A SIMPLE THECNICAL ARTIST
OVERVIEW
After the layoff, I quickly realized that finding another job wasn’t what I truly wanted to do. On paper, “9,000 people laid off” is just a number — but behind every number is a person, a family, and a story. We all lost our jobs, but even more tragically, some of us are losing hope. I don’t want that to happen. As a technical artist, I’m used to solving the problems right in front of me — and that’s why I started this operation: to do my best to bring people hope and the courage to move forward.
GOAL
The goal of this operation is very simple — to use the least amount of time to create, publish, and market a solo-developed indie game that demonstrates what’s possible. This operation isn’t aiming to become a huge indie hit, as that often comes down to luck. Instead, the goal is to pave a path for those who haven’t been so lucky — to show that it’s possible to build a sustainable business through hard work and dedication.
Van Wheel Gone project is the main project for this operation
It contains:
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9 unique environments
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6 different player abilities
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6 different enemies, 1 mini boss, 1 final boss
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9 original sound tracks published on all music platform
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4k 60fps on GTX 970 with Unreal Engine 5
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5 different mini games connect with Steam leaderboard
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26 Steam achievements
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16 unlockable items to customize player character
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Speed run mode support per level speed run
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3 rounds of playtest to polish the product quality
The full game took 4 weeks from scratch to the published product. The suggested production timeline and marketing date will be listed in the following document
The Invasive Plant is a side project I worked on while waiting for the marketing plan to execute for Van Wheel Gone project.
It contains:
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Integrated fluid simulation system
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Used PCG workflow to populate assets
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Used fracture system to create breakable items
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Run at 30fps on base version of Steam Deck with all the system turned on
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Reached the Steam bottleneck for how fast I could create
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and publish a game
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Learned a bit about invasive plants
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Had some fun
The full game took 3 weeks from scratch to the published product. The suggested production timeline and marketing date will be listed in the following document
MARKETING
The marketing strategy consists of two parts. The first is social media marketing, which involves using various social media platforms for advertising. The second is a speedrun challenge in collaboration with Speedrun.com. Since I have two games, the strategy for Van Wheel Gone combines social media marketing with a $20,000 speedrun prize, while The Invasive Plant relies solely on social media promotion. These two different approaches provide valuable A/B testing data
SOCIAL MEDIA
I prepared two videos: one for the Van Wheel Gone $20,000 speedrun challenge, and another for The Invasive Plant launch trailer. I spent $200 on each video across TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Among all the platforms, TikTok delivered the best results. I highly recommend running multiple rounds of small marketing campaigns on TikTok for your game. Here’s the breakdown:
The $20,000 speedrun trailer has received 348,000 views so far. The ad targeted users in the United States and Canada. I purchased the commercial rights for Jon Bailey to do the voiceover — his dedication to the craft exceeded my expectations. The music, composed by Aleksandr Zhelanov, is absolutely amazing, and he generously makes most of his work free to use. With the combination of incredible voice acting, beautiful music, and the $20,000 prize on the line, the video performed exceptionally well in just a few days of running time.
One thing I’d like to improve about this trailer is the beginning. Because it takes a few seconds to build up to the good part, many viewers lose interest within the first couple of seconds. It’s very important to make sure your trailer grabs attention from the very first frame — that’s key to making your ad successful.
Surprisingly, I attracted more female viewers than male viewers, though overall the audience was about 50-50. The 18–34 age group proved to be the most responsive for ads, while people aged 35 and older were likely distracted by other priorities in life. Since I’m currently based in Canada, 96.8% of the viewers came from there — possibly because American users were focused on other things at the time. Overall, this campaign was very successful and brought a lot of attention to the speedrun challenge.
The Invasive Plant received 74,000 views, which is also an amazing result — especially considering there wasn’t a $20,000 reward tied to this trailer. Since the game focuses heavily on two invasive plant species from England, I primarily targeted this ad toward a British audience.
Since this trailer gets to the point right from the first frame, the average watch time is nearly double that of the Van Wheel Gone trailer. It also received 7,000 likes, almost three times more than Van Wheel Gone. This clearly shows that grabbing attention quickly is crucial for capturing viewers’ interest.
You can see that this trailer was viewed mostly by people in the UK, and the majority of viewers were female, likely because the topic centers around gardening. This proves that you don’t need a $20,000 prize to attract viewers — and with a few small ad runs over multiple rounds, it shouldn’t be too difficult to reach thousands of viewers.
SPEEDRUN CHALLENGE
Speedrunning is a core part of the Van Wheel Gone project. To reach the right target audience, I collaborated with Speedrun.com and set up the $20,000 challenge. They are a group of people with incredible passion for video games, and I had an amazing experience working with them. I only needed to provide the game and the prize money — they took care of everything else. If you’re interested in marketing your game with Speedrun.com, click the button on their website, and they will respond within a few days. Since they have many clients, it’s best to give them some time to get back to you.
The speedrun challenge dramatically boosted sales. You can see the difference in units sold between the launch day and during the speedrun challenge — it’s almost 20 times higher:
Release
Speedrun Challenge
This works because players are rewarded for playing your game. If your game is short, I highly recommend setting a shorter-time challenge, since you don’t want people to burn out by repeating the same thing over and over. My game was too short for a week-long challenge, and I felt sorry for the runners. The most heartwarming part for me is that this challenge brought people from all over the world together, working collaboratively to help one another. In an increasingly divided world, I am beyond grateful that I could spend a little money to bring people together despite our differences. Just look at the flags from all these different countries:
These are verified runners, who are required to submit a live stream video. Over 1,000 players gave this speedrun a try, making it one of the biggest challenges Speedrun.com has ever hosted. Overall, this was a very successful operation: sales increased, the website gained more exposure, and most importantly, I brought together people from all over the world to play this game together.
PRODUCTION TIMELINE
If you’re planning to make and publish a game yourself, I recommend getting your Steam partner account ready as soon as possible, since it takes some time for background checks and tax information verification. I made all my games within 30 days, but that was because I needed to finish this operation quickly, often running on only two hours of sleep. I think three months is a reasonable amount of time to start and finish your first game. Once you publish your first game, you can adjust your pace based on your own situation. Publishing the first game is very important because it builds confidence and makes the second game much easier to tackle. Don’t make your dream game your first project — save that for later, once you’ve gathered the necessary skills. But everything I say here is just a suggestion — what you choose to do is entirely up to you! Here is my recommendation:
