Plan of Attack partnered with btf, later rebranded to Blue Backpack, to launch Constance, 2D hand-drawn metroidvania featuring a paintbrush-wielding artist, striving to escape from a colorful but decaying inner-world.

OVERVIEW

Constance was developed by a small indie team and featured hand-drawn visuals, artistic themes and a personal story that delved into mental health. With this in mind, it made sense to very much position Constance as an “indie” - reflecting the intimate nature of the games themes and pushing its artistic, “handmade” credibility in a genre where indies hold an unusually dominant position. We let Constance’s stunning artwork speak for itself with visual assets and pushed the game’s flow-state platforming and combat, drawing press comparisons to some of the best indies of all time into our messaging as the campaign progressed. Our goal was to build awareness of the game among press and players, as a high quality indie worthy of being compared to some of the best in the genre, ultimately converting that into positive previews, reviews and creator coverage in the leadup to launch.

THE CAMPAIGN

Constance was already announced when we began working on the game in June 2024, kicking off with a release window announcement press release to support the debut of the release window trailer, debuted at the Guerilla Collective digital showcase. We worked on the game up to its launch on November 24th 2025, continuing to support the game post-launch. We knew that Constance was a good game from the outset, so having opportunities to get press hands-on at events like gamescom and PAX East, as well as pushing demo builds of the game was an important part of the campaign. Our key beats were structured around that, focusing on important news, such as the release window announcement and release date announcement.

During the campaign, the client rebranded from btf to Blue Backpack and began publishing partnerships with ByteRockers and PARCO. These were changes that were not foreseeable at the campaign's outset, so here we had to be responsive to the changes as they arose. We focused on trade media outlets in communicating this more business focused news. Where possible, we used these announcements as an opportunity to reinforce our other key beats, highlighting Blue Backpack’s gamescom plans in the leadup to the show, for example.

We handled appointment booking for Constance at gamescom in 2024, and both gamescom and PAX East in 2025. Despite only being in the consumer area at gamescom - typically tricky to get media to venture into - we had success in both instances, securing 74 appointments across the shows.

Knowing that people would like Constance if we could get it in their hands, we worked hard to push the Steam Next Fest demo. Despite the insane level of competition - with over 2,500 games - we managed to secure some fantastic coverage, including big outlets with GamesRadar+ posting demo impressions and Screen Rant picking it up as one of the top 10 demos of the Next Fest. This contributed to the game being one of top 100 most-played demos of the event. Over 17,000 players checked it out and by the end of the event the game was closing in on 250k wishlists.

For the review campaign, we returned to press and influencers who had checked out the game at previous stages of the campaign and made a broad push with press and targeted influencers we knew had enjoyed similar titles. We secured 148 reviews for Constance, 28 from verified OpenCritic outlets and 19 from Metacritic outlets. The game not only received a high number of reviews, but scored very well.

WHAT WE DID

• 9 global press releases distributed + published on GamesPress
  • Release window announcement June 2024
  • Btf x ByteRockers partnership March 2025
  • Release Date announcement June 2025
  • Btf rebranding to Blue Backpack August 2025
  • Blue Backpack and Parco Games Partnership August 2025
  • Blue Backpack TGS September 2025
  • Next Fest Demo October 2025 - media blast
  • Constance & TBA demo numbers (release reminder) October 2025- media blast
  • Out Now announcement November 2025
• 40.2% average open rate across consumer releases (approx. 670 opens per send)
• gamescom 2024, PAX East and gamescom 2025 booking campaign: 75 press/influencer meetings secured
• Extensive review key outreach with press and influencers including multiple follow-up rounds
• Organic creator campaign:
  • 1,200+ influencer pitches sent (metroidvania, 2D platformer targeting)
  • Over 550 keys sent to influencers directly and via Lurkit

COVERAGE + IMPRESSIONS

The Constance campaign generated 729 total pieces of global coverage, including 581 news hits and 148 reviews.

Coverage appeared across 46 countries, with the strongest traction in key target territories including the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, Brazil, and Italy. The game earned pickup from both mainstream and gaming outlets, including Infobae, IGN, GameSpot, Screen Rant, Terra Game On, Daily Express, and GamesRadar+.

Press Coverage Breakdown

• 581 News stories

• 148 Reviews

• 729 Total pieces of coverage

Press Coverage Reach Highlights (Top outlets by reach)

• Infobae (Argentina)

• IGN (US)

• GameSpot (US)

• Screen Rant (US)

• GamesRadar+ (US)

• Daily Express (UK)

Influencer Coverage Breakdown

• 4515 Twitch streams

• 954 YouTube videos

• 316 TikTok videos

Steam Next Fest Demo

Steam Next Fest has become notoriously difficult when it comes to securing press coverage. With Next Fests now featuring upwards of 2.5k demos, there’s a ton of competition and everyone wants press to check out their game. The awareness we had already built around the game allowed and the messaging in our pitching allowed us to overcome that challenge. Highlights included GamesRadar+’s demo impressions referring to it as a “must-play”, Screen Rant picking it out as one of the top-10 demos of the Next Fest and GamingBible identifying as players’ next game to pick up after Silksong.

The game was one of the 100 most-played demos of the event, with over 17,000 players checking it out. Constance finished the event closing in on 250k wishlists.

Review Campaign Success

Our success with reviews for Constance was a highlight of the campaign and an affirmation of the work we’d done leading up to it. We secured 148 reviews for Constance, 28 from verified OpenCritic outlets and 19 from Metacritic outlets. This compares well with some recent indie hits, including The Seance of Blake Manor (18 OpenCritic reviews), Keep Driving (22 OpenCritic reviews), (Talos Principle: Reawakened (29 OpenCritic reviews) and Death Howl (23 OpenCritic reviews).

The game was also scored well, securing a host of 10/10s and 9/10s. Praise included 4P.de calling it “among the best the metroidvania genre has to offer” and GamesRadar+ insisting that “you should absolutely play it”. Throughout the campaign, we integrated positive press comparisons into our positioning and messaging and this proved to be the right call. The game frequently received positive comparisons to Celeste, Hollow Knight and Hollow Knight: Silksong in review coverage.

Critical Response Highlights

Across reviews and previews, the sentiment was almost universally positive, with recurring praise for:

• Visuals and artwork

• Satisfying flow-state combat and platforming

• Cool ideas, such as having the option to continue on death with reduced health

• Ability to stack up to genre leaders like Hollow Knight and Celeste

Takeaways

In a highly competitive genre, Constance proved that it's still possible to get noticed with the right positioning, messaging and targeting. This was a campaign where we were able to ensure we weren’t the only ones speaking for the game - we got Constance in people’s hands and let them tell the world what makes it special.

The campaign showed the value of the following in a campaign:

• knowing when a game is ready to put in people’s hands

• listening to feedback on the game and incorporating that into messaging

• building awareness and advocacy over time with structured beats