Friday, October 21, 2016

The Face of Evil: Releasing My First Indie Game!


Put A Sock In It! was my first proper release, and it was quite a challenge managing the social media, promoting it, etc. I've really come to understand how that can be a full-time job all on its own, especially if you're not established in the industry and don't have a following yet. Of course, creating interesting games is probably the best way to establish yourself. One thing I learned with releasing Put A Sock In It! was that no one is going to go out of their way to spread the good word about your game. You could have created the greatest, most beautiful thing in the world, and it will still be your own little secret if you don't put in the work to reach out to indie game reviewers, YouTubers, fellow independent game developers. I tried a little bit of everything, sending things out to game sites, certain people on Twitter, Facebook. Just friendly messages not spam, because that's annoying for everyone. I have no idea how it can take so much of your time, but it can get pretty demanding. The process really sucked me in for a while there, I would be keeping track of things almost hourly the first week or so. Eventually, I had to leave well enough alone and move on. I'm not someone who can keep doing the same thing over and over. That's probably why there are so many 'marketing professionals' you can find all over the web. Creating, designing, developing and publishing your game is the hardest part, but once you're done with that you're still a long way from being finished. Next you have to sell your game, even if it's free like in my case, and what that really means is getting attention.

Eventually, I caught a break with a really positive review from Free Game Planet, which was immediately followed by this exceptionally wonderful surprise:


GloomGames, a popular YouTube let's play celebrity featured Put A Sock In It! in all its nonsensical glory in one of her videos, which at this moment has over 100, 000 views! Frankly, it was amazing just to see her get into the game and and have fun with playing out my writing. There were a few other similar videos that popped up as well. This really helped the game get some notice for a little while, but more importantly it was very encouraging for me. The satisfaction really comes from having someone enjoy something that I created.


YOU CAN GRAB PUT A SOCK IN IT! FREE HERE:
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