The first hundred wishlists are not a small version of the first thousand. They're a different thing entirely. The thousand come from a store algorithm deciding you exist. The hundred come from actual human beings who saw your game, felt something, and clicked a button. You have to earn each one by hand, and that's not a bug in the process. It's the whole point.
Most advice about wishlists skips this stage because it isn't glamorous. There's no growth chart. You get them one, two, five at a time, from a Discord message and a reply to a tweet and your cousin who genuinely likes puzzle games. That's fine. Those hundred people are worth more than the next nine hundred, and I'll explain why before I tell you where to find them.
Why the first hundred are worth more than the next thousand
The next thousand wishlists are mostly a number. Some of them will convert. Many of them wishlisted on a whim during a sale event and forgot your game exists by dinner. That's normal, and it's what scaled discovery looks like.
The first hundred are different because you can, in principle, trace where every one of them came from. That traceability is the actual asset. If forty came from a single subreddit post and two came from a paid ad, you've just learned something enormous about your game for free.
This is also why buying reach right now is a waste. An ad can put your capsule in front of ten thousand strangers, and if six of them wishlist, you've learned nothing except that your ad is bad — which you can't fix, because you don't yet know whether the problem is the ad, the capsule, the game, or the pitch. Paid reach is a magnifying glass. Early on you have nothing to magnify. You'll just get a bigger, more expensive picture of your own confusion.
Get the hundred from people first. Then, when something is clearly working, pay to do more of that specific thing.
Get the store page right before you ask anyone anything
Every wishlist you chase before your store page is finished is a wishlist you're actively repelling. People decide in about the time it takes to read one sentence, and if your page is a placeholder with three screenshots and a paragraph that starts "In a world where," they will decide against you.
You need a capsule image that reads at thumbnail size, a short description that says what the game is in plain words, and a trailer or GIF that shows the actual game doing the actual thing. Not a logo animation. The thing.
The test is simple: show it to someone who has never heard of your game and ask them what it is. If they can't tell you in one sentence, no amount of promotion will help, because promotion is just showing this page to more people. Fix the page. Then start.
Where the first hundred actually come from
Here are the places, roughly in order of how much they reward a small, unknown game.
Communities you're already in. Not "post in r/gaming." The specific, small communities built around the exact thing your game is. A deckbuilder Discord. A subreddit for a niche genre. A forum full of people who play the weird thing you also make. These people are predisposed to care, and they can tell when you actually belong there versus when you've shown up to drop a link and leave.
People, one at a time. DM the streamer with two hundred viewers who plays games exactly like yours. Reply to the person tweeting about wanting more of your genre. This scales terribly, which is why it works — nobody else is bothering to do it. Our creators directory is a decent place to find small channels whose whole identity is your niche.
Your playtesters. Everyone who tested the game and enjoyed it should be told, personally, the moment the page goes live. They already like it. Asking them to wishlist is the lowest-friction request you'll ever make. If you don't have playtesters yet, that's a gap worth closing anyway — here's how to find playtesters who tell you the truth, and the honest ones become your first evangelists.
Genre and demo events. Curated showcases and demo festivals put your game in front of people who specifically came to browse unreleased indie games. That's the best-qualified audience there is: strangers who are already in wishlist mode.
Anywhere you can show, not tell. A short clip of a genuinely satisfying moment does more than a hundred words. If your game has one five-second thing that makes people go "oh," that clip is your best salesperson. Post it where the right people will see it.
Notice what's not on this list: paying anyone, gaming the algorithm, or posting in giant general audiences hoping for scraps.
The pitch that gets a click
When you reach out — to a community, a creator, anyone — you have one sentence before they move on. Spend it on what makes your game specific, not what makes it sound impressive.
"A cozy farming sim" tells me nothing. "A farming sim where the crops are afraid of you" makes me look. The second one might be worse marketing by some committee's standards and it will get ten times the clicks, because it's a real thing a real person would be curious about.
Lead with the strangest true thing about your game. Not the genre, not the influences, not the feature list. The hook is the part that's only true of your game and no other. If you can't find that sentence, that's a design note, not a marketing problem.
And when you post, don't open with the link. Open with the interesting thing. The link is where they go after you've earned the click, not the reason they should give you one.
What to do when it isn't working
Sometimes you do all this and the wishlists trickle in at a rate that suggests the internet is empty. Before you blame the algorithm, check which part is actually broken.
If people click through to your page and don't wishlist, the problem is the page or the game's appeal — not your reach. If people see your posts and don't click, the problem is your hook. If nobody sees your posts, you're posting in the wrong places, or not enough of them.
These are three completely different problems with three different fixes, and the only way to tell them apart is the by-hand, traceable approach. This is exactly the diagnostic value that paid reach buries. If you want more low-cost ways to test each layer, here's a fuller guide to marketing an indie game with no budget.
The one thing to do first
Before you chase a single wishlist, show your finished store page to five people who don't know you and don't owe you kindness, and ask them to tell you what the game is. If all five get it, you're ready to start reaching out. If they don't, you've just saved yourself from promoting a page that converts strangers into people who've already decided no.
Everything else follows from a page that can survive contact with a stranger. Build that. Then go find your hundred humans.
Common questions
How long should it take to get the first 100 wishlists?
There's no fixed timeline, and anyone promising one is guessing. It depends on how active you are, how well-defined your niche is, and how strong your hook is. What matters more than speed is whether you know where each wishlist came from — a slow hundred you understand beats a fast hundred you can't explain.
Should I launch my store page early or wait until the game looks finished?
Launch as soon as the page can make a good first impression, not before. A page that's live for longer has more time to accumulate wishlists, but a page that looks unfinished wastes every visitor it gets. "Good enough to convert a stranger" is the bar, not "the game is done."
Do giveaways and wishlist competitions work this early?
They inflate the number without teaching you anything, which is the same problem as paid reach. People who wishlist to win a prize aren't telling you whether your game is appealing. Save that tactic for when you already know what resonates and just want to amplify it.
Is it worth reaching out to big streamers for wishlists?
Usually not yet. Large creators get flooded with requests and rarely cover unknown games, and even if one does, a spike you can't replicate teaches you little. Small creators in your exact niche convert better per viewer and are far more likely to actually reply.