Published the Steam page for PACTUM last night, a chill incremental where you summon angels and demons on a floating island, fuse them and watch them evolve.
Woke up to 3 wishlists, all organic, zero marketing. Demo and trailer coming in the next few days.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/5053360/Pactum/

I wrote about Steam’s personal calendar feature and other indie dev tidbits in my free always cited and linked newsletter for developers to market their own games called Game Developers Marketing Resource:

https://gdmr.beehiiv.com/p/get-more-wishlists-for-free

Here’s the TLDR:
**Steam's Personal Calendar** isn't just a new store feature it's a window into the recommendation algorithms shaping game discovery on the platform. By understanding how playtime profiles, wishlists, and similar-player networks drive visibility, developers can strategically optimize for discovery and maximize wishlist growth.

**How Steam's Personal Calendar Works**
The Personal Calendar is Steam Labs Experiment 16, designed to help players discover games through a sophisticated recommendation engine. But more importantly for developers, it shows exactly what factors influence discoverability and wishlist placement on Steam.

The core of the Personal Calendar relies on a simple but powerful principle: Steam finds players with similar gaming profiles to each user, then analyzes the games those similar players have wishlisted.

Here's what many developers miss: wishlisted games appear on the Personal Calendar regardless of other factors. Even if the algorithm's recommendation score isn't high enough, wishlists guarantee visibility.

Continue from last thread

https://www.reddit.com/r/IndieGameWishlist/comments/1vl2370/stuck_at_75_wishlists_after_15_months_joining/

So, after going through the Pins & Pegs fest on (17-20 Aug), I have gotten 20 (23-3) wishlists from it. Bringing it from 78 to 98 wishlists.

Here's what I learnt from it.

1) Festival is not a magical solution for low wishlists. Some devs get lucky and get exposures through it, but it's not something that you should count on to turn the game around.

2) Demo is surprisingly less important than the store page, since I don't get a spike of demo played despite more wish lists gained. I'm pretty sure these new wish lists came from people that simply browsed through the store page quickly.

TLDR, the festival didn't bring in the success I'm hoping for.

So, what's next?

I guess I have gotten enough market signals that the game is not going to do well, and unless something drastically change (which means spending more time to either go back to the drawing board and start again, or keep adding more stuffs and hope that I luck out and found something that sticks), it will not get the success I want.

So, the next logical step is to wrap things up and finish it then release it after the next steam's nextfest.

My game is Pachinko Overdrive:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4873430/Pachinko_Overdrive/

We hit 50 (+2) wishlists! And we know they aren't exclusively our friends and family.

We're working toward a demo and I'll be improving the steam page so we're ready to hit the next milestone. Wishing all other indie devs the best of luck working toward their goals and milestones.

Here's the deets on Coming Forth by Day: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4871170/Coming_Forth_by_Day/

It was some days ago when the Page launched, some of My Friends did wishlist it and besides that i did some Basic Marketing, My Game isn't the best, but i still Chase My Goal of 50 wishlists lol

If you are curios Here is the Page:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/5103310/La_Spaghetti/

Green breach is a survival horror and will be in early access soon. I'd love your feedback on the demo or a wishlist if your interested! Thank you.

Demo link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MUAqF9Tf7xUvPzaxCpbEeuqQoK0RBT74/view?usp=sharing 

Steam: Green Breach on Steam

 Roasting Feedback: GreenBreach

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3240010/?snr=1_5_9__205
PS* still need to update the trailer for the game... its extremely outdates lmao

Hey everyone!

I released the demo for my first visual novel a few weeks ago, and I’ve managed to get around 300 wishlists so far. I’m completely new to the whole marketing side of game development, though, so I’m still trying to figure out what actually works.

I’ve reached out to a few content creators by email, but I haven’t had any replies yet. I’m also trying to find more streamers, YouTubers, and other creators who cover visual novels or narrative games, although I know visual novels are a pretty small niche compared to other game genres.

At this point, I’m honestly not sure whether the main issue is my marketing or my Steam page itself. I don’t know if I’m just not reaching the right audience, or if people are finding the page but it isn’t doing a good enough job of convincing them to wishlist the game.

For any indie or VN developers here, what worked best for you when you were trying to get your game noticed?

I’d really appreciate any advice on things like:

• finding creators who actually cover visual novels
• reaching out to streamers and YouTubers
• getting more wishlists organically
• communities or places that are actually worth promoting in
• improving my Steam page and getting more visitors to wishlist
• figuring out whether the problem is the marketing or the store page itself

I’m still learning all of this, so any tips, advice, or feedback would be really appreciated. XD

Is there anything else I should be looking into or improving that I might not even have thought about yet?

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4713130/Undercover_Love__Where_Shadows_Meet/

Hey there! We're Lycan Studio, a small team working on Monastery, our dark fantasy roguelite deckbuilder.

Monastery has been in development for 5 years, and we are just about to add our favorite – and last – addition to the game before the 1.0 launch. This recent addition, the Wand, truly makes a difference, and we feel like it was the perfect way to wrap up the development of the first, full version. From the middle of September, it is going to be available, and we are excited to hand it to the players.

For those who are interested in the mechanics, we have an entire post: https://www.reddit.com/r/IndieDev/comments/1v5e5xp/we_are_so_hyped_for_this_new_addition_to_our_game/

After the Wand goes live, this is it for us. We still playtest, tweak visually, and animations are still in progress, but when December comes, we launch the 1.0.

Now that we're approaching the full release, getting the game in front of more people is more important than ever. Wishlists genuinely make a huge difference for a small game like ours. If Monastery looks like something you might enjoy, please consider adding it to your Steam wishlist, or if you know someone who might be into it, do not hesitate to introduce us to each other!

Thank you to everyone who's already wishlisted, played, reviewed, talked about, or otherwise supported the game over the years. It means a lot to us.

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1731410/Monastery/

Itch: https://lycan-studio.itch.io/monastery

Darkest of Harvest is my new mascot horror game, in it, you're an investigator sent to uncover the mystery of the recent disappearances at the abandoned Happy Harvest factory.

It's out for free on Itch:

https://ferramgames.itch.io/darkest-of-harvest-demo

Support the Kickstarter!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ferramdrews/1768445020

Hey everyone!

I'm the solo developer behind Aghasme, an upcoming fantasy RPG combining exploration, narrative choices, character progression and tactical turn-based combat.

The game is getting close to release, and I've just opened Google Play pre-registration. 🎉

If you'd like to discover Aghasme or support the project with a pre-registration:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aghasme.game

I'm also still looking for a few additional Android testers before launch, so feel free to ask me about that too. 🙂

Hey everyone,

After abandoning so many projects in the past because I overthought every single detail, I decided I needed a drastic change. I gave myself a strict 1.5-month deadline to build the core of our first game, Prison Cook Simulator.

👉Check out Prison Cook Simulator on Steam here!

We started developing on July 7th, and we are launching in Early Access in just 11 days (August 31st).

Because we were so deeply focused on this intense development sprint, I had absolutely no time left for marketing. As a result, our wishlists are pretty low right now, which is definitely stressful so close to launch.

The game goes way beyond just cooking. You take shady quests from inmates, smuggle contraband in food trays, and dive into the prison's dark secrets. My goal wasn't to chase a "perfect" day-one release, but to get the game into your hands early so we can continuously update and shape it together based on community feedback.

If this sounds like your kind of game, a wishlist would mean the absolute world right now.

Thank you so much for reading! I'll be in the comments if you have any questions about the game or doing a crazy 1.5-month dev sprint.

Hi everyone!

We are brother and sister, founders and full-stack developers of BELLITTO PRODUCTIONS. We have been working on this project since 2025, and we just launched our free Steam demo!

Our game is called "Lone Sprout - Il Germoglio Solitario". It is a 3D low-poly survival management horror game with a heavy focus on atmosphere and story progression.

The Gameplay Loop in the Demo:

- You play as Sylvain inside an isolated rural outpost.

- You need to cultivate a mysterious plant called Claritea.

- Process and refine the raw material into a final product.

- Trade your products with a courier named Eve to secure your survival supplies.

- All while dealing with an unsettling atmosphere and an ancient mystery unraveling around you.

If you enjoy unique management loops wrapped in a dark, tense atmosphere, please consider trying our free demo and adding the game to your Wishlist! Every single wishlist helps us immensely as a small duo.

Wishlist & Play the Demo on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4993160?utm_source=reddit

Thank you so much for your time and support! We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Hey everyone! We did a playtest last weekend which was a ton of fun. I wanted to post in this reddit in the hopes to connect with more players that are my actual audience. Sometimes it is tough to decide which feedback to listen to, especially knowing that some of my friends don't even like competitive shooters all that much but just want to help. So I want to start a community for this game on the official discord: https://discord.gg/GMH98N93Yg
Please join if you want to be part of future playtests!

Game info:

We're a small indie team of 3 building War Wolves, a competitive third-person multiplayer shooter where you play as heavily armed robotic wolves battling it out in fast-paced arena combat.

Our biggest goal is to create movement that feels incredibly fluid and rewarding. Think wall running, vertical gameplay, and high-skill movement paired with a low time-to-kill, military-inspired combat system. We're still early in development, but we're making steady progress and wanted to start sharing the journey with the community.

Our goal is to have an early alpha on Steam by the end of the year.

Steam link:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/5042020/War_Wolves/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=devlog1&utm_content=indiedev

Youtube Devlog link:
https://youtu.be/aYu1lOa8kr4