[{"content":"I will now proceed to Autism about why YOU should leverage the itch.io DEVLOGS Tab both as a developer AND as a gamer! It is brilliant in its rewarding of sustained effort. The platform cares about this sustained effort in their elusive algorithm, and you focus on quality over quantity investing in your existing fanbase.\nContinuous Effort and Investment What are Devlogs? It works like this: itch.io allows one to make \u0026ldquo;blog posts\u0026rdquo; within their game. These posts cover everything from explaining your game design process to patch notes. itch will feature those posts in their \u0026ldquo;Devlogs\u0026rdquo; tab only a click away from the front page, sorted by popularity and recentness.\nDevlogs are how you get noticed amidst the garbage. itch.io is a niche platform compared to Steam1, but is also free to upload. Usually randos simply upload trash and move on in life; whether as a student/hobbyist or those looking to make a quick buck. But it is also a place for those looking to make a decent game for others to simply have fun. And despite its size the platform pulls more than its weight in making that happen.\nIf one uploads trash and moves on, then trash it will stay. But every game starts out as trash, no? Here, for each update you post, you can tell others about it and they can see you working on your passion a little bit at a time. They might not care about your first one. But the next, and the next? \u0026ldquo;Hey, haven\u0026rsquo;t I seen this one before? Might as well check it out.\u0026rdquo; Each exposure makes them a little more receptive.\nMajor Updates! When you label a devlog as a \u0026ldquo;Major Update\u0026rdquo;, itch can even consider your project a \u0026ldquo;new\u0026rdquo; game for algorithm purposes if they deem your changelog to be substantial enough to constitute as such (this is a manually approved process else it would 1000% be gamed). Explicitly rewarding sustained effort.\nAnd if you have an existing fanbase, no matter how small, they\u0026rsquo;ll appreciate it. They already believe in your game; and showing them you do too keeps them Beholden . Demos will get \u0026ldquo;new\u0026rdquo; members of your audience interested, but devlogs create sustained interest among the existing audience instead of them simply moving to the next shiny object. Both are essential.\nWho will notice? I will Notice. You should notice. But itch is such a minuscule platform, why should I even care?\nI care. As a scout, I\u0026rsquo;ve \u0026ldquo;weighted\u0026rdquo; Steam with less importance over time owing to the sheer fixation the riff-raff has on \u0026ldquo;winning\u0026rdquo; its algorithm. Devlogs are such a refreshing way of filtering out garbage and giving a second chance to those that didn\u0026rsquo;t give up. Many of the games in my It Speaks to Me collection have been found long after release, sometimes still in obscurity; such as:\nColor Coordination — A short yet solid puzzle and sweet story found a year after release Rusted Moss Found in demo phase in 2022 (2 months after demo release) owing to a single bug fix log. Pineapple Works didn\u0026rsquo;t end up taking them, but it\u0026rsquo;s quite successful with an avid speedrunning community. I don\u0026rsquo;t mind. ==And you, as a gamer==, should probably care too. You can find hidden gems that get buried simply for being \u0026ldquo;too old\u0026rdquo;. You can make someone\u0026rsquo;s day by showing they\u0026rsquo;re still relevant. Steam just doesn\u0026rsquo;t do this Steam does not have a comparable feature to this. And I don\u0026rsquo;t believe it even can. While Steam does allow one to post devlogs, they do not promote them in the manner itch does. Only people that already own/follow the game see it on their feed and there is no dedicated section of the store for them. itch fills a niche that Steam cannot. Steam focuses on catering to the \u0026ldquo;mainstream\u0026rdquo;: new games, AAA audiences, contemporary community. If they did try to implement something like this, it would compromise on some things they do want to prioritize. The \u0026ldquo;structure\u0026rdquo; of a social platform affects what kinds of content does well on it, and you can never have it all.\nSo these niches will always have their place even as Steam remains a \u0026ldquo;monopoly\u0026rdquo;. Use both!\nQualitative Study Of course, developers don\u0026rsquo;t want to put out detailed devlogs without evidence of increased visibility. To that end, I did a qualitative study of select games2 with varying levels of devlog frequency. I plotted itch downloads and Steam wishlists as a function of time, and marked on which dates the devlogs happened.\nUnfortunately\u0026hellip; Steam does not provide number of downloads as a function of time. I don\u0026rsquo;t know why. That data would have helped.\nCheckmage! This one published devlogs every week from 21 Jul 2025 onward, uploading patch notes and discussing its game design. None were labelled \u0026ldquo;major\u0026rdquo;, but the consistency did have a nonzero impact on itch and Steam.\nDevlog start date highlighted in pink line The biggest spikes are from trailers on YouTube going viral The number of itch views remains nonzero throughout development. There is always a couple of downloads for the majority of devlogs published. Aside from the two massive jumps in wishlists on Steam, the number of lifetime wishlists slowly but steadily increases.\nPsycutlery This one published 5 devlogs, and unfortunately Steam did not provide useful data for it because it was free3. They also did not publish any devlogs while in demo phase. These were:\n05 Jan 2024 (Major; itch release) 09 Feb 2024 19 Jun 2025 06 Jul 2025 (Steam page published) 08 Aug 2025 (Steam launch) Devlog dates in green itch does not allow graph for more than 1 year The second devlog prevented downloads+views from falling to zero a few weeks after it was posted, sustaining post-release interest at least 3 weeks longer than it would have otherwise. The last 3 logs do not seem to have an effect on itch stats.\nColorCoordination Also free3, so no useful data from Steam.\n26 Dec 2024 (Release) 28 Dec 2024 06 Jan 2025 (Total downloads as a function of time) Somehow this one has steadily increasing downloads regardless of any post-release devlogs. Aside from the spike in Apr 25, the game had a steady increase of roughly 1.39 downloads per day on itch.\nConclusion Even though the impact of devlogs is negligible, I personally believe it\u0026rsquo;s still worth doing. I am telling this world that this is an untapped well for finding hidden gems, this feature is brilliant, and MORE gamers should use this to discover titles they otherwise would have missed! The unglamorous sustained effort is a little less so now, and we as gamers MUST coalesce around it.\nOkay everything is niche compared to Steam.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nCheckmage by posshydra, Psycutlery by Skye June, and Color Coordination by Demso. All of them have Relma\u0026rsquo;s Seal of Approval, so give them a play! Thanks to these devs for sharing their stats.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nA bunch of bots claimed/wishlisted it\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"May 17, 2026","permalink":"/blog/use-your-itchio-devlogs/","summary":"Why YOU should leverage the itch.io DEVLOGS tab both as a dev AND gamer.","title":"Use Your itch.io Devlogs, People!","type":"blog"},{"content":"My name is Relma. I\u0026rsquo;m a computer scientist, indie game scouter, and self-proclaimed Muse Hunter. This is an introductory blog post to explain who I am and what I want to do.\nNOTE: This post was first published to leaflet.pub. It is reproduced on my static site blog now that I have that instead.\nTable of Contents Muse Hunting What is it? How do I do it? What have I found so far? Career Goals? Computer Science, Mathematics, and FOSS Muse Hunting The primary purpose of this blog is as a place to put my thoughts, reviews, and generally maintain some public presence as a Muse Hunter in the indie video game space.\nWhat is it? \u0026ldquo;Muse Hunting\u0026rdquo; is a \u0026ldquo;job title\u0026rdquo; I made up. It encompasses:\nscouting for promising titles while they are in an unfinished \u0026ldquo;fledgling\u0026rdquo; (aka demo) stage acting as publicist and agent securing financial and other material resources QA and like a bunch of other things that a \u0026ldquo;backstage person\u0026rdquo; does I\u0026rsquo;ve been doing it informally and as a hobby for the past\u0026hellip; Scattered Stars, it has been years. To repay a game that found me and saved my life, a long time ago. And because I want to have a hand in something entering the Cultural Lexicon as a support role. It is what I was made for.\nHow do I do it? My flow for Muse-Hunting generally consists of the following steps:\nSearch platforms (primarily itch and Steam) for games in their demo phase in need of resources Evaluate said demo. If i fall in love with it, then\u0026hellip; See if its Vessel(s) have problems that money alone cannot fix.1 If so, appoint myself the backstage person and assist in securing resources, financial and otherwise. Usually just emailing a fuck-ton of streamers and recommending them to the (one) publisher I scout for. I have noted preferences that I have. A hard one is story-focused and character-driven content. I want to have at least one character I am wholly invested in and want to see more of by the end. What have I found so far? It would be tedious of me to list all the games I have found worthy over the years here, but I do have such a list elsewhere.\nOn itch.io I maintain two Collections. The Steam equivalents unfortunately have confounding and unintuitive interfaces, so I don\u0026rsquo;t do it there:\nThe Queue — A list of games in my \u0026ldquo;to-do\u0026rdquo; list to evaluate. How quick I am at actually working through that queue\u0026hellip; is another story. To say nothing of a similar collection I have on Steam. It Speaks To Me — A list of games that have passed my muster. I advocate for them at every opportunity. Career Goals? As of now, I\u0026rsquo;m an informal scouter for a publisher2. I want more, of course. I\u0026rsquo;m quite introverted, so what connections I have made reside almost entirely in DMs.\nI seek a career as that \u0026ldquo;backstage person\u0026rdquo;. The music industry has (had?) a formal role called Artists and Repertoire (A\u0026amp;R) that encompassed much of the same ideas. The game industry\u0026hellip; has not formalized this niche yet. I think it would be most fruitful if it did.\nTo be just like the legendary A\u0026amp;R Men of old\u0026hellip; wouldn\u0026rsquo;t that be nice. Putting myself out there in a public, but still personal space is, I think, a good first step. Who knows how I will look back on this later.\nComputer Science, Mathematics, and FOSS I\u0026rsquo;m also a theoretical computer scientist (actually a pure mathematician in disguise) by training, and I am interested in topics in CS and the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) space. I might write about these things as well if it suits me.\nOtherwise guys like Devolver would have picked them up already.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\nPineapple Works Not officially employed, just friends with the leader. Don\u0026rsquo;t \u0026ldquo;pitch\u0026rdquo; me.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","date":"May 5, 2026","permalink":"/blog/hello-world/","summary":"My name is Relma. I'm a computer scientist, indie game scouter, and self-proclaimed Muse Hunter\u0026hellip;","title":"Hello World!","type":"blog"},{"content":"List of games still in demo phase I am currently Beholden to and have/am Secondary-ing for. Will manually keep this list updated. They lie \u0026ldquo;dormant\u0026rdquo; in terms of a fandom, but there is always still hope.\n#TODO Write blurbs and put this list in \u0026ldquo;card\u0026rdquo; form, add links\nGata Guressi Dead Horizon Telegeddon Successful Scouts Greek Tragedy — The only title my efforts have gotten a publisher signing for. Upon release however\u0026hellip; it didn\u0026rsquo;t sell so well. #TODO do a postmortem. ","permalink":"/beholdenbeholden/","summary":"List of games still in demo phase I am currently Beholden to and have/am Secondary-ing for. Will manually keep this list updated. They lie \u0026ldquo;dormant\u0026rdquo; in terms of a fandom, but there is always still hope.\n#TODO Write blurbs and put this list in \u0026ldquo;card\u0026rdquo; form, add links\nGata Guressi Dead Horizon Telegeddon Successful Scouts Greek Tragedy — The only title my efforts have gotten a publisher signing for. Upon release however\u0026hellip; it didn\u0026rsquo;t sell so well. #TODO do a postmortem. ","title":"\u003ci\u003eBeholden\u003c/i\u003e Beholden","type":"page"},{"content":"This is the Glossary Page. It is not supposed to appear on the Main Blog, but can be linked to to explain terms.\nDon\u0026rsquo;t take this too seriously. It\u0026rsquo;s part fantasy lorebuilding, part personal philosophy, all madness. Just treat it like the Relma extended mythos.\nMuse An entity that bears Divine Inspiration into our universe in the form of art, science, etc. They do this by carrying glimpses from another universe into ours. Without them, our drawings are mere scribbles and our songs are cacophonies. #TODO write some more?\nGenius This word\u0026rsquo;s etymology originates from LATIN.1 A genius is a \u0026ldquo;tutelary or moral spirit\u0026rdquo; responsible for guiding how a human works and what they \u0026ldquo;choose\u0026rdquo; their overarching goals to be. Its talent is external to the person, not controlled by them, and most importantly, borrowed.\nIt was NEVER meant to be thought of as an intrinsic quality of a flesh-and-blood person. Anyone who thinks of themselves or others this way is creating a disastrous recipe for the \u0026ldquo;genius\u0026rdquo; to go to the Vessel\u0026rsquo;s head.\nVessel A Vessel is an author, developer, or other creator who is Inspired by a Muse to create a work that will captivate souls at its directive. They come in three types, with significant overlap between them.\nPrimary Vessel A Primary Vessel is one who creates the work directly. They are the one wielding the paintbrush, the game engine, the instrument, or any other tool necessary to create the work itself.\nThe first primary Vessel holds a privileged position over other vessels, though other primary Vessels, such as actors, may be brought on later in a work\u0026rsquo;s creation. The primary vessel is usually what one refers to when they speak of a \u0026ldquo;vessel\u0026rdquo; or \u0026ldquo;artist\u0026rdquo;.\nThe first individual(s) who become Beholden to a Muse.\nSecondary Vessel A Secondary Vessel is responsible for the distribution of a work and the clearing of obstacles that a Muse or Primary might encounter when creating a work. They are tools Charged to service (not serve!) other tools.\nThese include funders, marketers, tool creators, and, of great significance to myself, publishers and their scouts (like me!).\nTheir function is to supply resources, material and otherwise, to the Primary and generally do things expected of a \u0026ldquo;backstage person\u0026rdquo;.\nTertiary Vessel A Tertiary Vessel creates and distributes derivative works and supplementary content of the original Inspired work. These include fan-artists, wiki editors, and streamers. Many of them, especially streamers, also count as Secondaries because their content helps distribute the work via advertisement.\nBeholden A Beholden is a person who:\nis exposed to a Muse either by consuming the work it inspires or by Divine Inspiration itself as Vessel becomes captivated by that work and falls in love with it enough to integrate it as a part of themselves this captivation can never be undone so long as they live A Muse\u0026rsquo;s goal is to acquire as many Beholden as possible and thus enter the Cultural Lexicon. Lost Infinity The \u0026ldquo;place\u0026rdquo; (?) that Muses originate from. It\u0026rsquo;s not exactly a place. It lies outside all existences. While universes are themselves infinite, the Lost Infinity is even more infinite than that. Think of it as the difference between countably vs. uncountably infinite.\nSoul An illusion that there exists an atomic, indivisible, non-duplicatable, and non-falsifiable unit of \u0026ldquo;personhood\u0026rdquo; that is both necessary and sufficient for that personhood to exist. Souls aren\u0026rsquo;t real. #TODO Publish some philosophy post about internal taste loops and \u0026quot;degrees\u0026quot; of freedom.\nCharge The purpose a Muse Speaks into its Vessel(s). It is a command one can\u0026rsquo;t refuse. This is distinct from a job, in which a human gives compensation in exchange.\nIf a job and a Charge intersect, then the employer would be a Secondary Vessel and must properly compensate them as material resource. Anyone who forgets this is a bad Secondary.\nThe resemblance to the Arabic djinn is a total coincidence, but the underlying principle is still sound. The genius came from something outside of oneself.\u0026#160;\u0026#x21a9;\u0026#xfe0e;\n","permalink":"/glossary/","summary":"This is the Glossary Page. It is not supposed to appear on the Main Blog, but can be linked to to explain terms.\nDon\u0026rsquo;t take this too seriously. It\u0026rsquo;s part fantasy lorebuilding, part personal philosophy, all madness. Just treat it like the Relma extended mythos.\nMuse An entity that bears Divine Inspiration into our universe in the form of art, science, etc. They do this by carrying glimpses from another universe into ours. Without them, our drawings are mere scribbles and our songs are cacophonies. #TODO write some more?\n","title":"Glossary","type":"page"}]