Charlotte the Useless Ghost

I'm a fan of itch.io, but until very recently I've never managed to discover any new games just by browsing the site itself. The types of games that get featured on their front page are generally not for me, and neither are the overall top selling games on the site.

The other way of discovering games on there that I know about is to browse the genre tags. But my taste in games is hard to sum up with genre tags, and I never know how to find which tags even exist in the first place, aside from ones like "#action" that are way too broad to help me find games that I enjoy. I'm just not good at using tags to find things, which is also why I struggle to find new people to follow on cohost come to think of it.

(edit: itch.io also has a "Recommended for you" page. It currently tells me to play one game that I've already played, and a huge pile of other games that aren't even remotely similar to the sorts of things that I play. maybe itch.io's personal recommendations are terrible for everyone, or maybe I permanently messed up my recommendations by buying one of those huge bundles of games a few years back. who knows?)

But a couple of days ago, I found the solution to my itch.io discoverability problems! Just follow these three simple steps:

Make a game that caters exactly to your own tastes
Release it on itch.io and wait for people to play it
Click the "Related games" button on your game's itch.io page, to get a list of recommendations for people who like your game

Screenshot of itch.io's "Recommendations for Chessplosion" page

I can't believe how ridiculous this is but it technically works. I've played most of the games in that screenshot and they were all great, and I'm sure I'll like the others too. So if you've also struggled to find new games to play on itch.io, give this a try!

#itch.io #i'm helping

You must log in to comment.

in reply to @ctmatthews's post:

Blackberry Mochi @Blackberry-Mochi12/11/2022, 12:36 PM

I feel like steps 1 and 2 can be difficult, especially 2, but I hope that I can be blessed with reccos through this simple method one day.

Cassandra Matthews @ctmatthews12/11/2022, 12:50 PM

i believe in you, you can do it! although if you want a backup plan in the meantime, i guess you can just click the "related games" button on someone else's game that you enjoy playing. but that's not as fun.

i forgot to mention it in my original post, but the "recommendations for chessplosion" page even gives me way better recommendations than itch.io's personalised "recommendations for you" page, which tells me to play a game that ive already played, and a huge pile of games that aren't even remotely similar to the sorts of things that i play. maybe itch.io's personal recommendations are bad for everyone, or maybe i permanently messed up my recommendations by buying one of those huge bundles of games a few years back. who knows?

Blackberry Mochi @Blackberry-Mochi12/11/2022, 12:54 PM

IT SERIOUSLY ALWAYS RECCOS GAMES I'VE ALREADY BOUGHT OR ADDED TO A COLLECTION.... IT'S LIKE YOUTUBE GOING "HEY WATCH THIS VIDEO AGAIN". But to be fair replaying a game you like isn't a bad idea at all, but y'know. Although the bundle part makes sense maybe. Definitely have a couple of those.

Cassandra Matthews @ctmatthews12/11/2022, 1:05 PM

"why dont you play one of your old games again instead of buying a new one?" can be good advice at times, but it's probably not good for business if an online storefront is saying that to people who are browsing for new games to buy. hopefully it's just a bug ;_;

Sciman101 @Sciman10112/12/2022, 5:56 PM

I gotta try this with some of my games sometime...

lyra @lyrabold12/12/2022, 9:25 PM

zeroranger rep!! it's one of my favorite games ever

Cassandra Matthews @ctmatthews12/12/2022, 9:33 PM

zeroranger is one of the few games on that page that i havent played yet, but im sure ill like it a lot! im a big fan of shmups in general and i dont know any details about the game's narrative framing other than that everyone seems to love it, so im looking forward to playing it and finding out

Cassandra Matthews @ctmatthews12/26/2022, 12:19 PM

sorry for asking a follow up question to a two week old comment, but im curious: what is it that makes you prefer this game to other shmups? is it the story, or would you still like the game if you just played the levels from start to finish and saw a short story scene at the end like a regular shmup? i live in a bit of a shmup fan bubble so im not used to seeing games in the genre suddenly blow up in popularity like zeroranger did, and im curious about where the popularity came from.

(in case youre worried about spoilers: i bought zeroranger a few days ago and played through the entire story mode including the hidden boss at the end, but i didnt play white vanilla mode and i didnt clear the entire game in a single credit)

almond @shydog12/12/2022, 11:59 PM

I've found so many cool games I never would have by doing exactly this :3

“hardline” mike sugarbaker @misuba12/13/2022, 1:05 AM

I don't mind some labor but can you recommend something that does not also depend on my various neurodiversities not declaring war on me on the regular

SnepShark @SnepShark12/13/2022, 6:03 AM

Also, definitely take a look at the collections your game has been added to!

The collections with 10K games in ‘em usually aren’t super helpful because they’ll just be stuff like “here’s every free game that works on Android,” but the ones with a tighter focus have cool stuff pretty frequently

Cassandra Matthews @ctmatthews12/13/2022, 11:21 AM

i didnt even know that was an option, thanks for pointing it out! it just helped me find some games on itch.io that i previously assumed were steam-exclusive, like danmaku unlimited 3 and thumper

SnepShark @SnepShark12/13/2022, 8:07 PM

Happy to help! Interestingly, thumper actually is steam-exclusive, but they're selling steam keys through itch