how to use tiktok to market your indie game, fast.

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We are CozyCat Games, a team of four women creating a cozy baking game~ Madame Fifi's Bakery!

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Cozygames, cozy gaming, game devlog, indie game, cozy gaming community, cat games, indie gaming, game development, devlogging, programming, steam, nintendo switch, mobile game, independent, cozy gamer, lets play, cooking, cooking game, women made games, madame fifis bakery, cozycat games, cozy cat games

[teo_johny]

I think you become popular because you are a good-looking girl, you use your face on the videos, and this is a smart move. You were well prepared as well because you post many videos from the start day. Not many are lucky, like you

[ecranpar]

Ok I really like your tips. It drives me crazy that we have to guess the unwritten rules of TikTok, and that they can change totally from one day to another.

[ZombieXL]

thank you for the tips, love ur content also your setup is so cute i love it

[ELF_Productions]

Some of my favorite students were girls. I teach "Animation and Game Design"

[SetJams]

This video is so informative and valuable thank you so much for sharing

[RobertDoman]

Thank you so much for this! You have put in so much work!

[JoeyAnimation]

As someone who has never used tiktok, this is a lot of great info to get started with, thanks! At what point in development would you recommend to start promoting your game? I don't know if it's best to get eyes on your work as soon as possible, or wait until you have a substantial enough amount so you don't run out of things to showcase

[tymondabrowski]

If you feel bad about all the comments "oh but that's just because you're pretty", I've seen the exact same comments underneath videos of a person called "Kasia Baba" (real name: Kasia Babis). First few videos of her went instantly really popular, and the comments were all like "oh, that's because it's an attractive woman, whatever she says will blow up". Except that she's very well known in the Polish internet, had several maintained social media, and even started the English side of her audience several years before starting the English youtube channel. And her first content, the one she got famous from, was faceless, a blog called "Kącik Kiciputka" with her short comics and drawings. So all of the "that's because of her face" was very easily provably wrong - she had a huge amount of existing audience that helped her get the new channel off the ground (in Poland, basically every left-leaning millenial knows her name or blog or at least saw her comics, that's huge - she just wasn't parrticularly famous in USA or whatever those people were from). But people just talk like that.

Of course attractiveness helps on social media. But it's not the only factor, and it doesn't diminish your work. I'm pretty sure the fact that Thor from Pirate Software is an good looking guy helped him with his conquer of the internet, but it doesn't diminish his work. Likewise with Kiciputek. Likewise with you.

It's sad that we as a society pay that much attention to attractiveness of people, but you shouldn't feel like you should make yourself uglier in order to be taken seriously. (Especially since somehow no one points out handsome guys and says that them being handsome is the only reason they got popular, funny how that works). Please don't get discouraged.

Thanks for the video. There is really only scarce info about gamedev promotion on tiktok. I think there is one GDC talk, and I think Chris Zukowski talked a bit about it, but there is not much info about the practical sides like you talked about, so it was very useful. I would like to see some of the badly performing videos - like maybe examples of those super good quality ones that didn't perform, or those similar to the well performing ones, or just those that never seem to perform well.

[NeatGames]

Thanks for the tips! I have only flopped on TikTok so far haha. Is showing your face very important you think?

[qtpaulie]

i think you might've shipped a few files that aren't meant to be there on the itchio download! (the debuginfo has some personal information and deobf mappings). also try using gh actions for building the games so personal information like what folder the game was built in is published- the game looks cute.

[definitelynotpia]

hi! i started playing the demo but am stuck after making the first recipe because theres no arrow showing up to get to the customer! any way to change that?

[MeleenGames]

One thing that was not mentioned is Tik Tok does region locking. Its incredibly hard to push outside of your country. Ive found to get less views on YouTube but way more clicks and engagement. Being from a 3rd world country it really sucks because even if I pay for a promotion it still does not push anything outside of that region. Gaming isnt super big where I'm from (Africa). Usually it pushes internationally if you get a decent response from your local region. But if the local region has no interest in said content it will be even harder to push it overseas to a bigger market. Reddit is the the best to avoid this I've found.

[lonewolfenock]

I thought you were the developer! "Wow, such a good looking developer". Ahem.
If we all had such 'people trust people who look good' beautiful promoters who even has the intelligence to speak so well, I'm sure most indie games would get well promoted. ;P

[eliotanderson]

Long ago left the indie dreams like 8 years ago when early teen energy kicks in now I'm preparing for exams that will get government job with good salary where job security exist so I won't be interested in content creation for another 6 months with stress 💀 life is harsh especially if u r born in hypercompetitive environment

[vanglorious]

Ignore those fool hater, just keep up what you love is great! i hope you succeed in what you believe 🔥🔥

[LighthoofDryden]

Do you ever just repost flops? It seems like an hour window is so small that it could just be bad luck, and another chance would get it there. Or is that frowned upon?

Thanks for making this, I don’t do tiktok (…yet) but these tips were great!

[qtpaulie]

do you mind me asking. if it would be possible for a macos/linux build to be released, maybe on itch only or something! also, i think you might've shipped a few files that aren't meant to be there on the itchio download! (the debuginfo has some personal information and deobf mappings). also try using gh actions for building the games so personal information like what folder the game was built in is published- the game looks cute.

[maxelized]

Great analysis, but it confirms why i hate tik tok and don't stand a chance on it

[jimkurth]

Love this. I'm taking notes for my indie game. Been hesitant to make content on TikTok. So, question: I see in your past videos, you've used drawings/sketches and described your game style/narratives without showing off your game and I really liked how you made that successful. I'm in a position where I have very little gameplay/game content but the are done. Do you think for a non-cozy game that... (wait, you are now talking about it in the video as I type.. lol.) Do you think for a non-cozy game (my genre is PvP competitive combat), just talking about the gameplay, characters/artwork, or architecture could work to build audience?

[zzz]

Very amazing video i subscribe, fk haters.