Comment by Protostome
9 months ago
Didn't know that ... silly me. In any case, I think the question still relevant - is the secret just "if you build it, they will come?"
I suspect it isn't since the competition is fierce, there has to be something beyond making a good game
I don’t know Berry’s game dev history, but Celeste designer Maddy Thorson has been making fantastic 2D platformers since, essentially, the very beginning of Western indie games. (Jumper 1 was released in 2004!)
In other words, I think Celeste required decades of preliminary work and industry presence to end up as good as it did. If you build it for a long-ass time, maybe they will eventually come!
The secret extra sauce is called marketing :)