Write the store page while the build is still ugly
An itch page is a list of promises. Write the sentence while the game is still rough, then delete every promise the build does not keep.
The store page is not a coat of copy you add at the end. It is a list of promises, and it is cheaper to write them while the game is still allowed to be bad.
Open the page when you have a screenshot you are slightly embarrassed by. Fill in four things.
The sentence. One line on what the player does. “Stack rooms, then leave before the tide” is a sentence. “A unique atmospheric experience” is fog. If you cannot write the sentence, you are not ready for tags, a trailer, or a price. You are ready to play the first minute and notice what you actually do. Say the sentence to a friend who has not seen the game. If their first question is what the game is, the sentence is not finished.
The tags you can defend. Puzzle, local multiplayer, pixel art, the engine you used. Tags are how strangers arrive. A tag you only half fit is how they leave. If it is single-player, do not tick multiplayer because a second controller technically moves a debug camera.
The controls and the length. Keyboard, about twenty minutes, a browser build. People buy small games on purpose. Hiding the length does not make the game larger. It makes the page feel like it is talking past them.
The status. Prototype, jam build, or a version you are willing to leave up. Say which. A jam build can be wonderful and unfinished. Calling it finished is how a kind player becomes a disappointed one.
Once the four are filled in, read the page as a stranger would, top to bottom, without the game open. Every claim should be something you could point to in a build today. Underline the ones you cannot. Those are not copy problems. They are work you have not done, and the page has just made a list of it.
Then keep the page in step with the build. When a feature dies, the sentence loses it the same week. When you add a Linux build, the page says Linux after the preset has been run, not before.
Screenshots can be ugly at this stage. They should still be from the game, cropped the way the store will crop them, with the interface readable at thumbnail size. A shot that only works fullscreen is a poster. Open the draft page on your phone before you decide. Most strangers will see it there first, at a size where small text turns into grey.
Price can wait. Zero is a fine price for a page that is still a promise to yourself. The sentence should not wait. You will aim the rest of the work at it, or you will notice the sentence was a wish and change it.
