MikomiKisomi's Projects - pls check out my new website mikomikisomi.com !

My blog has moved, so if you've looking for new posts (of which there are several!) then take out the "weebly" in the URL and go straight to mikomikisomi.com.

​This blog will stay up, namely because a lot of links to my articles still direct here. But all new content will be over there!

Since I recently released a dress-up game in Ren'Py, I thought I'd make a write up on how it was done! Since Ren'Py can now (mostly) port to web, it's a decent choice for making standalone dress-up games or having a cute little minigame in your visual novel.

Hint: The majority of the time was spent on the art. Here's the game I made in it, playable in browser.
​

Here's what you'll need to make your own dress-up game!
​
Tools:

• Ren'Py (free to download!)
• Art (a character base and clothes)

​

To start, get your base and clothes ready. For the purposes of this tutorial, I'll provide a few screenshots and such of my structuring. Here's an example of a character base (left) and a clothing item (right). Note: I keep the clothes the exact same size as the character base so I don't have to deal with setting exact x/yalign in Ren'Py.
​

To make the options, we're going to make textbuttons! So, create a new projects and open up screens.rpy.

​

Having survived many, many launches of varying degrees of success, I feel your pain when launch day comes near. You've probably got a checklist of stuff to do, announcements to announce, posts to post, updates to update, but your mind is frantic. Don't fret! You've got this. Keep your cool, try to keep your tabs below 20, and get some help to help you send posts and emails.
But what about social media? What all should you post then? Well, good news, on a lot of sites you can schedule posts so you can draft these before you even hit Release on Steam. So, let's go over 3(ish) of my tweets I always make come release week!
​
(For all these examples I'll be using my most recent launch, Image of Perfection, a commercial RPG VN)

This one should be a no-brainer- hype your followers up by reminding them that your game releases tomorrow! I tweeted this right before 11AM CST on the day before- it has a video of gameplay, it has a small description, and has links to where they can buy it that next day.

✨ Optional ✨

Do a countdown on social media to your launch day! A fun way to do it is with art- here's a couple of examples from my 5 day countdown for Paths Taken- the countdown featured a different drawing of each of the main characters for each day. In hindsight, I could have mixed up the small message with them a bit more.
​

I didn't schedule the launch tweet because I wanted to tweet it out the minute I uploaded it to Itchio and hit Release on Steam, but I did schedule the ICYMI tweet for later that night!

As you can see, the game went live around noon CST and I had scheduled the ICYMI (In Case You Missed It) post for later that night, around 6 hours later. If I had a professional trailer for this game done (it was a very quick 2 month development cycle- please try to get a good trailer done for your games!) then I would have posted that in the release announcement.
​

Your mileage may vary on this one— you should send out emails to press before and during release, but it never hurts to just ask any that might follow you if they want to review it! Sometimes this lands me a few reviews, sometimes it only lands me a few RTs. Either way, it's worth the 30 seconds writing the tweet for me.
​

The tweet for Image of Perfection only did a few RTs... but the Paths Taken tweet got a couple YouTubers interested!
​

Run a giveaway for a free key or two of the game! Set a few rules (I typically say "follow us and RT to enter"), set an ending date, and link the store pages. As usual, I add a couple emojis for some extra flair.
​

✨ Optional ✨

Some giveaways use custom graphics that have the rules explained in more detail. Some giveaways have more info and links in a reply tweet. Post the rules in whatever format you want!
​

Reviews on any game are extremely important- so, show off the first few you get, especially if they're glowing reviews like the first one we got for Image of Perfection!
​

...And that's it! There are a lot of other tweets you can make during launch (RTing streams, posting articles about the game, asking people to share their favorite screenshots, etc.) but these are a few more basic ones that I try to post every launch time. Hope this article helped some of you out- if it did, consider reading my previous articles!
​

There's a new restaurant being built in my town- it's a refurbished old warehouse, so it's less being built and more being brought up to code. This has been going on the past few months, with the parking lot and landscaping recently being completed, so it was apparent that the restaurant was going to open very soon- however, the restaurant has yet to put a sign up with the name, let alone saying that it's even a restaurant and not some kind of shop.

​Today while driving past it, I remarked that they now had condiments and paper towels on the tables near the windows- surely it was going to open soon after they put the sign up. Tonight while driving past it, the parking lot was full. People were sitting in all the tables we could see. It was a soft launch where they were testing their speed and kitchen, so not the full launch- but yet, there was still no sign for the restaurant. As an outsider, I'd assume it was another boutique or even just a small warehouse like the surrounding stores.

This was mind-boggling to me- you want to open up a store and not even advertise what kind of store you are, let alone your name? Even a nearby restaurant that was hidden down a set of stairs had a few small signs (and even a menu) on the wall next to it. So, as a game developer and person who attempts to market said games, it got me thinking- what would this be like if a game did this?

I'm going to use a couple different cases here in my analogy since there won't really be anything 1 to 1.

Case #1 - No Name/Branding

The first case is the most obvious and extreme- you are posting on social media or Discord servers and such but you've yet to put a name to your product, or you fail to refer to it as such/put no logo with the images. People might see a screenshot of the game but if you don't have a name for it or don't put a name where people can easily see it, how will they be able to find out more? Sure, sometimes they'll see it on your Twitter, but what if they happen to see it out in the wild where you can't easily reply with an answer?

This should be a case that, if you're reading this, shouldn't happen. Most, if not all of you, should already have a name set for your game and be calling it by that name if you're actively promoting it in places. Now, I'm not saying you should throw you game's logo on all your promotional material for the game (I find it somewhat annoying to receive screenshots of in-engine looks with the logo plastered on it), but I am saying it's typically best to have the name visible when promoting it in places for consumers.

Case #2 - No Landing Page

This case is going to be more prevalent for most devs- we forget to have a landing page. In this sense, a "landing page" is going to be broad, but something where consumers can view what the game is about and see some form of updates for it. In this sense, the following (I feel) qualify as a "landing page":

• Steam/Itchio/GameJolt store page
• Website with newsletter
• Social media specifically for the game

I've picked the types above as they all include some way to see updates for the game as well as get notifications for new updates- while I normally wouldn't consider social media to be a "full" landing page as they're more for sharing links to the above two places, they are ways for players to subscribe to your content. I would very much prioritize the first two, i.e. making a store front for your game where players can wishlist/follow it and making a website where players can easily see what the game is about.

Your goal with a landing page is to convert viewers into customers. You want a landing page to entice a consumer into supporting your game, even if it hasn't launched- this can be by them following your social media, wishlisting the game, subscribing to your newsletter, and more.

So, what on Earth does this have to do with my long-winded analogy at the beginning of this? Well, them not putting up their name meant I had no way to search them up online, which means even if they did have a website (which they did) I couldn't find it so I couldn't see their menu, their "launch" date, and more. Make pages where potential customers can wishlist your game or sign up for updates!

When do I make a landing page?

As soon as possible! ...No, but really, you should try to make landing pages for your games months before release if you can. Wishlists on Steam are basically an automated email blast of when a game launches and goes on sale, so you want to collect as many of those as you can. And like I said with the analogy, if you wait until release to have a landing page, you're missing out on potential customers who lost interest because there wasn't a way for them to follow the game.

As game devs, we're all guilty of procrastinating things that aren't coding or art or writing (aka, everything business) but we really should try harder to put landing pages and such up sooner. Maybe next time I'll write on the abysmal importance of wishlists on Steam and how they translate to sales on launch day...

One thing I frequently get asked is "what do I post to social media? How do I keep it active? I don't have any art!" and I always send them a long list of ideas on what to post but I never consolidate it anywhere. So, it's about time I do that.

Below are a list of ideas on what to post to social media- ones in bold are ones I very much recommend for being high in engagement / eye-catching. Don't forget to check out my Game Dev Social Media Calendar and my Twitter Guide!
​

1. Post a screenshot
2. Post a WIP screenshot
3. Post a progression screenshot (post an old WIP screenshot and then show how far its come)
4. Post a gif
5. Post a video/trailer
6. Post concept art
7. Post finished sprites
8. Post finished full art
9. Post a funny expression from your character sprites
10. Post a snippet of music
11. Post a full piece of music
12. Post a playlist that you listen to while working
13. Share (and credit) a piece of art that inspires you
14. Share a piece of fanart
15. Post a snippet of writing / a funny quote
16. Post a snippet of code
17. Post a picture of animals in the office
18. Post a picture of your workspace
19. Talk about your daily work routine
20. Give a review for a piece of equipment/software you use for work
21. Ask for feedback on something (piece of art, dialogue, etc)
22. Run a poll (ask what people's favorite game is, what their favorite x is, etc.)
23. Do a Q&A session
24. Talk about where you got the idea for your game
25. Talk about the game itself
26. Talk about future projects you'd like to do
27. Interview your staff / introduce them
28. Talk about what your dream merch for the game would be
29. Make a mood board / aesthetic board for the game
30. Post something inspirational for #MotivationMonday
31. Write an editorial to help other game devs
32. Post a link to an editorial you found helpful
33. Post a small preview of something upcoming
34. Do a giveaway of a previous game or a piece of software
35. Post a progression shot of how your game's art has changed
36. Thank your followers and highlight some of them
37. Link a Let's Play of one of your games
38. Talk about a game that inspired yours but what you'd change about it
39. Post a drawing of a girl from your game and tag it #CutieSaturday
40. Post a meme about your game
41. Post links to where people can find your other social media (Discord, devlog, etc.)
42. Post a funny chat log from your Discord
43. Post a picture of you showing the game off at a convention / booth
44. Post a survey to find more about your consumers and what they like
45. ...And more!

Here's a few examples of me doing these ideas on my company Twitter.
​

Are you a visual novel developer or looking to become one? Join us in the Devtalk+ discord, regardless of experience level!
​

I should probably preface this with a definition- what is a social media calendar? According to CoSchedule:

For now, I'll use the definition of "a list of plans to help create social media content". Social media calendars that fit this description, in most cases, are used by big corporations for brainstorming ideas for marketing content on social media, as the name implies. However, because most of these are made for large corporations by marketing companies, they are made to be as inclusive and broad as possible so anyone can use them- in this, they become harder to use, especially so for niches rather than conglomerates. I couldn't find one that would be great for game developers to use as reference for social media- rather, I had to use a combination of multiple calendars to get ideas for social media that would be relevant.

So, I made my own.
​

These are a few suggestions for each day to post about you're games- some days have prominent hashtags (mainly on twitter) but every day has a suggestion on what to post in general.Wednesdays and Saturdays are typically the biggest in terms of relevant content you can post, given that they both have 2 large tags that are very relevant to game dev. This list is mainly for Twitter, but can be referenced for other social media sites.​
​