I reviewed my inspirations and edited my Store Page.

Inspirations

https://thingonitsown.itch.io/heros-hour

The background image is a dimmed overworld background, which sells its art and adventure theme really well!

https://fizzd.itch.io/a-dance-of-fire-and-ice

Another good example of a background image used well to convey the game's theme. Not as eye-catching as the previous one, but it definitely helps the game stand out in the mass of itch.io games.

(Warning: NSFW!) https://eccma417.itch.io/lonarpg

The dark color scheme goes hand-in-hand with the game's hardcore difficulty and gritty theme. But my game is also Early Access and it made me realize how much I appreciate the developer's up-front description of incomplete content. So much so, that I've completely spoiled all of my game's contents on my store page. (But I stopped reading the rest of LonaRPG after the first two paragraphs. It's a giant wall of text)

The price point ($29) and the screenshots are the real attention-grabbers of that store page.

My Store Page

I'm not expecting to get any sales on my itch.io honestly. I just checked the latest releases on itch.io and even after scrolling a few pages, I haven't gotten to yesterday's games. So many games are released every day.

Theme colors are important, so I tried experimenting with the colors again. I went to https://www.schemecolor.com/ in hopes of getting something, but I wanted the dark theme because 1) I haven't hired an artist to make my logo, and 2) the dark theme matches my current logo.

As an educational game, I should be focusing on bright colors to emphasize simplicity. Bright colors are just commonly associated with Kindergarten and School.

My banner shouldn't also be that big. The logo in my banner is barely visible and doesn't stand out.

I've spoiled just about everything in my game. All of its features are right there. That's probably the only selling point in that at least you know what you're getting.

I've typed "learn Japanese" in itch.io's search bar and my game never comes up. So I've adjusted the short description from...

"Type something in Japanese today!"

to...

"Learn Japanese. Type out the flashcards."

...I hope the new short description works for searching "Learn Japanese" now.

If you take a look at the pictures, you'll see the before and after. I was just aimless with my first effort. Ideas only come to me after some time, but people will only see the store page on launch day, so the effort is purely speculative now.

Thanks for reading my devlog.