For many indie developers, discoverability remains one of the most difficult parts of launching a game. Platforms like Steam, itch.io, CrazyGames, and Game Jolt each operate under different visibility systems, recommendation structures, and player behaviors, often forcing small teams to think as much about positioning and analytics as they do about development itself.

The developers behind SuperWEIRD from Luden.io recently shared a detailed breakdown of how they approached itch.io discoverability as a system to be studied and optimized rather than treated purely as organic luck.

In this interview, the developers discuss what surprised them most about itch.io’s recommendation structure and how they used it to their advantage. Check out the game on itch.

Your post highlights a very data-driven approach to staying on itch.io’s front page. What originally motivated you to treat visibility as a system to be analyzed and optimized rather than something more organic?

Luden.io: Honestly, that’s just how we are as a team. We like digging into systems and figuring out how things work. Also, when we started looking into itch.io, there wasn’t a clear guide anywhere, just bits of advice here and there, sometimes conflicting. At the same time, people kept saying things like “tags matter” and “early engagement matters,” but no one really explained how much or why.

So we figured that instead of guessing, we would treat it like an experiment and see what actually happens.

You experimented with tags, thumbnails, and CTR to improve discoverability. What were the most surprising findings from those experiments, particularly around how itch.io’s algorithms behave?

Luden.io: The most surprising thing we found is how well itch.io’s algorithm handles totally overcrowded segments like visual novels, thanks to the three-level system (New, New & Popular, Featured), split by genres and categories. It is hard to maintain visibility for a long time with a game like that, but if it is well-received, its placement on the site does reflect that.

The front page placement lasted for over a month, which is unusually long. What were the key factors that helped sustain that momentum rather than just achieving an initial spike?

Luden.io: Getting into New & Popular was our first real spike of visibility, and it came from doing a lot of things right on our side, like positioning, tags, visuals, and early engagement. Sustaining that visibility, however, mostly came from being featured on the front page, which is much less predictable.

This is where itch differs from Steam. On Steam, featuring tends to be short and burst-driven, but it is also much more transparent. There is plenty of documentation, many developers share their experience, and in most cases, there is a clear process to follow, or you can simply reach out to support for clarification.

On itch, it is smaller in scale, but spread out over a longer period, giving more consistent visibility over days and sometimes weeks. At the same time, because it is a much smaller platform, the process feels far less transparent.

Later, we found out that featuring is manual, but how decisions are made is still somewhat of a black box. It could be metrics, timing, or even something as subjective as whether the game looks interesting to the admin.

So the takeaway is that you can prepare the ground, make sure your page is strong, your positioning is clear, and you are giving yourself the best possible chance. But the long tail mostly comes from platform-side decisions you do not fully control.

From a production standpoint, how did marketing considerations influence development decisions—did you ever adjust features, visuals, or timing specifically to improve visibility?

Luden.io: Not the core game, but definitely everything around it. We spent a lot of time on the banner, thumbnail, and making sure the page is clear and clickable. Once you start doing that, you realize the game also needs to match what you are showing there.

This was not exactly for itch, but we ran into this on Steam. At one point, we made a GIF and a trailer that leaned into the tower defense side of the game. Not to mislead anyone, we do have those elements; they just were not ready yet when the Steam Tower Defense Fest was happening.

That process made us notice something important. Our “towers” did not really look like towers. They were more like living idols with eyes shooting lasers. Which is super weird (pun intended), but not what people expect when they see “tower defense.” So we changed them. Now they look much closer to what players expect, actual towers manned by robots.

And probably a more influential decision came recently. For our game, we are planning to have online co-op at release. It is already in the works, but initially we thought about holding it back and not showing it in demos until very late, closer to launch.

Luden.io: Our release on itch, along with CrazyGames and Game Jolt, changed that perspective. Even with just single-player and local co-op, we received a lot of useful feedback, which showed how valuable it is to expose systems to players early.

We realized that if we want to get multiplayer right, we need to give it the same early exposure by putting it into players’ hands earlier. For testing, for marketing, for gathering feedback. And we shouldn’t do it too close to release.

Many indie developers struggle with discoverability. Based on your experience, what are the most common mistakes developers make when launching on platforms like itch.io?

Luden.io: A few mistakes based on our experience and what we heard from colleagues we talked to before running our campaign:

• Not having a web build means losing a lot of potential players. itch.io is fundamentally a web gaming platform.
• Not paying attention to tags at all, just selecting a few that match your game and calling it a day.
• Launching during big jam events like Ludum Dare is a great way to get buried.

Ignoring the initial push. Ask your friends to find the game on itch and click on your banner at launch. It sounds silly, but it helps move you from “Most Recent”, where every new game appears, to “New & Popular”, where visibility is much higher.

Looking ahead, do you think this kind of algorithm-aware, data-driven approach will become essential for indie developers, or is there still room for more traditional, organic discovery?

Luden.io: It definitely helps, but it will not guarantee anything. You can improve your chances by understanding how things work, but there is still a lot you cannot control, like how the platform decides to promote games.

So it is more about stacking the odds in your favor. We are sharing our findings so others do not have to start from scratch and can approach their itch release more informed.

There is still room for organic discovery, especially in genres that attract strong influencer interest. We have not explored the horror segment much, but there are content creators who regularly review itch games and post videos or streams in the comments.

We also did influencer outreach, but our build is still a bit too early and small for most creators in our genre. Plus, automation games are not very common on itch.

Anything else you'd like to add?

Luden.io: On one side, you have web platforms like CrazyGames or Poki. They’re very metric-driven. If your game doesn’t hit certain numbers of playtime, it simply doesn’t get visibility. That creates a very specific environment where games need to hook players instantly to survive.

On the other side, there’s itch.io. It doesn’t feel nearly as driven by strict performance metrics, and it has a much more exploration-driven community. People go there looking for something unusual, and that gives more space for niche or experimental games to find their audience.

We tested a very similar build on CrazyGames, and the difference in player behavior was clear. On CrazyGames, sessions were short, just a few minutes. On itch.io, players would often stay for over an hour, behaving much closer to PC Steam users, and that is very valuable. For us itch.io worked as a place to experiment before going all-in on Steam.

Luden.io, Developers of SuperWEIRD

Interview conducted by David Jagneaux