How to make TikToks for your indie game
2 min read
By Eduardo Orellana ·
A TikTok for an indie game is one moment of real gameplay, framed for a vertical 9:16 screen, with the hook in the first two seconds and captions for people watching muted. Post a few a week from the same footage, keep the game's name in the profile and a link to the Steam page in the bio, and judge clips by the wishlists that follow, not the views. The same clip works on YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels.
TikTok shows your clip to strangers first
Unlike YouTube, where subscribers come first, TikTok shows a new clip to people who have never heard of you and spreads it if they watch. That makes it the cheapest way for an unknown game to be seen, and the hardest to turn into sales: viewers have to leave the app, find Steam and wishlist.
Making a clip
- One moment: the most surprising, satisfying or funny thing your game does.
- The hook in two seconds: start on the moment, not a logo.
- Vertical 9:16: gameplay framed in the vertical canvas, with room for captions; do not crop away the action.
- Captions: most people watch muted.
- Under a minute: many game clips work at 10 to 30 seconds.
Do TikTok views turn into wishlists?
Some do, and far fewer than the views suggest. The path from a clip to a wishlist is long: profile, bio link, Steam page, wishlist button. Shorten it with the game's name on screen and in the caption, and a Steam link in your bio. Then watch your Steam traffic and wishlists the day after a clip does well; that is the real measure.
One clip, three platforms
The same vertical clip works on TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels. Export it without one platform's watermark, write each caption in that platform's style, and post them on different days if you can, to see which audience responds.
Where Flockbay fits
Flockbay's Video studio cuts vertical shorts from your real gameplay, three hooks of one moment, and Social posts posts them to TikTok from a queue, drafted in the chat; the AI never posts on its own. Free in beta until 1 December 2026.