I knew I was coming to the Greenlight party pretty late, but my other games were all mobile focused, and it just so happened that Castleparts was ready for release in May 2017. Rather than wait for Steam Direct, I figured I would give Greenlight a try.

I was pretty confident going into the Greenlight release. I had devised a plan many months ago to simultaneously release for iOS, Android, and Greenlight to try to gain maximum attention. At that time I think that the number of people viewing a Greenlight page on average was much higher than it is now. I also knew that there was only one other Rampart inspired game on Steam, and it didn’t have online multiplayer (and my game does). So I thought people would be interested.

I also felt like I did all the things right that are frequently the advice of other game developers who recently did Greenlight campaigns. I’ve been posting on Twitter and other places for months, and two weeks before release I focused purely on emailing press and Youtubers to try to get people interested. I made a good trailer for the game that jumps right into the action, and I made sure to have an animated logo for the Greenlight releases page. I also had a good description for the game, as I had already written one for use on the app stores.

Moments after release it looked pretty good, with an initial surge of upvotes. Within the first half hour, though, things took a turn for the worse with about 70% of people voting No on the game. The comments were not very helpful. Some were positive, but others simply dismissed the game outright. Slightly in a panic I made some changes to the screenshots and added an announcement to link to a playable demo, but the numbers seemed even worse after that so I reversed those changes.

After less than one day the game is off of the first page for new releases, and the number of new visitors is already very small. Here is a screenshot of the “final” numbers:

I was pretty disheartened by all this, but I did some research and found some comfort. Apparently 2D games are not well received on Greenlight. The retro artwork and music might have done more harm than good, too. If many of the voters were too young to remember Rampart or have any interest, or if they were only interested in 3D games, they were going to vote no. Also, the fact that the game was available on mobile could have been hindrance, I’m honestly not sure. The game is not simply a mobile port though, it was built with a PC release in mind and has different controls for that platform.

Well, that’s my Greenlight story. I’m still trying to get attention for the game on social media, but that is a tough battle. With numbers like these I will probably have to accept the fact that the game will not be on Steam until Steam Direct, and then it will depend on the price of entry whether or not it is worth it to launch there.

Thanks for reading! If you are interested in the game you can check out the website here: http://www.pixelpocalypsegames.com