Blog Post #5

Considering Marketing

Meeting with Maggie last week was incredibly helpful in getting us thinking about marketing. It was something we had of course previously considered when creating game concepts, but not something we had sunk dedicated time into. While talking with Maggie, we started thinking about utilizing social media in the future to potentially build a community around the game.

Moving forward from this workshop, we added more details for marketing to our game plan, and have been progressively adding onto it as we continue development. As for what we have explored so far:

Target Audience

While the game is not necessarily explicit in any way, the presence of heavy themes and occasional swearing would up the age demographic to about 16-28. The demographic is similar to that of Early 2010s indie-horror games, though original fans of those types of games would find enjoyment in this one despite being older now. The gameplay is not incredibly skill-intensive, so casual gamers may find adapting to it appropriately challenging enough, while hardcore gamers may find it too easy, and as such we would like to target a middle ground between those two groups.

Platforms and Publishing Options

The completed vertical slice of the game will be published to itch.io for public consumption. Should there be moderate success with the initial venture, a steam release is an achievable goal to pursue. The game is currently only planned for a PC release with the possibility of a Mac version.

Monetization and Marketing

Should the project progress beyond a vertical slice, then monetization is a feasible option. Considering the target length of gameplay for the entire game would be 8 hours, a likely price point would be between five and ten dollars. Google ads is a likely “Next Step” for the game, if we become serious about wanting the game to get views and downloads.


Technical Considerations

Being a 2D game and (for now) a small one at that, it shouldn’t take fancy hardware to play this game at all. Based on the assumption that we will have music for the game by Beta, it would be recommended for users to wear headphones, but besides that it should hopefully run on most hardware after downloading.


Similar Products

Creepy Tale

    • Creepy Tale is an indie puzzle platformer game released on Steam in February 2020. It’s similar to our game in several ways, the type of game, a creepy hand-drawn art style, etc. The story itself is very different, but gameplay is more similar than the other inspirations noted. We also similarly would be putting out an indie puzzle platformer.

    • Steam reviews were very positive for such a new indie game.

    • One of the main complaints was that the story was too short, or not as interesting as a player wanted.

    • A goal for our game is to have an intriguing narrative to compliment gameplay that is fun.