TikTok and Shorts Are Insane for Indie Devs

Business and Game-Development Takeaways

Marketing and Audience Growth

• Short-form video was Johan Grönvall’s most effective marketing channel for Bopl Battle. He said Reddit posts and outreach to YouTubers did little for him, while his own TikToks and YouTube Shorts produced visible wishlist spikes. He cautioned that results may depend on the game and its audience.
• Build a backlog of real development stories. Johan collected unusual, funny, or surprising moments as they happened, then turned them into short videos. The game’s long development cycle gave him plenty of material.
• Johan’s short-video playbook:
  • Script each video rather than simply listing development steps.
  • Make the first few seconds clear and intriguing: establish that you’re a game developer, then introduce a genuine question or problem.
  • Deliver on the hook; avoid misleading clickbait.
  • Use accessible language. Johan found that overly technical references could lose viewers unfamiliar with the subject.
  • He typically spent about a workday making each short and posted roughly weekly—often on Fridays—for around six months.
• Test on one platform, then reuse proven content. Johan first experimented on TikTok, where he felt he could better predict performance. Around the game’s release, he posted successful short-form material to YouTube Shorts at a much higher cadence. His videos then gained millions of views, with some reaching roughly 20 million.
• Time content around launch. Johan believed the game’s release created a major attention event on YouTube. Having a batch of tested videos ready let him publish more frequently during that period. Jonas described the broader principle as concentrating activity around key moments, such as a launch or Steam Next Fest, to create a compounding effect.
• Treat short-form as a source of repeat viewers, not just reach. Johan said honest, satisfying videos could encourage people to watch again—and ultimately buy the game. His first TikToks were quiet before one reached about 200,000 views, after which similar videos performed more consistently.
• Don’t assume views equal sales. Johan recalled launching with around 70,000 wishlists, but was unsure of the exact figure. He believed most or nearly all of his wishlists came from his own short-form content; this was his estimate, not a measured attribution result. He recalled reaching 7,000 wishlists as an early milestone.
• Other discovery sources also mattered, including the demo, word of mouth, and eventually Steam recommendations. A streamer playing the game did not create an obvious wishlist spike in Johan’s graph, illustrating that visibility does not always translate directly into measurable conversion.

Product, Demo, and Retention

• Make the demo enjoyable on its own while giving players reasons to upgrade. Bopl Battle’s demo included online play and matchmaking and was generous enough for groups of friends to have fun. Locked abilities visible in the menu—such as a “black hole”—showed players what the full game offered.
• Johan said the demo generated a significant wishlist spike and made it easier for players to persuade friends to try the game. He timed activity around the demo release and Steam Next Fest.
• Updates can be a marketing engine. Johan continued adding content after launch and made videos about those additions. He said updates produced sales spikes and suggested continuing while the impact justified the effort.
• Make product differentiation tangible. Hidden interactions and unexpected combinations gave players things to discover and provided compelling stories for videos. One example began as a bug: placing two extra-life respawn points could result in controlling two characters. Johan turned it into a feature—and a short-video story.
• Synergistic mechanics can increase the value of each feature, but they also create implementation work. Johan described handling edge cases when abilities interacted, including writing a new shader for a black-hole ability combined with another effect.

Production and Technical Trade-Offs

• Bopl Battle began in 2016 and took about six years overall, including periods of little work and major rewrites. Johan had limited Unity experience when he started; before it, he had made a few university games and tried one small project.
• The game evolved from an idea involving combinable powers into a competitive game inspired in part by the less-popular Square Brawl. Johan focused on what he thought that game’s ability choices could do better: make them powerful and meaningfully interactive.
• Design for a distinct play experience. Johan slowed and structured the game so players could plan and combine abilities rather than making it continuously chaotic. He said an early “turn into a gun and immediately shoot” ability overwhelmed other options and was incompatible with the intended design.
• Custom technology can enable the product—but carries costs. Johan replaced much of Unity’s built-in functionality with his own physics, fixed-point arithmetic, and deterministic networking. This enabled a lockstep approach but also created complex bugs and maintenance overhead. He thought starting with a simpler, more robust foundation might have saved time, while acknowledging that Unity helped him get an early playable version in front of friends.
• Lockstep networking, in brief: The game sends player inputs rather than the positions and state of every object. Each machine reconstructs the game using a deterministic simulation. Johan valued this approach for complex gameplay, replay support, and debugging: he could receive a replay from a player, reproduce a bug, and run it quickly.
• Build responsiveness into the local experience. Lockstep can make online play wait on incoming inputs. Johan aimed to make actions feel immediate through strong first-frame visual and motion changes, while noting that poor connections could still make online play feel less responsive.
• Keep operational complexity in view. Using Steam’s relay services meant Johan did not need to operate server builds. But his custom systems still required support and fixes, while platform and Unity issues could also affect players.

Entrepreneurship, Decision-Making, and Organizational Tactics

• Johan left a job at a game-engine company making casino games during COVID, after roughly three years there. He described the timing as an opportunity to work on his game and said he had savings. The discussion does not provide financial details or offer a general recommendation to quit a job.
• His next-project decision remained open: he was considering whether to work solo, collaborate, or try game jams. Jonas introduced the explore-versus-exploit framework:
  • Explore: Try new approaches to discover what works.
  • Exploit: Invest in approaches already shown to work.
  • Explore when uncertain, then commit to the strongest options rather than staying in either mode indefinitely.
• Balance ambition against project risk. Johan argued that indie developers may undershoot a game’s potential by keeping its idea too small. He planned Bopl Battle around 30 abilities and shipped 29, with one additional randomized option counted for the menu layout.
• Jonas proposed checking for audience traction during development before committing to a much larger scope. Johan was receptive to the idea, though neither presented it as a proven formula.
• Use outcomes as feedback, but define success for yourself. Johan said he is motivated by testing his theories and improving; Jonas noted that success can mean different things to different developers.
• Avoid self-deception. Be skeptical of compliments, seek honest feedback instead of relying on yes-men, and ask whether you would buy your own game or persuade friends to play it. Johan emphasized that developers can be optimistic and experimental without mistaking wishful thinking for evidence.
• Be realistic about time allocation. Johan admitted he spent time on unusual features that might not have been efficient, but said excitement helped him stay motivated. The value of those choices depends on the developer’s goal—creative enjoyment or commercial return.

Metrics and Timelines Mentioned

• Project start: 2016
• Total development time: About six years
• Short-form cadence: About one video per week for roughly half a year, with approximately one workday spent on each short
• TikTok breakout: About 200,000 views
• YouTube Shorts: Some videos reached millions of views, with examples in the 10–20 million range
• YouTube channel: Almost 500,000 subscribers at the time of the conversation
• Wishlists: Johan recalled an early milestone of 7,000 and estimated a launch total around 70,000, but was uncertain about the exact number. He reported clear spikes from his own videos and the demo but gave no reliable per-video conversion figure.
• Post-launch updates: Johan said they generated sales spikes, but no sales amounts were stated.

Presenters and Sources

• Presenters: Jonas Tyroller and Johan Grönvall, creator of Bopl Battle
• Sources and references discussed: Johan’s experience promoting Bopl Battle; Chris Zukowski’s How to Market Your Game resources; advice Johan encountered from Landfall; Steam wishlist and game-discovery observations