How to promote an indie game?? That´s the big question!!

Hi everyone!

I was lucky enough that after 10 months of hard work I managed to finish very first game title, Canyon Rush.
I was full of joy and happiness that finally it is out and available on App Store and Google Play, but the question come really fast.

Now What????

How do I let people know about my game? How do I reach them? Who would be interested in a small game that had been made by one person...

So I started to do a little research and I found out that even though the internet is enormous, it is still hard to be visible between so many other titles that appear every day. But as I was resilient enough the work on my game for 10 months, I don´t wanted to give up that easy.

Soooo, the following things came to my mind as an individual, who don´t want to spend fortunes on marketing:
- Share it on Social media like: Facebook, Twitter, etc..
- Share it on Forums (Unity, Reddit..)
- Try to reach out for reviewers
- Youtubers
- Contact smaller websites or presses that could be interested in indie games
- Participate on competitions
- Networking

As I am just a novice in the gaming industry I would love to hear your opinions about it or perhaps your experience Thanks a lot and cheers!

If you want please check out my game: ) All help is appreciated!

App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/canyon-rush/id1380028037?ls=1&mt=8
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.zoltancseri.canyonrush

 

The game looks very beautiful. I love low poly. Were you working on this full time? and did you do all the art / programming yourself?

I'm going to check the game out later on today.

I'd highly recommend posting to TouchArcade and being highly responsive.

Also, ProductHunt is pretty good.

A lot of content feeds up. If you have a killer game and a community like TouchArcade recognizes it, you'll get coverage in other places as well.

 

Thank you very much for your feedback, it means a lot to me!

I was doing this as a hobby project during the afternoons and weekends. But it was on and off, only in the last 4 months I worked on in it more seriously in order to finish it.

All the graphical art work, animation, most of the 3D models and programming is done by me. Only few assets have been purchased in order to speed up the level design and decoration of the game.

Thanks for the suggestions, I will look into it right now! I thought that it was challenging to create a game from scratch, but it is also hard to market it I am looking forward for your feedback, and I will keep you updated about the progress

 

Now that is very good.
I admire that alot.

 

Any one of these; or a combination of a few of them or all of them are all acceptable options.

If money is the primary factor in deciding, than Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and word of mouth through friends and forums.

Just be careful of the forums approach that you don't sour the milk. One or two postings on game forums like IGN, Rock-Paper-Shotgun or Steam or something like that

A forums like Unity or Unreal really won't do you much good in the long run or even short run other than get congrats postings from fellow devs.

 

Congrats on release. Overall the game looks well made. The animations although minimal look well done, and the models are acceptably good.

You have a solid plan to reach out to people - unfortunately you are starting at minimum - 6 months too late.
Reflect on the fact you as the creator should have been promoting the game for the past 6 months, and all the missed opportunities where you could have built up a small following before launching the game.
Can attention be built for the game now - maybe, but unlikely unless a prominent youtuber picks it up and promotes the hooks and 'fun' features of the game - which will make others want to play it.

With the knowledge from this game - plan to promote your next game well in advance of release.

Can you expand on this? How do you think participating in competitions increase downloads for this game? The other people in competitions are developers. Yes - we are all customers, but this sub-demographic of the audience isn't going to generate many downloads. If you create something and it is popular and you cross promote from the other creation - maybe it will generate downloads, but - idk.

Can you expand on this? This post is considered networking a bit. Networking at gaming events/meetups? Same as participating in competitions - this is only advertising to a tiny demographic of players, those who are actively creating there own games. Who else could you network with?
How about some kite flying communities, or wingsuit communities?? How many wingsuit communites (forums, newsletters, blogs etc etc can you jump into?

I'd say standing in front of wal-mart handing out fliers to people with kids would probably have as much potential for future downloads as networking with other game developers.

Can you think of anything - not online - that could be done for outreach? I just gave one example - that has just as much potential as any other on your list - besides youtubers, and mobile marketing sites.

 

Speaking of YouTube personalities one of them made an in-depth video about how you can get promoted through them.

Spoiler