One of the reasons game demos are so critically important for indie developers is that two of the top three methods of organic (vs. paid) exposure (game festivals and streamers) often require demos to even prompt that exposure to begin with. (The second best method of organic exposure is TikTok — more on this later.)

• Festivals (e.g. Tiny Teams on Steam, Wholesome Games, physical festivals) often require a demo. One of the best ways to boost the chances of getting a game into these festivals is by giving festivals exclusive access to a demo, a cinematic trailer, a gameplay trailer, and/or some other exclusive game announcement.
• Streamers obviously need something to play if they’re going to talk about a game in more than a passing sentence or two.

A third critically important reason to have a demo release is that it can be a powerful tool for community building, especially for indie studios without an existing community.

There are two typical successful demos pathways for indie game developers:

1. Soft Launch: A demo is released with periodic updates (featuring bug fixing and new features). A new demo version will often be released exclusive to festivals or major announcements (such as a Kickstarter being launched). This can overlap with early access and shares the benefits early access games often have (e.g. community building, “free” bug reporting instead of having to hire testers, etc.). It’s often good for indie game developers without a preexisting audience, as it allows you to build an audience along the way that can bug test and hype up each release.
2. Hard Launch: A demo is hard launched with a festival or major announcement. This is often good for indie game developers with an existing audience that can promote the demo drop to the point of being a trending topic of discussion.

Important features for indie game demos:

Marketing

• Feature a “call to action” (CTA) on the start screen, pause screen, quit screen, and end screen. These CTAs should be different for each screen, but should include a direct wishlist link (e.g. a Steam page), social links (e.g. Twitter, TikTok, Youtube, etc.), and community links (e.g. a Discord server, email list sign-up).
• Have an appealing in-game incentive to sign up for the email list. Email marketing can be 10x more powerful than social media marketing when utilized efficiently. This is especially critical for indie game studios who are starting out and building a community from scratch. An in-game incentive can be a mini-quest, a new character skin, a cool item, etc.
• Have a “bare minimum” presence on social media platforms. You don’t need more than a few posts and a pinned tweet, but have something that people can look at and decide they want to follow.
• Have a Discord server set up for a community to trickle in from the demo. A Discord server should NOT be set up long before a demo is released unless the game studio already has a preexisting audience — it’s not good for people to join with no existing conversation and no game material to talk about. You want people coming in and raving over characters together, exchanging tips on how to complete a puzzle, making fanart, etc.
• Release a demo trailer on social media. More on this later…
• Prepare a simple press kit. Any released game will need this at some point, and it’s good to have this set up as soon as possible for potential media coverage (or even if community members just want .pngs of the characters to make memes out of).

Game Design

• Decide a duration and stick to it. (IMO this shouldn’t be shorter than 30 minutes, and shouldn’t be longer than 2 hours, at least for a first version release.)
• Establish a goal for the player straight from the get-go. This can be a goal that is achieved at the end of the demo, that brings the player to a cliffhanger at the end of the demo, or a small goal that leads to larger objectives in the demo.
• Throw the player in the middle of the action with little baggage or tutorials bogging down the game playing experience. Any UI or features that might be used in the full game but is currently unusable in the tutorial should be taken out. Include your coolest hooks and most charming dialogue. That said…
• Leave the player wanting more. Lock out weapons/items/levels/game areas, but show those features in some capacity in the demo to leave the player wondering what they’re missing. End the story included in the demo on a cliffhanger to keep the players wondering what will happen if they buy the full version.