- Mar 30, 2023
- 171
- 294
Hi everyone! This is a "kind of tutorial" and "kind of diary" type of post, where my aim is to share some insights into the process of publishing your game on Itch and Steam, what to expect, and share tips & tricks I learned along the way. And most importantly, how to achieve all this with a 0$ budget. (note: This is a re-post of a thread I made in a private part of these forums, so that everyone can benefit from this guide).
Who am I?
I'm FlimsyLegs, a solo indie developer who's been developing games since early 2022 as a hobby, without spending a cent of my own money in the process. I have 1 game published on Steam (Jessica's Plight(, and 1 other game releasing later this year (Animus Non Grata). On Itch, I have those same games published and 1 work-in-progress game available as an "early access" (Taru's Infernal Pledge).
I started taking payments for my games in May 2024. So far my sales volume is small, with a combined Steam wishlist count of 1700 on my games. Jessica's Plight has 180 sales on Steam, while my other three games have 430 combines sales in Itch.
And Steam:
I would like to thank the fantastic daz-artist Synthetic Rush for his art on Animus Non Grata! Check out his website
I would also like to thank the fantastic digital artist tacinky for creating art for Taru's Infernal Pledge! Check out his blue sky page:
The purpose of this post
The purpose of this post is to provide you a bit of context for how I approached the games industry as a hobby, what I've learned of Itch and Steam as platforms, and what I've learned of Twine as an engine for developing Visual Novels. I will be providing general tips and tricks, some "do"'s and "don't"'s, and things to think about if you're considering game development.
My background
I'm a full-time software engineer who enjoys reading fantasy novels and playing video games. Writing comes quite naturally for me, and I've always dreamt of writing my own books or creating video games. With visual novels, I can combine both of these interests. And by doing it as a hobby on the side, I don't have to worry about where my next paycheck will come from if my ideas turn out to be crap!
Introduction - Early days
In the very beginning I just knew 2 things: I want to write a compelling story and I want it to be interactive. At first, I began by searching for the most simple tool for creating interactive fiction. I stumbled upon Twine (more about that in a later chapter), and it was good enough for me!
At first, I didn't have art. And in truth, art is still something that I struggle with. My art was so bad it was called "potato" by some players in the first game. I later got around remastering the art for the first game, but the best result is always achieved by collaborating with a proper artist! (unless this is your strength, in that case: congratulations!)
When I started game development, I didn't want to get paid. I just wanted to write for myself, and hopefully others would enjoy what I wrote. As such, I didn't even setup payment for any of my games until May 2024, over 2 years after I started. During those 2 years I established myself as a developer, got an audience and following on itch and a lot of feedback on my games that helped polish them. All of this was done by publishing the games exclusively on Itch (more about how to do that in a later chapter).
Twine as an engine
The great thing about Twine is that it creates .html files out of your games, and you can then create an archive (zip package) with art, music, sounds, fonts, etc. which are references by that .html file. This archive can then be used on any machine, and when your players download and double-click on the html file, it opens up in their default browser. You can also host the game directly on the web, for example on Itch as a "run in browser" game that the users never download to their machine.
The bad thing about Twine is that it creates .html files... Yes, it's good and bad. Firstly, html is not a format Steam supports (more on that later), and anyone with Twine can open your game's HTML file to look at the "source code" of your game. You can use html obfuscation tools, but I have not tried these (such as
I highly recommend using the SugarCube 2 engine in Twine. DO NOT USE HARLOWE LIKE I DID BECAUSE IT IS EASIER! Harlowe engine is a very simple twine engine that doesn't allow you to manipulate the state of the game or the UI very well. This means you're limited to a very basic set of functionality. With SugarCube 2, the syntax is only a tiny bit more complicated, but you future-proof your project because you can literally do any coding tricks you want. Additionally, SugarCube 2 comes with a built-in Save/Load functionality for your players, which you'd have to code manually into your Harlowe game.
Publishing on Itch
Publishing your game on Itch, assuming you're doing a free release, is very straight forward. Not only can you release your game as an archive file (zip file) built with any tool and any way you like, but you can also host your game as a web game directly on itch. I got a ton of traffic for my games using the web-page hosting mechanism, and I highly recommend it if your game is free and an html game. You can also setup your demo to run directly in the browser, but having the full game require payment and downloading. The threshold for playing your game is much lower when the players do not need to download the game first. (In my experience, easily x10 more players in the browser compared to a free game with a .zip file that players must download).
A game update on itch is very simple to do. You can use -
So, releasing my first game on itch was easy. And there are some players playing it. Great! But are they enjoying it? Why is there so little feedback? These were my questions when I published my first game way back in 2022. When I finally began posting about my game on reddit and in forums, I finally got the feedback I was looking for. Itch, it turns out, was not the best place to gather feedback from players.
Getting paid (Itch)
The first thing you should look into is your country's tax policy on profit from "game sales as a hobby". In my country (Finland) there is no such thing as a hobby that gives profit. This means you must pay tax on all profit you make from your game sales (your personal tax percentage, if you didn't start a company, which I did not). If your gross revenue exceeds a certain amount (in Finland it is 15000€/year), then you also probably need to pay additional value added tax on all your profits.
Getting paid on itch required setting up a few things. First, your tax identity and secondly a paypal account. Due to how transactions work on itch, there's a cut from each transaction that goes to Paypal ("Payment processor fee"). At the time of writing, this is 0.30$ + 2.9%, so don't sell your game for a tiny price such as 1$! If you do that, you're giving 33% of your revenue directly to Paypal!
Itch share is pre-configured to be 10%. Steam, for example, takes 30% (but doesn't have payment processor fees!). On itch, you can set the share to anything between 0% and 100%, it's up to you. Note that the profit Itch gets is used to host the platform itself, so you might consider not putting this to 0%. Keep it at 10% to get great value, while giving itch a share.
Moving to Steam (Store Page)
Ok, so up until now all development I've been doing has been free. The game development tools were free, itch allows hosting for free, and I have not spent a single dollar of my own money on this hobby. But I heard Steam is much larger than Itch, so it makes sense to publish my game there, right? With this in mind, I finally began looking into how Steamworks (...works).
The first thing you need to know is that Steam takes a 100$ up-front fee per game called "Steam Direct Fee". (Steam no longer uses the "Greenlight" system, since a few years back). This 100$ cost is given back to you only if "Your product has at least $1,000 USD Adjusted Gross Revenue for Steam Store and in-app purchases." As an indie developer, I hesitated to pay this because I didn't know if I'd even make enough sales on Steam to even get my money back. However, I started on itch, and the revenue I got from there was enough to pay the steam direct fee, so we're still within the 0$ budget!
So my game at this point is a .html file, which Steam does not like. Essentially, an html file is something a browser can open, so now I need to bundle my game in such a way that a browser comes built-in as an executable, and that this executable opens automatically my game's html, this creating the illusion of a desktop application.
For me, this worked out very well:
It allows me to build by HTML into an executable. For MacOS, it creates an archive (zip) file that I can simply unzip/unarchive into the steamworks SDK's "content" folder (more about that below). For Windows, it creates an installer. I can install it locally, then copy the installed game into the steamworks SDK's "content" folder (more about this too below).
Moving to Steam (Build Process)
Steam does not allow you to just upload any archive file to Steam, like Itch does. The format of your game must be:
Filename: app\build\ROOTID.vdf
Filename: depot\build\DEPOTID1.vdf (for Windows depot)
Filename: depot\build\DEPOTID2.vdf (For MacOS depot)
Things I do every time I update my game:
Creating trailers
Creating a video trailer for my games was intimidating. I just don't have the skills to graphically make something look interesting. But now, I've created three video game trailers for my games. I'm not saying my trailers are the best, or that the tool I used is the best, or that my approach is the best. But it's free. Here's what I did:
My last "TL;DR" type summary for a 0$ budget, developing games as a hobby and still seeing some profit:
* Start on Itch. It is fast and easy and free.
* Learn git and github. Version control is important!
* Gather feedback. Polish your game.
* Get enough sales on Itch (100$) to pay the Steam Direct Fee.
* Create a stunning trailer.
* Publish your Steam store page publicly early. Gather a lot of wishlists before you release on Steam!
Q&A
- Q: "What sort of options for receiving money are available on Itch and Steam?"
- A: The easiest payment method to setup for Itch is Paypal. The preferred (and seemingly only?) setup in Steam is direct bank transfers. I have not fully explored other options, but these are the methods I've used.
Who am I?
I'm FlimsyLegs, a solo indie developer who's been developing games since early 2022 as a hobby, without spending a cent of my own money in the process. I have 1 game published on Steam (Jessica's Plight(, and 1 other game releasing later this year (Animus Non Grata). On Itch, I have those same games published and 1 work-in-progress game available as an "early access" (Taru's Infernal Pledge).
I started taking payments for my games in May 2024. So far my sales volume is small, with a combined Steam wishlist count of 1700 on my games. Jessica's Plight has 180 sales on Steam, while my other three games have 430 combines sales in Itch.
- NOTE: This post is generic and applies to all genres and types of games.
You must be registered to see the links
And Steam:
You must be registered to see the links
(not visible in Germany)I would like to thank the fantastic daz-artist Synthetic Rush for his art on Animus Non Grata! Check out his website
You must be registered to see the links
. Their contact email is: SyRush2910@proton.me.I would also like to thank the fantastic digital artist tacinky for creating art for Taru's Infernal Pledge! Check out his blue sky page:
You must be registered to see the links
The purpose of this post
The purpose of this post is to provide you a bit of context for how I approached the games industry as a hobby, what I've learned of Itch and Steam as platforms, and what I've learned of Twine as an engine for developing Visual Novels. I will be providing general tips and tricks, some "do"'s and "don't"'s, and things to think about if you're considering game development.
- NOTE 1: These are my personal experiences and opinions. They may not be universally agreed on, or even best practices. But hopefully this is a useful perspective and starting point.
- NOTE 2: I will not be diving deep into the specific genres of games. This post will be generic and apply for all games, but it will contain some extra information for those using Twine for creating visual novels.
- NOTE 3: I will not discuss marketing, as that is an art I have not yet mastered. However, I will cover some tools for easily generating video game trailers (which are mandatory once you publish on Steam).
My background
I'm a full-time software engineer who enjoys reading fantasy novels and playing video games. Writing comes quite naturally for me, and I've always dreamt of writing my own books or creating video games. With visual novels, I can combine both of these interests. And by doing it as a hobby on the side, I don't have to worry about where my next paycheck will come from if my ideas turn out to be crap!
Introduction - Early days
In the very beginning I just knew 2 things: I want to write a compelling story and I want it to be interactive. At first, I began by searching for the most simple tool for creating interactive fiction. I stumbled upon Twine (more about that in a later chapter), and it was good enough for me!
At first, I didn't have art. And in truth, art is still something that I struggle with. My art was so bad it was called "potato" by some players in the first game. I later got around remastering the art for the first game, but the best result is always achieved by collaborating with a proper artist! (unless this is your strength, in that case: congratulations!)
When I started game development, I didn't want to get paid. I just wanted to write for myself, and hopefully others would enjoy what I wrote. As such, I didn't even setup payment for any of my games until May 2024, over 2 years after I started. During those 2 years I established myself as a developer, got an audience and following on itch and a lot of feedback on my games that helped polish them. All of this was done by publishing the games exclusively on Itch (more about how to do that in a later chapter).
- Tip 1: Focus on your strength. If writing is your strong suite, then focus on the story. If art is your strong suite, focus on that. If programming is your strong suite, then mechanics and systems might be the best focus area for you. And don't hesitate to reach out to other people, the best games are often a collaboration!
- Tip 2: Learn git and github. Having a version control system for your project is a must have. Unless it comes built in to the development tool you're using, I would go with github.
Twine as an engine
The great thing about Twine is that it creates .html files out of your games, and you can then create an archive (zip package) with art, music, sounds, fonts, etc. which are references by that .html file. This archive can then be used on any machine, and when your players download and double-click on the html file, it opens up in their default browser. You can also host the game directly on the web, for example on Itch as a "run in browser" game that the users never download to their machine.
The bad thing about Twine is that it creates .html files... Yes, it's good and bad. Firstly, html is not a format Steam supports (more on that later), and anyone with Twine can open your game's HTML file to look at the "source code" of your game. You can use html obfuscation tools, but I have not tried these (such as
You must be registered to see the links
). An obfuscation tool essentially scrambles the HTML code so that Twine and a human cannot read it anymore, without altering the logic behind it, meaning, a browser will still show it correctly "during runtime" but the source file cannot be "reverse engineered".- Tool:
You must be registered to see the links
- Documentation:
You must be registered to see the links
- Getting started:
You must be registered to see the links
I highly recommend using the SugarCube 2 engine in Twine. DO NOT USE HARLOWE LIKE I DID BECAUSE IT IS EASIER! Harlowe engine is a very simple twine engine that doesn't allow you to manipulate the state of the game or the UI very well. This means you're limited to a very basic set of functionality. With SugarCube 2, the syntax is only a tiny bit more complicated, but you future-proof your project because you can literally do any coding tricks you want. Additionally, SugarCube 2 comes with a built-in Save/Load functionality for your players, which you'd have to code manually into your Harlowe game.
Publishing on Itch
Publishing your game on Itch, assuming you're doing a free release, is very straight forward. Not only can you release your game as an archive file (zip file) built with any tool and any way you like, but you can also host your game as a web game directly on itch. I got a ton of traffic for my games using the web-page hosting mechanism, and I highly recommend it if your game is free and an html game. You can also setup your demo to run directly in the browser, but having the full game require payment and downloading. The threshold for playing your game is much lower when the players do not need to download the game first. (In my experience, easily x10 more players in the browser compared to a free game with a .zip file that players must download).
- Link:
You must be registered to see the links
- Rules:
You must be registered to see the links
- The game as a .zip file, a title and a description of what your game is
- (Optional, recommended) Some sort of instructions for your players how to run the game (usually this is "unzip the archive, double-click on .exe or .html)
- (Optional, recommended) A cover image (630 x 500 pixels)
- (Optional, recommended) Setting the Genre and Tags
A game update on itch is very simple to do. You can use -
You must be registered to see the links
- or just upload your new archive (zip) to itch.- NOTE: There's a 1 GB size limitation for games. If your game is a web-game, the size of the "index.html" (which is the main html file in your game) must be below 7 MB.
- NOTE 2: You cannot combine a "paid game" with a "web-page hosted page" on Itch, since the "web-page hosted" game will be available to everyone for free when they open your game's page. However, you can put your demo version into the web-page and have the full version available as download-only behind payment wall.
So, releasing my first game on itch was easy. And there are some players playing it. Great! But are they enjoying it? Why is there so little feedback? These were my questions when I published my first game way back in 2022. When I finally began posting about my game on reddit and in forums, I finally got the feedback I was looking for. Itch, it turns out, was not the best place to gather feedback from players.
- NOTE: As with all feedback in life, you shouldn't listen to all of it. If something your players suggest sounds like a good idea, and you like the change, then it's probably worth considering. But adding features to your game that weren't supposed to be there, because someone requests them, is not the way to go. It is your game, after all. Make sure your vision for the project isn't influenced too much my other's opinions.
Getting paid (Itch)
The first thing you should look into is your country's tax policy on profit from "game sales as a hobby". In my country (Finland) there is no such thing as a hobby that gives profit. This means you must pay tax on all profit you make from your game sales (your personal tax percentage, if you didn't start a company, which I did not). If your gross revenue exceeds a certain amount (in Finland it is 15000€/year), then you also probably need to pay additional value added tax on all your profits.
Getting paid on itch required setting up a few things. First, your tax identity and secondly a paypal account. Due to how transactions work on itch, there's a cut from each transaction that goes to Paypal ("Payment processor fee"). At the time of writing, this is 0.30$ + 2.9%, so don't sell your game for a tiny price such as 1$! If you do that, you're giving 33% of your revenue directly to Paypal!
Itch share is pre-configured to be 10%. Steam, for example, takes 30% (but doesn't have payment processor fees!). On itch, you can set the share to anything between 0% and 100%, it's up to you. Note that the profit Itch gets is used to host the platform itself, so you might consider not putting this to 0%. Keep it at 10% to get great value, while giving itch a share.
- Link:
You must be registered to see the links
- NOTE 1: When you publish your game on Itch expecting payments, do not bother with the "donation option" (this option allows players to donate money when downloading, but it is optional). Many developers have noticed that players simply do not donate money when downloading a game. Instead, they will pay for a game (even thought the asked donation is the same size as you sell it for!). For context: I got 1 donation in a month, but when I switched to straight up payments, I got 30 sales in a month. (And this was for an early access work in progress game on Itch!).
- NOTE 2: When setting a price for your game, make sure to TURN OFF the "Set a different price for this file" for your game. If you set a different price, you're essentially selling that package as a "one time download" for your players. This is bad, because players who bought your game will not get your future updates for free! The only time you should consider turning on the "Set a different price for this file" is for an art book or some other thing that is never going to be updated.
Moving to Steam (Store Page)
Ok, so up until now all development I've been doing has been free. The game development tools were free, itch allows hosting for free, and I have not spent a single dollar of my own money on this hobby. But I heard Steam is much larger than Itch, so it makes sense to publish my game there, right? With this in mind, I finally began looking into how Steamworks (...works).
The first thing you need to know is that Steam takes a 100$ up-front fee per game called "Steam Direct Fee". (Steam no longer uses the "Greenlight" system, since a few years back). This 100$ cost is given back to you only if "Your product has at least $1,000 USD Adjusted Gross Revenue for Steam Store and in-app purchases." As an indie developer, I hesitated to pay this because I didn't know if I'd even make enough sales on Steam to even get my money back. However, I started on itch, and the revenue I got from there was enough to pay the steam direct fee, so we're still within the 0$ budget!
- Link:
You must be registered to see the links
- Getting started:
You must be registered to see the links
- Tutorial (Store page):
You must be registered to see the links
- Graphical assets guide:
You must be registered to see the links
- You need to take a picture of yourself and your ID card when you register for Steam as a developer, as part of their "Know Who You Do Business With" policy. As with itch, you need to setup your tax identity there.
- Your store page needs to be approved by Steam (unlike on itch). And it can take more than 10 days getting feedback for approval/denial, and you might have to go back-and-forth between Steam a few times. (the longest time I waited for feedback from Steam was 16 days...)
- The same is true for your build. Steam staff checks that your game build follows the rules, and actually runs on their systems, before they approve it.
- Steam has a very specific set of "graphical assets" you must create for your game, with specific pixel size requirements.
- You need to create a video trailer for your game.
- You get a big visibility boost when you launch. Most sales (for an indie game) happen during the initial launch week of a game.
- You should aim for a lot of wishlists before release. Don't rush your release: Allow your store page to get visibility over time, so that your release is as bombastic as possible.
- If you manage to get 10 user reviews (within 10 days (unconfirmed)?), you get a one time "Disovery Boost", which further gains visibility for your game.
- Steam Curator's may or may not be a scam. Some take your game key and sell it on third-party sites, while others might actually review your game and get visibility for it. Never send real Steam keys to curators by email if they ask. Only send Curator keys (which are tied to their curator account, cannot be re-sold, and is valid for only a limited time).
- Ignore the rule above if you know what you're doing.
So my game at this point is a .html file, which Steam does not like. Essentially, an html file is something a browser can open, so now I need to bundle my game in such a way that a browser comes built-in as an executable, and that this executable opens automatically my game's html, this creating the illusion of a desktop application.
For me, this worked out very well:
You must be registered to see the links
It allows me to build by HTML into an executable. For MacOS, it creates an archive (zip) file that I can simply unzip/unarchive into the steamworks SDK's "content" folder (more about that below). For Windows, it creates an installer. I can install it locally, then copy the installed game into the steamworks SDK's "content" folder (more about this too below).
Moving to Steam (Build Process)
Steam does not allow you to just upload any archive file to Steam, like Itch does. The format of your game must be:
- Your windows build of your game must be an executable. No exceptions.
- Your macos build needs to be a valid package (a folder with the .app ending)
- Most likely an executable on linux as well (I have not confirmed this).
- Tutorial (Build system):
You must be registered to see the links
- Steamworks SDK:
You must be registered to see the links
- NOTE 1: The checklist below is my release process for a "twine to executable" workflow, which then puts the package to steam. Ignore the parts with the [T2E] prefix and replace that step with your specific game engine's build approach.
- NOTE 2: For Linux, simply multiple the Windows + MacOS steps below.
- NOTE 3: This guide assumes your PC is a Windows machine.
- Open the "Installation" -> "General Installation" under the "Technical Tools" -> "Edit Steamworks Settings" for your game.
- Define "Launch Options" for all operating systems. For windows, it should be enough to set the fields "Executable" to the name of the .exe file of your game, "Launch Type" to "Launch (default)" and "Operating System" to "Windows"
- Do this for all operating systems you support. For MacOs the "Executable" is <name of the game>.app, in other words the folder name of the game.
- Set Steamworks application settings OS to "Windows" and "Mac"
- Ensure "Install Folder" to not have strange characters
- Open "SteamPipe" -> "Depots"
- Modify the single depot to be "Windows" by editing the name, and setting the "Operating System" field to "Windows"
- Add a new depot for each additional Operating System you support
- Go back to the main steamworks page of your game and open "View Associated Items" -> "All Associted Packages, Demos, DLC"
- Go back to the main steamworks page of your game and open "Store Packages, Pricing, & Release Dates" -> <your package appears in a table below, click on it>
- Under the "Depots Included" ensure all the depots you've created are selected.
- Ensure the section "Promotional or special-use packages" "Beta Testing" and "Developer Comp" packages includes all depots of your game.
- Under "Edit Steamworks Settings" -> "Publish". This must be done before you build your system if you've added or removed depots. Otherwise the depot build phase will fail.
- Create your .vdf files
- Put your .vdf files under [path to sdk]\sdk\tools\ContentBuilder\scripts
- A VDF files is Steam's way of mapping an application and depots into a build. These files exist on your PC, where you'll execute the steamcmd.exe. Steamworks SDK comes bundled with examples for this. These are the ones I use:
Filename: app\build\ROOTID.vdf
| "AppBuild" { "AppID" "ROOTID" // Your AppID "Desc" "My Game v1.0.0" // internal description for this build "ContentRoot" "..\content\" // content root folder relative to this script file "BuildOutput" "D:\build_output\" // put build cache and log files on different drive for better performance "Depots" { // file mapping instructions for each depot are in separate script files "DEPOTID1" "DEPOTID1.vdf" "DEPOTID2" "DEPOTID2.vdf" } } |
Filename: depot\build\DEPOTID1.vdf (for Windows depot)
| "DepotBuild" { // Set your assigned depot ID here "DepotID" "DEPOTID1" // include all files recursivley "FileMapping" { // This can be a full path, or a path relative to ContentRoot "LocalPath" ".\windows_content\*" // This is a path relative to the install folder of your game "DepotPath" "." // If LocalPath contains wildcards, setting this means that all // matching files within subdirectories of LocalPath will also // be included. "Recursive" "1" } } |
Filename: depot\build\DEPOTID2.vdf (For MacOS depot)
| "DepotBuild" { // Set your assigned depot ID here "DepotID" "DEPOTID2" // include all files recursivley "FileMapping" { // This can be a full path, or a path relative to ContentRoot "LocalPath" ".\macos_content\*" // This is a path relative to the install folder of your game "DepotPath" "." // If LocalPath contains wildcards, setting this means that all // matching files within subdirectories of LocalPath will also // be included. "Recursive" "1" } } |
- NOTE: Ensure you've put the depot ID correctly for the Operating Systems. (see LocalPath in the .vdf files).
Things I do every time I update my game:
- [T2E] Run your github pipeline and create a Setup.exe
- [T2E] Install the Setup.exe in your PC
- [T2E] Open the %localappdata%\\test\_electron\_forge directory where the game is found
- [T2E] Remove all "\*.log" files from the game directory
- Copy the content of your game into \[path to sdk\]\sdk\\tools\ContentBuilder\content\windows\_content
- Repeat the previous step for MacOS and Linux (macos_content, linux_content)
- Modify your .vdf files with new version names (modify app\build\ROOTID.vdf "Desc" field)
- Open CMD on windows (just type cmd into the search)
- Copy to your clipboard the full path where the "[path to sdk]\sdk\tools\ContentBuilder\builder" directory is
- Run: "cd <paste the path you copied in previous step here>"
- Run "steamcmd.exe"
- Run: "login \[username\] \[password\]"
- Under "Edit Steamworks Settings" -> "Publish". This must be done before you build your system if you've added or removed depots. Otherwise the depot build phase will fail.
- Run: "run\app\build ..\scripts\app\build\[APP ID\].vdf"
- If build succeeded, open
You must be registered to see the links[APP ID]
- From there, open "Edit Steamworks Settings" -> SteamPipe -> Builds
- Select your build from the list and "Set build live on branch..." -> "default"
- Press "Preview Changes"
- Press "Set build live now"
- When your Store Page and Build are ready, you must mark them for review. Steam will then take X days to check them, and this is a slow process. Be patient. (This wait and approval is needed only for the first upload).
Creating trailers
Creating a video trailer for my games was intimidating. I just don't have the skills to graphically make something look interesting. But now, I've created three video game trailers for my games. I'm not saying my trailers are the best, or that the tool I used is the best, or that my approach is the best. But it's free. Here's what I did:
- Wrote the initial idea (scene by scene) for my trailer
- Decided where to put sound effects and music. I was essentially creating a script that I could follow once I started the actual creation process.
- Downloaded "Shotcut":
You must be registered to see the links. It's free! (Fits into our 0$ budget!)
- Looked at a bunch of tutorials on youtube, starting with this: "Shotcut, Getting Started":
You must be registered to see the links
- "Filters" allow you to modify objects in Shotcut (images, videos, text, sound)
- "Keyframes" are an important concept in Shotcut when changing object filters over time! (move an object's position, modify size, etc.)
- NOTE 1: While editing, keep in mind that text should be visible for a certain amount of seconds for people to have time to read it. (read it out loud twice is a general rule of thumb)
- NOTE 2: Do not make a "powerpoint presentation", i.e. static slideshow. If your game doesn't have animations (like a visual novel with just images), then create movement by zooming in/out or moving the image. This makes the trailer visually more interesting.
- NOTE 3: Don't use the default text font when adding text objects. Use something that is interesting and appropriate for your game.
My last "TL;DR" type summary for a 0$ budget, developing games as a hobby and still seeing some profit:
* Start on Itch. It is fast and easy and free.
* Learn git and github. Version control is important!
* Gather feedback. Polish your game.
* Get enough sales on Itch (100$) to pay the Steam Direct Fee.
* Create a stunning trailer.
* Publish your Steam store page publicly early. Gather a lot of wishlists before you release on Steam!
Q&A
- Q: "What sort of options for receiving money are available on Itch and Steam?"
- A: The easiest payment method to setup for Itch is Paypal. The preferred (and seemingly only?) setup in Steam is direct bank transfers. I have not fully explored other options, but these are the methods I've used.
Last edited:
