u/MadChirpy

Hello! I'm the developer of Shroud of Gloom and I was recently given $1000 in funding from this post here in the subreddit (Thanks again u/GumshoeRyan!). Of course, I want to make sure I use this money in the best way possible, I've started doing some research on how to best spend this, but I thought I might as well get some opinions from you guys!

In my case, I don't need to spend a lot on money directly on the game, the game is close to the finish line so I'm mainly thinking of using this for some form of marketing, as my main goal right now is to get more people interested in the game.

The main things I'm considering right now are:
- Reddit and/or Meta Ads
- Paid YouTube Collaborations
- Hiring a Capsule Artist

So with that being said, how would you spend this budget? What's your experience been like? Is there perhaps something else I should consider?

Might be worth mentioning; I do have a demo available (just released a major update) and I published a new trailer a few days ago. My game is already localized into 13 languages with more on the way. I've just reached out to around 20 press sites and around 100 content creators of varying sizes, I've gotten one article published on a major Japanese website and just under 10% of creators have responded with some interest and a couple have already played it, but still waiting to see the full result of this outreach.

I wasn't initially considering paid collaborations on YouTube, but there were a few people who recommended it in the last post, my main concern there is that I know a lot of people underestimate their rates, afaik I could easily blow the entire budget getting just one bigger creator to play the game. So then the question is whether or not that will give me a better ROI compared to running ads, or maybe my capsule is doing me a disservice right now and the money would be better spent on some new artwork to attract more organic traffic instead, what do you guys think?

Thanks!

Hello! I'm working on Shroud of Gloom, an adventure game with a horror twist, and I just released a new trailer and a major demo update, now available on itch.io as well!

Check it out and let me know what you think!

https://madchirpy.itch.io/shroud-of-gloom

I'm working on a point-and-click horror adventure, but after some time I've realized that the inventory never got filled up more than half way. Rather than making the bag smaller, I increased the size of all inventory items! I think it turned out well since it allows me to get a bit more details in there!

You can check out the game here if you're curious: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3453420/Shroud_of_Gloom/

Hello! I'm working on a point-and-click horror adventure, in case anyone finds it interesting, here's the evolution of my capsule art!

The first one (top) was quickly put together using assets from the game jam version, in hindsight this one just didn't look appealing enough.

The second one (middle) was my next attempt. After hearing that pixel art is bad for capsules, I decided to try making an illustration instead. So neither the artwork nor logo is pixel art here, and I think it turned out okay, but eventually I realized that it felt a little bit too "generic" - it basically just says "this is a horror game", but the game has a big focus on puzzles and mystery as well so I wanted something that better represents the game as a whole...

...so for the last one (bottom), I decided to go against the common advice and revert back to pixel art to better showcase the unique art style of the game. Instead of just having something creepy, I went for the face of the grandfather clock. For whatever reason this feels more mysterious, and since clock puzzles are quite common I feel like this gives a little bit of a puzzle vibe too, and it works pretty well thematically with the game taking place in an old manor! Now the game does still have a horror theme, so I added some blood around the frame as an attempt to reflect that as well. So far, I'm quite happy with this one.

By no means do I think this is the best capsule art ever made, but I definitely thinks it represents my game a lot better than the other ones. What do you think?

Here's the game for reference: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3453420/Shroud_of_Gloom/