Hi everyone! I need an honest outside perspective on my game.
Here is the puzzle: the game gets a lot of favorites (so the concept seems to grab people), but it has a low rating and terrible retention. Players leave quickly. I want to figure out where exactly I messed up.
About the game (in short):
Genre: A survival game similar to 99 Nights in the Forest.
Gameplay: Warm up in the sauna → level up → unlock new areas of the map. Along the way, you gather resources, craft, and try to survive a bear attack at night.
The Goal: Collect quest items in the dangerous Zone 5 and escape by helicopter.
I would really appreciate your answers to 3 questions:
The Start: Is it clear what to do in the first 3 minutes? Does the onboarding feel frustrating?
Progression: Is leveling up through the sauna fun, or does it just feel like a boring grind?
Dislikes: What makes you want to leave a dislike and quit immediately? (Bugs, difficulty, clunky UI?)
Any honest feedback and practical advice would be highly appreciated. Thanks for the help!
Why is this button in any other language than English
Also don’t really understand what the game is about. It seems well made so I’m unsure of of the like-to-dislike ratio, but my guess is it’s not that engaging
Thanks!I track funnel events and can see that some players indeed fail to pass this tutorial step. What would help make it clearer: a text hint or an illustration of a log with an arrow pointing to it?
The game looks unfinished in my opinion, but there are a lot of issues in the game.
Most of the UI does not scale properly, which kind affects the game though.
After I read the tutorial, it didn’t teach me anything since I was confused what to do.
I got confused what to do here. I dont know how to put wood in the stove or filling the barrel with water
You might want to fix the UI Scaling or the tutorial.
then I died, i noticed my stamina was decreasing and the UI stamina bar appear alert was kinda unnesscary though, but i recommend replacing it with actual cues (like player animation changing or sound effects) to make it like a realistic feel
I left after 3 minutes since the game wasn’t really fun for me. I think this game needs improvement though despite being a lot of free models in the game, but I think this game could have potential if you managed to fix some bugs, UI, etc.
For the questions,
It doesn’t feel frustrating at first, but once a player joins in their perspective, it feels confusing. I wander around everywhere and didnt find anything or to progress. I thought the game was broken.
The progression in the game wasn’t really fun, but also kind of boring.
I quit after 3 minutes of dying, i immediately left the game because i feel like Ive seen enough. I thought the game was broken because i noticed the sun wasn’t moving, no music (unless its intentional), and a few bugs.
UI design is always a tricky part, but I actually didn’t intend for the panels to stretch across the entire screen. Or did you mean that if a panel doesn’t fill the screen, it would be nice to have a background overlay (like a dim/blur effect) behind it that stretches full-screen?
As for the squares, those are indeed inventory slots, but I completely agree that they should be hidden when the inventory is empty.
I reworked the heater so the water ladle (which was standing too close) shouldn’t cause any confusion anymore. Does the heater feel better and make more sense now?
I sped up the game progression so it doesn’t feel as tedious or grindy.
Honestly, it’s hard to showcase the entire game in just one tutorial. It only covers the basic mechanics. In reality, there are several quest lines in Zone 5 of the map (once that area becomes accessible), and the night bear adds a nice touch of suspense (at least, I think so!).
By the way, you mentioned there are a lot of free models-is it really that obvious? How did you spot them?
And one more thing: you mentioned encountering a few errors-could you specify what kind of errors they were?
I just realized you’re totally right! There was a loading screen right at the start of the game that didn’t scale properly on mobile. Thank you! I’ve reworked the loading screen, so the first impression should be much better for players now.
I’d love to hear more thoughts! The game has had quite a few updates since then. I’d really appreciate it if anyone else could take a couple of minutes to give it a try and share their feedback.
I tried out the game just now. I think most players including me are overloaded with information as soon as they join the game. The tutorial is nice showing the player where to go and what to do with the arrows and highlighted objects. However when the tutorial ends I do know how to get xp and levelup and I know the endgoal is escaping but I do not know where I should start looking for the fuel, key and book. Maybe this game isnt for me but thats what stood out to me.
The Start: Is it clear what to do in the first 3 minutes? Does the onboarding feel frustrating?
Its clear what I need to do but I don’t know how to get there.
Progression: Is leveling up through the sauna fun, or does it just feel like a boring grind?
I like the leveling in the sauna especially the little mini game with the water.
Dislikes: What makes you want to leave a dislike and quit immediately? (Bugs, difficulty, clunky UI?)
To my oppinion the help screens in the lobby are distracting and reduce the natural beauty of the lobby. I think these are also the main reason I feel overloaded with information right away.
My suggestion would be to create a seperate help menu in which the player can look things up instead of the helping images directly besides the task. This way the astectic of the game improves players who want to figure things out on their own can do just that and player who want guidance can use the help menu. You should point out the help menu to the player so they know its there.
Thank you for the detailed review! Your feedback gave me some great ideas on how to improve things. You made a really important point about the drop-off in clarity after the tutorial—the metrics actually show this too, but your words gave me concrete ideas on what to try. The idea of adding a separate help/guide section is also really useful, I think I’ll implement that.
The Finnish sauna survival concept is genuinely interesting and gives the game a memorable identity. The main gameplay loop is easy to follow, but the opening feels slightly slow due to the countdown and loading time, while the oversized red tutorial arrows and overlapping UI make the experience look less polished than it could be. I’d recommend using smaller navigation markers with short objectives, fixing the camera obstruction when chopping trees, improving the outdoor lighting and environment, and clearly explaining the sauna timing minigame. The sound also feels quite sparse, so stronger chopping, fire, water and ambient effects would help considerably. Overall, it has a solid foundation and good potential, it mainly needs a focused visual and onboarding polish pass.
Thank you, these are really valuable points! I think they’re super important, and I’ll definitely work on addressing them. I honestly didn’t pay much attention to the audio, but it really is crucial.
To be honest, I didn’t quite get what you meant by fixing the camera while chopping trees. Could you share a screenshot or describe it in a bit more detail?
Cool game. A few tips: Gui scaling def needs fixed, took up my whole screen on my phone. Way less text on tutorial stuff. I was chopping a tree but it was red so i felt i was doing something wrong.
Imo the hunger and other bar are too large. The circle buttons are right in the way of the joy stick. Some of the windows in general are very in your face big.
Thanks a lot, now I get what you mean! That’s a great point. I’ve reworked the buttons and will keep tweaking the UI to make it a better size for the mobile version.
