I don’t have any advice, but I will say the art in the screenshots didn’t grab my attention.
For what it’s worth, I had a similar experience. I launched a game on itch.io for fun, and got a ton of positive feedback (including “I love this game!” And “I can’t believe this is free!”), but when I launched on Steam (also for free, but now with music people said they liked and new features), it bombed.
The cherry on top was when I posted a Show HN here (it’s a zachlike programming game, using an esolang—-right up HN’s alley), and didn’t get a single upvote. I’ll admit: that hurt.
To be fair, hn submissions are a total crapshoot; don't take it too hard. The first upvote comes down to whether the right person looks at the new submissions queue at the right moment... And I often get the impression that very few people are looking at the queue and trying to separate good stuff from the giant piles of crap...
I wasn't even aware of the New button after years of casual browsing :) When I discovered it one day, I felt bad that I hadn't contributed to sorting through the crap.
For what it’s worth, I had a similar experience. I launched a game on itch.io for fun, and got a ton of positive feedback (including “I love this game!” And “I can’t believe this is free!”), but when I launched on Steam (also for free, but now with music people said they liked and new features), it bombed.
The cherry on top was when I posted a Show HN here (it’s a zachlike programming game, using an esolang—-right up HN’s alley), and didn’t get a single upvote. I’ll admit: that hurt.