What are the best ways to advertise an indie Visual Novel?

[KanCerberus]

Can someone explain to me some strategies that are used to advertise videogames?
What attracts you the most when you are looking for a new game to play? A good trailer? A good description?

 

[Machinist]

Art.
I have seen games raking hundreds of dollars in the first hours because the art was good/different enough.

Having said that, there's lot's of ways of making a successful game, even if the art is not the best thing to offer.

In my case, what attracts me the most is a nice story, even if it doesn't have lots of h-scenes.

 

[Aristro]

A good banner, Nice preview pictures, interesting plot overview... I don't really care about tags that much but many people here does, so consider that as well...

 

[sexypeanut]

Nie art (and animation, if your game has it), good h-scenes and coherent plotline

 

[Kurumi Tokisaki]

1) Art/Animation. I'm going to spend a bunch of time seeing it and kinda irks me to the point where I won't play something because first impressions are huge for me when looking for games. Lots of games to play with limited time otherwise i'd probably give more slack. Previews have helped me find a bunch of good games/games related in some way. The exception to this would be older VNs to a degree.

2) Music/Sound. Another big part that'll be using your senses a bunch for. It helps set the mood and can make for an extremely memorable experience especially when you play something and remember the game from just its music.

3) Story/Character Interaction. Due to characters existing, having interactions and generally always being on screen talking in a VN, this is usually a pretty big part. I like to feel like something is happening instead of saying hi, chatting for a bit and doing the same thing for most of the game.

I'm going to include options that feel like they have an effect on the story if you choose to do that in your game i.e choosing one character route making other love interests actually notice be it referencing them or altering dialogue in some way like "So how was your day with [character] yesterday?" instead of acting like nothing happened.

 

[Utratroy]

Of all these answer op.
trust me, the best way is just to do it at your level
you will gain a lot but also sacrifice a lot more.
but hey, that too applies to everything

 

[おい！]

 

[retrop]

Everyone loves to have the choice. Choices matters. Also, I feel that a sucessfull game have a significant pool of good characters, it leads to fan wars preaching for their preferate girl. Its an important element to keep the hype between different uptades.