So we released our game Zombie Zone just about a month ago. Up until last week we had been maintaining a playerbase with consistent sponsorships, but exactly a week ago we stopped sponsoring and let the algorithm do its thing.
We’ve seen a consistent player base of 40-70 players on average with spikes up to over 100 players this past weekend which has been amazing to see. Obviously though we want to become even more successful than that and rise to the level of the top zombie games (Zombie Uprising being our most similar comparison). Our stats are good overall, with high average session time, amazing payer conversion due to our cheap starter pack, good ARPPU, and relatively good QPTR since the algorithm has been pushing us more. But our retention has been below benchmarks pretty consistently outside of some spikes in D1 retention a couple days ago, but those unfortunately did not continue.
Obviously we are still a new game so I’m sure (or at least hopeful) that retention will improve as people become more familiar with us, but I want to make sure I am doing everything I can to improve it in the meantime. I added a new daily reward system about 4 days ago but that has not seemed to improve our D1 retention much aside from a brief spike to ~9.5% which fell afterwards.
So basically I want to ask for advice. What do you think the top zombie games like Zombie Uprising do well that we could stand to implement in our game? Do you have any thoughts on how we could improve our onboarding process and increase retention numbers? Thanks in advance for any good feedback given.
We are working on some updates to add a crate system which will give players new ways to customize their guns and a new grind to work towards (hopefully will bring up ARPPU too), as well as a new map and boss, but I do not know if this will move the needle on our retention in any way. Would love any constructive feedback or advice on ways to improve retention!
You could mabye ad like a daily reward system like new guns and stuff like that. Also ngl your game is gonna be very popular soon. please remind me when it is very popular
I actually did implement a new daily reward system with 2 exclusive guns at days 3 and 7, but sadly it seems like that has not made people want to come back
Based on the photo, as I have not played the game. The color palette and Ui Design seems a bit, sorry for my wording, but it seems a bit unrelated to the game. Like the Ui is not helping grow the game. I’d advice to change that. And I saw you Benchmarks, and they are not bad, actually, it may actually be pretty good. But if you want to grow it, you can focus on the Average Session Time Benchmark. The more Session Time, the more growth every other benchmark would receive.
I am a professional, currently bored, looking through forums, UI Designer. I would offer my services for you to fix the problem in your game, adressed above. My portfolio can be found by searching on ArtStation and my username.
I am also familiar with user experience & retention and would offer my advice.
