Have had some thought about some decent tips. Granted I've only worked on games that work directly with a publisher.
- How do people generally market games with no budget?
Some tend to only market within the gamedev space. This can help add some wishlisting to your project, but it's no guarantee you'll be carving out a niche base for your game. If there's any one piece of advice, it's build a community of players or intended players as early as you can. The tools at your disposal that are free are going to be social media tools that you should absolutely still try. Discord, Youtube, Twitter, Tiktok at a minimum. On each of those platforms, find content creators who do regular What Are You Working On type affairs and submit your stuff. Keep an eye for folks who have successfully marketed themselves and their devblogs as things that speak to gamers more than devs. Good reference points here would be folks like Garbaj, miziziz, and folks that do gamedev content but aim the video into a broader conversation about the enjoyment of video games.
Other stuff: Look ahead at what is releasing. If you commit yourself to a deadline, that's wonderful, but keep an eye out for potential landmines that are going to dominate views. Nobody really saw Palworld coming, but larger hugely anticipated games generally have release windows you can avoid. Try not to compete for those slots as attention will no doubt be tough.
The only other piece of advice is to ensure you're doing it cyclically. Set a schedule, draft up an idea, and post. Show up for your project just like you do in your IDE, and commit to consistency. Otherwise, the only answer is that it's complete luck and timing.
Streamers can and will make a difference, but don't commit yourself to that at the jump. Work on the community, work on the game, and when you're nearing release you may have a strong enough presence that viewers will want folks to try it out anyway.
If you find yourself getting a publisher offer, reach out to anybody you know in the industry to validate stuff. There's thing we can share, and things we can't, but games publishers are not all created equally. I've been very lucky to work with great ones, but bad actors do exist and they will indeed fuck your game up. If you end up getting reached out to by a publisher, and you truly have nobody, seriously, DM me. As fellow devs, we should strive to help each other succeed. Outside of that, good luck, and stay consistent even when it feels like you're posting into the void.
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