I've tried to reach out to support, did so on the first day I noticed I wasn't indexed anymore. Since then it's been 8 days with no response - I have emailed every couple days to see if there's been anything.

It's pretty saddening, the game was doing really well, had garnered a tonne of attention really quickly and got shared around a few communities, was the dream start, and it had even made it's way fairly far up on the popular scale of some genres.

Doubt it'll be there now even if it does get reindexed. Pretty disheartening, I'll be moving my focus to steam soon most likely, unless something happens here, solely out of it being less unstable like this. I'd much prefer to use itch, though, much less of a headache.

Anyone else had this?

I'm doing an upcoming patch for this game on Sunday, but gods above I'd love to send this to the players now.

I'm astonished the amount of impact it had, the game has propelled through itch.io and now has like a relatively natural influx of new visitors and downloads solely from it's visibility on the main page.

The game is actually free, which it humbles me even more that people gave any money towards it.

I just wanted to share this with this sub because my last post here was a big encouragement, so I feel like part of why this has gone so well was due to how positive the response was to that post, as well as a few others I made celebrating that I'd made a game I was genuinely proud of, and that pushed me to continue to try to show it to more people.

Thank you for all your support in the previous post!

Of course, obligatory plug, if you want to check the game out, it's here: https://jonsprojects.itch.io/psyche,

I've recently been trying to "get my game out there" so to speak and have been researching and trying out a bunch of different things to get my project PSYCHE in front of more people. I'm happy to say I think I've done better than I ever have at that task, and I'd like to share what I think worked, exactly how I went around it, and why I did what I did. Do keep in mind this is anecdotal, and your mileage my vary.

Let's start from-

LEAST EFFECTIVE:

Using the community boards on itch.io / posting devlogs. I'd have loved for that to be something that drove some decent traffic - and I did get a few people peeking at my game from that angle, but compared to how much traction I managed to get from other areas, it just doesn't really compare. I think the problem here is that a lot of the people that really engage with the community on those itch boards all have something they want to get in front of people too, and aren't so inclined to care about your game as much as their own - and that's fine, that makes sense, literally I am the exact same, but it does mean, of course, that you probably won't find many "players" here, at least with what I've found.

WORTH DOING:

Entering game jams. If you can apply your game to a game jam of some kind, it's worth popping in there! No real commitment to it, easy to join, as long as your stuff is relevant there's no harm just joining a jam. You might find something you're interested in to steal ideas take inspiration from.

ACTUALLY KINDA NICE WITH IT:

Market research and getting involved with a community of a game that sits within the genre of your game. That was a really long winded way to put that, but I think a massive portion of the growth I got was from trying to understand what made Devil Daggers so good by talking to people that play a LOT of Devil Daggers. They had a lot of really insightful opinions and great little additions I could add in. If you aren't welcome somewhere then, yknow, move on - but the important thing is not to treat that place like somewhere to advertise, because that sort of isn't your main goal here: it's finding out what works, why it works, why they like the game. It's more about them than you, it just helps you make a decent game, but you might find there's some passive interest in why you're asking all these questions!

MOST EFFECTIVE:

Practices that bring people back: That might sound a bit vague, but I mean it as in "what do you have in your game that makes people want to download the next version? And how easy is it to download the next version? And do you actually have a method to tell them the next version is available over hoping they check itch.io again? For a couple ideas, here's what I added that I think was super helpful on getting repeat downloads, repeat visits and (of course) more visibility due to those.

• Global leaderboards - completely free to run with stuff like Simpleboards, takes a bit of setup but worth it imo, if your game inspires friendly competition it's super handy.
• Itch.io app lets you publish versions of your game through butler, which you can then code in a notification IN GAME if there's an update to your game available. Retention skyrocketed with this, as well as downloads and visits from repeat players.
• Talking to people about the game in public spaces, like discords you are already in or otherwise. If you aren't in a discord, make friends! Just remember, you're probably not going to get anywhere spamming your game.
• Speak to twitch streamers about what they like about the game you're trying to take inspiration from. They're more than inviting and usually willing to talk about their favourite bits of a game, especially if that's their game of choice to stream. I wouldn't bother the massive streamers though - this actually led to my game getting streamed recently!

Hope people can benefit from this breakdown of what helped me. If you did, or this gave you some ideas, maybe peep my game, and see what I mean?
https://jonsprojects.itch.io/psyche
(THE SHAMELESS PLUG)

I never knew how useful it could be instead of just uploading my zip file to my project, it's here if you haven't used it before:
https://itch.io/app

Most notably, you can use this app to set up a call from your game to make a little popup if your game has updated, and a player is using an outdated version - this alone has ended up absolutely catapulting retention for me, along with adding a global leaderboard (which I must add is massively underrated for games that might have some competition - done wonders for the retention, too) and it's a crime I didn't know about it sooner.

Don't be like me and make several projects without using it, it's so useful man.

This is PSYCHE, my first (and second? maybe? so i'm told?) person shooter, heavily inspired by Devil Daggers with a unique twist of having overhead copies of the arena you're fighting in, that you can use to shoot down at enemies and deal more damage.

It's here if you want to play it: https://jonsprojects.itch.io/psyche (i'd really appreciate it!)

Godot's been an absolute treat. I've found it intuitive, at least for the most part, I've been loving the amount of support it has from people, it's genuinely just the best engine I've used without contest. Really, really glad this exists and absolute credit to everyone involved in it.

Cheers!

Hello folks, I've made a difficult first (and second?) person shooter inspired by Devil Daggers called PSYCHE and I'm looking for people to playtest it so I can get a feel of if it feels hard but fair or unfair and unfun - a word of warning, just like Devil Daggers you aren't "meant" to win, just survive as long as you can. (You can, however, actually win, but I'd be MASSIVELY surprised if anyone managed it).

The game is here: https://jonsprojects.itch.io/psyche

I may not have much to give, like a platform or anything, but I do have my time. Any feedback I receive on the game I'll play your game in return and provide as much feedback as I can.

Help me, help you!

Small gameplay excerpt

Game Title: PSYCHE

Playable Link: https://jonsprojects.itch.io/psyche

Platform: Windows PC

Description: A Devil Daggers inspired arena shooter that focuses on difficulty, surreal visuals and a unique mechanic I've called "Kaleidoscopic shooting". Kaleidoscopic Shooting, or "kshots" for short, lets you fire at the replicated platforms overhead, and deal extra damage to enemies so long as they are on that platform with you, making the game more about your movement, strafing and target priority. It also features several secrets and unlockables - but I won't spoil those! Sporting a breakcore/dnb soundtrack (with proper accreditation to artists), bunnyhopping and high difficulty, this game was both my first venture into 3d modelling my own assets as well as a bit of catharsis for my own self. In that sense it's dear to me, and I hope anyone who plays it gets some enjoyment out of it too. I update the game quite regularly, so please do check back if you enjoy the game!

Free to play status: Completely free!

Involvement: I am completely a solo developer that creates projects somewhat regularly as a hobby. I enjoy making games that I would want to play, and I'll continue to output games that I think are fun as often as I come up with an idea for one.

Thanks!

You're literally robbing yourself of the catharsis of doing things like 3d modelling. It's annoying to get in to at the beginning, and I'm far from being any good at it, but what I've made is serviceable enough for PSYCHE.

I absolutely believe it's likely the exact same for drawing - and while I can't draw (still, as maybe evident by my usage of real world textures, edited in photoshop/scaled down), from how enjoyable it has been to learn to 3d model, I might take it up, so I can start making some 2D assets that aren't made via code or bought from someone else.

Make your own art, it brings so much more attachment and soul to your work.

Link's here, tell me what you think: https://jonsprojects.itch.io/psyche