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[Alain]

And regarding "Will you find the source of the darkness?" do you have any suggestions? I want to be a question phrase like "dare enter my world" or something that can make player think of an asnwer/mystery

I heard that on the first glance people are not interested in story, but in what they do in the game. "Finding the source of darkness" could hint towards puzzle solving and deducing clues from reading etc. Maybe you can find words that imply the actual actions a player perfoms and still hint at the dark mysterious world?

With regards to the new capsule: B1 and B2 are a big improvement! My favourite is B2. I was not a big fan of the choice of font, but your old font looks great in B2. With the triangle it gives me a feeling of being a corporate logo, which fits to your squad of professionals in my eyes.

[Ramos]

And regarding "Will you find the source of the darkness?" do you have any suggestions? I want to be a question phrase like "dare enter my world" or something that can make player think of an asnwer/mystery

I heard that on the first glance people are not interested in story, but in what they do in the game. "Finding the source of darkness" could hint towards puzzle solving and deducing clues from reading etc. Maybe you can find words that imply the actual actions a player perfoms and still hint at the dark mysterious world?

With regards to the new capsule: B1 and B2 are a big improvement! My favourite is B2. I was not a big fan of the choice of font, but your old font looks great in B2. With the triangle it gives me a feeling of being a corporate logo, which fits to your squad of professionals in my eyes.

Thank you for the precious feedback Alain!
I also removed "and more" from the text description based on your feedback


And after reading your post with the corporate logo remark I give it a thought and decided to make this into the game logo, thank you for the awesome feedback!
I think it is safe to say now I got the final logo for the game, since this is a strategy game mix with Lovecraft-horror I think it is only fair to use the iconic tentacles and triangle. Hope you enjoy it!

[Alain]

Great, I'm happy I could be of help!

This is awesome, I love it. In my opinion this logo tells so much story and leaves a lot of room for the potential player to imagine things that it tells more than words ever could!

[vivaladav]

I like the new style, but the small text will not be readable when this is scaled down to 184x69.
Have you tested how things look on that size?

Not sure if it's the forum or imgur doing something weird, but I see most of this image background as black, whereas the smaller version above has more elements visible. Are they different?

[Ramos]

I like the new style, but the small text will not be readable when this is scaled down to 184x69.
Have you tested how things look on that size?

Thank you vivaladav!
and yes, it is readable, already tested my friend!

Not sure if it's the forum or imgur doing something weird, but I see most of this image background as black, whereas the smaller version above has more elements visible. Are they different?

I do not use imgur )) and yes they are different, I had to custom adjust them all to each Steam capsule.

I also posted last night these pics in 3 of the biggest pixel art groups from Facebook and got in the top on all 3, with over 300 likes, comments, and shares per group(x3). I needed to brag since my social life resumes lately to online interactions ahahahah

[Ramos]

Great, I'm happy I could be of help!

This is awesome, I love it. In my opinion this logo tells so much story and leaves a lot of room for the potential player to imagine things that it tells more than words ever could!

Thank you Alain, indeed, the result of posting the logo on social media was very good

[vivaladav]

I also posted last night these pics in 3 of the biggest pixel art groups from Facebook and got in the top on all 3, with over 300 likes, comments, and shares per group(x3). I needed to brag since my social life resumes lately to online interactions ahahahah

You're doing a good job and you have every right to brag for 300 likes and more!

Keep it up. 

[Ramos]

Keep it up.  

Thank you vivaladav!

---------------------



​MARKETING.

I thought about also sharing with you guys some marketing experience mostly because I assume most of us do marketing themselves so it automatically becomes part of the game development. Correct me if I am wrong and I will try to avoid marketing data in the future and resume to just clean game dev.
So during this post, I want to :

- point out the importance of knowing your target audience
- the importance of having good promotional material
- my personal experience with Facebook groups promotions
- some Facebook algorithms

Ok, let`s start!

------------------------------------

First-round

I recently remade my Steam thumbnail and what better way to get some promotional material than this?! Also please note that this information is strictly resuming to Facebook groups.
I first posted in pixel art theme groups on Facebook. Why? Because I try to aim for the target audience and what better way than to start on a place where people love pixel art(since the game is also pixel art) and here are the results from day 1:

Pixel art + 35k members = post got 330 likes 30 comments 17 shares

​Pixel Art 29k members = post got 111 likes 25 comments

​Pixel Art Heaven = post got 136 likes and 22 comments

​Results: 1 follower and 20 new wishlist additions

Conclusion: I am not some high tec guru dark star fapfap button Wizzard master developer, no, I am just like most developers so when I start to see so many like per post I was very excited, normally my posts on those groups get per average 20-30 likes, I was having high expectations for a wishlist so I was a bit disappointed when I saw only 20 new additions. It can also be the fact that some of them already had my game on wishlist since I posted there before from time to time about the game. Anyhow it was a good result and I strongly recommend you make smart posts, for example, I  only stated in the post I made these pixel art banners but I did not put any links in the description so people actually asked for a link and only after that I edited and added the link, so try hard not to be a hit&run poster. Also if you want to keep your post up, respond to comments a few days after so that your topic gets bumped up. Please also consider I did not include the private messages received based on this.

-----------------------------------

Second round

So why haven't I posted in all FB groups the same day? Because of Facebook algorithms, for example, even though I made the new custom text for all posts, I did have the same 2 pictures uploaded and if facebook sees you post the same comment too many times it will automatically warn you and mark your posts as spam. The second day I decided to target Xcom players because my game is heavily inspired by Xcom, I am not talking just about some art and 1-2 mechanics, no I am talking about the overall game design and the majority of features, heck, my game is basically Xcom in real-time. And note that I posted same 2 picture but I adapted the text,  Here are the results:

XCOM players 4k members = post got 80 likes 50 comments

​XCOM: Enemy Withinposting 400 members = post got 14 likes 3 comments

​Xcom 2 2k members = post got 40 likes 8 comments

​Results: 10 followers and 80 new wishlist additions

Conclusion: Based on pixel art communities results, I was expecting around 8-12 wishlist additions so when I saw the results it was clear for me, I first yelled some mumbo-jumbo spartan DarkStar Sailormoon Voltron lines in a weird language then I realized that even though the pixel groups were A LOT bigger then Xcom ones and that I got more engagement on them then on Xcom ones, the more I get closer to the target audience the bigger the conversion rate is. So I strongly recommend hard research on the target audience before starting marketing. I believe it is the same s**t with wishlist conversion rate into sales, as in if you get wishlists from giveaways and from people who meh or are casuals the conversion rate will be lower, and the more genuine wishlist audience you got the more the conversion rate will grow.

-----------------------------

Third round & forth round

At this point, I included both 3 and 4 rounds of Facebook group marketing because the results are non-existent. Round 3 was aiming toward casual gamer groups and round 4 was aiming toward Indie Game developer groups and other small pixel art groups, same promotional picture + adjusted text. Please notice how huge are some groups, how small, and how that factor is truly not important when it comes to smart marketing and knowing your target audience. Results:

Indie Game Promo IGD 56k members = post got 9 likes 3 comments

​Retro Indie Pixel Game 9k members = post got 12 likes 1 comment

​RTS game lovers = post got 2 likes

​and other groups not worth mentioning
​Results: not even worth mentioning

Conclusion: ​And for the casual gamer audience, I targeted PC gamer(more than 30k members) group, steam gamers, and so on BUT and it is a strong BUT here, I got 1 or 2 likes per post in these groups, now you are going to say "awww then this is a waste of time I will ignore those groups" and after you say this I will strangle you because you know nothing, Jhon Snow! Why? Some time ago I made TAURONOS game and that game had casual players as the target audience, the thing is that I got good love on this casual player audience group for that game specifically because that was its target audience. So in conclusion: Know your target audience & do not be a spammer that does hit&run, be smart about it and you will avoid wasting time on promotions that will bring no results. Time is very important. Now I am not saying not to post in Indie game development groups but I am saying do not post in Indie game development groups unless you have too much time.
​


If you got any suggestions/feedback on what I did wrong please do let me know. Also please do not think marketing resumes only on Facebook, if you like this post I will try to share my marketing up-to-date experience for all social platforms and marketing-wise related stuff such as email marketing, PR, marketing plan 1 month before release,  and others. NOTE: I am not perfect and this is just my opinion & personal experience.



PS: yes I use windows paint and WinRAR  

[Dinomaniak]

Thanks for sharing. The tentacle image was very pleasing :D .
Genuinely curious what was your best outcome-based marketing choice overall throughout the entire process.

[liva]

Thanks for sharing you experience!
In the end, how do you feel about the time spent trying to market your game? Was it worth it?

[Alain]

This was super interesting and helpful, Ramos, thanks for sharing! I would say your FB postings were a huge success. I never thought FB could do so much for you and the key seems to be, as you say, to know your audience.

[vivaladav]

Nice numbers there!

Next time make sure to use the new UTC analytics for your links to know even more about your results. 

PS: yes I use windows paint and WinRAR 

Why would you use something like Paint when there are many free and open-source alternatives that are better?

WinRAR is fine, as long as you never buy a license...

[joe_eyemobi]

Loving the combo of horror, pixel art, and tactical combat!  It's as if Lovecraft and XCOM had a baby - excellent work 

[Beastboy]

Wow, the new logo is very vibrant and has lovecraft wrriten all over him. And i dont know if its just me but it seems to make the overal mood a lot more dark and serios.good job !!!

[Ramos]

Thanks for sharing. The tentacle image was very pleasing :D .
Genuinely curious what was your best outcome-based marketing choice overall throughout the entire process.

Thank you for the kind words!
The best outcome-based marketing choice overall in my opinion is Email marketing / Youtube

Thanks for sharing you experience!
In the end, how do you feel about the time spent trying to market your game? Was it worth it?

Your welcome!
Yes, it was worth it and the feedback and results make is also very satisfying for my mind

This was super interesting and helpful, Ramos, thanks for sharing! I would say your FB postings were a huge success. I never thought FB could do so much for you and the key seems to be, as you say, to know your audience.

Thank you Alain!
I try to leave no stone underlined during Chromosome Evil creation so I will use all I learned so far for this project.

Nice numbers there!

Next time make sure to use the new UTC analytics for your links to know even more about your results.  

Why would you use something like Paint when there are many free and open-source alternatives that are better?

WinRAR is fine, as long as you never buy a license...

Thank you vivaladev for the analytics suggestion!
Why I use paint? Do not laugh pls, I use paint because I am old-school, if I see too many buttons I go insane, but hey, as long as it gets the job done I do not complain.

Loving the combo of horror, pixel art, and tactical combat!  It's as if Lovecraft and XCOM had a baby - excellent work  

Thank you so much Joe for this feedback, I will use your words to fuel my motivation on moving forward with this project.

Wow, the new logo is very vibrant and has lovecraft wrriten all over him. And i dont know if its just me but it seems to make the overal mood a lot more dark and serios.good job !!!

Thank you Beastboy!
Mission Accomplished  

[vivaladav]

Why I use paint? Do not laugh pls, I use paint because I am old-school, if I see too many buttons I go insane, but hey, as long as it gets the job done I do not complain.

I see, but the problem is that Paint is a toy and you could be much more productive and fast with any better tool.

What you are doing it's a bit like writing code with Notepad. You can do it and it's okay for something very simple, but it's going to be a mess for anything else.

I know it's extremely hard to change tools and pipelines in the middle of a project, but you should probably dedicate some time to try something different.
Maybe try GIMP which is not as complex as Photoshop.

[Ramos]

Paint is a toy

I like toys

[SADoff]

I like toys



this toys are more expensive , then your working computer!

[Ramos]

this toys are more expensive , then your working computer!

Sergey you were supposed to have my back not stab me 

--------------------

So the time has come to also give something back to the communities who supported and encouraged me during this project.

I decided to make an original credit screen, from which all can benefit, basically, when you press on credit button you will be taken to an actual interactive map and you will have a custom pre-defined squad, all interfaces will be hidden except for a "back" button. I will go throughout all rooms and try to explain my logical perspective for each.

Corner up left the room:

- this one is for the people from my Discord that were active and supported me a lot, this is my way of saying thank you to them and solidify the community by confirming their involvement.

Corner up the right room:

- this one is for another Discord rooms that I have posted about my game and got some sort of support & feedback during development, this was a nice thank you to them, it also allowed me to bypass some internal rules to post this picture in other Discord sub-rooms other than "#art"/"#game dev" , for example in "General" and also be able to tag "@admins" / "@moderators" because I mean cmon, it's an honest thank you, they would not delete/ban post because of this, on the contrary, I got some nice love on some Discord rooms.

Corner down left:

- this one is reserved for Itch.io and Gamejolt, best bridges when going indie dev since they both in my heart, both got their own special rooms. I also plan on doing a tweet and tagging them, last time I did this Gamejolt returned the love and re-tweeted my tweet earning me some extra subs.

Middle Up:

- this room is reserved for people that are not part of the team but their contribution was a big addition to the game, they also deserve it.

Middle down:

- this room is reserved for actual developers of the game, me and Sadoff(Sergey Dovganovsky), and ofc the company logo (info: it is an LLC), I am small I know but I do hope to make this brand solid on a long term.

Corner down right:

- one room is reserved for Steam, they will surely not notice it but they surely deserve it for how much the gaming community evolved because of them.

- and one room is reserved for Tigsource since my dev blog got so much love on it, it surely also deserves its own room, and a thank you, it's the least I can do.

Also on outside window areas there are more names, in front of some personal names and left and right alleys I left them blank for now.





Hope you enjoy it!

[Alain]

That's a cool idea, it is amazing that you have so many people supporting you and enjoying your game!