I’ve played around with this a bit, so I’ll share what’s worked for me.
For recording, I don’t rely on the preview window itself. I usually export a desktop build and then record that with OBS. It gives you way more control over resolution and aspect ratio. Setting OBS to a 9:16 canvas (like 1080×1920) and then scaling or cropping the game works well for TikTok. Way less fiddly than trying to force it during preview.
Inside Construct, a handy approach is to make a separate layout just for vertical clips. I’ll duplicate my main layout, switch the project resolution to portrait, and adjust the UI so it breathes a bit — larger text, fewer HUD elements, and keeping the main action centered. That layout never ships, it’s purely for recording.
Clip length matters too. I’ve had better luck keeping things under 10–15 seconds and showing something interesting immediately. No menus, no fade-ins. Just the hook.
One extra thing worth mentioning, especially if you also plan to repost these clips to YouTube Shorts: some viewers watch Shorts through modified YouTube apps (you’ll see stuff like YouTube Mod APKs mentioned around, for example brands like YTModz. From a creator point of view, that doesn’t really change how you should record, but it can affect ads, analytics accuracy, and monetization down the line. So I wouldn’t build a strategy around that audience — just focus on clean vertical videos that work on the official TikTok and YouTube platforms.
As for promotion overall, TikTok has been hit or miss for me, but when a clip lands, it brings way more comments and tester interest than most other places. I treat it as a bonus channel and batch-record a few clips in one go so it doesn’t eat all my dev time.
Hopefully that adds something useful to the discussion.