It's cool they're showing an interest in Norse mythology, but this much Loki seems excessive.

My first game, Ballisticards, recently hit the milestone of 2000 wishlists, something that seemed impossible to me when I launched the Steam page 11 months ago. Here's a breakdown of the things that worked, with numbers, and things that didn't work.

The Big Jumps

(Link to the wishlist graph in the comment below)

A) Steam page launch. ~580 wishlists, driven by Reddit. The Steam page featured a "lightweight trailer" (90 secs, only 6 different clips). Posted on Godot subreddit. Followed this with some memes on SoloDevelopment and IndieDev subreddits. 233k views total, for a conversion rate of 0.25%.

B) Featured in official Godot 2025 Showreel (for which I applied). ~250 wishlists, driven by the video and my Reddit post about it.

C) Random X post. ~160 wishlists, driven by X. Unbeknownst to me, an X user (@jettelly) posted my lightweight trailer on X (40k views). I didn't have an X account at that time, so I didn't reply with a direct Steam store link, which likely would have increased the conversion rate.

D) Proper announce trailer, increased social media presence (started using Instagram, X, YT Shorts, TikTok). ~130 wishlists, primarily driven by Reddit and Facebook. Posted on IndieGames and Roguelites subreddits.

E) Improved announce trailer. ~400 wishlists, driven by X, Instagram, and Reddit.

• I abandoned the strict narrative of "introducing the complexity bit by bit" and added a clip of some later-game chaos within the first 3 seconds. I also sped up the footage (and subsequently increased the gameplay speed to match).
• The minor changes above helped the trailer post really take off in X and Instagram (~40k and ~80k views, respectively, despite my new accounts with ~0 followers). While there was ~2x engagement on Instagram, X had ~2x the conversions. Conversion rates: X was 0.5%, Instagram was 0.125%.
• On the Reddit side, ~60 wishlists from posting on Nubby's Number Factory (another ball-dropping roguelike) subreddit (with permission from the mods!), with a 1.3% conversion rate. A smaller, but much more targeted, audience.

The Rest: I tried to keep up with posting on the above-mentioned platforms (Reddit, X, Instagram). Posts that didn't go viral still drove some wishlists. You can see from the graph in the comment below that the steady growth picked up after (D), which is where I started using X and Instagram.

Things That Didn't Work

• Press outreach. At steps (D) and (E) I did reach out to a number of press websites big and small(ish), broad and targeted. Got no responses from anyone. Perhaps I should have kept trying and held off my announcement until one of the big guys (e.g., IGN) was willing to post it (since they like exclusive posting), but I was too impatient for that.
• TikTok. I could write a whole post about this. In fact I wrote several posts about this. There's some serious issues these days with accounts being "shadow banned", which happened to me (twice!). I will leave it at that; you can check my other posts if you want to know more.
• YouTube Shorts. Some of the videos got an ok amount of views (>1k), but engagement was low and I didn't see much evidence of wishlist conversions.
  • The short-format (portrait orientation) format worked a little better on Instagram, with some videos with ~2k views, but ultimately none of these went viral like my trailer did.
• Posting on gaming subreddit. Got removed by mods, citing Reddit's 1-in-10 rule. I tracked my promo-vs-non-promo post ratio (since Reddit provides no tool for this), and I was just under 10%. The mod explained to me how they enforce this rule in practice.
  • The mods look at your most recent posts. Since I was in "game announce mode", most of my recent posts were about my game. Which basically destroyed the "credit" I earned with my prior non-promo posts.
  • The mods consider anything showing content from my game to be promotional. Even if it's a post legitimately asking for help/feedback/etc.

Lessons Learned

I still feel like I'm fumbling through the marketing side of things, but I'll share a few non-expert opinions here.

• Steam page: worth getting it up early, so you can start collecting those wishlists. Some things will happen without you even trying (e.g., a random content creator will feature your game), so you want to be prepared.
• Reddit: posting about milestones can be effective. My other posts (e.g., devlogs), not so much. So save your Reddit posts about your game for those big milestones (e.g., demo launch, full launch).
• Trailer quality matters, but also... it's not everything. I have contradicting data here. The engagement difference between (D) and (E) (due to trailer quality) was significant. But it's also interesting to see that my biggest chunk of wishlists still came from (A) (my announcement on Reddit with a not-so-great trailer). Game quality (i.e., does it look interesting/fun-to-play) is likely more important than trailer quality (is it well-edited, etc.).
• Localization: yes, yes, I need to add some other languages to my Steam page, and I'm dragging my feet here.

To be clear, I was not an exhibitor at PAX West. But I did turn myself into a "walking booth", with a T-shirt branded with my game, cards with QR codes to hand out, and a Steam Deck with a build of my game loaded up.

tl;dr - If you're very outgoing and great at networking you can get a lot out of it even without a booth (e.g., playtests, networking). If you're more introverted, consider getting a booth so people come to you.

This was my first PAX West (in fact, first gaming expo ever), so some of this will be obvious to PAX/expo veterans.

Here are my takeaways, from the perspective of a solo dev:

• Great place to find people to play your game for 5-10 minutes. It was super valuable to watch people play in person, to see what they like and what trips them up. However, getting people to try out the game was not trivial. You need to be extremely outgoing, which can be very difficult for some people (myself included). No booth = nobody approaches you. You need to approach complete strangers and ask them if they want to give it a try. But almost everyone is friendly and happy to chat/play (if they're not busy!), if you take that first step to engage with them.
  • Top spot for playtests: The waiting queues for theater panels.
  • Second best spot: looking for people who looked bored waiting in long lines for booths featuring games in the same genre as mine.
• I was surprised to find that playing other indie games helped with my imposter syndrome, rather than making it worse. The games were at different levels of polish, which made me realize my game would have been sufficiently booth-ready.
• Great place to meet and connect with other solo devs or small teams. The smaller the team, the more likely they were to engage with me as a fellow developer. I met some really nice people I hope to stay connected with.
• Great to see what types of games/visuals catch people's eye. This is not just applicable to "booth design", but game design and trailer editing too. I know we can see engagement metrics online, of course, but seeing it IRL with big vs small crowds of people really helps hammer home the point.
• Not great for seeking publishing partnerships. The publishers with booths didn't have anyone from business development present (one exception I found was Habby). Probably some publishing scouts are walking the floor, but they're going to visit the booths, not a random guy walking around in a T-shirt.
• It's fun! I hope you chose to be a solo dev because you enjoy games. You can take off your business hat and just enjoy checking out some cool games and growing your own wishlist of games (that you'll never have time to play). I've been seeing some posts about people disappointed with the declining quality of PAX West this year, but this was my first year so I can't comment on this. It was fun, but 2 days felt like enough for me.

Keep grinding, friends!

I'm very late to the party, but I finally started playing Dead Estate (after purchasing it some time ago). I'm only a few hours in, but I see why it's such a hit!

What's something you wish you knew when you were just starting out?

I tried to get this platform to work for me, but it seems to really have something against me. Two weeks ago I finally got my ~2 month shadow ban lifted. After posting just a few videos, I am now shadow banned again (0 views on my videos).

Giving up on TikTok will be better for my time and sanity. Good luck to everyone out there who is struggling with this garbage.

tl;dr - try posting your own trailer on X in the "IndieGameJoe style", with a tight trailer.

A week ago I had essentially no presence on X/Twitter. <10 followers, and very low engagement on my announce trailer post.

Like most of you here, I had been seeing posts about how u/IndieGameJoe would work his magic on X to get loads of wishlists for indie devs. Then I saw an excellent article (link in comment below) from Chris Zukowski, u/zukalous, in which he made the argument that the formula is key, not just the number of followers. Chris knows his stuff so I gave it a shot.

What I did:

• Remixed my trailer to put a chaotic "late-run scene" much earlier (3 seconds in), even though it deviated from the "gameplay progression" narrative of the trailer. I know, I know, nobody cares about a logical progression. Putting a chaotic, visually satisfying physics chain reaction at the 3-second mark stopped people from scrolling away.
• Followed the "Joe formula" for the text, more or less. "___ is making a ___ where you ___. [3 bullet point key features]. It's called ____. Would you this play this?"
  • I replaced "Would you play this?" with "and you can wishlist it on Steam now".
• Replied immediately with a follow-up message with more info (elevator pitch for the game) and a Steam link.

The good:

• 37k+ views, 493 likes, 58 reposts, 23 comments. 80+ new followers. This was insane engagement for me beyond my wildest dreams.
• Got attention (followers, DMs) from a number of people in the industry (publishers, content creators, PR firms, indie boosters).

The less good (but still good):

• Chris loves stats and data, and showed that IndieGameJoe's posts get an average of ~7 wishlists per 1000 views. Whereas I got 60 wishlists from my ~37k views, which is 1.6 wishlists per 1000 views (or a 0.16% conversion rate). So I could still really use that IndieGameJoe magic ✨!
  • My theory on the lower conversion rate: Joe’s followers are highly curated and specifically looking to buy/wishlist games right now. Still, 60 wishlists in 48 hours (plus all the visibility) for a solo dev with zero budget is a big win.

The momentum gave me the confidence to re-pitch my trailer to major outlets (e.g., IGN), and to keep posting on X to grow my following. Let's go! 🚀

When posting Tiktok-style videos (aka short-form, aka vertical), with that "Tiktok style" (voiceover, captions), on which platforms do you typically post? Specifcally I'm wondering about X.

• Tiktok - yes, I hear many stories of people (eventually) having success here.
• YouTube Shorts - yes, I hear stories of some people who find they have more luck here than Tiktok.
• Instagram Reels - probably, since if you're already making the video you might as well post it here too.
• X - ???. Here's where I'm confused. As an X user, I don't see "Tiktok style videos" when I'm scrolling through content. Are they there, and X just isn't showing them to me? Or do people not post them on this platform? I also haven't heard any stories of people finding success in short-form content on this platform (compared to Tiktok/YTShorts).