What if No One Plays It

[BlackMagnolia]

I kind of went through this with Carin. Sure, I marketed a wee bit to dip my feet into the pond, sent it to a few friends, got a few players. But mostly silence was the response to that. Not complaining, mind you. It was an experiment anyway.

What I did was as any normal first-time creator did: freak out and wallowed in self-doubt. However, what I found to be important when you release a project is distance and time to recalibrate. Being face-first into the screen doesn't help; stepping back and allowing yourself to breathe is important.

I then watched the threads. Saw what trends most people respond to and then saw what projects I liked and responded to, noting what I liked and why I liked it. I also noted what out of the popular trends I can appropriate to something that is quintessential to me yet be a bit more accessible to people.

I stopped thinking directly about game dev and the game itself (bar checking the thread ever so often) and immersed myself in other mediums: books, other forum members' games, movies, wiki articles, people watching, so on and so forth.

I return to the project with a clearer mind and see what I am good at, what I need to work on, and then just continue honing my craft for when the next game idea comes along. It's important to step it up only a notch. Don't bite off more than you can chew. Take what you learned and expound on it in a natural and patient manner. There's nothing worse than rushing into something that is out of your reach and then crashing and burning.

Show your face more, talk to creators who's work you admire and those who have a wealth of experience to share, form connections and ease yourself out there. Eventually more and more people will take note.

[Vialixia]

I think it's super important to remember that shipping a game AT ALL is a huge achievement, especially if you have poured your heart and soul into it, and you are happy with the end result. So many people start with the best intentions, and don't finish the game (me included) or spend months or years on a game only for them to not get the result they expected.

Of course, getting recognition or even feedback from peers and players is really important and I'm not underestimating the value in that. I think that the lemmasoft community is a great place to share things as when I look through the threads, most games have at least one player invested! Also, social media is obviously a great way to get your content out there to people that might be interested in it. If you've tried all that and you still get radio silence, it would be useful to try and evaluate HOW you are communicating about your novel. I've noticed the threads that get the most attention have a concise but very interesting synopsis, some nice artwork or screenshots of the game, things that really draw people in. Highlight where your strengths are!

And, if people are still not interested... well, it's not a waste of time to have a created a game. You'll have learnt so much from it, and if your aim is to have many people playing, you'll have a much better view of what interests people and what doesn't. Learning from mistakes or difficulties is the best way to progress imo!

[Miyase Mihiro]

As mentioned above there are two things you can do.

1) marketing
2) social media

I would do the above of course but keep working and working on new projects, no mather how little people react to it. Not every game is going to be a winner (the big majority of these fan made games go unnoticed ) . But you need to wait with lots of patience for that one game that will take you to a higher level. Keep that in mind

[ArkticArtz]

I've been kinda struggling with this happening. My goal is to create my next game with less of a barrier for entry (free) but keep the length to a reasonable level a,d releaase a more short story style format in a longer overarching story. I'm excited to finally kick it off. I think building momentum takes time and having an easy access point for people is pretty important as well. As for like getting people interested in free projects. Eye catching premise or art, involving ones self in relevant communities I guess. I'm still working on that bit too D: haha