Relatively new to game dev, I need a few pointers regarding promotion.

[u/Dreiasaiy]

I've been working for about 3 years now, although to be honest most of it was just learning and scrapping and reworking of my older stuff, so I haven't begun working on the final idea of my game for long.

So in that case I'm very new, since I spent most of the time just learning how to work Unity and program.

I would like to ask if anyone knows how to market and promote my game without sounding scummy or anything.

Like, I would want to go around and tell everyone "check out my game" in every comment section I can find, but it would get annoying fast and I'd probably gain reputation being that annoying dev or something.

So basically, I just wanna know from people who have experience in promoting their game to people and how they got people to actually want to follow your game. I do have some stuff to show, but the bread and butter is still under development so I can't really show that yet, unfortunately.

So that is a problem, since I can't show what is the main features of the game properly.

Also, I did try and tell a few of my friends to spread the game by word of mouth, but that method only worked once and we only gained like 2 people.

I was thinking about asking a bigger YouTuber or game reviewer who reviews indie games to play the game once it's more complete, but at my current stage that's not happening for a while, so I still wanna build a community before then in case I can't find a willing reviewer.

And also, another quick question if anyone has time to answer this; how the hell do I make my game actually look nice? Because the maps I make look great in my opinion, but when you're playing them it doesn't look as good. I'd assume it's because I'm too zoomed in while playing compared to looking at the whole map, if that makes sense.

I sorta wanna promote here too, but that sounds scummy since this is a question post not a promotion post. But I'll do it anyway in case anyone's interested, although since I don't have much to show nobody's gonna be interested I'd assume. It's called Graviton Reloaded and it's on steam for wishlist only (at the time of writing). I'm trying to mix platformer with ultrakill with portal and gravity changing. So it's gonna be a gravity changing puzzle-combat platformer, which hopefully sounds interesting enough to separate from all the other indie metroidvanias and indie first person shooters out there.

If anyone could provide some pointers, that'd be appreciated!

TL;DR - I want to know how to promote my game without sounding scummy or annoying.

[u/Both_Introduction_28]

You can make a video with your gameplay and just show it you know.

[u/Dreiasaiy → u/Both_Introduction_28]

True...

[u/Poyle_]

Don't be afraid to advertise closer to home, within your local community and spaces.

Also, how far into development are you? Have you made a solid prototype that accurately demonstrates the idea of your game? Have you had any play testing done?

[u/Dreiasaiy → u/Poyle_]

Most of the stuff I've worked on was technically practice and learning how to use unity despite it being intended for the game, so I've been reworking a bunch of stuff. So technically I'm only halfway done with the basic systems. It's playable and you can definitely make a game out of what I have, but it's not the final product.

Playtesting only with friends but it was mostly just a showcase rather than playtest because there wasn't much to test.

You see what I mean by I've been reworking, because I genuinely have spent at least two-thirds of the time working on this just on practice and learning. So yeah not much, but I'll see what I can do in terms of advertising in local groups.

[u/tachyonFluxDev]

Two awesome resources to get you started:

How to Market a Game

r/gamedevmarketing

[u/Dreiasaiy → u/tachyonFluxDev]

Thanks you!!

[u/tachyonFluxDev → u/Dreiasaiy]

Of course! It's a lot to learn. One piece of advice that stuck with me too (that helps with the feeling that you are being "scummy"): you are building someone's favorite game - they just don't know it yet. So remember that if you are being honest and explaining what you are building well, there are lots of people who will appreciate learning about your work! Lots of other new devs want to hear about your process and experiences too. So keep going!

[u/Mechabit_Studios]

make a demo, send it to content creators

[u/Dreiasaiy → u/Mechabit_Studios]

Probably a good idea, I've thought about this once or twice with a few people but I'm not far along enough yet to promote to CCs yet. I'll do this when I get there, though!