Hi! I’m looking for honest feedback on The Mines, a Roblox progression game I’ve been developing.
The basic loop involves discovering deposits, mining ores, growing the crystals you find, collecting/selling them, and unlocking additional systems as you progress.
I’m currently at the stage where I want to stop making decisions based primarily on my own experience with the game and start getting significantly more feedback from unfamiliar players.
What I’m looking for
If you’re willing to test it, I’d especially appreciate it if you could play normally for a while before reading too much into what I expect you to do. I’m trying to see whether the game communicates its progression clearly on its own.
Afterward, I’m interested in things like:
How long did you play?
Was there ever a point where you didn’t know what to do next?
What parts of the first 10–20 minutes were actually enjoyable?
What felt slow, confusing, repetitive, or unnecessary?
Did you understand how to progress after the tutorial?
Was there a point where you wanted to stop playing? If so, what caused it?
Were there any features you discovered that made you more interested in continuing?
Would you realistically play the game again if you encountered it normally on Roblox? Why or why not?
Bug reports are useful too, but I’m especially interested in gameplay, onboarding, progression, and retention feedback right now.
Please don’t worry about being overly positive. Critical feedback is much more useful to me than being polite.
Make dialogue proximity prompts use ‘E’ not ‘F’. ‘E’ is so commonly used that you should definitely just stick to it. There is no obvious reason why it wouldn’t be used, such as a primary gameplay mechanic that would interfere with dialogue.
Tutorial needs more clear instructions for how to place the rock. The trail leads me to a location and then disappears. The pointing mouse arrow isn’t enough of a cue for most people to notice it. I barely realized it was there because I was following the 3D trails, not the 2D screen.
I think the MINE button at the top should say “your mine” or “home” instead. I expected it to take me to where I would be able mine rocks. Also the fact that it’s gray makes me think it could be locked or something, so maybe just make it colorful instead.
I don’t think paying to mine rocks makes any sense. In a game about mining, I see a rock and expect to be able to try and mine it somehow, but instead I have to pay money. Who am I paying to mine it? It doesn’t make sense to me, and was definitely a big turn off. Especially for just the first basic rocks. I shouldn’t have to pay.
The rocks should be in a more obvious centralized location. Them being on the side next to the player’s mines makes them look like decoration, and not interactive. This problem is worsened by the fact there are gold crystals right next to the real rocks that you cant interact with.
There needs to be instant feedback when placing rock. There is nothing on the ground right after I click, which makes me wonder if it even worked. It takes like at least half a second to appear.
Maybe add a highlight to the harvestable rocks inside your mine. Everything kind of melds together. I want to easily see where all my rocks are, especially if they can be placed on the walls.
I see you can hover over a rock with your cursor and it tells you what it is. I think it should also let you harvest it this way as well. I can have my cursor hovering over a rock, while a proximity prompt shows me a different rock at the same time. I think you should pick one or the other, and not be able to “hover” over both.
Initial progression is far too slow. Jobs and gear are locked behind higher levels, and it takes a long time to reach a higher level. This is bad because the player isn’t able to see what their future goals and objectives are right away. if you want them to stick around, you have to let them see what they can do and earn in the future. Just growing their level as a goal isn’t fun.
Make the center mine cart track serve a purpose, like making it a conveyer belt or something to move players around quicker.
I think you have a decent foundation here, but it’s going to take a lot more to make it fun. Show the player where the rocks are to mine them. Put them all in a very obvious and centralized location, like a big underground crater or something. Show the player their goals, things that they should strive to achieve. Give them a few starter crystals or something so they get something shiny to look at, and aren’t just bored by growing a basic rock.
Play around with a more round map layout. This would be good because it allows you to easily see other players mines, and get inspired to continue playing. The layout of the world is very critical. The little details like that are going to make or break the game.
Here’s a little doodle of what I mean. Clear sightline of everyones crystals from the middle, where players frequently mine rocks and stuff.
Kind of? It was moreso I had nothing else to do but the same boring task.
Not a single part of the 5 minutes I played was enjoyable.
Everything.
Not exactly. Tutorial only told you how to mine rocks, place them and sell them. Everything else was left to player discovery.
Half way through the tutorial.
Boredom and the realization of what the game I’m actually playing is.
Nope.
Nope.
Not only is there a million other games like it, and not only do I have better games I could be playing, and not only do those million other games do the same concept better, but as I’ve said, this one was just really boring and not fun.
Firstly, the loading screen isn’t the most appealing thing to look at, it’s very boring.
Like yeah its a loading screen, but the least you can do is show an image of the game? A render even?
Rock placement felt very unresponsive, and the surface detection only worked half the time.
NPC dialogue ended too fast, such as when you completed the tutorial or sold items.
Having to purchase the rocks isn’t a good idea, it also isn’t fun, and neither is having to wait to mine them.
NPC interactions should be E instead of F.
The UI just isn’t the most appealing looking, and with 2 different UI styles on the screen at once, and then a third one because you haven’t changed the toolbox dialogue kit UI at all, it seems you don’t even have much of an idea of what you’re doing.
UI navigation just wasn’t the best at all, there was a lot of clicking just to get where you wanted to go. Parts of the UI also just didn’t make sense.
The UI wasn’t centered and just didn’t function well. Some of the stud effects also gave me a slight headache looking at them when I moved my mouse over buttons.
The animations for the player are pretty damn bad.
All rocks I picked up were usually 95kg or 130kg, those exact values. The weight variance was just non existent.
Placed rocks having collision is a bad idea, especially considering you can block off your entire mine with a single rock.
Gameplay at the start is really slow. So slow I was bored within minutes.
I got a chest, opened it to get a crate, placed it down assuming it’d be another lootbox, but it was instead a detail item which I was unable to pick back up, causing a spot on my mine to be permanently taken by the box I didn’t want.
Being unable to destroy placed rocks isn’t good at all.
Aside from the glow and text above them, please tell me what’s different between these 2 rocks?
And the game just isn’t engaging, at all. It’s repetitive, monotonous, and just not fun at all to play. It’s not the worst game I’ve played, but I’d certainly say it was a bad one.
I was going in hoping for something more akin to TCC or Azure Mines, but I was disappointed to find it was regular stud slop with regular boring grow-a-garden style gameplay.
It’s a shame, I would have tried your interesting game if only I could, but I hope it was made wisely and well.
Anyway, good luck with the game development!
Uniqueness
Gets to the main action quickly
