I make visual novels! Also play them sometimes. Wish I had time for more of both. I also do a podcast and LPs, because I don't know how to stop myself.



Ok yes the first answer is "please I want less discord servers" and I feel that. But I'm also looking at the imploding social media landscape and thinking, I need yet one more social media platform to stick Content into.

My main motivation is that I'm making a puzzle game, and a weird one at that, so I absolutely need to have playtesting done throughout development, and will need to regularly recruit new people in to take that on. This could be managed through google forms, but it does feel like this actually is a better use case for a discord. At which point it also feels like I should be maintaining it as a community.

At the same time, I feel like it might be too small. I'm very pleased with the success of com__et, the way it has spread and the recognition it has gotten from fans of it. But just under a thousand people have com__et on Steam, and of those only 232 have actually launched it. (those numbers may be a little off and don't account for itch.io, but that's still indicative of the scale I'm looking at).

This is a happy success and yet doesn't feel like there's an audience. Or at least, not a community that would have an ongoing conversation. I'm curious about other people's experience in this space/scope. I fully understand why multiplayer games benefit from an ongoing community but it seems increasingly like a discord is assumed to be part of the package for even smaller projects.


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in reply to @SuperBiasedGary's post:

Thank you for the answer! Do you find it a lot of work to keep the activity ticking along or is it just an occasional bit of posting to keep things moving?

And yeah definitely linking it everywhere. I'd treat it similar to how people recommend having a game page up on Steam to wishlist. You need a link so you can tell people "If you're interested go here to keep up to date." and plaster it anywhere related to the game.

Also wishlisted Love Exalt. You had me at "Death game on a train" hahaha

Do you find it a lot of work to keep the activity ticking along or is it just an occasional bit of posting to keep things moving?

Whenever we push an update to the game, there's always a few days when there is a lot of discussion with everyone involved. After that, you gotta post something every so often to spark some conversation. We try to post some progress or just say something at all if it's been a while since the last big update.
We definetely have people that will also just talk about things by themselves every so often, but there are also days where the discord is completely silent as well. Kind of depends on how much there is to discuss about the game at any time, how often you publish something new, and how lenient you are with being on-topic.
In the past few days most discussion has been on the update we just published, reporting bugs, and also discussing how someone finds the game.
We're definetely on the smaller side when it comes to a discord server, but there are dedicated fans who will talk about the game and other things.

I'd treat it similar to how people recommend having a game page up on Steam to wishlist. You need a link so you can tell people "If you're interested go here to keep up to date." and plaster it anywhere related to the game.

While this is part of the reason why it's important to make a steam page as soon as possible, another thing is that Steam specifically has a thing where the promotion steam does for your game when it becomes available is proportional to the wishlists it gets. The same applies when it's already out, and that also regulates how much it is shown to people (ALLEGEDLY BUT VERY LIKELY). There is also a thing that is rarely talked about, but on steam specifically they will not push your game to people's recommended games until you have 10 reviews from people who purchased the game on steam. Until then you're somehow supposed to promote it elsewhere, and when you get to that point you get a huge visibility boost for some time, until steam decides that you're no longer selling enough copies and stops showing the game to people.

Also wishlisted Love Exalt. You had me at "Death game on a train" hahaha

<3