Hey everyone! I published my roblox game the other week, and my stats aren’t looking too good. I’m struggling with playtime, and with players coming back the next day.
Game link: Sharks and Minnows | Play on Roblox
What I really want to know:
And of course, any other things I might need to know to help my game, and it’s playtime and retention!
Thanks in advance!
For starters the build style inconsistency was really strange to me. The lobby was kind of stylised and then the actual maps are blocky? That just doesn’t make sense to me.
Next, in my opinion it’s pretty easy to win while not being a shark (it is easy as a shark to if there’s less people). I think the map is too short which means the opposite team get across way too quickly.
The game isn’t boring, it might be a little confusing as most of robloxs player base are kids. I don’t know if there was a tutorial but if there isn’t one I’d suggest adding one.
Here are my notes for the first ten minutes of playtime. It will naturally be unorganized, but it might help.
Core gameplay issues:
As a shark, you can guarantee to get one minnow each round by lining yourself up properly. I’m not sure how to describe it in english terms, but I’ll try:
Take the starting position and the ending position of the map (the “line”, I suppose)
Now, take the line perpendicular to that vector.
If you make sure that your position, when projected onto that line is always equal to the minnow’s position when projected onto the same perpendicular line, you can almost guarantee to get them in most maps. This is an issue since it makes the gameplay almost “solveable” to guarantee a shark win.
The one map exception to this is Hexafrost, which changes each time and also introduces some parkour elements if you want to jump around certain hexagons. This map honestly brings the game up a few points for me. I’d reccomend you make more maps like this and also have vertical movement in more of the maps as well to make sure you can’t just block as shark all the time.
To answer the questions you asked above:
Is the game fun?
In the first few minutes, I’d say yes. However, with the movements being mostly blocked behind coins, it makes it less fun after a while since it feels repetitive. You should experiment with this yourself but I would reccomend more maps like Hexafrost and more vertical movement. Also, making the bots a bit smarter would help for when there aren’t many players.
What’s confusing?
At first, I didn’t understand the going back and forth thing for the minnows until I was pushed out by the wall. I think there should be some small text explaining the game on first join or even as a loading screen. Kind of like this loading screen (from Deadly Delivery)
What you wanted when playing?
More strategy in the movement.
When did you wanted to leave?
After I noticed that I am almost guaranteed a win as shark, especially against bots, it became less fun (since it felt like a solved game).
I know this is quite a long post and it is also very rough, but I hope it helps. These are just my thoughts as I played for about fifteen minutes.
