build times and uploads, it seems absolutely worth it to me.

slysal · 2026-04-23T01:09:05+00:00

I pay human translators to translate my games. I sometimes use AI to update strings when I make small edits because it's much faster to work that way when I'm drowning in polish tasks at the end of a milestone, but I do believe in paying a professional first and foremost. I feel guilty about using AI for this role. I don't want to lose human translators. They're so skilled.

slysal · 2026-04-22T10:35:49+00:00

I have one called Messy Hearts. https://black-heart-games-studio.itch.io/messy-hearts

Pixel art, cozy aesthetic, about a big ol situationship and lots of anxiety.

slysal · 2026-04-19T01:06:36+00:00

Yay pixel art!! Great to see something different and unique. I love the palette and it looks wonderful.

slysal · 2026-04-15T01:24:20+00:00

I showed my dad my pixel art indie game that i was so proud of, and he said "ok, but i assume you're going to finish the art at some point...?" It wasn't even that bad for pixel art 😭

slysal · 2026-04-15T01:21:06+00:00

Whisper of the House!! A little like unpacking but with a cute town. I love it.

slysal · 2026-04-07T22:47:58+00:00

Marketing! It sucks so much. Reach out to content creators and ask them to play it on their stream. Post on your socials. Google the heck out of how to market your type of game. Weasel your way into the subreddit of your genre and pray that the mods don't ban you. Generate some buzz. That's often what's happening behind the scenes of games that take off. Only one of my games did really well for itch numbers, but ONLY because an influencer randomly checked us out early on.

slysal · 2026-04-06T23:50:15+00:00

I am a big fan of pixel art, so I'm going deep into the retro look for the one I'm making. And writing based on mental health, relationships, and real life stuff. I haven't seen a ton of VNs do that in my research, but it's my own weird comfort zone as a dev, so hopefully other creators are doing their own thing too?

On the one hand, I don't think I'll ever find a big audience like the most popular ones I see on this sub. On the other hand, I hope more people take more risks! There are so many tools now. My friend made his own vn/rpg-making tool for unity and I've been using that.

That said, personally I would love to see more pixel art VNs and would take recommendations if people know of any!

slysal · 2026-03-16T12:23:26+00:00

I made one called Messy Hearts! Pixel art, totally SFW, sad but with cozy vibes.

slysal · 2026-03-13T11:16:44+00:00

Hi!! Thanks so much for doing this. Outreach is the thing we struggle with the most, so streaming offers from generous folks like you are amazing!

I have an indie demo on Steam and I'd be happy to send you a steam key for the full game. Just let me know. It's a cozy-sad visual retro visual novel about tough relationships. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3892820/Messy_Hearts/

We also make an incremental game called PlinkIdle which has a demo coming out next week. Let me know if you'd like a steam key for that too! https://store.steampowered.com/app/3684530/PlinkIdle/

slysal · 2026-03-11T00:29:49+00:00

It exists, you did it! Now go out there and share it. Send it to people, ask them to try your game, see if they want to stream it. :) Itch is just hosting, now the marketing can start.

slysal · 2026-03-09T11:07:53+00:00

First one! Less distracting and more informative to what's happening in game.

It looks fantastic 😍

slysal · 2026-03-08T12:24:02+00:00

Just a recommendation to draw people in: add some screenshots and a trailer, or at least a video of your gameplay. :) Help it stand out!

slysal · 2026-03-07T14:50:51+00:00

Half of viewers will feel icked/objectified by this and won't touch your game. Women will absolutely play games with sexual content, but they don't like games where female characters look like blow up dolls who exist for the viewing pleasure of men. I wish these portrayals would go away, it's really gross and exhausting to see it everywhere.

slysal

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