Indie Game Marketing Tools Compared: All 30, Honestly
Full disclosure up front: this directory exists to sell our own tools. There's no fake "we reviewed 50 products" theater here — these are 30 tools we built, each doing one job. The honest question isn't "which is best" but "which job do you need done right now?" That depends on where your game is.
Pick by stage, not by hype
Pre-production (you have a prototype)
You need a name that won't get you sued, a price band picked by math, and playtests that produce decisions. That's Game Name Generator, Pricing Calculator, and Playtest Kit — three cheap tools that prevent expensive mistakes.
Pre-launch (page is live, launch in 1–6 months)
This is where most of the arsenal lives, because it's where most games are won or lost. The Steam page cluster — Steam Page Roast, Steam Capsule Kit, Steam Tag Optimizer, Screenshot Roast, Title Tester, Wishlist Optimizer — is the highest-ROI group: every upstream marketing effort flows through the page. Pair it with TrailerForge + Trailer Beats for the trailer, and the press cluster (Press Kit Generator, Press Email Templates, Curator Outreach Kit) for coverage.
Launch (the 90 days around release)
Next Fest Checklist and Festival Demo Checklist for the demo push, Discord Launch Kit for community, Launch Discount Planner so your pricing strategy is deliberate, and Overlay Kit if creators are streaming you.
Post-launch (live game, real players)
Review Response Playbook for the reviews that sting, Demo Survey Kit to turn feedback into data, and the short-form engines — HookPack, 200 Short-Form Hooks, Devlog Hooks, Announcement Templates — to keep the content rhythm going.
Funding
Pitch Deck for publishers, Kickstarter Copy Kit for crowdfunding. Both are about the commercial case, not the creative one.
The full table
| Tool | Price | Stage | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| TrailerForge | $49 | Pre-launch | Upload 1-3 gameplay clips, get back a hook-first 1080p trailer cut to proven templates. No editing skills needed. |
| Steam Page Roast | $19 | Pre-launch | A blunt, scored teardown of your Steam page: capsule, trailer, tags, and copy, with a prioritized fix list. |
| Next Fest Checklist | $19 | Pre-launch | A week-by-week Steam Next Fest prep countdown: demo, page, trailer, and press in deadline order. |
| Press Kit Generator | $29 | Pre-launch | Build a complete press kit for your game: fact sheet, assets, and copy journalists actually use. |
| Trailer Beats | $19 | Pre-launch | Plan your trailer beat-by-beat before you cut it: pacing templates that front-load the hook. |
| Horror Prompts | $19 | Pre-launch | A pack of tuned AI art prompts for horror game key art, capsules, and marketing visuals. |
| Overlay Kit | $24 | Launch | Stream-ready overlay kit for your game's broadcasts and creator sponsorships. |
| Title Tester | $9 | Pre-production | A/B test your game title ideas with a structured scoring framework before you commit. |
| Devlog Hooks | $15 | Ongoing | Hook templates for devlogs and update posts that people actually finish reading. |
| Screenshot Roast | $12 | Pre-launch | Get your Steam screenshots torn down and rebuilt in the order that converts browsers into wishlists. |
| Pricing Calculator | $9 | Pre-launch | Price your game with real math: fees, regional pricing, and discount ladders modeled out. |
| Pitch Deck | $29 | Funding | A pitch deck template built for game publishers: the slides they expect, in the order they expect them. |
| HookPack | $49 | Ongoing | A library of short-form video hooks tuned for game marketing on TikTok, Reels, and Shorts. |
| AI Film Packs | $39 | N/A (film) | Prompt packs and workflows for AI filmmakers. (Built for film, not games — included for completeness.) |
| Steam Capsule Kit | $24 | Pre-launch | Capsule art templates and composition guides that stay readable at thumbnail size. |
| Wishlist Optimizer | $15 | Pre-launch | A systematic pass over everything that turns page visitors into wishlist adds. |
| Festival Demo Checklist | $12 | Pre-launch | The unglamorous checklist that keeps your festival demo from embarrassing you: crashes, menus, onboarding. |
| 200 Short-Form Hooks | $15 | Ongoing | 200 plug-and-play hooks for short-form game content, organized by format. |
| Press Email Templates | $19 | Pre-launch | Outreach emails journalists answer: subject lines, 3-sentence pitches, and follow-ups. |
| itch.io Page Kit | $12 | Pre-launch | Page templates and copy patterns for itch.io that borrow what works on Steam. |
| Playtest Kit | $19 | Pre-production | Run playtests that produce decisions, not vibes: screeners, tasks, and debrief templates. |
| Launch Discount Planner | $9 | Launch | Plan your launch discount and sale calendar without training players to wait for 75% off. |
| Steam Tag Optimizer | $19 | Pre-launch | Pick your 5 Steam tags from a scored 111-tag dataset by genre and vibe, not guesswork. |
| Review Response Playbook | $15 | Post-launch | 66 review response templates plus a tone calibrator for the reviews that sting. |
| Discord Launch Kit | $19 | Pre-launch | Channel structure, welcome flows, rules, and mod templates for a Discord that runs itself. |
| Announcement Templates | $15 | Ongoing | 50 Steam announcement templates plus a scheduling calendar for updates that get read. |
| Kickstarter Copy Kit | $29 | Funding | Campaign copy templates plus a tier calculator that survives fees, shipping, and refunds. |
| Curator Outreach Kit | $24 | Pre-launch | 60+ Steam curators by genre with email templates for outreach that doesn't get ignored. |
| Demo Survey Kit | $12 | Post-launch | 20 playtest survey questions plus a CSV analyzer with charts, sentiment, and keyword extraction. |
| Game Name Generator | $9 | Pre-production | Generate names across 6 genres x 5 vibes x 3 frameworks, with a trademark checklist before you fall in love. |
What we won't claim
No tool here replaces making a good game, and none of them replace doing the work — a press kit template doesn't write your pitch, a tag optimizer doesn't fix a confusing game. What they do is compress the unglamorous parts: the checklists, the templates, the teardown frameworks, the math. Marketing is mostly execution. These tools make the execution faster.
One more note: AI Film Packs is in the table for completeness, but it's built for AI filmmakers, not game developers. If you're here for games, skip it.