Just released a game around 3 days ago based loosely off popular games of a similar format as i personally really enjoy those games. The game is extremely simple, the tutorial takes about 5 seconds, i personally feel as though the game loop is rewarding and very fun, and the positive feedback i’ve gotten on the game has been very similar to what i think. I know the game has potential as i’ve had multiple investors reach out to me, as well as a consulting company with over 350+ million monthly active users, talking about investing or buying out the game and how much they like the idea, however they take one look at the analytics and promptly pass.
The game has daily rewards, playtime rewards, a pity system, minimal bugs, engaging core game loop, decent progression, but players tend to hop on, test the game out for 2 minutes and then leave without even seemingly giving the game a chance or even wanting to progress at all.
I fear i’m maybe blind to a glaring problem in the game so i’m asking here for help, any and all feedback is greatly appreciated.
This is the problem with 99% of cashgrab games. Since they all look the same and are based off the same idea. Players just move on to the next and the next. Since it’s just kids.
Try and add a twist to your game or you might wanna make a game that’s more unique and it’ll have a stronger chance of being successful.
Yeah, went that route doing more of a “passion project” and i just cant justify spending that much time and effort making something that more often than not won’t turn into anything successful, i got bills to pay lol. but i understand your point, i guess most players with these types of games can’t justify sinking time into a simpler “cash grabby” game when there’s a million others out there, i thought the spin i put on this genre was good enough to deter that but i guess not, thanks for the feedback
Well it depends on what type of game you wanna make. You can make something unique and interesting but still not need to put that much effort in.
For example, pass the bomb was a “unique” sort of game at the time. Pretty quick to produce if you have atleast like a few years of experience. There was also a game named “quiet game”. literally just a default baseplate where you can’t chat and if you do you get ban points something like that. Just try and think of a unique easy idea.
I have a notepad with 50+ game ideas which are unique and quite simple to make. One game idea I had was a game where everyone has aimbot. Obviously that game idea got taken by someone else before I even started making it. But because of my doubts I lost out on 5k-10k ccu.
yeah i see what you’re saying, the first game i ever made was a very unique game but everyone was very confused by how it works lol. looks like im either going to have to add some sort of mechanic that utilizes the animal’s weight in my current game for something other than selling for more money, or im going to have to just scrap this project and move on to the next, thanks for your help!
Also good luck on the games then, i know having a game fail might hurt but would you rather keep wasting money on a game that won’t do well or on a new game that has a much better chance?
This is why I haven’t actually tried to make a successful game yet (i’ve made games for fun, but not ones that i want to succeed) until I know that the success chance is atleast 90% and failure chance is less than 10%. Because I don’t wanna waste time and effort on something that doesn’t even scrape 20 ccu
yeah that makes sense, ngl in my experience i’ve spent so much time on games and spent very little time on games, every single time i’m like “oh yeah this is it this has to get some traction” and then it ends up flopping for reasons i have absolutely no clue about for me at this point i enjoy making games so much and i like seeing how people react to them but, i suggest putting something out that you’re proud of, spend a few bucks on advertising, that way you can say you at least tried and it’s a very rewarding feeling publishing a game and even seeing 2 players on it idk lol
My friend, you have a nice game, but the door to it is locked. You HAVE to add a tutorial, it isn’t even an option, especially for the audience you are targeting.
I can guarantee that once you add proper onboarding (track it with funnels too) you will see your stats rise. You want to get the metric in Engagement → New User First Session Retention to increase. By focusing on increasing this stat, the other metrics will also naturally increase as D1 and playtime are heavily dependent on how well a new users first session went. Don’t give up after seeing those stats, focus on making the game at least somewhat accessible to literally anybody.
I would also suggest removing failure in the tutorial. Make it insanely easy to hatch their first egg (bigger green-zone). I would also suggest giving a player a new egg right away if they break it and it’s their first egg, should drastically reduce frustration for new users who literally have 0 patience.
EDIT:
Just played again, wanted to see if there was a tutorial that I had missed. When I loaded-in my camera was outside of the world and I couldn’t see where to buy and sell eggs.
Hey, my game did have a very structured tutorial with a voice over, where the player also couldn’t break their egg first try. It led the player through all the steps (first buying an egg, then holding the egg, then hatching it and selling it.) and I do have funnels set up. Only about 50% of players made it through that tutorial, with the largest churn rate being hatching your first animal (even though you couldn’t fail first time) most players would go to the shop and then leave. If players made it past the tutorial, they would hatch one or two more times then leave usually. That consulting company I mentioned told my team and I to ditch that tutorial altogether and just place the egg in the player’s inventory, show them where the shop and sell stand is and let them have at it. (This method has been even worse so I have no clue how they have a reputable business at all ngl lol) as for that bug where your camera is outside the map, that is very strange actually I haven’t had anyone report that bug before.
What your missing my friend is multiplayer, the thing that seperates roblox, and why roblox has so many users, is the fact that every game is multiplayer. Players love to show off, they love to compete, (social status is actually the most powerful motivator) and right now the only competition is shown as the big leaderboard rulers with quintillions of cash, something that the players think, “man im never gonna be able to win, why am i even playing this”.
Even the slightest amount of multiplayer boosts motivation, there doesnt really have to be any physical competition like in sab, but there at least has to be some sort of ability to “win”, making players think “if i play and level up in this game, people will respect me as i am higher than them in this current virtual social heirarchy, making me better than them”
hahaha thats okay, the game is so dead I have basically decided to move on from it. It only took me about 3 weeks to make anyways, and average playtime is like 3 minutes with ~1% D1 retention lol so I am not sure if anything I add can save the game
Lwk if you want to make the game more cash grabby add more free rewards. Since the game is goingto die in 3 months you want give the player as much dopamine before they leave so they want to come back
and also put as many effects as you can when you click a button
The game told me where everything was, then left me alone in the map
I went to the shop (I had to guess that’s where I was supposed to go, there was no immediate UI indication)
I bought the egg
I equipped it (Didn’t let me use number keys to equip items. Probably irrelevant considering most are mobile, but important to point out).
I tried the minigame, did 75% of the way, and I failed
The game left me alone. No indication what I had to do next.
There’s a few issues that immediatly arise when looking at this very important first impression. I could figure out how to play because I have a brain and intuition, but you must assume that the end user doesn’t.
There’s also the main mechanic of the game, the hatching minigame. On its own it isn’t bad, and it’s reminiscent of older clicker Simulator games that were very popular many years ago. Where it fails is the complexity and unforgiveness. At first, even I had trouble getting the timings right, so you can assume it’s impossible for a 10 year old. There’s also the unforgiveness, I was most of the way to hatching until one error made the egg break. That felt a bit anticlimatic and frustrating at the same time. Perhaps a mechanic where your progress drops every fail instead of outright breaking would be better.
I think @purplshap also made a great argument about multiplayer. The animals are hatched next to you and in your inventory. All you can do with them is keep them in your inventory, storage or sell them. You aren’t growing a physical farm, therefore nobody can see what you hatched unless you explicitly equip it at all times. I think a lot of the appeal of Grow a Garden is also seeing other people’s maxxed out gardens, and wanting to be like them too. This game entirely deals away with that.
Finally, I’d say hatching feels a bit dull. I can see you’ve made some good progress by making the camera shake and adding a few effects while hatching, but it still doesn’t feel quite rewarding enough. That said, this may be the weakest point I’ve made, and the animation is totally serviceable.
Please don’t take any of this too harshly! I’m just trying to be honest about what I think the shortcomings are. (Also, if you are paying that consulting company for advice, stop giving them money immediatly. Roblox development never benefits from things like that.)
Hey! Thanks for your input! This is only my second ever game so I am still learning a ton primarily to do with game design rather than scripting, UI or building. Yeah during development and even play testing the difficulty and unforgiveness of the mini game was brought up quite a lot. I thought about changing the system but honestly at that point where it had become a big issue I felt as though maybe it was just time to cut my losses and move onto the next game and take what I learned here to that next game.
Secondly, we did actually have a very involved and “hold your hand” tutorial that had a voice over, walked you through buying eggs, hatching (it wouldnt let you fail on your first egg) and selling eggs. The whole process. However that consulting company (we’re not paying for them), they were just looking into a minor acquisition of our game and said our current tutorial was way too hands on and didnt allow for more freedom. But my onboarding funnels suggest we had it right the first time lol.
All in all, this game was just a “quickie”, I got it done in 3 weeks with the help of a builder, so implementing a plot system with a farm and all that was thought of as outside the scope of the development time we had set for the game initially, and was more so thought of as a post release update if the game showed promise.
Again, thanks a lot for the feedback, especially with the hatching feeling dull, I think I need to implement better Ui/sounds/animations the next time I do something similar to that.
Low session time usually connects directly to discovery performance, but it’s rarely just one metric. Retention, click-through rate from thumbnails, and monetization all interact, so improving only one area sometimes doesn’t change recommendations much.
What often helps is looking at the full funnel:
thumbnail click rate
first session length
return rate
Even small improvements early in the player journey can noticeably affect promotion.
I put together a short explanation of the core discovery signals and where to find them in analytics if useful:
Hey! Quick update for you and anyone who is wondering, the game in question has since been abandoned, its analytics were just all very poor even after a few weeks of constant updates and sponsoring, I think the main issue was the main core game loop just wasn’t engaging enough, there weren’t any goals in the game worth achieving and progression was way too linear. Since then I have made another game with those faults in mind, core loop is very engaging and unique, with a plethora of worthwhile goals for the player to attempt to achieve, this game is seeing fantastic analytics and a decent CCU. Now the only question now is why can I never get decent qualified play through rate, but I’ve found that’s just a caveat of getting lots of new impressions. Hope this helps somebody.
for me at this point i enjoy making games so much and i like seeing how people react to them but, i suggest putting something out that you’re proud of, spend a few bucks on advertising, that way you can say you at least tried and it’s a very rewarding feeling publishing a game and even seeing 2 players on it idk lol