Spreading the word about your game? Here's a comprehensive list of subreddits for ya
I've spent several years reading game dev subreddits and almost a full year sharing Spacefreighter on Reddit (join the discord here!). It took me a while to build a comprehensive list of places to go to show off the game or get outside feedback - critical stuff for any game. I wrote this to save you some time. You can use the list below to short-circuit my months-long research process and go straight to talking about your game.
The sum total of all members in all the subs listed below is 31M people (though of course there will be some overlap).
Subreddits you can use to talk about your game
This should go without saying, but please read the rules and do not be spammy! I hope I give you enough guidance in this doc for what each community is for. Don't abuse this list!!
(Note: I am not including subreddits with less than 1k subs, as they're probably too tiny for you to get a lot of good engagement. And the sub count is obviously current as of the time of writing, but will eventually need to be updated.)
- r/Unity3D - Great place to show off work to other devs. Be advised that what impresses devs and what players will like are two different circles on the Venn diagram of gaming! There is also a counterpart UE community. 250k members
- r/DestroyMyGame - Although small, best for getting real feedback about your game, and the most helpful place for me to post in the last year. Make concentrated asks and iterate. A lot of people are afraid that criticism on this page can be harsh but I've never seen it as difficult or negative, at least when it has come to our project. 5k members
- r/IndieGaming - This one is a decent place to post about your game, straight up. They also have some great examples of what makes a good post in the Wiki here. 246k members
- r/IndieGames - not the same as r/IndieGaming! But similar and about half the size. I honestly don't know the real difference between this one and the sub above it - sorry folks. 109k members
- r/PlayMyGame - This is simply a place to post about your game and ask people to play it. Some clips of pre-launch progress could also be a good fit here. It's wise to have something available on Itch or Steam and link to it here. 62k members
- r/IndieDev - A place for indie devs and gamers to share anything. Super casual community and very open. 99k members
- r/Gaming - A sub for anything related to gaming. A big one. I'm not sure the best approach for sharing content here, but I think showoff footage is the place to start. Lots of memes here, but I do see some "check out my game" content. 30M members
- r/Gamedev - More for general game dev questions and not for showing off your work - at least I've never seen anyone with direct highlights positing there. 577k members
- r/GamedevScreenshots - A place to post screenshots and showoff/ask for feedback. Perfect for getting other devs up to speed on your game. 20k members
- r/GameProduction - Extremely tiny sub for people who like to make games. I have yet to post here. Looks like a decent place to get some advice on specific niche topics, but I would use it only for that vs. trying to find new players. 1k members
- r/Devblogs - A place to share your devlogs. Not sure if you'll get a lot of new players here as it's mostly other people working on their own games... but then again, that's how all the gamedev subreddits are. Worth a shot if you can post consistently, in my opinion. 17k members
- r/TrueGamedev - for more seasoned developers - no noob questions here. If you have something to post here, make it impressive and serious! 17k members
- r/TheMakingOfGames - if you post here, you need to show off a how-to type post vs. just posting "check out my game"-type content. 22k members
Genre-specific:
- r/RoguelikeDev - For Roguelike devs! I have no experience with this one because I don't build Roguelikes. 42k members
- r/VoxelGameDev - For Voxel devs! Again, not my genre so I know very little about this one. 8k members
- r/WebGames - See if you can guess what this one is about! I have yet to post here, just heard about it on Reddit from a comment today. Sizable sub. Be sure to check the post rules here, as they're a bit different. 115k members
Other useful places:
- r/GameJams - "Game jams are accelerated game development events where participants make a game in a short amount of time - an hour to a day to a week or more." 8k members
- r/GameAssets - A nice place to scoop up free assets for your game. That's all they do there, so this one is less for PR and more for getting free stuff to improve your game. 38k members
Boy, sure hope I didn't sell any of these short! Hopefully having all these in one place will make your task of spreading the word about your game (and getting useful feedback) easy.
Got another subreddit to suggest? Question or comment? Pop into discord and hit me up!