Publishing your first game on itch.io

Because the barrier is nearly zero and the audience is forgiving. There is no submission fee, no review queue, no approval to wait on, and no expectation of polish — itch is where jam games, experiments and first attempts live, so a rough first game is entirely in place there.

The alternative for a first release is usually Steam, and it is the wrong choice: there is a per-title submission fee, a review process, and an audience that has paid money and will review accordingly. Steam is a good target for a project you have deliberately polished for months. It is a punishing one for a first game.

The other reason is web builds. Itch will host a browser-playable game, which means the distance between "someone sees your link" and "someone is playing" is one click. That difference is enormous.

1. 01

   Export a build

   Export for web (HTML5) if your engine supports it — browser-playable games get dramatically more plays than downloads, because there is no trust barrier and no install.

2. 02

   Create the project page

   Dashboard → Create new project. Set the kind of project to match your build; for a web build you upload a zip containing index.html and tick the play-in-browser option.

3. 03

   Set the viewport size

   For web builds, itch needs the pixel dimensions of your game canvas. Get this wrong and your game is letterboxed or cropped — it is the single most common first-upload mistake.

4. 04

   Write the description

   What it is, how to play, controls. Assume no context and no patience. Controls in particular belong on the page, not only inside the game.

5. 05

   Add screenshots and a cover

   The cover image is what appears in every listing. It does more work than everything else on the page combined.

6. 06

   Choose pricing

   "No payments" or "Name your own price" for a first game. Free removes the last bit of friction between a stranger and a play.

7. 07

   Set visibility to public

   Drafts are invisible even to people with the link — a genuinely common reason a first-time uploader thinks nobody is visiting.

Leaving it as a draft. Set visibility to public and open the URL in a private window to confirm a stranger can reach it. Do this before you share the link anywhere.

A weak cover image. It is the thumbnail in every listing and every social preview. A clear, readable image of your actual game beats a logo, and beats a screenshot of an empty level by a distance.

Undocumented controls. Players will not experiment for long. Put the controls in the page description and, if you can, on the first screen of the game.

Download-only for a small game. Asking someone to download and run an executable from a developer they have never heard of is a significant ask. Web builds sidestep it entirely.

Shipping is the beginning of the useful part, because now you can watch. Itch gives you view and play counts; the ratio between them tells you whether your page is convincing people to press play, which is a page problem rather than a game problem.

Then get it in front of humans directly and watch someone play without helping them. Every moment they hesitate is a design note. That single exercise will teach you more about your game than any amount of re-reading your own code.

One genuine warning: expect quiet. A first game with no audience behind it commonly gets tens of plays, not thousands, and that is the normal outcome rather than a verdict on the work. The point of game one is that it exists and is finished — the audience is a different skill, built later and deliberately.