Intro #
Hey again friends! It’s been another busy but productive month! I’m so excited to share what I’ve been up to!
The TL;DR version of this is:
- I participated in a game jam with two amazing friends and artists!
- We continued adding elements to our new PICO-8 project, Earthquack!
- We hit more than 200 followers on Twitch!
Game Jam - Produce Plaza #
This was my first game jam that I worked on a team with, and I had the absolute BEST time! My teammates were the incredibly talented @littleghostelli (art) and @drooogsma (music), and both of their hard work elevated the game SO much! I’m incredibly proud to have called them my teammates!
You can find our game here! It’s titled Produce Plaza, and it’s a cozy puzzle / arcade game that you can just relax to! We spent one week planning, developing, and polishing this game, so while it’s not very long I’m incredibly proud of the work that we were able to do in such a small timeframe!
This was submitted alongside fifty other game submissions from various indie game developers and teams, and it has been absolutely incredible to interact with new friends and get to meet new devs in the indie game space! I’m so thankful for the opportunity to work on this project.
Earthquack #
Because the game jam took essentially two weeks of game development time away from Earthquack (one week for the jam, the next week I took a break from game dev), not much has come together in the game since April. However, we did teach ourselves a new game development technique: sprite stacking!
Instead of using one sprite for Arlo (the duck protagonist of our game), I broke him up into his components - legs, body, wings, and head - and used math to determine where they should be drawn on the screen! After we had that system in place, we were able to individually move each sub-sprite to make Arlo’s idle animation look and feel alive. I’m so happy this idea came together and I’m excited to keep working on this game in June!
Twitch Growth #
I continue to be absolutely astounded at the level of love and support my Twitch community shows me! Simple things like being chatty instead of silent, all of the tips and subscriptions, and even the raids are all more than I could have ever hoped for when I started a couple months ago!
Some really amazing milestones:
- first level 4 hype train complete!
- over 200 followers!
- interview with other indie game devs + Steam key giveaways!
All of these things - in addition to all of the love and generosity of my community - get me so excited to hit the “Start Streaming” button twice a week! I’m so thankful for all of you!
Publishing a Game #
Now that I’ve published 3 of my own games on itch.io, I’ve started to make some realizations about what it means to publish as a small content creator. While I’m still lacking a lot of experience, I wanted to share some of the things I’ve already noticed can make a big difference when trying to push your game into the hands of your fans!
Humanize yourself and game development #
It goes a long way to post regular updates on your game development progress. Most gamers play games as something to consume, and thus dehumanize developers into mindless factories that crank out experiences to earn quick money. Obviously, this isn’t the case; many of us small creators care a lot about what we make!
Regular posts that include pictures, videos, or gifs of what’s new with your game help a lot with your fan engagement, even before the game is released! I’ve found that posting funny bugs or making holiday-themed posts is a great way to generate some re-tweets and potentially introduce new people to your project!
The importance of “hype time” #
Let’s talk about self-publishing. Once your project is done, it is very tempting to hit the publish button as soon as possible to give your fans the game right away! However, resist that urge. Give your project anywhere between a week to a month to officially announce a release date and spend that extra time playtesting and crafting some well-formed social media posts.
In my experience, that period of time between a game’s completion and the release date is where I see the fan engagement grow the most. It also gives you the freedom to relax a bit, enjoy the hard work you’ve done, and engage with the community more before you are thrown into the inevitable slew of bug fixes that need to get done post-release.
Polish, polish, polish #
It goes a long way to make your game’s landing page look nice. My only experiences so far are with itch.io’s toolset, but it is quite flexible! Plan to spend 4-6 hours carefully crafting the experience that users will see when they land on your page.
Some things you will likely want to add:
- banner for the game’s title
- cover photo
- screenshots
- gifs showing examples of gameplay
- “how to play” and “controls” sections (near the top of the page)
- a short blurb about the game and yourself (near the bottom of the page)
- credits and shoutouts
- a font that is easy to read, and against a background that isn’t too distracting
- links to your socials, other games you have made, etc
- ENABLE COMMENTS / COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
Here are some tools to help you get there:
- embedded gif distribution: https://giphy.com (you can upload .mp4 and .gif)
- itch.io image sizing guide: https://starwest.itch.io/itch-page-image-templates
- free graphic design tool that I use to create promo material: https://gimp.org/
Be shameless about self-promotion #
This is not to say that we should spam or be annoying about our projects. This is basically to say that people won’t want to engage with media that the creator isn’t excited about. If you’re asked about your project, don’t be embarrassed to give them a quick introduction to it!
Seek out hashtags like #screenshotsaturday or #wishlistwednesday. When you’re interacting in threads like this, be sure to post a quick intro to your game, then go engage with some of the other developers also posting in those threads. Networking and growing your community of fellow developers is a great way to boost your own project!
An honest disposition that believes in the power of growing together is key. We aren’t going to succeed if we think we are in competition with our fellow indie developers. Lifting up and supporting one another’s content is the best way to form relationships that will last and bear fruit long after a game’s release!
Conclusion #
If you got this far; thank you SO MUCH for reading these updates! It means so much to have everyone’s support.
This happened after I wrote this update and didn’t know where to insert it, but if you’d like to listen to me talk about Discord moderation and my experiences with indie game development on a podcast, you can listen for free here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/coffee-with-1-67097378
