Congratulations. Looks fun and one of those "omg, I've spent so much time on this" kind of game.
Can you expand in the part of talking to publishers. How did you approach it, how much previous context did you have, how did you evaluate what was good vs not. I know what mobile game publishers ask for but not desktop/steam ones.
Any advice? (Not that I'm making games but just curious what form it actually takes)
Not author, but fellow indie gamedev founder. Already answered one similar question in comments, but here is usual process of choosing publishers:
1 - You need to decide whatever you looking for a funding and how much you need. No matter where you're located majority of indie publishers operate with budgets under $300,000. AFAIK there is under 30-50 companies that can even provide funding over $1,000,000.
2 - Even big publishers dont like to take risks. So if you're self-funded or have investor your chances to sign publishing agreement are much higher since then publisher risks almost nothing.
3 - You go and check what games each publisher release on Steam and check how much marketing there are for their titles. "Good" publishers usually only release 1 game a month or less since marketing is both time consuming and costly. So obviously it's much harder to get selected.
4 - There are "spray and pray" publishers that can even give you some money easier than others, but they sometimes release 3-10 titles a month and just look what sticks. They mostly dont do marketing before release whatsoever so it's not exactly an optimal choice unless you working on a games that can be built cheap and under 6 month.
5 - When you start any negotiations normal net revenue split after budget recouperation is around 50/50 (with 40 / 60 both ways also possible). So you can filter out those who try to pray on inexperienced people.
6 - Also unless you getting serious funding (not $300,000) publishers usually only get exclusive distribution license on your specific title for 3-5 years, but they dont get your IP. If some small publisher ask for full IP transfer it's not a good deal.
And yeah to reach out you only need at playable and fun prototype for 5-15 minutes of gameplay, but if your game is closer to release it's will drastically increase your chances for a deal. Everyone loves to publish games with no funding needed and no one loves to fund development with risk it will never be completed.
Getting published by likes of Raw Fury is a huge success though, very small percent or projects get such a chance.
PS: If you wish feel free to reach me, will happily share my experience.
Can you expand in the part of talking to publishers. How did you approach it, how much previous context did you have, how did you evaluate what was good vs not. I know what mobile game publishers ask for but not desktop/steam ones.
Any advice? (Not that I'm making games but just curious what form it actually takes)