My Game Got Noticed, but Then Crickets

Okay, so I made this little word game, Subliminal Words. It’s pretty simple – you look at a weird picture the computer made and try to find hidden words. I thought it was kinda neat, something different.

Then, get this, Apple put it in their “New Games We Love” thing for a bit back in December 2023. For a guy like me, just making stuff in my spare time, that felt pretty cool, like a little win.

But honestly? After that little boost on the iPhone side, things kinda went back to quiet. Over on Google Play, it was pretty much silence from the start. Turns out, even if your game is alright and not like all the other ones out there, it’s still super hard to get people to actually play it if you don’t have any cash to tell them about it.

I’ve got a couple of other similar quick games too – one where you find words in faces (Subliminal Faces) and a football quiz one (Subliminal Football Quiz). All my own silly ideas. You can get ’em on iPhones and Androids. They make a tiny bit of money if people buy hints or get rid of ads, or sometimes watch an ad.

I even set it up so I can add new levels easily and run little contests. The few people who do play them seem to like ’em, which is nice to hear.

Basically, making these games and keeping them running doesn’t take up too much time each week. But getting people to find them? That’s the tough part. I tried some ads on Google, but I didn’t really know what I was doing, so that didn’t go anywhere.

So, yeah. My little game got a tiny bit of love from Apple, which was awesome for a minute. But it really shows you that even if your thing is good, getting noticed without money is a real slog.

I’m thinking about what to do next. I’ve got new ideas, but no cash to make them happen. Maybe someone who makes word games would be interested in teaming up?

By the way, if anyone’s interested in taking these off my hands, they’re actually up for sale here: https://flippa.com/11977694-3-games-android-ios-subliminal-words-subliminal-faces-subliminal-football-quiz-subliminal-words-was-featured-in-appstore-under-new-games-we-love