Near 7000 Wishlists & Chasmal Fear on Steam Next Fest
During the past two months, we were completely dedicated to finishing the demo of Chasmal Fear for the upcoming Steam Next Fest (which starts on the 5th of February!). At the beginning of January, several streamers and friends were given closed beta keys to test out the demo, the game mechanics, the feel, the atmosphere, and the overall gameplay of Chasmal Fear.
Meanwhile, to celebrate Steam Next Fest, we compiled a new “Demo Announcement Trailer” that you can check out right here:
The Closed Demo Testing & Feedback
The closed beta went just as we expected. Each streamer had an hour and a half to finish a part of the upcoming demo where we placed most of the game mechanics that will be in the game and represent the core gameplay loop. Usually, the testing of the demo itself was around 25 minutes in a single playthrough, but let’s keep in mind that the demo has 3 different gameplay paths based on player choice (meaning players need to replay it again to see other parts of the underwater facility and a different ending to the demo).
During the 25-minute playthrough, a player streamed the game to us on a private Discord channel, while we (the developers) stayed muted and observed how he played while taking notes at the same time.
The notes included bugs, glitches, and signposting. Players were encouraged to “think out loud” so we could better understand why they were playing a particular way and how they were thinking while solving the problems and obstacles presented throughout the demo. In the end, after the 25-minute playthrough, we spent the rest of the time discussing with the streamer about suggestions, potential ideas, and overall, how we can improve the game itself.
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Thanks to the closed demo testing, we’ve encountered several bugs that needed to be addressed, as well as things that needed addressing such as the signposting and events that could improve the flow of the demo. During these past 2 months, we kept polishing, fixing, and adding stuff based on the feedback and although it nearly took us 14 - 18 hours a day to implement everything, we managed to do it and get everything ready for the upcoming Steam Next Fest.
Valve sent us an email about Marketing
Happy to share that during this period, we received mail from Valve (Steam) that they are considering our game to be in the promotional materials for Steam Next Fest and we need to make sure that everything is ready for January 25th when Valve will select a group of journalists to go through the games. It was an exciting opportunity and regarding awareness and visibility of our game, it was a huge step for Chasmal Fear.
We received a reminder about the email another time in the middle of January which sparked our hopes up: “Oh my god, this is happening! Steam is considering our game!”. On the 25th of January, we decided to launch the demo publicly, and yet secretly. What do we mean by that? Let me explain.
Picked up by Steam to be Featured in their Promo Materials
Although I might say, we were a bit skeptical about the emails we received from Valve and Steam, there was always that small hope inside that this might actually happen. Mainly, our doubts were mostly: after all, we’re a small indie studio of just 2 members, how can we be in the video when there are bigger studios out there? It turns out, we were wrong!
To our huge surprise, Chasmal Fear ended up in the official Steam Next Fest Announcement Video by Steam on YouTube, as well as in all of their marketing and promotional materials. It felt so… unreal!
Demo Launched "Secretly" to the Public
As Valve and Steam asked of us, the demo was launched on the 25th of January. However, we did not share anything on socials or anywhere that the demo was public. Why? Let me explain. We came up with an idea that could greatly improve the game for the start of Steam Next Fest (February 5th).
As I talked with my brother (we’re 2 developers, a small indie studio), we thought: Alright, whoever finds out that the demo is available, let them play. But, we won’t share anything until the start of Steam Next Fest. Meanwhile, we’ll be carefully watching every streamer and content creator who already played the demo and take notes on bugs we haven’t caught, ideas, suggestions, and how we can polish it before Steam Next Fest. And that’s what we did.
We turned on YouTube, Twitch, and Kick and looked for players who found out about the demo and covered it. We took notes, screen-recorded a lot of content creators for future reference, and got back to work fixing everything we’ve found so far. Thanks to a couple of players who checked out the demo, they helped us fix bugs, quality of life things, signposting, gameplay feel, and make the best version of the demo.
Nearing the magic 7000 Wishlists!
Regarding visibility and awareness about our game, we started marketing it on every social media (Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, Youtube, Facebook, Reddit), in over 100+ Facebook groups and forums since the moment we started our game (back at the end of June 2023). Although wishlists have been growing pretty steadily since the beginning, one of our largest peaks was when we did the PR and reached out to over 400+ game journalists. Chasmal Fear was covered by around 100 gaming portals and thanks to that, at the moment, we are almost at 7000 wishlists.
Our primary goal was: to reach ¾ to 7000 wishlists or surpass it before Steam Next Fest starts. More or less, I’d say we reached our goal.
Why before Steam Next Fest and not after? From our past experiences with our other games, we know that Steam Next Fest brings an enormous number of wishlists (5000 - 10000 in a week!), that’s what happened with our previous games. We wanted to do our best to get as many wishlists as possible before the event and utilize an efficient marketing strategy by avoiding the mistakes we learned from our past projects.
Steam Next Fest, we're Ready to Launch!
Steam Next Fest is almost here. The demo has been updated and tested and is ready to go. Of course, we’ll keep observing players and content creators to further improve it if anything comes up. If you’re a fan of survival horror games, make sure to check out Chasmal Fear on Steam and try the demo. If you feel generous, drop us a “Wishlist” and help us out with the algorithm:
