How we built it

Where the workflow comes from

The plan in Tinderbox Works isn't made up. Every step carries advice from people who measure what gets indie games played, and the app links each rule to where it comes from. This page explains how the workflow came together: what we read, what changed our minds, and how far to trust each source.

How it came together

17 Oct 2026, the brief
A control panel for a solo developer. Bugs and ideas from inside the game; demos that turn into dev logs; communities, creators and festivals; and a visual plan where you can switch parts off. One rule from the start: the app never calls an AI itself. It prepares the work for your own Claude Code, which already knows your game's code. You approve what goes out.
17 Oct, the course and a community summary
Chris Zukowski's course "How to make a Steam page". The lectures are videos without transcripts, so we worked from the parts that can be read: the lecture notes, three working sheets (target games, a Tag Diary and a Steam page Change Diary), the artist-brief deck and the articles the course links to. We also read the r/IndieDev marketing summary (January 2026): the full post, and the comments that can be read without an account, about 25 of 126.
18 Oct, the blog, newest first
How To Market A Game, Zukowski's blog. We read about 80 posts from 2017 to October 2026, along with the Benchmarks, Festivals and Next Fest pages. We went newest first on purpose: Steam changes, and several 2026 posts replaced the numbers in older ones (see below).
18 Oct, building the game
A Build column next to the marketing. The milestones follow the model Rami Ismail describes: prototype, vertical slice, production, alpha, beta, release candidate. Steam's own release rules come from the Steamworks documentation: the store page and the build are reviewed separately, and you press Release yourself.
18 Oct, a release that follows the wishlists
No fixed release date. The plan aims at a wishlist count. At about 8,000 wishlists Steam's Personal Calendar starts showing a game by default. When you're close, set the date about two months ahead. After six months on Steam at around 3,000, ship anyway.

What changed when newer sources came in

The launch target went from about 7,000 to about 8,000 wishlists. In June 2026 Valve replaced the old Popular Upcoming threshold with the Personal Calendar. Zukowski estimates the default calendar starts around 8,000. That's an estimate, not a published Valve rule, and his posts differ (one update gives about 13,000 as a median), so the target is a setting you can change.
Wishlists are worth less than they were. An October 2026 study of 160 games found that games from 2023–25 sold about half as many copies in their first month per wishlist as games from 2020–22. The total still predicts sales, so the app shows the last 30 days next to it.
Creators: from 300 pitches to 400 or more. The community summary says 300 and expects 5 to 10 to play. Zukowski treats 300 as the floor and saw 400 to over 1,000 for games that did well.
Next Fest: 2,000 wishlists going in, plus 2,000 in the two weeks before. This 2026 rule replaced older advice of 3,000 to 4,000.
Smaller corrections.
- A Discord for playtesters first, promoted near launch.
- Steam page tests judged on wishlists and visits, not click-through.
- Launch on a Monday or a Friday, not a Wednesday.
- Festivals chosen for genre fit rather than volume.
Counterpoints we kept in mind. Comments on the summary pushed back on how much wishlists matter for visibility, and on how well impulse wishlists convert. The plan treats wishlists as the best predictor we have, not as a guarantee.

The sources, and how far to trust them

How To Market A Game

Chris Zukowski · blog, benchmarks, festival list, Next Fest tracker · 2017 to 2026

A full-time game marketing consultant who writes in public and collects data that developers share with him. It's the most detailed public writing on selling games on Steam, and most of the plan's numbers come from it.

How far to trust it: it's one consultant's blog. Many numbers are his estimates, surveys of the developers who answered, or single games' stories, not Valve's rules. Every step in the app links to the post behind it, so you can read the reasoning. We read the posts through summaries; the numbers the plan relies on are being checked again against the posts themselves.

"How to make a Steam page"

Chris Zukowski · paid course · live Q&As from 2021

The tag rules and the one-change-at-a-time page test log come from its working sheets (the Tag Diary and the Change Diary), together with the course's notes on capsules, screenshots and trailers.

How far to trust it: same author, same caveats. We could read the notes and sheets, but not the videos.

The r/IndieDev marketing summary

A developer's summary of indie marketing advice · January 2026 · 800+ upvotes

A cross-check from the community. It largely agrees with the blog and adds practical tips. Its comments supplied the counterpoints above.

How far to trust it: a digest, not research. Where it and the blog differ (creator numbers, festivals), we followed the newer, data-backed source.

Levelling the Playing Field

Rami Ismail · co-founder of Vlambeer (Nuclear Throne, Ridiculous Fishing)

The milestone model behind the Build column: prototype, vertical slice, production, alpha, beta, release candidate.

How far to trust it: a common, well-tested way to stage a game's development. We used its outline; the timings in the plan are a forecast you can change.

Steamworks documentation

Valve · first-party

How a release works on Steam: the store page and the build are reviewed separately, a review takes a few business days, and you press Release yourself.

How far to trust it: the only first-party source, and the final word wherever it speaks. Anything we found only in third-party guides (for example a minimum time in Coming Soon) is left out until Valve's pages confirm it.

What we left out on purpose

Tinderbox never calls an AI itself. Every AI step is an AI Agent task that your own Claude Code runs, with your code in front of it.
Nothing goes out without you. Every post, mail, reply and release waits for your approval. In communities you post by hand, and creator mails go from your own mailbox. Nothing votes, and no second accounts.
The calls stay yours. Your game's genre and scope, the capsule artist, festival fees, price, the release date, and whether to delay, ship or move on.
Off by default. A YouTube devlog and press outreach. Press came fifth of six channels in Zukowski's survey of what moves wishlists. Switch them on in Your plan if they fit your game.

What we haven't done yet

We haven't worked through GDC talks or game postmortems yet. We also haven't checked the numbers against the data services (SteamDB, Gamalytic, VG Insights, GameDiscoverCo). As we do, the advice in the app will change, and so will this page. Each change shows up in the devlog.