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What is the purpose of a demo?

A demo is short or a demonstration. Your job is to demonstrate a portion of your game to players. In more "traditional" games, a demo typically takes place in a very tightly-constricted space that is meant to show off how the game feels. Maybe this is the first few levels of a platformer that showcases the general atmosphere and gameplay of the game.

We aren't making action and adventure games in explorable spaces. We are making visual novels. Most visual novel demos just showcase a small portion of the game, maybe the first few scenes.

What your demo should have is this:

A general vibe for your game. You're writing a psychological horror game. Give me a taste of that! Show me a bit of the gore, a bit of the horror.

A sense of urgency. A lot of demos I've played and discarded have been discarded because the game itself does not give me a motivation

An established plot. What is going to happen in the future? Why am I in this world?

In general, think of your game as the back cover of a book. That's where the hook that draws you in to read it. Just give me a proper taste of your game!

There are cases in traditional games where things are hidden from the player in demos (let's all remember MGS2) and where things are changed in from the demo to the final product. That's perfectly okay! You are not obligated to update your demo unless you find gamebreaking bugs and other issues. If things change from the demo to the final product, let your players be surprised and intrigued by these changes!

I can make this a list of do's and don'ts:

Before writing your demo...

Do: Outline, plan, and everything else.

Unless you're blessed by Mnemosyne herself, you need to outline where your story is going to go.

When starting a project, I write a 1-2 page document that has this information:

Name of the game

The target audience

The genre and moods

A paragraph summary of the game

1-2 sentences describing main characters and their roles

Write a short scene that captures the essence of the game

Write a basic outline. You don't need to fit everything in and outline it all, but give yourself an idea. A beginning, a middle, a climax, and an end. Some people just write the start and the finish, and then the middle gets all muddled and convoluted.

While writing your demo....

Do: Make it clear how the choices will impact the game

Visual novels are a medium where player choices affect the game. Make sure those choices actually matter. They don't all have to, of course. They might matter later in the game, but you should at least try to write an example of how a choice may matter.

For example, in Art Without Blood's new demo, certain choices mean you meet the characters in a different order and experience different sides of them.

Having a certain amount of a sanity stat will cause characters to give you some flavor text.

Here's a very simple idea: if you're running your game on a "love points" or other points system, you can make it so if player gets 10 points with love interest, get a different scene. It shows that your choices are impactful. Just let players have a taste of the consequences of their actions.

Don't: Character dump.

Many demos I have played were just character dumps. This means using the demo just to introduce to us the characters but not giving them room to truly show their personalities or their attachments to the problem.

For example, I played a game recently that had the player complaining about their living situation, showing us the characters in the same living complex, showed off the yandere, and then had the player deal with an annoying, evil boss. That sounds like lots of games, right? And that doesn't sound very fun, does it?

Do: Ground the player in the world

Try to immerse your player character in your world. I want to read like I'm part of it. What is our purpose? If we are a stranger, how can you immerse us in a world so far removed from ours?

Do it slowly, and do it with necessity. You don't necessarily want an exposition dump either.

Establish the world, establish the conflict, establish why they got into this conflict, and leave us off with a reason to come back.

Don't: Make your players have to visit other sites to get important information

Your ask blogs or other social medias should contain supplemental material that keeps players engaged, but it should not be a place where you should go "well, actually, in the demo, x y and z should have happened but it didn't."

Try not to spoil your game on your socials. What's the point of playing if I can just read it all on your blog?

I should learn about the plot and the characters from the game itself. I should not have to get a sense from your blog about a character because they were so dry in the demo.

Obviously, this isn't to say you need to include everything about a character in your demo. But we need to get a sense of personality. I shouldn't have to go to Tumblr to find that personality.

Do: Ask for help

Making a game on your own, especially for the first time, is scary. It's okay to ask for help. It's oaky to get people to help you out with parts you aren't so familiar with. It doesn't make you any less of a developer. A lot of people need some degree of help. There is nothing wrong with that.

Don't: Start your marketing until you know you can finish the demo

I've seen lots of demos that have been in the works for years. It can be disappointing for fans and demotivating for the developer to have an idea, tell the world, and then not see a demo for a long time. This is especially the case when money is involved, but it's still irresponsible to promise a product and never deliver it. Be honest about the status of projects and your life.

Do: Outline content warnings properly

It is up to the player to decide if they think they're capable and ready to play your game. Make sure to outline your content warnings. Cover the basics, and feel free to leave an extended warnings list in your game or on your game page for specifics.

Content warnings are usually things like blood/violence, profanity, sexual content, etc. Trigger warnings typically get into specific things, like suicide, dentists, or religious trauma. Think of content warnings like the ERSB.

Put a splash screen before the game starts that showcase the content warnings and a place to find trigger warnings.

Don't: Pull back punches with what your characters are capable of

It's fiction. It doesn't necessarily mean you support your characters being crazy stalkers. Know the audience you want to write for, and don't feel a need to cower. Let them be filthy. Let them get their hands deep into someone's chest cavity and rip a body apart.

What I'm trying to say is you really shouldn't tone down what you think your characters are capable of because you're afraid of making fans sad or upset because pookie isn't acting the way they thought pookie acted in their head. It's your character. You're commanding the story. You are choosing where it goes, not fans. Just because you have an audience doesn't mean you need to tone it down to be more palpable to others.

Once your demo is released...

Do: Keep a balance

Making games is very, very hard. And the world is very, very harsh. It is okay to let your fans know about delays or potential cancellations, such as through the devlogs on itch.io for your game, in your community spaces, or on your blog. Please be honest. If you do not think that, after a demo's release, you can continue on the project, make it clear that it has been cancelled or on hiatus.

People will be understanding. The world sucks, and it sucks the life out of us. People are more forgiving if you are honest with the status of your game, rather than leaving it in a perpetual limbo.

Don't: Think that the popularity of your demo constitutes how "good" your game is.

Your demo may not do well. That could be a number of factors. Maybe your marketing didn't hit where you think it should have. Maybe you posted it at the same time as another game, so

Do: Network!

Get to know fellow developers in the space so you can learn from one another and get more ideas for improving your own games.

Don't: Use developers.

Use a developer's resources. You should not be making friends with other devs if your desire is to try and become friends with big people. That's a parasocial relationship, buddy!

Do: Tell your fans the course of action

Do you have a development timeline set up? Writing multiple days? Give fans a general outline that you planned before writing your demo. It's okay to miss things as long as you're honest. But a timeline will help you hold accountability for yourself.

Don't: Charge for it.

I've seen at least 3 games take the "I'm going to charge for a demo" route in an effort to sway children from playing the game. This is going to sway everyone. Especially if players have not seen a complete + finished product from you, they will not be buying an unfinished game. There are other ways to hide your games from children, such as using itch.io's adult content filters and applying them to your projects.

Main takeaway: Be honest.

I say this a lot throughout this post, but it's because it pushes on a particular trend I see in beginner visual novel developers. There's this desire to create, but there is also the desire for fandom centered around what characters and world spawn from your creations. To maintain that fandom, you need to create. You need to be consistent. It may be harsh, but it's the reality.

Life is hard, and a large majority of us are NOT doing this for a living. Life will get in the way. It always has, it always will.

That's why it's good to practice integrity. Know yourself and your limits. Take steps back and be willing to be open + honest.

Fans won't be happy if you keep saying a game is delayed and show little to no work. Posting unrelated artwork and spending months answering Tumblr asks instead of making a game will eventually run you in the mud without anyone to enjoy what you have the potential to create.