sometimes i feel my games are cursed because so few play them :S
im i the only one feeling this way?
i really have to advertise alot to get just few plays
i really think i have quality games
Give it a shot! Even my most cursed game ever has over 3K plays, and it's mostly due to tagging appropriately.
Sometimes people try games out because they like the aesthetic, so if you tag it based on aesthetics like "cozy" or "space" to describe what it looks like, it might get found by people searching for that look.
I think that overall appropriate metadata is what carries games on itch.
I find that tagging general genres doesn’t really do too much, but ones that fit your niche do super well. Most of my first app’s traffic is from one tag and one of its accessibility features alone, and my second one is entirely made of the yuri tag, however it gets half the actual plays because it’s pretty clear it’s only really at the end of the game.
So I think people are generally searching for things that are similar to what they already enjoy, and I don’t know if having more tags dilutes your game’s visibility or not compared to just appealing more to a niche.
But I think in a case like this it never hurts to appropriately label input methods and accessibility since there’s a lot of people that rely on those features.
It means low effort. You make the game in a hurry and move on to the next game a week later, not caring about the previous one.
A polished game from a single developer often takes years. If you release a game a month or more often, those are either slop or short mini games, like a lot of jam entries are. A typical jam restriction is to make a game within a week for a given topic. What you released this year looks like jam games, even if you do not like jams.
You would probably do well in a jam. Or at least get a reality check, how your games are compared to others. You have direct comparison to people that tried to do the same as you. Make a similar game and people voting will see the same games and can judge them by their description and hopefully by playing them.
Right now, your target audience either does not find your games, or they refrain from playing them, or they are indifferent to the games. You have some good comments, so I guess the cause is more in the presentation and that they simply do not find your games.
i put alot of effort in making my games
And how can people see this, before they play the games?
There is this saying that you should not judge a book by its cover. But it does not apply to actual books or games. Especially if there is 1.5 million books to chose.
Your cover looks low effort. So why should people read the book?
Furthermore, they will not even find some of your books, because they are not in the book shelves they are seeking such books.
There are lots of tags that might fit your games. Look what tags other people use for similar games.
There is roughly 3 steps for a good game.
1 be found
2 look good enough
3 be good
If your game are good, your problem is 1 and 2. And 3 will not solve 1 or 2.
I was using figurative speech. I likened all the things of a project that is not the project itself to be the cover of a proverbial book.
That includes your description, your screenshots, your tags, also the thumbnail, the short description and so on. All the things people see from the outside without actually playing the game.
The topic of ratings is something I find very interesting, because I'm not sure what leads players to rate a game. ¿?
In fact, I have a few more followers than the OP, and my project with the most ratings has only 4. (All 5-star ratings, quite a few comments, 29 collections, and veryp positive “external” feedback but)... ONLY 4 RATINGS.
I also find very interesting the ratio followers / ratings you've mentioned, I've never heard about it.
Have a nice day mate.
That was just an observation I made and it holds true surprisingly often. If you open a game with 100 ratings, you might expect 1000 followers. Give or take.
Seeing a game with 1000 followers and only 10 ratings or a game with 100 ratings and 100 followers would be rather odd.
Maybe you have project where people are excited to hear about completion of the project. But they did not yet play the unfinished version. So they follow, but not rate.
What algorithm are you talking about? There is no such thing on Itch. On Youtube, the Youtube algorithm will push games onto viewers. Youtube markets your videos to people the algorithm thinks will click on them. Hence all the click bait garbage. The alrogithm does not care if the videos are good, only if people will click on it.
And games do not float on top out of nothing. They need passive and active adveristing. And they need to be good or good enough.
For your passive marketing, you have 5 tags. And I fully disagree with 2 of them. You have a rts with a gimmick. That is not mind bending. And it is not simulation.
/games/genre-simulation/tag-mind-bending/tag-real-time-strategy has your game and a joke game.
You are an unknown developer and you post paid only games without a demo version. This is not Steam. There is no buyers remorse, no try before you buy mechanic here.
And your descriptions are often not in English. Itch is an English speaking site.
Please i need opinios
Make a html5 export of your games and put it on the page. The games look like typical mini browser games. Not like paid games for download.
And do not put paid games on Itch with price of 1 $. Minimum pay price is already 1 $. Switch to pay what you want. People willing to pay you anything at all will already pay at least that amount.
And most people will not be willing to play your games for free to begin with. That's what the web version of the game is for. Needing to download even a demo version is a big hurdle.
hmm your stuff looks nice i think, maybe its just that ppl dont fiind them, yout need some kind of "trigger" which i for myself was joining many many bundles especially the ones which were for a "higher goal" which are called charity bundles.....
i mean you also got to have luck with the bundle as you can see the NO ICE bundle got viral and sold 7000 times so all my games where in 7000 libaries and ppl tend to try them out ...well i also dont make money with it or anything but at least ppl seemed to like my kill will game a bit :D
the point is maybe also that fps sshooters with old school feel seem to get overlooked quite often.....but i like your stuff
hey bro i think i have solution for this issue. I for myself wanted to do some javascript stuff and finally also a webgame, but due to my sickness i had concerns that i couldnt' provide an exe as well, (i have tourette syndrome since i was born, therfor anancasm or compulsion i dont know if its the right word in english as i speak german natively ) and is stumbled upon this stuff:
Wapper - HTML To EXE by EyeFly its currentliy 90% off
Offliner - HTML Project Localizer by EyeFly
i dont know if you need it really im still new to javascript
HTML2Win Pro by iD01t Productions
i aalso bought this in a bundle it seems to be a bit better overall but as i said i didnt really had a finished html game yet, but it works i tried out all 2 html to exe tools this project localicer just read so interesting thnat i bought it too)
maybe it would be worth the money especially if you only have web games, you could provide an exe for all of them, there seems to be a html to linux tool as well, but thats something is just saw and didnt tested myself
HTML2Linux Pro by iD01t Productions
hope this helps you at least a bit best regards
You can join a bundle, even with a free browser game.
106 Views only 7 Browser Plays. You got to check for bots. If there is a sudden large spike from Google, it's giving fake views, and no plays.
Quality over Quantity is best to get more visibility.
Also use Quality over Quantity for players. If the 7 players are rating, commenting, and donating, that's still good.
thanks for the feedback i try my best to make the game pages look good
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Now don't take it the wrong way, from my point of view, your pages and how you present them appear to be low effort, it's why I pointed out lack of themes on the page and lack of any indepth info besides a short chatgpt made summary.
i dont agree with you i put a lot of effort making them look nice you game is low effort it seems imo
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If you want people to play your game, A) Put in more effort to how the games are presented as it's your selling point to get a click into a play game, B) Put in the effort to make human made indepth summary instead of using chatgpt, and C) Keep pushing yourself to make better and better games.
already im doing this the best i can and there is nothing wrong with using ai help
I'm not talking about the games themselves, I'm talking about the theme on itch, you can change the theme.
I also didn't say Ai is bad, just what you do have is clearly Ai and appears to be lack of any effort. When I view the game's about section, it's fairly bare bones and lacks information about the developer or any refind details on the game.
You asked for feedback and wondering if why no one is playing your games, and then when people point out issues, you get defensive by saying you do work hard.. to make them look nice..
but the thing is, to YOU they might appear to look nice, but the whole point of feedback is to see what OTHERS see.. and I'm not the only one who thinks it needs more work. So if you are going to make excuses when someone gives you genuine feedback, then why bother asking for help?
Sure you can make games, how they are presented how you want them, you might work "hard" on them to your perspective, but others see it vastly different, if you get many people pointing out the same issues, and you continue to claim you do work hard and refuse to listen, then what are you expecting from this post?
How you've reacted, I see your main post as "I work very hard on my games, I will not listen to anyone who suggests fixes, changes and improvements, but please, why are my games not getting plays?"
idk man, it's really up to you to improve, all me and everyone else can do is give you advise, if you don't take it, then that's on you.
talk about defensive im free to have my opinion about my stuff and you are free to have them also
im just saying i do the best i can and think you are very judgemental about my game pages.. most of them looks nice imo
i can be very judgemental also you game page has to much details!! and does not look good imo
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idk man, it's really up to you to improve, all me and everyone else can do is give you advise, if you don't take it, then that's on you.
its like your saying my projects are not good enaugh.. improve yourself!
and i was not looking for advices in the first place just saying my games are maby cursed
All Liminary-Dev is saying:
1: Use 
to add a background, and unique colors for the game
2: Take the feedback provided to improve your games. It can and will be harsh at times.
3: "You keep adding new [games], but really need to focus on fixing the initial experience ... A better user experience is needed before more [games]." - Dragon's Isle Software
4: You might see AI as OK, but for others, they won't click on the thumbnail for it
5: Improve your description, cover image, and overall page
Liminary-Dev is not trying to be rude, just telling you that you need to accept the feedback in this thread.
