Post by redonihunter in What am I doing wrong?

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I don't have a social media following anywhere

I've made posts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter

Do you see the contradiction? You need to be already known to leverage your followers.

If we assume accuracy in ranking (it is not accurate), you are on place 22 of 38 in this list. What are places 23-38 doing wronger than you? What are places 1-21 doing less wrong than you? (Note: I do not know any game from that list. This might be, because I have different opinions about those tags - they are somewhat redundant - and mostly because I do not seek out horror in general)

https://itch.io/games/tag-3d/tag-horror/tag-stealth/tag-survival-horror

Concerning your yt video. Look at the numbers of your gameplay video vs the numbers of your release trailer. This is small numbers, but I see a trend. People do not like to watch trailers for stuff they did not wait for. It is advertisement. Why watch yt advertisement to watch yet another advertisement. But people like let's play videos.

Concerning your game page. Could be better. Longer mostly. Screenshots are quite bland. It is a horror game. The shots add nothing to that information. Why is there no alibi story about a genetic mutated aligator in a science laboratory or whatever excuse. People like stories and settings. There is no motivation. An unknown person runs away from a green human raptor thingy or whatever. Why. Where. Is there a goal? Your advertisement is like for an arcade game, you only stress the dexterity aspect of the game and some supposed uniqueness. The mystery setting might have worked for Slender Man, as such games were rare and new. But as was stated before, there are just so many "horror" games.

The description and screenshots of your other game is better. But you could tag more interesting tags, instead of the generic overused ones. Also, everythign here is indie, I think it funny that you and 20k other games bother to tag it.

While things in this thread might sound harsh, the truth is, that of that near million indie games on itch and you could play one horror game each day for years and not scratch the surface. You could do everything right and still drown in obscurity in all the other games that try to do what you do.

And this might be a translation thing, but suitor has a quite overwhelming non horror meanings. Is the monster courting the player, or asking to sign a petition? ;-)

suitor /soo͞′tər/

noun

A man who is courting a woman.

A person who makes a petition or request.

A person who sues in court; a plaintiff; a petitioner.

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Undead Ridley290 days ago

I choose not to see it as harsh, but just blunt and honest, which is what I need. I need the blunt feedback to know what I need to change and fix. I appreciate your thoughts, the tags were VERY redundant, I really just didn't know what tags to use at all.

I didn't go for story cause honestly Suitor was born from me being tired of the trend of Indie Horror Games having sloppy world building and pointless easter eggs just meant to ride the coattails of FNaF's YouTube theory craze. It doesn't have a super complex story and this specific build is basically a test run that is canonical, but not at all connected to the Story of the full game. But I do see what you mean, a story is very important regardless of intent. I should work on that.

Thank you for the feedback!

Also, the title Suitor is a play on the term for one who is Suitable for something, in this case a Suitable Host. It is a confusing title, but it's just stuck for as long as I've been working on the project.

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redonihunter290 days ago(+1)

Your "story" need not be long or complex. Look at the "story" of those Mario games: hero tries to save the princess from ... a turtle. And if I recall correctly, the story of Slender Man was: you are camping in the woods and at night creepy things happen.

While those are more like a setting and not a story, there was not that much lore coming up to flesh out the story. I never learned why a plumber felt chosen to rescue the princess. Only that they all like to race in karts and that Mario has a brother.

English is not my native language, but to my understanding and the context given, a suitor would be the person doing the activity. Suited would be the quality you want him to have for being a host. But no matter how I think about hit, if the player is the Suitor, it would imply that he is willing to do that and seeks out to solicit himself as a host. It would make a creepy (and fittingly) sense, if the monster is the suitor, advancing itself and literally courting the player and or making him suitable. But frankly, I did not get, if the player or the monster is supposed to be the suitor or if it has a different meaning.

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