Author: Lovebird Game Studios

There will be some spoilers mentioned throughout this post, so it would be best not to read it yet if you haven’t finished the game.

This was my first time writing a full-length game soundtrack. I dabbled a little bit in composing and arranging before Band Camp Boyfriend. Probably not as much as I would have liked, but enough to get to the point where I was able to compose original melodies, and not just subconsciously recycle ideas I’d heard before. I was pretty much learning as I went along when it came to getting virtual instruments to perform my ideas. I’m not sure how much that shows in the final product!

In the very, very early days (like when the characters were still forming) we weren’t even thinking of doing an original soundtrack, and we were exploring free libraries. At some point in time I don’t remember, I decided we weren’t doing that anymore, at all, and I took full ownership of the soundtrack. We even got a couple random offers from freelance composers who liked our concept and expressed interest in helping us out but I was like…NO. This soundtrack is mine. My own. 

Taylor already used this joke but IDC.

So I set out to compose what would become a nearly 40-track OST, not knowing how much I didn’t know. But that’s probably good, or else I might have gotten too overwhelmed to continue.

The Blue Mountain High School Alma Mater was the very first original piece I wrote for Band Camp Boyfriend. I came up with the melody while recording myself messing around on flute (not a flute player, so I was assured the fingerings were easy!), then I went home and made a piano arrangement. Taylor helped write the lyrics. The Alma Mater is the core of the OST, which represents the band’s solidarity, and the piece that all the others would eventually grow out of. You can hear the main motif from the alma mater throughout the soundtrack. In fact, you can hear motifs from many pieces cross-pollinated over the OST. I always loved the use of the leitmotif in composition for films and games–how different musical themes are used to represent characters, places, and ideas–and how they can be weaved together and developed over time to take on new meanings. 

The contour of the melody kind of looks like mountains, doesn’t it? You can hear this motif echoed all over BCB’s soundtrack.

Since this was a game about music, it was a given that it would need a more extensive OST than the norm, and that there would have to be a lot of diegetic music (i.e. music that exists within the actual world of the game). The alma mater, the band show, and the drum cadence are examples. I was always set on writing a drum cadence for the game’s title screen, because what screams marching band more than that? It was another first. I had never written a drum cadence before this (not a drummer), so it was tough to get started on it, but once I did I just kind of wrote this one by heart. It was definitely influenced by my college’s drum cadence in the way it changes up every 4-8 bars. I learned from this venture that I’m more of a melodic composer than a rhythmic composer, as I found it easiest to write the bass drum ideas first, and then build the rest of the drumline around those.

I primarily compose in Sibelius because classical notation just makes way more sense to me than looking at a bunch of blocks in a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation). I did almost all my mixing in there too, which is…probably bad, but hey. It worked! I think. I bought a subscription to EastWest Composer Cloud to extend my sound library. Most of Sibelius’s default brass sounds are not very realistic sounding, so Composer Cloud was especially helpful in that regard. Would recommend.

The nice thing about Sibelius is that it does come packaged with a bunch of VDL (Virtual Drumline) sounds including battery and pit percussion. To me, the pit and the battery are the staple sound of marching band, so I frequently used pit percussion in my instrumentation, particularly the marimba and vibraphone, to give the OST that marching band backbone and a cohesive feel. I also wanted to make a point to spotlight each instrument in the wind section, and I think each one has at least one standout track. Jazz band was my favorite music activity outside of marching band and I played trumpet in big bands and jazz combos for many years, so there are a lot of jazz-inspired pieces throughout the OST.

Earlier on when we were still working on the first demo, I wasn’t so concerned with the soundtrack as a whole, and was just having fun writing “overworld” themes and character themes. I had the idea that different music would play throughout the day, and wrote Beating Sun (morning), 3:00 PM (afternoon), and Days Gone By (evening) which all share themes. I have a lot of different inspirations, but Animal Crossing New Leaf music was a big one here, in the way different music plays through the day, and also in tone. I even listened through ACNL’s OST to make sure I wasn’t subconsciously copying anything. 

One of my favorite parts of writing the soundtrack was coming up with all the main character themes. When I was a kid, I loved how in Sonic Adventure 2 Battle (old, I know…) each character had their own genre of music attributed to them, and wanted to do something similar with BCB. It was fun to think, what is this character’s musical signature? I’m going to talk about each one here and I will -try- to be brief.

Peter: Flying High was one of the first character themes I wrote, and it went through a couple iterations. A sassy funk-based tune that heavily features the trumpet section, of course. You can hear the “Days Gone By” chord progression in the background of the B section of this piece, hinting at his angst. I actually wanted to spice up this one even more with heavier big band instrumentation, but I ended up thinking functionally it was better if this song wasn’t -too- in your face considering it plays often. Ah well, the bigger version will live on in my mind!

Clark: Clark’s theme is a remnant of the days of browsing free music libraries. I had jokingly selected an arrangement of Hall of the Mountain King by Kevin Macleod to represent grumpy Clark (Hall of the MOUNTAIN King? Blue Mountain? Clark wants to be king? Geddit??). It stuck, and I ended up making my own version which was an arrangement for woodwind quintet. Clark also ended up with a secondary theme because I ended up wanting something more sweet and sensitive for his route. I continued the theme of using classical music for him and selected…literally the first clarinet sonata that came up when I searched clarinet repertoire in the public domain. The Saint Saens Clarinet Sonata was perfect. I imagine it is the piece Clark heard when he first fell in love with the clarinet.

Samuel: Blues Mountain is a jazz waltz that came to me while driving. I wanted Samuel’s theme to sound like a jazz standard. I feel like I was being influenced by a particular one, but I have yet to figure out which one. It starts out with no saxophone and gives the sense something is missing, then the sax takes over the melody once you get to know him better. The plodding melody takes a while to develop, starting out mournful, then becoming more thoughtful and passionate. Just like Samuel. 🙂

Doug: I also came up with the main melody while in the car. When that happens, you got to quick hit record on your phone and sing it before it’s gone. Just Doug is a cheesy pseudo-reggae sounding thing with a lot of different percussion instruments. If it had lyrics, the lyrics would be D-d-d-d-d-Doug D-d-doug. A simple and easy-going melody in an easy key, since Doug is a simple guy with simple needs. There is also a faster version with more drums for chaotic Doug moments.

Poptart: The cute, bouncy melody of Offbeat is broken up between many instruments (French Horn being one) since Poptart doesn’t have a good sense of identity yet, thanks to his upbringing. This is another piece that changes once you get to know the character more. The cheerful melody remains, but some of the more odd and sinister notes start to come out of the woodwork, alluding to his disturbed mind.

Tom: Let It Slide is the last character theme I wrote rather late in the process. I actually wrote a completely different piece early on, then trashed it. I wanted it to be a sentimental piece not heard as often, that showcases the more beautiful character of the trombone, which usually gets stereotyped as loud and goofy. It shares a lot of motifs with Beating Sun, since Tom is the reason Cadence is still in band and vice versa.

Cadence: I consider IGNITE–the upbeat marching band pep song featuring brass and drumline–to be Cadence’s theme song. It heavily features mellophones on the melody since that was her instrument before she became drum major. This song also plays in scenes where the spirit of competition is alive and well. I also made a crappy “dubstep” version of Ignite called Suicide Mission, since I imagine within the world of the game this song would have been a popular song that was arranged for band.

Mr. Wiley: I always knew I wanted to use a Sousa march for Wiley’s theme, One More Time, and I settled on one that was a little less culturally significant(?). The High School Cadets March sounds upbeat and cheerful, but it’s in a strange key and has this underlying tension about it, which is perfect for Wiley. Initially, I wanted to use more of the piece than just the trio, but I ended up thinking that was too much. You can also hear Semper Fidelis March (which became the bad ending theme, for some reason) and the BMHS Alma Mater in this repetitive piece.

Garth…doesn’t have a theme song. I wonder why. Sorry Garth! I guess he gets associated with 3:00 PM a lot though, doesn’t he?

By now, it should be evident I referenced a number of classical pieces in the OST. Because if you already have great music available to you in the public domain, then why not take advantage? Aside from the pieces I mentioned already, the most obvious is the use of Gustav Holst’s The Planets for the actual marching band show, and you can also hear themes from Venus and Mars in a couple of the other tracks (Run Like Hell, Summer’s End/Melvin, and of course Venus and Mars).

I elected not to write out the entire marching band show (except Jupiter for the end credits) because I didn’t think it would all be heard in a typical play-through anyway. And I had to draw the line somewhere if I was ever going to get done with this soundtrack. 

2022 was crunch time, as Taylor was set on a Spring 2023 release. By 2022, I had all the ideas for the soundtrack sketched out, but there were a good number of pieces sitting waiting to be completed, and some waiting to be started. At some point I realized the OST was becoming too big. I planned waaay too many tracks, including a lot of tracks that would only play in one scene. Most AAA Otome games clock-in at 25 tracks or so and I was over 40. I had to make sure the remaining pieces were versatile and would suit a range of moods/scenes, and I also had to make some cuts unfortunately. For example, I was going to do a full band arrangement of The High School Cadets March for the parade practice scene in Tom’s route, but my sister convinced me to skip it since it’d only be in one scene. And since it starts and stops so much, it probably wouldn’t even be heard in its entirety. So we just reused Wiley’s theme.

The one piece I kind of wish I hadn’t cut was Samuel’s Section Day song, since it is a significant moment. I toyed with doing a sax quartet arrangement of 3:00 PM, since that would have fit the mood. But to be honest, I always imagined the song was Birdland, which is NOT public domain, so I wouldn’t be able to arrange that without paying who knows what. 

Next time you play Sam’s route, listen to this and use your imagination.

One of my biggest challenges was writing tension music. I put it off for a long time, and I fear it may be the weakest part of the soundtrack. The thing about BCB is–once the major plot twist happens in each route, suddenly the perky day-to-day music doesn’t fit the mood so much anymore, and we need some different sounding music to replace it. Using free music or hiring a guest composer was still out of the question, so I powered through it. Songs like Bad Vibes, Death March, Run Like Hell, PTSD, and Escape Plan filled that void. 

Another thing I have a tough time with is writing for guitar. I don’t play guitar. Tried it several times, didn’t like it. So I kind of just write those parts by ear, not completely knowing if what I’m writing makes sense from a playing standpoint. I feel that music is better if written idiomatically, as in playable with respect to ranges and technicalities of each instrument, even if it’s going to be performed by virtual instruments.

2022 was not a great year for me, but I somehow managed to put everything else aside and bang out the rest of the soundtrack, which I completed in March of 2023. Not every piece turned out exactly as I had envisioned it, but I guess that’s just how it goes. I can only hope the emotions I was trying to get across are there.

That last year, I got an insane amount of work done and it showed me what I’m capable of if I don’t spend so much time stalling waiting for ideas to come to me, which was my “process” for writing a number of pieces. Since I’m such a perfectionist who feels I have to get things right the first time, I would have a single idea sitting in a Sibelius file for months, then a year later I’d come back and write everything once all the ideas came to me. I shouldn’t have approached it that way. I should have just thrown myself into composing each piece and developing those single ideas, like I did once I was forced to in order to get things done on time. One idea is enough to get started.

Another thing I wish I would have done earlier is read through the whole script with the express purpose of really nailing down what kind of music I should be hearing during each scene. This would have saved me from a lot of overplanning, and panicking over whether I’d have a piece in my repertoire to fit each scene. Luckily as time went on, I got better at composing what I call “chameleon pieces,” music that can fit a variety of moods and scenes. Swan Song is one of these. It suits any sad scene, but also beautiful serene scenes such as the one with Peter under the willow.

Anyway. I say all this now, but I’ve done some brainstorming for what comes next after BCB, and I’m picturing around 40 tracks again. So I’m probably not going to be listening to my own advice any time soon. Maybe I’ll crack and hire a co-composer next time, since there is so much that goes into making a game! 

That’s all I got. I hope you learned a little more about music composition for video games, and what went into composing Band Camp Boyfriend’s soundtrack!

-Alex

Marketing. The bane of every game developer’s existence.

You could make the most exciting, innovative game there ever was, but if your marketing sucks and nobody knows about it, your game is dead in the water.

In case you’re a fellow game developer who just happened to stumble across this blog, I have to kick this off by mentioning that I released a total of one whole game and it’s in a niche genre (otome visual novel) about a niche topic that doesn’t get much attention from the media (marching band). However, I know there are a lot of hopeful otome developers out there who might enjoy this point of view, and even if you’re not from that niche, you might still pick up a few tips. Or maybe you’re just a Band Camp Boyfriend fan who loves learning every little detail of our process. Either way, hope you get something out of this!

So disclaimer: This is a summation of my experiences and opinions on the joys of marketing an otome visual novel, along with some advice. Feel free to take it or leave it!

Another disclaimer: I actually do work in marketing for my real life job so I might know what I’m talking about. A little bit. Maybe.

There’s so much to cover, I hope I don’t miss anything. Let’s start with your Steam page!

Steam

If you’re serious about getting eyes on your game, you’re going to want a Steam page. There’s a reason they share in 30% of your profits–they’re the biggest hub for online gaming and they know it.

I put off making a Steam page for a while because there’s quite a bit of work that goes into it, plus a $100 fee for registering your game. Most of my efforts were going into the game itself, but once I finished a lot of major programming, I asked Google, “When is the best time to create a Steam page for my game?” The response: “Yesterday.” …Oops. Luckily, we were a little over a year away from release.

Chris Zukowski’s free course on “How to Market a Game” was an absolute lifesaver! There are a lot of complicated bits you need to get right, straight down to the pixel size of your images. Chris’s course and his blog gave me a lot of insight I didn’t have, and totally shaped the direction of my marketing. Please check out his work and support him if you can!

It’s recommended to get your Steam page up as soon as you have something to show for your game: trailers, screenshots, features, etc. Do NOT put it off until close to release. Steam has a thorough review process for both your store page and your game. If this is your first time, you will probably be going back and forth a lot. They will even tell you helpful advice like, “Hey, you need more gameplay in your trailer,” which honestly is pretty fantastic. They want the products they’re showcasing to look as professional as possible and I love them for it. 

You’ll also want to put your Steam page up early so you can reap other benefits including building your wishlist count and partaking in Steam Next Fest. If you didn’t already know, Steam wishlists are a way consumers can save the game and be notified of its release or a sale. They will receive an email once the game is out, or if the game goes on sale for 20% off or more. The more wishlists your game has, the more visibility it will get at launch and during Next Fest.

One vital tool of marketing is the CTA–the “Call to Action.” It’s telling your audience what to do next and it works wonders. “Wishlist the game on Steam!” will become your battlecry before release. “Play our game!” and “Review our game!” will come later. Don’t forget to often encourage them to follow you on social media, too. Make sure you’re peppering video and graphical assets with calls to action, so your fans know what steps to take!

Let’s talk numbers. I mentioned earlier that a high wishlist count means more visibility at launch. If you have enough, you’ll appear on “popular upcoming games” or even the front page upon release! But you need lots and lots of wishlists for that to happen. I recall the minimum amount being 8,000 to 10,000 wishlists to start appearing. I knew a first time developer releasing a dating sim about a marching band with a female protagonist wasn’t going to appear on “popular upcoming” …but I wasn’t not going to try my hardest! I set a goal for 2,000 wishlists before release and I’m happy to declare that we did indeed make it, having 2,057 wishlists at release! The conversion rate for wishlists to purchases currently stands at 11.6%, which falls within the average.

I don’t know how accurate this is, but I read the number of sales you make in your first year should be around the number of wishlists you had at launch. I would be over the moon with 2,000 sales. I need to check back on May 11, 2024 to see if that holds true or not.

Let’s talk about festivals!

Steam is very kind to upcoming games and will hold Steam Next Fest every three months, which lasts for one week. Developers will often make demos available during this time, or host developer streams. It’s free to enter, so you should definitely opt your game in if possible! I opted in for the February Next Fest, the last one that would be taking place before our release in May, to generate as much hype as possible. My sister and I hosted two developer streams. We were super nervous at what sort of reception we might receive, but our fans showed up for us and there was nothing but positivity! I’m still grateful to this day. In the first hour of each stream, we had hundreds of viewers, thanks to Steam’s extra visibility granted in the first hour of the slot you signed up for. I was pleasantly surprised. A couple of streamers showcased our demo as well. We came away with an additional 198 wishlists at the end of Next Fest.

Band Camp Boyfriend also took part in the new Storyteller’s Festival, hosted by Two and a Half Studios. This festival focused on visual novels and games with strong storytelling aspects. We re-aired our Next Fest stream during this time and gained 124 wishlists.

Definitely take part in festivals! You don’t even need to do a livestream if you’re uncomfortable with it. You can grab pre-recorded gameplay or even simply showcase your demo or Steam page. If you do decide to livestream, I would recommend aiming for a slot earlier in the week when hype for the festival is at its peak.

Wow, did I talk about Steam enough yet? Actually, there’s one more thing to be aware of!

Once you release your game, it’s time to push for reviews! Steam keeps your game locked in a basement like a certain character in Band Camp Boyfriend until you get 10 reviews on your game from people who bought it. Then it receives a rating, and Steam deems it worthy of showing it on their store. So don’t be shy in asking your fans to leave a review!!

Okay, that’s enough of that. Let’s move on to something else…

Itch.io 

If you’re an otome or visual novel developer, Itch.io is a great place to upload your game. While Steam has a convoluted upload process, Itch.io’s is as simple as clicking a button (though be warned, they have a file size limit). Itch.io often hosts all sorts of game jams such as the annual Otome Jam, which shines the spotlight on the little guys. 

I also had a much easier time in uploading a Mac build of my game here. A lot of people have asked why a Mac version of Band Camp Boyfriend is not available to play on Steam. It’s because you need to jump through even more hoops and pay for a yearly developer license with Apple. Based on the ominous countdown at the top of my Steam page, Steam and Mac systems really seem to be going their separate ways. 

I also enjoy the fact that Itch.io has a space for your devlog and a special section to show off the latest entries. Definitely take advantage of that! Your fans will also thank you for updates. I made Quarterly Updates a habit. It helps keep your motivation up when you want to share good news every three months.

I will say, I do wish Itch.io’s customer service team was a bit more responsive, but since they are smaller and don’t have the same resources as Steam, it is to be expected. 

Grab a drink and a snack because it’s time to talk about the dreaded…social media.

Social Media

The brunt of our marketing is definitely social media-based. Despite my penchant to grouse about it, I do feel most comfortable advertising the game in this medium. However, each social media platform comes equipped with its own mechanics, algorithm, and audience. I had a very different experience on each one, so here are my thoughts on what did or didn’t work.

Tumblr 

I love Tumblr! It’s no secret this is my favorite social media platform. Though it is not the best for being seen, the search function is pretty bad, and it can be a bit tough to build a following here, I love the post formatting, I love how I can write as much as I want, and I love the ask box. It really lends itself well to hosting a developer log. I would recommend having a Tumblr solely as a home base to write about development and interact with fans.

Tumblr also has a bit of an older audience and is popular among millennials (sorry to call us an older audience, fellow millennials). If you’re aiming your game at a more mature audience, all the more reason to create a Tumblr. 

If I were to rank our social media accounts based on number of followers, Tumblr would come in a solid third place, leaving those behind it in the dust…but it’s still number one in my heart.

Twitter 

I went kicking and screaming into creating a Twitter, and I definitely didn’t know anything about Twitter etiquette, but eventually I learned to embrace it. It took Twitter a little while to figure me out, which meant a slow start. At first, I was existing in the voice acting circles since most of our followers were, you guessed it, voice actors. Then I entered the gamedev sphere, because there are quite a lot of game developers on there trying to be seen. Then finally, I found the otome audience. 

There is actually quite the otome community that exists on Twitter! I always try to make use of the hashtags #otome, #otometwt, or #otomedev. A faithful little otome bot would help me get seen. I would also participate in #wipwedneday, #wishlistwednesday, and #screenshotsaturday but honestly, I think that’s mostly just gamedevs advertising to one another on there. Fans still appreciated seeing the screenshots while they waited for release, though.

So…many…screenshots…

Unfortunately, I don’t know what the heck is going on with Twitter anymore and I’m not sure I can offer much advice. I’m sure you’ve caught wind of what’s happened. Accounts that don’t pay for a subscription are becoming less and less visible. Hashtags are apparently obsolete now. I have no idea what’s going to happen next. This is why you need to forge your own web presence, but more on that later.

One super cool account for otome lovers is Sammi, who runs otomeaddicted. She will often highlight or stream indie otome games, plus her posts are really fun. Another awesome account is Indie Otome, who gives all kinds of love to indie otome and is super wholesome. Next to Reddit, I’d say Twitter is a good place to find your active otome audience.

Twitter comes in second place on our social media ranking, with over 950 followers. Argh! When are we gonna break 1000?!?

TikTok 

One thing we were struggling with for a while was finding our marching band audience. Marching band is beloved by so many, yet never treated right or depicted accurately by the media. I really wanted to get the eyes of (current and former) band kids on Band Camp Boyfriend, but it was proving to be difficult in locating them. Then, I finally bit the bullet and made an account after reading multiple articles saying that you should be marketing your game on TikTok. The very first video TikTok showed me was a blurry video of someone sticking a fork into a toaster and exploding…greeeaaat…sure hope that’s not a metaphor.

Yes, I went kicking and screaming for this one too. I’m very aware of social media’s effect on one’s mental health. I also majored in Film/Video and TikTok’s celebration of shoddy, home video type format appalled me. Of course, I eventually embraced it too, and had a blast with it. And yes, this is where I finally found my missing marching band audience. TikTok is definitely where the younger generations are hanging out.

If you’re struggling for content ideas, feel free to peruse my account and see what did well. You can tell I wholly embraced the home video format. Sometimes it’s as simple as pointing my phone at the game. Or it’s just a quick video of me being the comic relief character. Occasionally, I edit something higher quality in Adobe Premiere and upload it to YouTube as well, but this can be more time-consuming and TikTok has proven quality is not a priority. Shorter videos are also favored over long-form.

TikTok is fantastic for getting your game in front of new eyes. Tumblr stinks at it. Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram want you to cough up some money first. TikTok is definitely starting to head in that direction, but it’s still “the wild west” in a way. TikTok will run up to random people with your video and ask them if it’s good. If it gets a positive response (the video is viewed until the end/replayed, liked, favorited, shared, or commented on), TikTok shows the video to an even bigger pool of people. If it’s getting plenty of interaction, TikTok will acknowledge it has something good and keep that momentum going. TikTok is special in this way.

I reuploaded this promotional “How to Survive Band Camp 101” video made back in 2018 in pieces and it just took off. I was totally hooked watching those views shoot through the roof. But with great visibility comes great criticism, and videos that performed well came paired with nasty comments. It can be tough to take when you’ve poured your heart and soul in this little passion project of yours, and they’re judging it without really knowing it, or slinging insults at you just because your game doesn’t 100% cater to their tastes. The reality is, marching band kids face a lot of bullying…as do otome games, female protagonists, and media catered towards women…and visual novels aren’t even considered to be real video games by some…so we’re really stacked when it comes to making ourselves a target.

Since game release, I’ve gotten better at brushing off those comments. Sometimes, I’ll straight up delete them because this world needs less negativity in it. If I have the power to delete negativity, then why not? Why shouldn’t I?

One line of thinking I’ve embraced is this is MY platform. It is not anyone else’s. It will not be a platform for hate or negativity. If they want to spew that stuff, they can do it on their own, not mine. This is my space and it is for celebrating Band Camp Boyfriend.

Looking at our follower count on TikTok, you would probably call this our most successful platform, but to be honest, I am not sure the conversion rate (a.k.a. followers turning into customers when they buy your game) is anything to write home about. TikTok hosts a young audience and a number of them have lamented that they don’t have money or own a PC. However, every time we have a video perform well, there is a noticeable spike in views, and recently now that the game is out, a tiny spike in sales! 

As for TikTok’s mysterious algorithm…quite frankly, it’s unpredictable. Some videos take off when I never expected them to (and almost didn’t even want them to). Others immediately go belly-up like a dead fish. The time you post your video is very important to TikTok. I’ve tried posting at different times and have found the most success posting in the late evening of weekdays (minus Friday), when people are typically relaxing with their phones at the end of the day. But that’s not to say I haven’t had a Saturday video go viral on Sunday. All I can say is, find what works best for you–and keep those videos on the short side, because we humans have a short attention span and TikTok pays the most attention to view count, including rewatches. Grab their attention with a hook, but don’t keep them hanging for long. Shareable content also gets you super far. Our videos that did the best always seemed to show a high amount of characters, holding different instruments, because it gave every band kid something to comment on. Another successful approach is videos hinting that Band Camp Boyfriend isn’t as innocent as it looks on the surface. A quick flash of blood certainly gets people talking.

I do think TikTok is starting to get greedy. There was a period of time where I was only getting around 300 views per video despite thousands of followers. Unfortunately, TikTok will not even show your videos to followers at some point because it would rather show them new content, which is super lame. During this time, TikTok started shoving a bunch of coupons at me, trying to get me to buy views, which I stubbornly refused. I didn’t post for a long while, but recently, I got back into it and we’ve been seeing a little bit of success again. I just never know what the heck to do to please TikTok. Sometimes you just gotta post and pray.

Recently, I downloaded CapCut, which makes video-editing easier than ever. Grab a trending template, put it with a background from your game, add a silly caption, and boom, you’re done. I have quite a few sitting in my drafts that I made within one sitting. If you’re not into editing complicated videos, try out CapCut’s templates to make your own memes.

In the end, would I recommend making a TikTok for your game? Yes, absolutely. You won’t find this kind of exposure anywhere else. It’s low effort, high reward. Go in with zero expectations and just have fun with it, because TikTok is unpredictable. And if you encounter haters, don’t let them get you down because you’re making a video game, and that is super cool and a ton of hard work. Keep on keeping on, you absolute badass.

Discord

I always forget about our Discord, which is weird because I’m on Discord a lot…

If you’re really starting to build a following, you should definitely create a Discord for your game. It has caused me a few headaches in the past, when it was subject to the occasional troll. But ultimately, it is a place where fans feel the most comfortable posting fanworks and sharing thoughts on the game with one another. I also love seeing the friendships that have formed as people connect over the game. So you can’t go wrong with building a Discord, which (surprise!) is another wonderful way to keep everyone updated on the latest with your game.

You should also join Discords that relate to your game. The Otome Development Discord is a very cool place to speak to other developers. I’m also in the “How to Market Your Game” Discord, where a ton of awesome resources are shared every day. I bucked up the courage to share my Steam page in there, despite thinking no one would care. Someone watched the trailer, their wife who was in the band heard the music and went “Is that a marching band??” and became interested in the game. And I’m happy they thought to share that with me. That’s my story I remind myself of whenever I’m nervous to share the game somewhere. You just never know where you will find someone who might want to play your game.

Facebook/Instagram 

I made a Facebook page forever ago, but the follower count is still in the gutter compared to the other platforms with a little over 100 followers. Same for Instagram. You’ve got to pay up if you want visibility on these platforms. They’ve been around for quite a while and know how to make a profit.

We did run a Facebook ad during our Kickstarter in 2018, and I will say that I was impressed with its reach. You can really narrow down and find your target audience with their tools. However, I don’t think it amounted to many financial contributions, and I won’t be doing it again.

I think the die-hard, creative fans from TikTok migrated to our Instagram. I have seen awesome fanart show up on Instagram and my interactions there have been very wholesome and sweet. My clumsy fingers are just very bad at typing on a phone so I don’t post there as often as I should. Plus, it’s very hard to be seen on that app by new people. Sorry, Instafam. 

Since neither of these platforms have fared extremely well, I pour most of my energy into the previously mentioned social media!

Reddit 

I could stand on a mountain and shout about how much I love r/otomegames, which I did a fair bit of promotion on, since they are very generous in allowing it, even letting me hold a giveaway. I would recommend posting in Self-Promotion Sunday for smaller updates, but if you have a big announcement like a Kickstarter or game release, create a topic for it.

There is also the smaller yet mighty r/IndieOtome, which lets you promote twice a week and spotlights games. The people who run it are very sweet and passionate about promoting indie games so definitely check it out!

I didn’t have as much success with other Reddits, but depending on the topic of your game, you may find success elsewhere. There’s r/visualnovels, though it seems to favor galge over other genres, so I didn’t get much traction there. There are also reddits for indie game developers and gaming in general, but I never got the courage to post my game there. 

YouTube/Twitch 

Video marketing is becoming more and more popular, so why not go ahead and upload your trailer to YouTube? Even though it’s becoming tougher to get views on there (the algorithm now favors loooong videos because that’s what keeps you on the platform), it’s good to have a YouTube presence. 

And if you enjoy streaming, you might as well add Twitch to that list. We did a few enjoyable Twitch streams in the past, though we’ve shifted gears into streaming on Steam as of late.

Your Website 

I cannot stress this enough: social media is impermanent. We’ve all borne witness to it, especially as of late. The sad fact is, you don’t truly own your social media account. It could be gone tomorrow and that follower count you worked so hard to raise can vanish in the blink of an eye.

That’s why it’s so important to carve out of your own space. If you have the savings for it, consider making your own website. It’s not as fragile as a social media account. If you have an issue with your web host, you can easily switch to another. Also consider an email list! It’s a great option to keep your fans updated with the latest news. I, uh, haven’t gotten around to it yet myself, but I’ve heard good things!

Another cool thing you can do with your website is write a blog, which is good for SEO (search engine optimization) and being seen! There’s no shortage of things to write about when you’re a game developer, and a lot of budding devs will appreciate your perspective!

Other Marketing Methods

If you abhor social media, no worries. There are other marketing strategies you can employ such as reaching out to journalists, reviewers, and streamers. For whatever reason, I always feel the shyest about this. Around the time we got on Steam, I was on such a marketer’s high, I created a press kit and reached out to a handful of people for press releases and requests for reviews of the demo. Sweet n’ Spicy, an otome game review website, did this fabulous review of our demo I like to occasionally reread. Otome Kitten and Otome Obsessed did press releases. Whenever you request this kind of coverage, make sure to send along your press kit: a little zip file that includes basic information on the game, screenshots, trailers, logos, and whatever else you deem important. It will make the other person’s job much easier.

Honestly, I should’ve done this kind of thing for the game’s full release, but I ran out of steam and just kind of collapsed right after passing the finish line.

In the week leading up to release, I ran a free game giveaway on our Tumblr, Twitter, and r/otome. During that time, we gained 23 Tumblr followers, 84 Twitter followers, and 94 wishlists, pushing us past our goal of 2000 wishlists!

I wondered if we would lose those followers once the giveaway was over, but I didn’t notice an obvious decrease. It did a great job getting eyes on us and I would recommend having a free game giveaway since it costs you nothing, generates hype, and gets you a lot of visibility! Everyone loves free stuff!

We’ve also been employing some old-school marketing methods since release. Our amazing, supportive parents wanted to help us promote the game and offered to get T-shirts and business cards made. At first I was like no, that’s fine, we don’t need business cards, but I’ve actually passed out quite a few! If I see a bulletin board in the wild, I tack a little Tom or Poptart to it. I’m looking forward to handing out a few at Otakon if I meet any otome fans, too!

One silly memory I will look back on fondly is the evening of release, my sister and I went out for a nice dinner and drinks, wearing our shirts, to celebrate. Since we’re responsible adults, we walked off the buzz from the alcohol by checking out random stores in the area. A salesman in a furniture store approached me like, “Can I help you?” then he spotted my shirt and was like “Band Camp Boyfriend…I had kids in marching band.” I lit up, uninhibited thanks to the one whole drink I had (leave me alone, I’m a lightweight), and started selling this salesman on Band Camp Boyfriend. 

I remember there was a time when I couldn’t tell people the name of the game without getting a little embarrassed. Those times are long past! Let’s go!!!

What does success look like? 

I feel like throughout this entire journey I was constantly like “We got this many views/followers/downloads! Is that good?!” YES! The answer is always yes, especially if you feel good about it. I had never done this before and had nothing to compare anything to.

As a competitive person who tends to aim for the sun, I would often see all of these successful Kickstarters or otome games that really did well for themselves and feel bad that my game wasn’t seeing the same success. Yeah, don’t do that. Comparison is truly the thief of joy. We are all starting from the bottom, we are all on very different journeys. There’s little point in trying to compare your game with others. It’s like how everyone uses their socials to show off the best pieces of their lives, but we’re all facing challenges behind the scenes. Don’t ever forget that…we ride this struggle bus together.

Focus on yourself and set personal milestones. Celebrate your growth and achievements. Look back on the path you’ve traveled and reflect on how far you’ve come. You define your own success.

Resources That Saved My Bacon

Here are some awesome resources that came in handy for me that I’ll share with you, too. I’ve mentioned him before, but Chris Zukowski’s contributions to the indie game developer scene cannot be understated! Check out his free course on how to create a Steam page as well as his blog.

Aurodev, an indie game developer who speaks on his experiences via YouTube, definitely saved my bacon when it came to uploading Band Camp Boyfriend to Steam. His how-to videos are so easy to follow! Be sure to check out his game releases as well!

Arimia is another one I need to shout out! She’s released many visual novels under the name Crystal Game Works and has written numerous articles about marketing visual novels, utilizing your social media to its fullest potential, and more. Be sure to check her out, especially if you are creating a visual novel game!

There are quite a few other useful articles that taught me valuable things, but I don’t have the energy to hunt down every single one. Just know that Google is your friend!

Final Tips

I’ll wrap things up with a few final tips.

1. Have fun with it! If you’re having fun, others will too.

2. Repurpose your content as often as possible. Pull still graphics from videos. Share the same content across all platforms, fitting it to their format. It will save you time and give you more content to share! Screenshots, gameplay videos, progress updates, memes, polls, personality quizzes, fanart, thoughts on your gamedev journey…there’s all sorts of content you can share and repurpose!

3. Watch out for scammers. Once you release a game, your inbox will fill with requests for free keys. If someone is reaching out to you first, and the copy in their email reads pretty generic, they’re a scammer.

4. Don’t ever feel annoying. This one is forever a work in progress for me, but I at least feel comfortable yodeling on my social media at this point. If people are following you, they want to hear from you and will gladly eat up the content you post. It’s what they’re here for! So post away!
   
5. Choose your release date carefully! Steam has major sales every season. Do your best not to release during them or near them. Otherwise, your game will be competing with discounts and getting less visibility since Steam will be devoted to highlighting the sale.

That’s all I got for today! I hope you came away with a tip or two on how to market your game more successfully. Look forward to a future post written by Alex all about composing Band Camp Boyfriend’s soundtrack. And remember to always believe in your strengths! Have a great day!

This article contains spoilers. Do not read unless you’ve finished Band Camp Boyfriend.

Post-mortem. Such an ominous word. Before you let your imagination take you away, a post-mortem is something game developers often write after the release of the game, usually reflecting on the process and touching on what could have gone better.

I’ve always found the fact that some people will release a game then post an article saying “Post-Mortem: Why My Game Failed” one week later. You just released your game! It’s been out one week, why are you acting as if it’s already deceased?! Personally, I feel like Band Camp Boyfriend just finally came to life! Others can finally experience the story! Releasing a game is a cause to celebrate, but a lot of people seem to be holding funerals one week later.

Okay, okay. I’ll stop going on about it and get started on what you came here to read. There’s quite a bit to touch on and it’s tough to know where to start. I suppose starting from the very beginning is the way to go. For this Post-Mortem, I’ll detail our almost 8-year journey from start to finish. In our following posts, we’ll delve further into what makes up the game (the art, soundtrack, marketing, etc.). Later down the road, we would love to do an in-depth look at each character so follow this blog or our social media for more if you’re interested in that sort of thing!

Whether you’re a fan of Band Camp Boyfriend who is eager to learn more backstory on the game, or a fellow budding game developer looking to pick up a few tips, there’s a little something here for everyone. Read on!

August 2015 – Conception

If you didn’t already know, Lovebird Game Studios consists of my older sister, Alex, and myself. Ever since we picked up our respective instruments (trumpet and French horn), music was everything to us. We were in so many different music-related extracurriculars, but the one activity that stood over everything: marching band.

I don’t think I need to go on how much marching band meant to us. Band Camp Boyfriend is proof enough.

After four years of competitive high school band and four years of Big Ten college football band (both of which were two very different experiences, but equally amazing), it was time to step off the field. However, Alex, who majored in Music Education, scored a gig as an instructor for a local high school marching band. I, forever the little sister following her older sister from activity to activity, became an instructor for that band a year later.

Let’s pause here. If you didn’t already know, Band Camp Boyfriend was born from a deep love of two things. Marching band is one. The other is otome–a genre of visual novels in which you develop a romance between the female protagonist and one of several male love interests. I had discovered the genre when I picked up the Hatoful Boyfriend demo in 2012. Those unforgettable pigeons and their harrowing tales of survival stole my heart away.

Back then, otome games were far less accessible to me because I had no money and no console to play them on. The genre had yet to truly take off in the US. I would scrounge for action points on My Candy Love or scour the internet for free demos I could play. It’s actually funny to think that I had hardly played any otome games before Band Camp Boyfriend was even conceived.

Let’s fast forward back to the summer of 2015.

We were at band practice. We usually hung out in the instrument truck during the breaks. The sun was sinking towards the horizon, casting the field in a golden glow. I was prattling on about my favorite fixation, otome games, when Alex mentioned that there was a free program you could use to create your own otome game. I grew excited at the prospect of making an otome game with my sister. We both loved to write, after all.

“What would it be about?” I asked. Together, we looked towards the band field.

The rest of rehearsal, we could barely contain our excitement. We kept crossing the field to share snippets of ideas with one another. “Each character would be a stereotype of the personality associated with their instrument!” “The trumpet player would have a huge ego.” “The clarinet would be a stickler, always yelling at people to get in position!”

Another aspect that was very important to us was to give marching band the respect it deserves and portray it in the most accurate light ever seen in the media. Movies often make marching bands the butt of the joke, or they tack it onto a character to say “Look at how much of an undesirable nerd they are!” There are a number of movies where classical instruments are tossed aside for “cooler” rock band instruments. It’s pretty insulting. Marching band is incredibly hard work. It has roots in the military, so it’s very physical and often involves running laps, push-ups, and burning calf exercises. Some days, I could barely walk to practice because my legs and feet were so sore.

It’s not just physical, but mental as well. You have to be able to play an instrument. You have to know how to read music, with all of its challenges and nuances. And then you have to memorize that music. And put it to drill, which you’ve also memorized. And you’d better have that marching band technique down perfectly, or else it’s going to affect your sound and drop your band’s score. Now get ready to run this show over and over and over again because we practice five times a week for three or more hours.

Marching band is beloved by so many. Those who have experienced it deserve to be seen. They deserve to have their stories told and their hard work acknowledged.

So that’s what we set out to do.

2015-2017 – Pen To Paper and Fingers to Keyboard

My favorite part of the creation process is coming up with ideas. Unfortunately for those who are in this boat, having the very first step of the journey as your favorite means it’s an uphill battle from here. I would often use climbing mountains as my favorite metaphor in this journey so put on your hiking boots.

One thing we decided early was that we would have the game take place during the year we aimed to release: 2020. We thought 2020 had a great ring to it. …Yeah, we all know how that turned out.

Tip #1! This one goes out to indie game developers everywhere: it always takes longer than you think. I thought we were giving ourselves ample time by putting the release five years out. Ah, well. I’ve mentioned before that I have no regrets on the matter, that this game was meant to be released in 2023, though I do feel bad for making the cast, crew, and fans wait so long.

Anyways, way back in those first few years, we had a blast coming up with ideas. It was nice to still be connected with a band, which inspired us further. It was also a new experience to be on the band director’s side of things rather than the students. When the band director would discipline the band, I would wilt internally, as if I was in trouble too. Then I would remember I was on the staff.

We also pulled from our many experiences in high school and college band. A couple of our band friends had kept quote books of hilarious things our friends and band directors had said. There are too many to list, but one of my favorites is “Don’t hold back like you’re afraid God will smite you if you play the wrong notes. God’ll probably forgive you. I won’t.” Band directors are certainly a special breed of people. Many of the events that take place in the game were inspired by real life events as well. Did I go to a band fundraiser man auction, trying to pump myself up to bid on my crush? Yup! Did I get held at gunpoint by my crazy band director? …No, thankfully that one did not occur in real life.

Over the next two years, we had an incredibly fun time fleshing out these beloved characters and writing their story down. 

2017 – Getting Serious

I believe it was February 2017 when my sister and I acknowledged we had a very special story brewing here. We felt we had funneled many hours of our lives into coming up with ideas and writing scripts (little did we know we would later funnel many, many more hours into this, putting our previous time spent on the game to shame). We knew we had to create the best version of Band Camp Boyfriend possible and it was time to get serious, so we started looking for artists on Lemmasoft Forums.

We found Flora (also known as Lite) and instantly fell in love with her art. As a test run, we described Peter, who was the first character created in the Band Camp Boyfriend universe. When she sent back the concept art, we gasped and immediately hired her. 

Every time she would send sprite or CG art, it was like Christmas. One of us would go running through the house yelling to the other, “FLORA SENT ART, FLORA SENT ART!” 

We also found Khoaisama and Bunnyvoid there to do our GUI/logo and background art. It was incredibly exciting to witness the game coming to life with their artistic talents. Initially, I was planning to just take pictures with my camera and put a filter over them for free, easy backgrounds. I’m really glad we instead paid Bunny to bring Camp Bearpaw to life for a beautiful, cohesive look.

Now that we had something to show, it was time to create social media profiles starting with Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook. I have a strong opinion regarding every social media platform and I’ll detail them more in a later post which will be all about the joys of marketing.

Later in the year, we held a casting call that we posted on Casting Call Club and BTVA (which unfortunately no longer has that option on its website). Casual voice acting was a hobby we had both pursued after graduation so we had a kind circle of friends that auditioned or helped get the word out. We found an amazing group of people to further bring the characters to life with their voices. Looking back, I can’t believe how ambitious we were for our first game. One common bit of advice I’ve seen is if you’re trying to get into game development, start small. Make a bunch of small games and build up your skills before attempting something larger. Well…I didn’t see that advice 2022. This train had left the station a long time ago and was speeding right on into the programming stages.

Tip #2: Do your research before you dive in.

August 2018 – The Demo Releases

The big event of 2018 was going to be our demo release, which would be shortly followed by our Kickstarter. Earlier in the year, we had released a couple promotional videos including the popular “How to Survive Band Camp 101,” which would go viral on TikTok years down the road and help a lot of marching band kids find us.

We made it clear to our voice actors we could not yet pay them and asked if they wouldn’t mind doing the first set of lines before payment. We also cut a few corners to save a little money in sprite production, like not doing swimsuit sprites for all of the characters. However, we DID pay a few bucks to attach a knife to the end of Tom’s trombone and then realized years later the end of his trombone was off-screen so no one would be able to see it. Yay for planning ahead!

My poor sister. I think I mentioned before how she’s a perfectionist who would just work on molding the game forever if she could. So I had to be the chaotic gremlin who would suddenly declare a deadline and say, “This game is going out on this day at this time whether you’re ready or not,” all with a crazed gleam in my eye. I even made countdown graphics I wound up using twice over. Nothing gets the anxiety going like a good old countdown! Hey…it worked in the end! I know how to kick a perfectionist into high gear. The night before demo launch was a bit panicky, but it all worked out in the end. Sorry for all the drama, Alex!

The demo launched August 10, 2018 on Itch.io. It received over 500 downloads in 5 days. We had 200 Tumblr followers at that time. For rising up out of nothing a year ago, these numbers felt really good at the time. Looking back, I feel like it’s obvious that those numbers were not good enough for a successful Kickstarter. Not everyone who follows you on socials or grabs your free demo is going to want to help fund the game.

September 2018 – The Kickstarter

First of all, major props to my sister for all of the hard work she put into organizing the Kickstarter. Preparing and running a Kickstarter is A LOT of work. We hired someone who offered their marketing services on Lemmasoft, and they did not come through for us at all. They would offer us tidbits of advice and do nothing on their end. We threw money into a hole and got nothing back. From now on, I’m keeping the marketing in my hands. Marketing is really tough, but no one knows your game and can gush about it better than you.

We tried our best. We did some fun streams to help promote. A couple YouTubers made videos and other kind people shared our posts. During the campaign, I saw a number of comments about other games that were funded and never came through. A lot of people had felt scammed by previous projects and were unwilling to back another. That felt disheartening. I wished that I could have convinced them of our passion and willingness to see this through.

In the end, our project’s funding was unsuccessful. Our goal was $7,500 and 122 backers contributed $3,414.

It was a hard hit to take. I felt burned by both Kickstarter and what happened with the marketing. Honestly, I still feel a bit burned by both. We’ve sworn to never do another Kickstarter. We would rather self-fund and have players pay for the game up front, instantly having it in their hands to play. We didn’t have a whole lot of knowledge or interest when it came to creating physical rewards either. It was just too much work; that time and energy could have gone to the game instead.

We felt defeated. 

And yet, as I traverse the haunted graveyard of our Kickstarter in an effort to remember our journey, I found this shining light of hope in an update:

“We would like to thank everyone who pledged and supported us this far. We can’t possibly put into words how much we appreciate you and how exciting it was seeing the backer number climb. When I think of our fans sharing our game and supporting us in every way that they could, my heart breaks. I’m sorry we couldn’t get there for you guys and I hope you aren’t too disappointed.   

However, we still see the positive in our situation. You’re never guaranteed to succeed on your first try, but you’re guaranteed to grow. This is our first time doing this and the entire experience has been a major learning process. We also picked up a greater number of followers along the way. The number of demo downloads has climbed drastically over the past few weeks. Hopefully, it will continue over time and more and more people will continue to share it. 

So what’s next for Band Camp Boyfriend? I imagine you’re all wondering if that means the game is cancelled. The answer is…absolutely not. We are not the type to give up so easily. We love this game and its characters and we’ve put far too much into it to abandon it now. It has to be made.”

Past Taylor, so wise…! Despite our failure, we were ready to keep going. Throughout this journey, I would keep telling myself that I put too much into this game to quit now. These characters needed their stories to be told.

2019 – Chipping Away

I don’t remember any standout events from 2019. I can see I was fairly active on Tumblr, making fun, engaging posts all while we attempted to chip away at programming the game. Unfortunately, the magic of programming and seeing a playable game come together started to lose its luster. It began to feel like work.

Programming would be to be one of the toughest mountains to climb.

2020 – The Pandemic Hits

As we all know, this is the year the pandemic hit us. My sister and I were fortunate to keep our jobs, but there was some scrambling as everything shifted to working from home. We also moved out of our parents’ house right at the very start of the pandemic. I admitted to our followers that there was no way we would make our 2020 release goal for the game. There was just too much to deal with.

On top of that, the job I had once loved was beginning to affect my mental health. I had recently come into the realization that hard work would not get me higher pay, better shifts, or more respect. It only got me more work. The higher-ups had also asked me to make multiple video games for their website on top of my regular duties. My hobby had become my job. I could write you a book on all of the injustices I faced at this job (and I almost did until I stopped myself because that’s not the point of this post-mortem). In short, Band Camp Boyfriend suffered for what I was dealing with in my work life.

June 2020, I posted a small update that we were getting back into working on Band Camp Boyfriend. Editing the script, copying down more lines we wanted voiced. We said we wanted more CGs that weren’t in the budget and promised to buckle down during the summer. Instead, our social media went almost completely silent for the rest of the year. We had fallen into the same dark hole that it felt like everyone was stuck in during the pandemic. There were a couple concerned messages asking if we were okay or if I could give a progress update. 

I can’t remember when exactly, but at some point in 2020 or 2021, my mom sat me down and asked me what she could do to help make the game a reality. She saw how special it was and that it needed to be released. She was willing to learn some basic Ren’py programming in order to help us get to the finish line. Talking to her really felt like a turning point. We knew she was right.

Tip #3: Never be afraid to ask for help.

2021 – Back with a Vengeance

Our social media was still fairly quiet at the start of this year, but I began sharing more updates with our followers. What we really needed more than anything was to get the rest of our assets we had been saving up money for. We still needed a final round of backgrounds, voice lines, and we wanted more CGs. I was programming routes with the help of my mom while my sister worked hard on the soundtrack. Gathering the assets proved to be very tough because over the years, everyone had been facing their own life changes.

Tip #4: Order matters. If I ever make another video game, I will do things in a specific order so I am not stretching out rounds of art/voice lines over the years. Of course, start with the writing. Then I would suggest getting the backgrounds, since they were often needed for CGs. Then get the rest of the art. Cast for voice actors further down the line, when you know exactly what lines you want and you’re ready for them to voice the full game. Start programming when you have the majority of your assets. I know the reason we couldn’t adhere to this order was because of money, but I’m not keen on repeating these mistakes. We’re incredibly lucky our artists and actors were still available to reprise their roles, up to four and five years after being hired.

In March 2021, we released an Extended Demo in order to get back onto everyone’s radar and simultaneously apologize for how slow we were going. It came with an extra day of content, but it was something. It was progress!

Still, there was so much to do and when we would think about it all, it was easy to feel overwhelmed. It felt like we were facing numerous mountains. The mountain of composing, the mountain of programming, voice acting, sound effects, gathering all of the assets…you get the idea. It’s times like these you gotta take the advice in Doug’s route and do “baby steps.” All the while, you need to keep reminding yourself of how far you’ve come. Look back at that difficult trail and celebrate how far you’ve climbed. It really helps in the long run.

Then…something amazing happened…I stopped caring about my job. I stopped giving them everything and going above and beyond. Fueled by pure spite, I poured myself into Band Camp Boyfriend. Stuck by myself on the midnight shift, I got an incredible amount of programming done with each night that passed by. I would text my mom the results every time and she would reply, “Wow!!!! You’re on fire!!!!!” and those sweet little serotonin hits would add to my strength to keep going.

That November, I conquered the monster that was Sprite Mountain. I could wave at my sister climbing Affinity Mountain. 

Then, at the start of December, came a job offer that would vastly improve my quality of life and mental health. I cried tears of joy after my last day in the hellhole that was my current job. I was so happy to leave that place. I pray that all of you reading this will be able to exist in a job you enjoy, or at the very least, one that doesn’t degrade your happiness. Because once I left that place behind, it was like new life had been breathed into me and by extension, the game.

2022 – Rounding the Final Bend

At the start of 2022, with a renewed energy and sense of wellbeing, I began making Quarterly Progress Updates for fans. I would set goals and share checklists, being fully transparent with the game development process. I also eventually started the infamous WIP Wednesdays. Sharing every little bit of progress made on the game on a weekly basis helped me keep going because I always wanted to be able to give everyone good news. And every like, comment, or reshare was a tiny dose of serotonin that refilled my energy bar. Little did you all know, you were helping inch Band Camp Boyfriend to the finish line!

This was around the time we had made the decision to write a final route. Initially, it was planned as DLC because we didn’t want to add anything more to our plate. The very idea makes my stomach hurt. I’m so glad we added the final route because it wraps up the game beautifully and so many people have mentioned it was their favorite route. Also, I knew in my heart I could do it. I’m a fast writer and I was on a runner’s high–writer’s high?–with everything good that had been happening. I knew I could get it done while my sister tackled finishing the soundtrack and rounding up the last of the voice clips. Also cue us returning to Flora for yet another round of CGs, swearing that this was it, we promise!

In February, I wrote the conclusion to the game and declared we were coming for that 2023 release. In March, we held a final casting call for the last group of characters who needed voices, especially since they would be major players in the final route. I also created a TikTok for Band Camp Boyfriend during this month, though I went kicking and screaming the whole way. I am not the biggest fan of social media, but it sure gets the word out. 

I also started looking into getting the game on Steam around this time. “When is a good time to make a Steam page for my game?” I asked Google. “Yesterday,” it replied. …Oh.

Tip #5: As soon as you have something to show for your game, namely screenshots and a trailer, make a Steam page for it.

Getting a game on Steam is a much more convoluted process than uploading to Itch.io. First, you gotta cough up $100 so they know you’re serious. Then comes quality control. It will take days, maybe even weeks to get it right if you’ve never done it before. The Steam team has to review your store page and then your game build. If you’re planning to release on Steam, make sure you get your page up as early as possible and give yourself ample time to do so.

April and May proved to be very successful months for us! We got the Steam page up and garnered quite a few views on TikTok. We announced our release date window as Spring 2023. Cue me foaming at the mouth as I tell Alex it’s gonna happen in May at the very latest, so buckle up. I threw myself into making social media content with fervor, populating our accounts with fun updates, graphics, and video to keep fans engaged. I reached out to otome websites to post announcements as well as streamers and reviewers to play the demo. Uh, and now that I think about it, that’s probably something I should have done for the game’s release, but…I’m kinda just burnt out at this point.

Alex, meanwhile, had quite a few things on her plate. I had been ravenously devouring everything on my plate, so I kept reaching over and taking stuff off her plate to put on mine. Eventually, I just started throwing stuff out the window. “I still want to compose the parade piece if there’s time,” she would say, putting it back on her plate. “That song plays once and it keeps stopping and starting! Prioritize other things,” I would grouch, removing it again.

Tip #6: You should constantly reevaluate your workload. Know what stays on the plate and what should be taken off because your mental health is important, too.

With GUI Mountain still needing to be conquered, we realized we were going to need more help. My mom had been super dedicated and helpful when it came to programming in sprites or voice clips, but GUI code is much more complicated. We enlisted our genius friend, Ross, another champion who would help us get to the goal before our deadline.

Despite everything that happened in 2022, somehow, Band Camp Boyfriend progress never faltered.

Not going to lie. This was the worst year in my life so far. We each took a turn in the hospital, including the cat. My sister and I both had to deal with incredible struggles I hope no one else ever has to face. It’s nothing short of a miracle that she was able to complete that ambitious soundtrack while facing the challenges she did. I caught Covid at some point and it left me having weird anxiety attacks in the middle of the night for a while, but that was far from the worst of what I faced. 

I went through what was supposed to be a surgery that’s supposedly fairly easy to recover from and wound up right back in the hospital ten hours later, in the worst pain of my life. After that, my mental health had to wrestle with different pills all while I prayed my physical body could get back to normal. Suddenly, Poptart’s story had become more relatable than ever. I kept telling myself I couldn’t die before Band Camp Boyfriend was out. As Peter would say “No way in hell!”

My face definitely left 2022 looking a little bit older and more ragged than it did upon entering it. But that was okay. I still had my sense of humor.

2023 – The Year of Release

We reached release year with high hopes. Alex had finished the soundtrack (though she would wind up adding a couple more tracks anyways) and beta testing loomed. We hit 10,000 demo downloads on Itch.io in January, which was very exciting.

I had also signed us up for Steam Next Fest, a Steam festival that highlights upcoming releases and game demos. We hosted two developer streams that I was extremely nervous for. This may come as a surprise, but marching band dating sims with female protagonists are subject to quite a bit of hatred and mockery (/s). I was bracing myself for trolls, but we were met with nothing but love. The fans showed up and supported the game. I feel so grateful thinking back on it. It was a promise of what was to come.

We also took part in the Storyteller’s Festival hosted by Two and a Half Studios, which focused on visual novels and games with a strong story. Ever since our Steam page had gone up, “Wishlist the game!” had become my battle cry. If your game gets I believe 4000+ wishlists, Steam takes notice and gives you extra visibility at launch. I knew a game called Band Camp Boyfriend, a game about a niche sport within a niche genre, the first game from a two-person studio, was never going to get that many wishlists. But I could see 2000 wishlists looming on the horizon and I made it my goal to get there. Even if it meant nothing in the grand scheme of things, it was nice to have a milestone and push myself towards that goal. Since this was all a new experience and I had nothing to compare to, it was a lot of setting random milestones and always wondering “Is that good? Am I doing good?!” No matter what, it always felt good!

During March, beta testing helped us make some valuable, last-minute changes to the game. Ross wrapped up his GUI fixes. Steam gave us the green light and I was finally able to announce an official release date: May 11, 2023. 

I held a free game giveaway on three different sites. It was my final push towards visibility and I believe it was what got me to that 2000 wishlist goal. I had read online that the amount of wishlists you have at release is a good prediction of how many sales you’ll make in your first year. I would be very pleased with 2000 sales, but only time will tell if we get there!

I was so nervous the week of release, I couldn’t sleep properly. I was afraid of hitting the release button and for whatever reason, being hit with some last-minute message that I can’t release because I forgot to do something. I was also afraid of releasing, but having the game randomly crash on people despite all my testing, and me being able to do nothing about it. 

But as I was driving home from work the day before release, my band director’s favorite song came on the radio. The band director who passed away shortly before we came up with the idea of Band Camp Boyfriend, whose name is listed in the credits of the game. They had played this song at his memorial, asking us to dance and celebrate because it’s what he would have wanted. All I could do back then was cry. But when I heard the song in the car, I knew that everything was going to be okay.

The game was released on Steam and Itch.io with zero issues. It was met with an immediate outpouring of love that overwhelmed me. As soon as it was out, I put on my band director’s favorite song and I danced, celebrated, and jumped for joy. For seven years and nine months, my sister and I had been working tirelessly towards this moment.

The journey was finally over.

Marching Into The Future – What’s Next?

Many have asked us what’s next or if we’re planning on releasing any DLC. For now, we just want to rest and enjoy the feedback we receive on the game. We’d like to do some fun things like another best boy poll, a voice acting blooper reel, and create a soundtrack/artbook fan pack further down the road! There are also a few small mistakes in the game we’d like to fix with an update. The demo needs updated as well since it’s a couple years old and doesn’t include all the bells and whistles the full game does.

As for future content, we would love to do more with Band Camp Boyfriend if possible, but a number of things have to fall into place. Our artists and voice actors would have to reprise their roles. There’s also the matter of money.

We spent way more on Band Camp Boyfriend than what was on that initial Kickstarter goal. As of right now, one month post-release, we have yet to make back the money we spent despite selling over 700 copies, which I’m still super stoked about. It’s easy to get caught up in the hype of release and want to make another game, but once the dust settles, we’re still standing in a hole. To me, Band Camp Boyfriend is an absolute success. We were able to release it and so many people have laughed, cried, and fallen in love with the characters, just as I’d hoped. I want to be able to say Band Camp Boyfriend was a financial success, too. I hope that we can earn our money back and then some. To me, that would justify creating a sequel!

Yes, a sequel. I have no interest in creating DLC for Band Camp Boyfriend. I feel we have conquered Camp Bearpaw and the story that took place there is over. There is so much marching band material that takes place in a season that we have barely touched upon and we have so many ideas for a fandisk that I would love to see come to life. Of course, our ideas are constantly evolving or shifting since nothing has been set in stone.

What would that fandisk/sequel include? It would have short, romantic “afterstories” for each of the love interests, as fandisks often do…and the undateable character from the first game would get his own route in this game. I’ll leave it to your imagination as to who that might be!

For now, we just sit back and see how things play out. If the game does well and we can make our money back, then maybe we can start talking about it more. 

If you would really like to see more Band Camp Boyfriend content, then be sure to tell your friends how much you enjoyed the game! If you make fan content, post it online! Leave a review on Steam or a rating on Itch.io to improve the game’s visibility score! Shout your love for the game from the blue mountaintops. Give a poptart to your best friend, your section leader, your band director, your worst enemy, and tell them Band Camp Boyfriend sent you. Actually, that might just confuse them. What I’m trying to say here is WORD OF MOUTH, BABY! It can be the difference between the life or death of a sequel.

All right, it’s time to wrap this up. If you read this far, you deserve an award. If you played our game, I thank you from the bottom of my heart, truly. I hope you enjoyed learning a little bit more about our adventure!

Have a wonderful week and hope to see you for the next blog post!

-Taylor

To the ready…

This is my last devlog and final reflection before Band Camp Boyfriend releases. We started working on the game in 2015. We released the demo on Itch.io in 2018. We got our Steam page up in 2022. Now here we are in 2023, almost eight years later. We’ve been working towards this moment for eight years.

To be honest, it’s a little bit scary. My anxiety can’t help but whisper, “What if they hate it?” but thankfully logic growls back, “They won’t.” The most important thing is…I love it. I love it and I’m proud of it, and I’m here to reflect on everything and thank everyone for their hard work. Band Camp Boyfriend was once an idea in an instrument truck and today it is a reality thanks to you.

I may use “I” and speak from my perspective here, but I am only one half of the soul of this game. My sister’s heart, creativity, memories, and talents also make up Band Camp Boyfriend. She is just the shyer of the two of us and not as present on social media. So while I speak from my heart, know that it also comes from Alex’s.

Alex and I came up with the characters and stories together. We bounced ideas on band fields, long walks, and over coffee. There are so many warm moments of us barely able to detail our scene ideas in between peals of laughter. Together, we crafted it into better versions, constantly improving on it. As we worked, we covered for each other’s flaws. Alex is the perfectionist between the two of us and she is the more knowledgeable one when it comes to music, as she majored in it. She also was able to do the math and figure out the tough programming. Then she taught me—I am not the perfectionist, but I am the workhorse, the motivator. I am obsessed with checking things off my list and constantly working to whittle it down. And while her writing style is to carefully hone each paragraph, mine is to just devour. I sit down and I just write—though I like to say the characters write themselves. I’m just an invisible presence within the story, writing the scene as it plays out. If you know the characters deeply enough, you always know what they’re going to say next and your fingers fly across the keyboard just to keep up. But enough about me.

Band Camp Boyfriend is the kind of game that absolutely needs an original soundtrack and by God did Alex create an incredible one. The themes, the motifs, the fine details. She has put so much thought and hard work into the music of this game. I have no idea how she does it. It’s magical to me. It adds so much to the game and heightens the emotion by tenfold, and I can’t wait for you to hear each song—from “Let It Slide” to “Swan Song” to the full band performance of the alma mater and that final song in the credits. Every single song brims with Alex’s talent, passion, and hard work.

And honestly, I am blessed to have her as my sister and my best friend. Thank you, Alex, for sharing this journey with me.

One talent my sister and I do not share between us is digital art. We write, we program, she composes…but sprites, CGs, backgrounds, GUI? That’s not something we can do. So we commissioned artists we found on Lemmasoft Forum and I’m so grateful to have found them when we did.

Bunny, our background artist, created the entire world of Band Camp Boyfriend! She worked with us closely to make sure the details were right and was so sweet. It was so cool to be able to move around the world she created and help capture the shots that we wanted. Potouto (now Khoaisama) was also wonderful to work with. She is so full of talent and creates amazing, unique GUI for many different visual novels! Also, I love her enthusiasm. And our chibi artist, Mayunnaise, has created some of the most adorable chibis I’ve ever seen! Thank you all!

I want to say a special thanks to Flora, our sprite/CG artist who was so incredible to work with. She was patient, devoted, talented, and granted us art even better than we imagined…seriously, I would lose my mind over everything she sent us…but one of the best things we attained on this journey was certainly her friendship. Flora, you are a fantastic human being with a wonderful sense of humor! I’m glad you will finally, finally get to see your stunning art in action. Thank you for sticking with us as we kept spinning in circles. “Okay last round of CGs…actually, can you do one more round? Actually, just one more CG. I swear this time it’s the last one, I swear!” She also needs to be commended for her dedication to nailing all the detail on the instruments. That’s not easy to do. Flora, you rock. I hope you love the game.

Next, our stunning voice cast. They brought these characters to life in a way no one else could, better than we ever could have envisioned. Seriously. Their talent made me love these characters even more, which I didn’t realize was possible. I’m sorry for making you all wait for the game so long and I’m thankful you continued to reprise your roles throughout the years when we asked for more lines. Joe, Jonathan, Wish, Jared, Richard, Joseph, Mark, Emily, Melody, Daisy, Daniel, Lasli, Angelo, Riley, Sara, and Steve…thank you from the bottom of my heart for lending us your incredible talents. You are all spectacular voice actors and lovely people.

And I could never forget my fantastic friends who helped beta test the game! Becca, Karen, Kristin, Ross, Chris! Thank you all for lending your time and for being my friends through thick and thin. You each brought your own talents to testing and really helped me to clean up the game. Ross the genius also helped with programming and I am extremely grateful to him and his brilliant mind! Programming the Extras menu was no small feat and I don’t think we could have done it on our own and still met our deadline. Thank you so much for offering your time and working so hard.

We are sorry to cast, crew, and fans that creating the game took so long. This is a hobby and a passion rather than our full-time jobs, and you only have so much time for hobbies as an adult. Life can easily get in the way and we certainly faced our fair share of life changes and hurdles these past 8 years. We often beat ourselves up for not finishing the game in 2020 as we had initially hoped, but I believe this is what was meant to be. The game only got better. Some of the early story decisions make me cringe. Some of the writing I revisited was written by someone with less life experience and a bit tone-deaf on real issues so I was able to fix it. Most importantly, a final route (which was previously going to be DLC for later on) was added and wraps up the game wonderfully. Band Camp Boyfriend was meant to be released in 2023.

I want to thank both of my parents for their unending support through it all. Our dad helped us with the business side of things, getting the game copyrighted, and the joy of taxes. He wholeheartedly supports us in whatever we do, though he is a tad skeptical that a game called Band Camp Boyfriend will sell many copies…so we’re gonna surprise him, right guys? 🙂

As for my mom…I owe the fact that the game is finally on the cusp of being released to her. She has been our biggest supporter and fan. She has spent hours helping us program and running tests on the game. Until the very last minute, she scraped through the game to make sure there was no crashing. Before that, around two years ago, she sat me down and asked what she could do to help see this special game finally become a reality. It was a major turning point and we owe her so much. Her love of the game kept us going.

Love you both more than words can say. ❤

Finally, I want to thank all of the people who have contributed to the wonderful memories and hilarious quotes that have found their way into Band Camp Boyfriend. The three different marching bands I was lucky to be apart of. And to my favorite, hilarious band director and my wise, gentle French horn teacher, who are no longer of this world…thank you for fostering in me a strong love for music, for seeing a talent in me that I couldn’t always see, and for building me into a stronger person. You both left this life too soon, but your impact in so many lives remains. I wish I could show you the game Alex and I created, the game that you helped inspire, and make you smile one more time.

I know some people will look at the hokey title and think it’s just another dating sim, just another gimmicky game, but to some of you, I hope it will be much more than that. As it is to me. It brims with a life of experiences. But not just mine—I’m sure so many of us who have worn a marching band uniform have had the same experiences. And through these experiences, we are connected.

I’ll say it once again, even though it won’t be the last time you hear this: Thank you for playing Band Camp Boyfriend. I dearly, truly hope you love it. I hope the game makes you smile, makes you laugh, makes you cry, and I hope you carry the characters, their lessons, and their story in your heart long after you get that final CG. I’ve carried Band Camp Boyfriend with me for almost eight years; I am so ready to share it with you.

See you at band camp.

-Taylor