A store page that sells

A few seconds to say hello

Garden Defense is on Google Play. So are thousands of other games. A player scrolling the store sees our icon, our name and a few pictures, and most people decide in a few seconds: tap, or keep scrolling.

The store page (also called the store listing) is our game's shop window. The Hyper Shards page on our website does the same job for the PWA. Every part of a store page has a size limit and a job.

What players see first

• The nameGoogle Play and the App Store allow up to 30 characters for the app name, so every word counts.
• The iconIt's tiny, so it needs one bold idea. Sprig's face works better than the whole garden.
• The first two screenshotsOn a phone these show without scrolling, so they get the most exciting moments.
• The short descriptionOne line that says what you do and why it's fun. On Google Play it can be up to 80 characters.
• The trailerA short video of real gameplay, often the first thing that plays.

Show the real game

Some games show amazing pictures of things that are not in the game. Players download it, feel tricked, and leave 1-star reviews. Apple's review rules say screenshots must show the app in use, and Google Play's policies ban misleading store listings. Pages that break the rules can be rejected or removed.

Our rule: every screenshot and video shows real gameplay. A short caption on top, like "Protect Sprig from 30 kinds of pests!", is fine as long as it's true.

Bolt says: Honest pages bring players who actually like our kind of game. Those players stay longer and leave better reviews.

App store optimization

Lots of players find games by searching inside the store. App store optimization (ASO) means helping the store match our game to what people search for.

The main tool is keywords: words players really type, like "tower defense" or "garden game". On Google Play we use them naturally in the title and descriptions. The Apple App Store also has a hidden keyword field of about 100 characters. Words are separated by commas, and there's no need to repeat words already in the name.

Bolt says: Don't stuff keywords. "Garden garden game garden defense" reads like spam, and stores can push spammy pages down.

A Steam page can open early

If Hyper Shards comes to Steam, its page can go live months before launch, marked Coming soon. Players can't buy it yet, but they can wishlist it (the Steam lesson in Stage 7 explains why wishlists matter so much).

Steam pages also use tags, short labels like "Space" and "Arcade". Players and the store use tags to find games like the ones they already enjoy, so we pick tags that honestly describe our game.

Test, then improve

A store page is never really finished. Google Play has store listing experiments: some visitors see icon A, others see icon B, and the store counts which one gets more installs. The App Store has a similar tool called product page optimization.

Change one thing at a time, and let a test run at least a week, so weekday and weekend players are both counted. Then the players show us which picture wins, with real numbers.

Bolt says: Next up: the part of the store page that moves. Trailers!