Hi, what you're describing happens to everyone. The problem is simple: we have too many games and not enough players.

If you want your game to attract players, you need to build a community and actively promote it, not just passively wait.

Additionally, your game is only targeting one platform, Android, and Itch isn't an Android store. So, a good portion of the people who might see your page aren't going to download the content because they're not interested in downloading casual android games from Itch.

We don't have player statistics or hardware specifications, but if you look at the 1,200,000 indexed games, only 90,000 have an Android version. This also indicates that it's not a store focused on Android.

Furthermore, no matter how accessible your games are, Google is constantly adding barriers to installing apps from outside the Google Play Store, so not just anyone can install your apps.

If you're only going to create games for Android, it's best to try to publish them on Google Play, but you'll have the same problem there; these days, you need to do active promotion.

Personally, I don't play any games that use AI. Others may not care as much, but that's why I'm not interested 

I believe these games stand out compared to what’s already on the market (they’re free)

Really? You think so? Is the "they're free" part the reason why you think they stand out? Because casual puzzle games that are free aren't exactly uncommon.

On Itch you compete against all these. It's only 1000 and with the word-game tag.

https://itch.freezing.top/games/platform-web/tag-word-game

Those games do not need to be installed. Installing games kinda defeats the purpose of "casual" games a little bit. Also, only 5% of them have AI. You might have written your code yourself, but you even made the game's description with AI. 

If it makes you feel better, your game is currently #16 of 82 of this list https://itch.freezing.top/games/tag-ai-generated/tag-word-game which is all games on all platforms with the word-game tag, but with AI.

Casual word games are somewhat popular, but it's a nieche. You limit audience further by having downloadable Android version instead of a browser version. And not many people like AI games. Why should they. There are better games that are free too and have no AI visuals. I tolerate AI in some games, but for a word game, there is literally no reason. Yes, that pun was intentional. You could have made the game without visuals at all. One of the most popular word games is Wordle. No visuals whatsoever https://www.nytimes.com/games/wordle/index.html . But as I said, you even wrote the description with AI. I guess most people probably do not even bother to read past the first few paragraphs after visiting your page, let alone take the effort to download it.

How many casual games with AI visuals have you installed on your phone lately? For fun, and not to see competition? I have never done such a thing, so obviously I am not your target audience.

You can try making a web version of the game with free non-ai assets. It's still a nieche, but at least you will get more plays and feedback, as you are getting now.

As others have said, you have to promote yourself. This can be hard work and you'll probably have to use TikTok, Youtube, and/or similar platforms. It's never been easier to make and publish games, but this is of course both a blessing and a curse: It means there's just so many games that you have to work hard to stand out. Also, of course, you have to promote yourself in a way that doesn't just come across as spam. Consistently putting out games and updates for WIP projects (once they're far enough along) helps too, of course.

With your defending AI, with no less than using medical "AI" applications no less, you lose track of the important thing: how people react to AI "art". 

It does not matter, if it is ethical or not. It does not matter if a big studio used it to recreate the voice of a deceased actor with constent. Or that some indie developers use it in their games. This is all beside the point.

Players do not like it. You cannot use AI assets as an advertiseable feature of a game. So displaying the use of AI will deter a lot of players. Do that in a nieche that already does not have all that many players, and you have barely anyone left. Add to that the barrier of installing a casual game that should have been a browser game and what you get is what you have.

There is a topic like this about every week. Someone either asking why their game is unnoticed or asking how to promote their game.

One should not forget, that this is Itch. The whole platform is basically unknown. It has 1.2 million projects in the game category. But only about 250k of them are good enough to have some attention. About 60k of them are good enough to collect money.

So you asking why your game(s) are in the 950k, instead of the 250k of the games... meh. Who knows. It certainly does not help that you have an Android only game or feature AI. But even without that, it is unlikely that your game(s) would be in the 250k. Most of those other 950000 games are probably not bad either.

As long as you have fun creating games, all good.

For the other topic, and "evidence" how players view AI, citing the opinion of a former director of a studio is not exactly evidence. AI is not that old. How about some actual data on the platform we are currently talking. Maybe this is possible to see. AI games are relatively new, so I wish I could have used the 2025 category, but this does not exist yet. So I will use the last 30 days filter. We will use ai graphics, because that's what people notice the easiest.

https://itch.freezing.top/games/top-rated/last-30-days/tag-ai-generated-graphics

https://itch.freezing.top/games/top-rated/last-30-days/tag-no-ai

Those figures are the amount of ratings and the order is weighted, so that more ratings will appear higher, even if the average is slightly lower. But from the number of ratings you can conclude interaction by players and evidently how they like those games.

I think that's rather devastating for games with AI. Granted, that's not proof of causality. It could be influenced by other factors and likely is. But the bottom line is, if you release a game and have AI graphics, people are less likely to play and subsequently like it.

Those other factors might include people not liking AI, the AI graphics looking cheap and bland, overall lack of production value since the developer had no budget to hire an artist, or things like people releasing games who are not game developers, but just made a thing for fun and those projects are in the same lists as professional games.

Hey!

I totally understand your frustration,  getting visibility on Itch can be really tough. I just wanted to share something that might help: if you only create games for Android, you're limiting your potential audience quite a lot. 

I might be wrong, but in general most Itch users tend to look for PC games, especially indie experiments, jam entries, prototypes, or narrative projects made for Windows, Linux, or even browser.

In fact, creating a small browser-playable game could really help you gain visibility, since Web games get played instantly and don’t require downloads.

Keep it up! 😊

At a glance, I assume it’s AI slop and move on, because that’s the impression of the cover art.

There’s no reason for potential players to give your game or games a deeper look if the first look sets off a big red flag. We have an abundance of options that feel less risky.