About the Game

Kotama and Academy Citadel is a stylish action-adventure Metroidvania where players take on the role of a mysterious exchange student competing in the election festival of Carmel Academy City for the honor of becoming the "Star of Carmel."

The game blends fast-paced, ferrofluid-inspired combat with exploration, puzzle solving, and narrative progression, wrapped in a vibrant anime-influenced aesthetic.

Priced at $19.99, the game was designed to appeal to fans of anime-styled action games, Metroidvanias, and skill-driven combat systems - genres with passionate Western fanbases that often discover new titles through creator content rather than traditional advertising.

Organic Campaign Strategy

The organic component focused on opt-in outreach at scale, ensuring that all participating creators were genuinely interested in the game, not just accepting a paycheck. Using Cloutboost Portal, the team:

• Identified and contacted nearly 3,000 creators aligned with Metroidvania, action-adventure, and anime-styled games
• Invited creators to opt in for a Steam review key
• Distributed keys only to creators who expressed interest
• Tracked all outreach, opt-ins, content, and performance in one centralized platform

Creators were given full creative freedom, with no posting requirements or mandated formats. Recommended content formats included gameplay videos, livestreams, and short-form clips, but creators chose what best fit their channels.

This strategy prioritized authenticity, scale, and long-tail visibility, while keeping risk and spend minimal. For a Chinese publisher building Western relationships from scratch, this hands-off approach also helped establish goodwill with creators unfamiliar with 2P Games.

Creator Activation

In addition to activating a small group of paid influencers, the organic campaign focused on breadth and relevance, resulting in a diverse mix of mid-tier and niche creators across YouTube and Twitch.

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This wide creator mix ensured the game reached multiple audience segments organically, across different formats, languages, and regions, crucial for a publisher seeking to establish presence across Western markets rather than a single territory.

Content Overview

The organic campaign generated a remarkable diversity of content formats, demonstrating genuine creator investment in the title.

YouTube Creators published a wide range of content formats, including:

• First-impression gameplay videos (10–20 minutes)
• Deeper mechanical breakdowns and reviews
• Longer exploratory playthroughs
• Short-form content including YouTube Shorts and TikTok videos, extending reach to mobile-first audiences
• Marathon completionist content with some creators publishing 7+ hour full playthroughs

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Twitch Streamers showcased the game live, engaging directly with their communities through Q&A, difficulty discussions, and real-time reactions to combat and boss encounters.

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Multiple influencers published ongoing series, returning for 5+ streams or videos to continue their playthrough. This kind of sustained, unpaid commitment signals authentic interest that no sponsored post can replicate and delivers compounding visibility over time.

Because content was entirely organic, creators approached the game with their own voice and pacing, resulting in authentic coverage that continued generating views and watch time well beyond the initial publication window, extending the marketing impact far beyond what the indie budget could have achieved through paid media alone.

Results

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Key Takeaways

While publishers often question whether organic outreach alone can deliver meaningful scale, Kotama and Academy Citadel demonstrates that, with the right targeting and tooling, it absolutely can, especially for indie publishers who need to maximize impact with limited resources. This campaign:

• Activated nearly 100 creators across YouTube and Twitch through organic outreach alone
• Generated over 250K YouTube views and thousands of live viewers on Twitch
• Delivered authentic, unsponsored coverage at scale, building Western credibility for a Chinese publisher entering new markets
• Validated Western market interest with minimal financial risk
• Provided clear performance signals for future paid creator investments
• Complemented paid activations as part of a full-funnel influencer and performance marketing strategy

For 2P Games, this campaign wasn't just about launching a single title, it was about proving a model for Western market entry. By partnering with Cloutboost across the full marketing mix, organic outreach, paid influencer activations, and paid social, they executed a comprehensive go-to-market strategy tailored to indie realities.

Using Cloutboost Portal, they retained lifetime access to all outreach and performance data, which now informs smarter decisions: which creator segments convert best, which content formats drive wishlists, and where paid investment will deliver the strongest ROI for future titles.

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For indie publishers operating with limited resources, combining organic influencer outreach with strategic paid activations isn't a compromise, it's a strategic advantage that builds authentic relationships, validates market interest, and stretches every marketing dollar further.