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Marketing Your Visual Novel

A topic by Count Krampus created Nov 22, 2019 Views: 2,600 Replies: 13
Viewing posts 1 to 7
(+1)

I'm curious to know if any visual novel publishers and creators can share some experiences with marketing. I thought the testing process was a b-word. Actually spreading the word and getting people to care is the real challenge. So what has worked for you? 

(+2)

Being in a community always works, help people in the community and talking to them. They might give your game a chance rather than saying hey play my game in 1 post.

(+1)

That makes sense. Thanks for chiming in! 

Moderator moved this topic to General Discussion
(+2)

Personally, I find communities quite helpful and the opportunities to learn more extensive.  LSF (LemmaSoft Forums) was my first to learn the basics of game development and the Ren'Py VN engine.

I quickly learned the basics of Ren'Py through them and had a working prototype in about 2 weeks.  My first completed KN "Learning To Fly ch1" is published both here and on GameJolt.

I've also joined Discord and created my own server  https://discord.gg/c3vK5Y though I'm still in the process of setting it up.  There are plenty of servers to join on discord, such as Renpy, itch, blender, etc.

Hope this helps...
Robi

Makes a lot of sense and definitely helps. I haven't heard of a few of these sources, so I'll be sure to check them out. Thanks! 

(1 edit) (+4)

VN's are a B* to market because any beginner programmer can make one. But I actually love the look of yours! (the trailer anyways) it looks perfectly twisted. It's near impossible to get someone to purchase them unless you have a homerun. They say if a game will be successful you shouldn't have to do much marketing, it should fly by itself. So don't make VN's with the intent of making money. Sadly they are near worthless in today's society. Even if you have a story that wretches every persons heart who plays it.

There's a million places to market on the internet.. Yours is about a horror rave or something? That's prefect to find unconventional places to market it. Get away from the normal game sites where there are thousands of other VN's. Find the rave communities where they aren't oversaturated with games.. And frankly, probably don't even know what VN's are, or where the bar is set.

On the surface, my game is in the same boat as yours.. https://imitate-fire.itch.io/canna-bus

Cheers

edit: The fact is, if you don't have a hit game and still want to make money from it you have to go where the money is ie. Steam, where there are more players than devs who actually spend money on games.

(+1)

I'm more of a writer than programmer, but I totally feel you. VN's are virtually unknown and may even be a bit ahead of their time. I had initially targeted Steam, but after the response I've gotten (or lack thereof), I guess I sort of chickened out. I'm eventually gonna get it on there, hopefully Google Play too, once I iron out the kinks in the Android version. Thanks for chiming in though. Greatly appreciated! 

So umm ... trying to register for Lemma Soft Forums and seems I need a password from an existing user just to sign up. Pretty weird. Would any of you guys happen to know it? 

I know, it's really stupid. I can't remember how I got one or what it is, but I only used those forums for a day.

Just use Discord. There's a renpy server and you'll get instant help from many experienced people.

I got in! Contacted an admin. Probably should've done that first, but I panicked. Ha! What exactly is Discord though? I got invited to a room/server thing on DeviantArt and I'm still not quite sure what the hell is going on.

(+1)

Discord is a text and voice chat app  for gamers.  There a lot of different servers available.  Here is a link to download the app:

https://discordapp.com/download

To find a relevant server.  Open the discord app and go to https://disboard.org/  to search for the topic of your choice.

Hmmm. Sounds pretty interesting. I'll check it out and see if it's a good fit. Thanks Bro! 

No problem and good luck!

(1 edit) (+1)

Do you use any social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr? Social media is key for getting a niche product like visual novels out there.

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