I know “Find The” games don’t usually have much replayability, but that shouldn’t mean people decide to never play again after finding a fraction of troops. Only an extremely dedicated player would be able to find all of them in one sitting, especially since there are hardly any tutorials on Youtube. We think that the low retention is keeping us from growing.
Please leave any suggestions or questions you have. Thank you!
If you didn’t add badges, thats a pretty good way for people to come back and play again
Edit: I just checked, but gosh I respect the effort into the game. I don’t really have an idea on how you would, there’s no quick and easy way to make players play your game more, it takes time, lots of time, what you could do is sponsor it, it might attract players but its not going to make them want to play again because a lot of the time “Find the…” games don’t get really get played again because there just not fun to most players. The only thing I recommend is making a video and posting it on youtube or just sponsoring it in anyway possible.
Thank you for checking out the game though. We have advertised a few times but I will try making some content on various social medias. We’ve also reached out to a bunch of YouTubers, but getting any response is very challenging for us at the time.
I played through the game for as long as I could and I think I got the best possible experience, wandered around a bit, talked to the npcs, continued stumbling aimlessly until I found a puzzle. A stranger and I tried to solve it for half an hour but couldn’t. Eventually I just got tired of all the dead ends and quit halfway.
Now don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the effort and phenomenal attention to detail put into this game. It could use some sense of direction to maximize the chances of players knowing the answer to a puzzle, without making it outright easy. I feel that a lot of the content this game has to offer is: “Stumble upon X, which needs you to go to Y”. Which can be enjoyable, but in this case with a lack of direction, there isn’t much to nudge players towards Y. Meaning most players aren’t actually interacting with their environment in meaningful ways.
I like the game and I don’t think it’s fundamentally broken, but as it stands, the more interesting parts require either a large time investment without enough to convince you to do so, or sheer luck, which isn’t something the experience your players will have should heaviliy depend on. Good luck!
Thank you for your suggestion! Puzzle difficulty could definitely be a factor in the retention. Any chance you could describe what the puzzle was so I could think of any improvements?
I had issues with the library puzzle, after trying a few random combinations to be sure I didn’t just have to click them all my friend and I went to the builder’s basement and he spotted the number “5104” on the floor (or roof) even though I couldn’t see it, we then went to the cabin in the spell river and I could not make potions with the heal flower and nuke shroom after trying every combination. Finally we went to that puzzle besides the library with lots of red buttons and 3 levers.
