How to promote yourself

Greetings everyone,

My name is Nejc and I just started game development... That sounded like an AA confession.
I am trying to do it in my free time for it is my passion and I try to pursue it.

By this time I have launched two games on the App Store: FlipFlow and Huemility.

COMMENTS and CRITIQUE highly appreciated!

I have been struggling to get any downloads, I do not know how to promote myself or my games.

Can anyone share their thoughts on promotion? I have tried reaching out to App Reviewers but my games
are nowhere near noteworthy.

I really don't have the money for Facebook promotion and was wondering how promotion could be done with a budget of 0$???

Thanks for your time guys!

Game on!

 

Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, free copies for game reviewers, etc... Post pictures, gifs, videos, trailers... keep it short and sweet. There are quite a few articles on this topic, I'm sure you can find some useful information on Gamasutra.

If your games 'arent noteworthy' then you should just make something that is, and promote that. There isn't much point in promoting a product that you already know isnt going to gain any traction.

 

I haven't actually downloaded them, but from your screenshots and icons, both games look quite nice! Very polished and professional. So I don't think quality is an issue, which is good.

I would utilize social media (lots of hashtags) to try and build an audience. People love to see stuff, so share images and animated gifs of your game in motion.

Maybe write blog posts about some challenge you overcame while developing. Or submit your game for various award considerations. Just do whatever you have to in order to get people to see them.

Discovery is one of the hardest parts of being an indie, and if there were an easy formula for it, there'd be a lot more famous people around here.

 

Thanks for the comments! I will try that blog thing! Do you keep one?
Gifs are a great idea btw!

 

They are noteworthy for me but recently the only apps getting reviewed seemed to be big games. I know what I put in my games, considering I have 0 coding knowledge, its been hard.
I will try gifs and pics, but where to post them? Ive been trying 9gag, are there other community sites like that?

 

Twitter with a good use of Hashtags will probably be your most successful place. Imgur likes cool gifs, but only really exceptional/hilarious stuff gets to the front page. More devs have been using Imgur lately, and its a great way to get a ton of eyes on your stuff if you get some content on the front page.

 

I'm terrible at self-promotion (so why am I giving advice?! haha). I do have a blog for the game I'm currently working on, but it's lower than anything else on my To Do list, so it's more or less useless.

Agreed. Between that and a thread on the forums here is where most of the dozen or so people that know of my game found out about it.

 

There are a tons of ways to promote your apps. Just google how to promote my apps, click the first one and there are very good resources, that teach you this part. Good Luck

 

Make videos and publish them on networks. They will play quickly with just a click on the feed.

 

Add your game & blog links to your signature block here, other forums you are in, he'll even add it to your email signature block. If 1% click the links that's 1% more than before

 

We're talking about the mobile market here, so this advice also applies to the desktop market (which is slightly different).

• Take a year or so to keep making games and build up a large online audience of people who love your work and will pay for it, then at some point in the future when you release another new game you can let those people know about it. This is the way that no one ever wants to talk about or admit is the most realistic method.
• Or... Hope that someone somewhere online who is somehow connected to media writes a piece about how good your game is, and that they write for a large enough site that it will actually drive some traffic to your game. Make sure your game is really good\fun\unique\intriguing if you want this to happen.
• Or... Spend boat loads of money on television advertising.
  
• Or... Cross your fingers.

Truly... practice. Make games. Game development is a craft just like other things. Time must be spent perfecting your skills before you can expect to make money with it. Learn your craft. See what happens then.

(edited to be nicer, because I want a cookie and if I'm mean I can't have a cookie)

 

I have already said, that to me the games feel noteworthy but apparently the reviewers I sent them to don't.
I decided to jump in because I enjoy games more than anything, however I do not have the luxury or the money to do it full time(no silver spoon for me ).
I didn't say I wanted to be successful, but at least a couple hundred downloads can't hurt can they?
I never wish to be like flappy bird successful or anything of that sort.

I can only cross my fingers at the moment, since I can't take a year off and I can't spend money on advertising as I said in the beginning.

 

Ok, thanks for answering truthfully. Good luck.

 

I don't think there is any magic way to be successful. Just keep plugging away making the best games you can that you are fairly proud of (I'm being realistic here because for most people, no matter how good something is & how proud they are of it, people will also be going over all the things they should've done to make it just that little bit better). Put the games out there, tell everyone you know to try it & give honest feedback & to tell anyone they know to do the same. Some people may like it & be interested in the next thing you do while others may not like it & will hopefully tell you why so you can improve next time. Go to conventions, join local dev groups (if there isn't one try to start one up. Just have a space somewhere where people can come & show what they are working on, talk to others in a similar situation etc) & just talk about & show your passion project to anyone who will spare 5 minutes.

 

I want to add that I am in no way trying to discourage people from making games. I am trying to encourage people to appreciate the craft of game development. And that's what it is. A craft. Something you can learn and get better at with time. I want people to make good games, because I want to play them

Day after day, people pop up and ask the same thing: "How do I get my games noticed?" And the answer is so simple, yet so far away. Practice and spend the time learning how to make good games that people want to play, and then, maybe, some day, you'll get noticed. That's it.

 

Well that's what the social thing is supposed to be about ain't it? And the whole successful 'indie' thing is supposed to be a manifestation of social networks making successes of good indie creators. People expect that because they are told that. You can't blame the target of a lying campaign for being lied to and possibly ignorant of being lied to.

Another example: is because the search engines are irrelevant to find the relevant results for given keywords given but instead return advertised results with no relevance.

A better question might be is why are businesses in the business of search are claiming their engines do search when what they do is advertising. And another question is why are businesses purporting that their products are indie products when they are not. And the final question is why are businesses claiming social engagement is something that must be paid for? e.g. What's that honey? Take out the garbage? Let me place a socially engaging ad in Facebook and see if that concept flies, shall we? Oh, and now you want me to take that tablet out with the trash?

 

Throw in an in game tutorial or two. Even flappy bird starts off with 'tap the screen to fly'. I played through about a dozen games before I figured out what was supposed to be happening. On both titles.

I'd also consider standardising your UI. The heart balloon buttons are cute. But they are confusing at first glance. You want your product to be accesable to players.

Once your product is accesable you may have a better time getting reviewers attention. Or you may not, the games are, as you say, unremarkable. They are not bad games by any means. They just don't have anything that stands out as awesome. And to prosper in mobile these days, you need awesome.

 

Okay. Critical issue. The ads in your tappy action game affect performance. There is a noticable slow down every time the ads change.

Honestly, don't even bother with ads until you can get consistent downloads on every new release. You've hamstrung your game for a hand ful of pennies. Totally not worth it.