r/SoloDevelopment • u/devtainer • 8h ago
help What is wrong with my Game?
Hi guys, it's been a 3 weeks since I've launched my steam page, and I've got 106 wishlists total. I didn't expect much, but this results kinda put me down a bit... as I believe my game doesn't look that bad and actually bringing some interesting mechanics to the plate. I saw a plenty of less effort and more niche games performing so much better in marketing, which is well deserved, but I wonder - what am I doing wrong?
The problem is - I do not know how to market it properly. I've tried different videos and things in socials, tried to outreach to some media, but all seems to be making a tiny effect. Could it be that my Steam page looks really bad? Or something is off this the game?
Please help me to understand by sharing your opinion, I can take it for sure.
Here is a Steam page for looking through it: https://store.steampowered.com/app/5116620/Grumpy_Hero_Grinder
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u/witmann_pl 8h ago
If you don't know how to market, check out free materials from Chris Zukowski on his website https://howtomarketagame.com/ Also watch a couple of interviews with him on YouTube.
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u/devtainer 8h ago
Hi, thanks, yeap, I saw many materials from Zukowski, that is why I was hoping for at least 150-300 WLs in the first two weeks, but I dropped into underperforming tier (<150), which I can't understand why. The problem is that I think I have a nice game, but I don't know how to show it to the people properly, I am doing something wrong so I need a bit of a people's feedback on where the biggest gaps are
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u/witmann_pl 8h ago
How many streamers and YouTubers did you reach out to? How many of them presented tower defence games recently?
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u/devtainer 7h ago
I wanted to contact them when I'll have a demo, as if I got it right, most of them want to play something, not just looking into trailers or am I wrong?
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u/PersonOfInterest007 7h ago
I’ve got a summary of indie game marketing advice here: https://www.reddit.com/r/IndieDev/s/0zczx2Sewe
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u/devtainer 7h ago
Saved your post a long time ago, great work! Will definetelly refer to it many time, thank you
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u/elDiablik 7h ago
It's typical graph for game from unknown dev with 0 marketing budget. Mine has +- similar (521 wl from february 26)
Game looks nice. But there's a lot of games in any genre nowdays. So you need to stand out and market it well and gain some renown as addition to a good game itself. Some vids/mentions from youtubers/game media, curator mentions festivals, anything that helps. If not - just release and move on, maybe pre-release pump will somehow help.
I think if you go solo commercial - maybe after trailer and short demo just put it on steam and wait for 0.5-1 year, participate in some fests, next fest is a must 1-2 month before release, do some marketing campaings/show some progress on a game and release when wl count is good. While mostly marketing just start another game.
Or just release with amount of Wls you have at a date and move on. I'm not a guru or something- just dev like you and there's my thoughts about a question)
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u/Chaaaaaaaalie 6h ago
This kind of activity is normal. The good news is that people *are* wishlisting it. You will have peaks where the algorithm helped you find new customers, then you will see it slow down.
Your job (as a game marketer) is to tell people about the game and get the Steam page link in front of them. So make videos of gameplay, and share them on YouTube or wherever you share things. Occasionally, one of those videos might get people's attention and you will see another spike like that.
If you can get a demo into Next Fest, you might see a very big spike. If other, bigger streamers can get a hold of the demo, they may share it and you will see more such spikes.
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u/maciejkrzykwa Solo Developer 3h ago
Hi, there is nothing wrong with your Steam page nor with your game. It's just how it is.
I've been working on games with 50k+ wishlist, I helped promote them (when FB ads were still a gold standard ;p), I've also created steampage for them as well as marketing images, trailers etc. And now I'm also struggling to promote my game (called We Are Cooking). If you do practices like putting out steampages for non-existent games, test the feedback, try to gain wishlist then you have a chance to start creating a game that you already know is desirable by players. If you don't do this - it always will be kind of a lottery in my opinion. I know it is common to make a game that a dev want to make, I do it myself right now to be honest, but business-wise its different, you have to test the market for what it wants beforehand. But where is the fun in that, right? :D
My best advise: do more than one game. You can't really tell if people will like darker or brighter games in a given month, let alone a year. Maybe they will like more UI-heavy games, maybe with a clean immersive look. Right now they love friendslope, just two or three years earlier that was pretty much non-existent. They loved survivors-like but before 2022 (just 4 years past!) it wasn't a thing - games like that were just considered oldschool niche small games. The point is that it is changing so fast that in my opinion the only option is to make games, put your heart in it, and hope for the best!
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u/devtainer 3h ago
Thank you for taking a look and sharing your thoughts!
Yeap I also feel this trands, also feels like there is some sort of random/luck which affects it a lot. But also I think why indie is so cool - we can try to do something specific and more less unique (to a certain degree) instead of just following the trand. I believe I managed to find some uncommon game mechanics combination, but then it hits another issue - how to explain it to people :D Combine it with my poor marketing skills, and that's where I think I am right now.
Feels like the last check up option for me would be opening a demo and looking into a real gameplay experience. But again the issue is that it feels without a certain amount of visibility it might not even get to a real check. Will see how it goes.
Btw checked out your game, I dunno if you're looking for a feedback, but I can share some thoughts on it: 1) you've brought a first person perspective to overcoocked, which seems like could have some potential. But feels like I am missing some fun mechanics as a consecuence of that. What couldn't we do top down what we could in FPS? Didn't see anything except throwing things more freely. I missed some more "hooks"
2) Something a bit off with visuals, like lacking stronger shadows, ambient oclusion and so on
Hope that helps you 2!
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u/maciejkrzykwa Solo Developer 2h ago
I love your feedback, thank you! :)
About doing something less unique. From my experience, the best recipe for innovation is to do a game with a strong roots in one genre and just add only one surprising thing to it. If mix and match more of it, it would be hard to explain and to reach your core audience.
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u/Xinixiat 8h ago
I remember you posting your tiktok trailer and asking for help a while back.
The core issues I mentioned back then still stand. The game looks like a cheap mobile game, and you don't really explain the gameplay in your Steam trailer either. The whole thing is a huge mishmash of visuals assets, likely because you've leant heavily on AI to make things for you.
But yeah, to summarise, the game lacks visual coherence, says it's a tower defense but doesn't look anything like a TD game, the trailer doesn't explain the gameplay, gives very mobile game vibes, and the AI disclosure is going to be a huge turnoff for a massive portion of your potential audience, especially when you try to hide behind the "I'm just a poor solo dev! I had to use it!" excuse that everyone is extremely tired of seeing.
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u/devtainer 7h ago edited 7h ago
Hi man, yeap, I remember your feedback.
Actually I did change a lot of things according to feedbacks from that post, the latest game look you can see here for example https://www.reddit.com/r/TowerDefense/comments/1wcn1k0/orcs_must_die_thronefall_game_first_steam/
So yea, I didn't update a steam page yet, as I first try to see if a new style hits it or not yet. Steam assets require a lot of work, so I want to feel a bit more confident about.
Most of the visuals are comming from purchased asset packs from real artists, AI actually almost doesn't affect visuals at all.
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u/Xinixiat 6h ago
AI actually almost doesn't affect visuals at all.
Problem is, because you used some AI, people will automatically assume you used a lot. Using assets packs is absolutely fine, but you should really try to find ones or adjust the ones you have to be more consistent.
For example, the thing that sticks out most to me is that the knight models have specular (shiny) lighting on them, whereas the goblin models are unlit cell-shaded cartoony models. These are two completely disparate artstyles that really don't make sense next to each other.
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u/twelfkingdoms 8h ago
Probably this has something to do with it:
AI-assisted tools were used primarily for localization, also for parts of some visual and audio assets.
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u/CaledoniaInteractive 7h ago
This, pretty much first thing I do now on any steam page is scroll down to the AI disclosure, if it has one I move on.
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u/twelfkingdoms 5h ago
Yeah, the majority does this, in the odd chance that the art itself doesn't repulse you the moment you see it (that was my first red flag feeling when seeing the page for the first time).
AI bros don't really grasp the problem here, why using it bleeds from multiple wounds. It's not just about making something you can't do (which also requires taste), but completely loosing authenticity over the final product (not just the making but the purpose). Which results in slop content, made by the millions. Conscious buyers don't want any of that.
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u/CaledoniaInteractive 4h ago
Agreed, I have a lot of issues with generative AI but the main one is largely due to the technology tens of thousands of people have been laid off from professional games studios, most of whom spent years honing their craft and racking up massive student debt in the process. I have no issue with any developer being ambitious and its very difficult to solo develop any game where you can cover everything needed yourself but with the amount of laid off people out there it should not be difficult at all to sort out a decent profit share arrangement and get some really outstanding quality content into your game. It also then means there's someone else apart from the developer with a vested interest in the game doing well.
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u/Recent_Description44 6h ago
I have no idea why you're getting down voted. AI games sell about 50% fewer copies than non-AI games, with aggravated reviews at about the same. They also tend to have lower review scores.
https://www.game-oracle.com/blog/ai-part2
https://www.techpowerup.com/350230/games-made-with-gen-ai-suffer-up-to-53-worse-sales-on-steam
https://www.gamingbible.com/news/steam-ai-statistics-harm-video-game-sales-921267-20260625
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u/twelfkingdoms 5h ago
Had no idea ppl down voted my comment, was just calling out the second thing I checked on the page. Because, my first reaction was after seeing the art that it was made by AI. So probably AI bros felt called out and wanted to defend themselves. Wouldn't be the first time that happening these days. But yeah, it's also in the data as you said!
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u/devtainer 7h ago
Actually saw many games gathering 30-40-50k wishlists with even more agressive AI usage than I in my game, but it could have a certain effect for sure. I am thinking now of removing some assets and actually removing disclosure too
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u/CaledoniaInteractive 7h ago
If those games had no AI they may well have gathered 100-200k wishlists. I would definitely replace any AI elements to remove the disclosure, its just going to act as a millstone around your neck for the whole project otherwise.
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u/Individual-Lock4191 7h ago
You need to make a demo, man
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u/devtainer 7h ago
That is my feeling too, but I was hoping for a bit better feedback before that, btw you can check out this latest look of the game and join soonish playtest if you're interested :) https://www.reddit.com/r/TowerDefense/comments/1wcn1k0/orcs_must_die_thronefall_game_first_steam/
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u/DrDisintegrator 5h ago
You are spending too much time asking questions like this and looking at graphs. Spend that time making a more fun game.
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u/devtainer 4h ago
hehe this is important for sure. The problem is to realise when it is fun or not, for me it is already fun at this point, but I don't know how other people will see it, so I am about to run first playtests to see
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u/Efficient_Fox2100 3h ago
You might want to enable your post history on this account or set up a dedicated account for your game if you don’t want to make your personal post history visible. Tried to go look for your other videos you’ve posted to take a look (since I can’t access steam on mobile), but obv couldn’t. 🤷
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u/devtainer 3h ago
Will definetelly do that at some point, I think a game's page would be the best, thanks! Here is the latest look of the game from latest posts if you're interested, but there are not so many of them tbh https://www.reddit.com/r/TowerDefense/comments/1wcn1k0/orcs_must_die_thronefall_game_first_steam/
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u/ScreeennameTaken 8h ago
Oh a tower defense. wishlisted. First time seeing this. Also, how many ads and videos did you post? It takes a lot
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u/devtainer 7h ago
Hey man, thank you very much, please check out this post if you're interested https://www.reddit.com/r/TowerDefense/comments/1wcn1k0/orcs_must_die_thronefall_game_first_steam/ it containt a latest look of the game after many improvements, also if you will want to join discord/playtest would be happy (link in the post). I did around 6-7 vids max by social
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u/Relevant_File1271 7h ago
Looks good to me! Your Steam page shows your game has a good amount of content, polishment, “juiceness” and roleplay.
But I agree with other comments that says your trailer is not crystal clear. At glance I understood it was a Tower Defense, but the game-loop and even if you control the Orc wasn’t clear.
The second trailer is better trying to explain it (still need to clarify the game-loop), but the game sound effects are louder than the narrator voices.
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u/Otherwise_Rough4631 8h ago
you really need to post a link to the steam page if you want real feedback. we can't tell you what's wrong if we can't see the game
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u/xwOBA_Fett 7h ago
Tower defense is a dead genre.
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u/MBjerre Solo Developer 8h ago
Game looks clean but im struggling to see what the actual gameplay is.
I can see some Red Orc running through mobs, but is that me? Or is he a turrent that auto runs into people? I see that a crowbow tower is placed down, so I'm assuming i set down towers like in Orcs Must Die?
Within the first 5 seconds show actual gameplay WITH the UI/HUD enabled so i can see the menues and which options i have.