Happy story working with a publisher (yes it happens!)

3 weeks ago I posted about living the indie dream with my 3rd game DreadHaven: The Last Colony https://www.reddit.com/r/IndieDev/comments/1wxas3f/after_5_years_3_failed_project_im_finally_living/

People asked a lot of questions, so here's more context about what happened before that huge boost with the demo.

• August 2025: I signed a publishing deal with Goblinz Publishing, they loved my first prototype and wanted me to go further.
• March 2026: We announced the DreadHaven Steam page for the Tun Based event
• 2 weeks later: Goblinz publishing week

We gathered most of our first wishlists during that first month, then the Strategem gathered a bit more, crossing the 5,000 wishlists. They registered me for all these events, and I did nothing.

Then the game got some wishlists, mainly by Reddit ads, to go to 6,600 wishlists

Then I went multiple months with close to nothing. I tried all kind of socials posts here and there, posting here and there, I got no traction at all.

I had 6,600 wishlists, which is already INSANE, but it felt like I used everything during these long months.

The game had close to no natural wishlists - maybe 5 every day - I was TERRIFIED the demo would just do nothing. (Well I was wrong, but I didn't know that)

• September 2026: Goblinz sent mails to YouTubers, and it went crazy. 500k views on Youtube that just skyrocketed the game
• October 2026: The game kept its velocity while I was working and patching the game
• Next Fest October 2026: I tried like everyone to send mail to everyone covering the fest, not a lot of answers, but I didn't have 0 answers and got some nice streams. It more than doubled my velocity.

I thought I had an amazing Next fest with 400 wishlists a day, and finally it seems I'm on the silver line using https://howtomarketagame.com/snf/ ?

So here I am, sitting at 18,000 wishlists now, a number that has NO SENSE to me because my last game had 750 wishlists at launch

I got tons of awesome feedbacks, I have a lot of things to consider because the game is not finished yet (and I'm happy it's not, so it's useful to have all these feedbacks).

The real marketing I've done is during the next fest, it's especially a fest where people want contact with the dev. All the rest is mostly Goblinz Publishing doing its work (and me making the game).

Working with the publisher

During the whole time, I felt totally free to build the game as I wanted, and I finally had money to pay people to work with me:

• The artistic direction has been made by Toadzillart working on https://store.steampowered.com/app/4567210/One_Coin_Museum/, he's been busy and now I'm working with someone that made https://store.steampowered.com/app/1948490/Xion_Leak/
• I took 1 day of a narrative designer to help me understand what I could do
• I worked wth a sound designer for the music/sound

It's a bit exhausting to be the one deciding everything, because even if I could work with people now, I still have to decide if their work fits the game or not.

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I'm not sure what you can take away as a reader from all of this, but well, I always loved reading things like that, so It's my turn!