Hey, my friend and I have recently published our game and we started to advertise about 3 weeks ago with enough ad credits to alway have some players in the game.
However we noticed that all the session time and the retention metrics are kinda bad (~4.5m of session time and ~3% of day 1 retention). I’ve seen that good session time is around ~8 min and good retention is ~7%. At first we advertised our game to mobile but we saw that session time was bad so we switched to pc player in America because we thought that mobile players might find it hard and leave but that didn’t change much.
Because of this we’ve not been able to hit home recommendation.
How could we achieve better result for those metrics ?
So far I’ve added a daily reward system and a system that reward player who play the game for a long time.
We’ve also added new game modes because we thought the game.
These changes didn’t seem to increase the metrics, did we implemented them badly or for any other reason ?
Apparently the genre can change the ranking in session time is it possible that we gave it the wrong genre ? (currently the genre is Action)
Something to keep a new player entertained while they are waiting for a game to start. Maybe spectating, an estimate till next round (i know that you can’t precisely tell when the next round will be, but an estimate will let a new player know that something will happen soon), or a quick introduction to the game.
New players can be very impatient, so if they have to wait for too long, whilst also not knowing how long to wait, then they’ll leave.
You could also add something to give the player a sense of purpose, such as cosmetics or other things when you reach a certain amount of wins.
Different maps would also make people play more after the 5 minute mark.
Also, if you could add something that gives the player something unique, but not gamebreaking, like becoming the sheriff in murder mystery 2, then that could help. Something like that might spark a new player’s curiosity and make them play until they’ve tried that.
Also quests, when i play a game and see the little quest telling me to win one round to get something, i automatically feel like i need to do that
When I am in an obby waiting for the game to start, you don’t get put in which is an annoying feature, since I am doing the obby for fun while waiting around.
Also, when you are the last player standing, you just keep playing, while all the other players have to wait for you to finish. If you are the last person standing you should just win to not make everyone else wait longer.
And, your game needs something to grind for that keeps your player playing more and more, like an upgrade. For example, other power-ups like a small invincibility instead of just dash. To add these power-ups I would either have them like something that sometimes spawns in during a round, like the money that you can pick-up. Or have a shop for them, and some kind of system where you can buy and unlock which power-up you want. What I am thinking for this shop system is something like blade-ball.
Then, for some other smaller things, in your game I found a few spelling errors like daily rewards was spelled “dayly” or when I was on cooldown for easy obby it was spelled “couldown”. Also, the lasers in laser mode were just parts, and they should have some cooler effects. There are also a few more small things you should have just to make the game nicer.
Anyway, for such a small game I was honestly impressed, this definitely deserves to be bigger, and just needs some attention. I came in expecting something kind of small, but you delivered far past that, so great job!
Edit: also, you should have a small tutorial, like some screenshots just telling you what to do