I wish I had a better conclusion than "a game with a unique set of circumstances" can beat another "game with a unique set of circumstances". I believe the solution is still to build a community, which is getting harder to do on itch. Hopefully Steam can help 🤞

Could this be repeated for my other games? Not sure. "GBA homebrew" is a hook in a way a genre like "metroidvania" or "Zelda-like" isn't. Can this traffic be redirected to my other games? Again, not really. Those players are looking for GBA games, not similar PC games.

And now it's finally my most downloaded game. It broke the curse of my new games getting less views than the previous ones. How? Probably *because* it is such a niche game. Some players only look at GBA games on itch and Aereven Advance is well ranked on that page. It's discoverable!

It did pretty well the first few days, thanks to the traffic from the jam (despite not quite reaching the podium). Better than most of my games, which is, again, discouraging. That initial traffic died quickly but the long tail has been unprecedented. A year later, it shows no sign of slowing down.

In 2024 I created Aereven Advance for a GBA jam. Being a homebrew for hardware that ceased production 20 years ago, this is a *very* niche game. It was also my first attempt, so not quite as polished as my other games! Of course, it wasn't featured by itch in any way.

(Needless to say, it's been pretty discouraging. It's one of the reasons I'm finally deciding to give Steam a go, despite the complications this brings.)

But itch's popularity exploded quickly afterward, so none of my other games came anywhere close to that level of exposure. Same views-to-download ratio, but way less views. Even The Trespasser, which was featured by itch, couldn't beat The Lightkeeper's numbers. And it got worse year after year :(

The Lightkeeper was the first action-adventure game I completed and finished. It came out in 2019, when there were less games coming out on itch and you could remain several days in the 'New release' tab. It did very well the first few days and had a long tail afterward. It was very encouraging!

Like I don't know how people simultaneously hold "we're seeing a massive boom not just in hardcore action and horror games that explain nothing, but simultaneously a heavily viral boom in barely parseable Roblox slop" and "but the kids! They just can't figure things out!" in their heads? Come on now

It was very funny to be a fly on the wall during that informal debrief, though it was also infuriating, like when they used mocking voices to say "oh nooo, but what about copyriiight?!". These people have zero respect for the craft of game development, its industry or even popular gaming brands

SteamOS on SteamDeck has a "read-only filesystem" which means all apps must come from its packet manager or stuff like appimage/flatpak. I've found it a real pain to use so far :/ (disclaimer: I'm not a Linux person)

You have my permission then. There's no paid version, the PC games are free as well, but a link back to dreamnoid.itch.io would indeed be appreciated. Thank you! SuperStation is such a cool project ;)

That sounds great! What would you need to make it happen?

For years I've been experimenting with 3D but in the summer of 2025 I reached a point where I could see it becoming more than a prototype. So I made Dear Clockmaker, a short 3D action-adventure game, to prove it could work