For anyone considering launching a Greenlight campaign for their game, here are some tips to make sure that things run smoothly:
1. Get an eye-catching trailer BEFORE you launch – I put Narcissus on Greenlight with the basic trailer I’d done for the flash version, which was as a mistake. This is now being fixed by getting a trailer produced showing the windows build. The aims with the trailer include:
a. Make the mechanic crystal clear (most people don’t realise that they’re controlled separately).
b. Showcase the later (and for the most part chaotic) 25 levels of the game.
c. Get the quotes from the reception at Rezzed in.
The current trailer above is what was produced from the description above. The trailer was made by a good friend called Ross Martin.
2. Decent description – A couple of short bullet points isn’t a justified length for something that’s taken years to finish. I initially just had a very brief description, but when telling people about the project at events, I'd be talking about the game in depth, so why should the digital medium be any different? There’s an excellent article on the subject here: Theastronauts.com
3. Get a game build up! – Now I know a lot of people submit “Concepts” to Greenlight, which is fine if the focus is on the narrative, but for games such as Narcissus, the gameplay is the main pull for the product. Getting that build in place for people to try is key. I initially put up the Flash version as the copy to try, but realised after a day or two that this didn’t reflect the quality of the final build (especially since the trailer was showing the same thing). The first 10 levels of the Windows build are up. This also helps the Let’s Play community, where previously the lag would kill the experience of watching the video.
4. Keep updates flowing – Getting brand new feeds coming through is an ace way to keep people interested, whether that’s recycling old articles with important information or blasting out walls of fresh awesome stuff about your development.
5. Don’t believe the stats – They’re deceptive and in some cases, quite depressing to read if you don’t realise the average score that most games get on Greenlight. Don’t give up on it and keep pushing it to places such as Youtubers and festivals/events. The best way to think of the numbers that you have is each yes vote is potentially someone who is going to buy your game, so if you have 5,000 people who have said yes, if you're charging 10 pounds per copy of the game, that's a lot of money!
Obviously Narcissus hasn't reached it's goal yet, so theoretically all of this could be nonsense, but it's just some ideas of what I've learnt from the experience. I hope that some of it can help inform developers who might be getting anxious about numbers or be about to take the plunge.
