Hello, I am making a photography game, I published it with ads to test it. I am wondering why players do not stay in the game for long, they join and leave. I went and checked out bugs, But I would like feedback. Thanks!
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Played like 10 seconds and Iâm telling you right now beyond a shadow of a doubt the reason the L/D ratio is so low is the millions of layers of horrendous vibe coded UI plastered all over my screen. I loathe to imagine how it would look on mobile.
Please put the time and effort into making your UI properly. You can use AI to help with it but asking it to build the UI for you entirely is asking for trouble. You need to give it specs on how to build the stylesheets, how you want each UI to look and feel, etc.
Current UI (ALL OF IT) is thoroughly unusable and would drive me off in a heartbeat if I was interested in playing the game.
Itâs also not super clear what the short-term or long-term goals of the game are. The map scale is off-putting and the buildings are weird. Beyond that, for a photography game you really should have a more⌠inspirational? map. The current map is anything but picturesque.
Sorry if the critique is too harsh, there are some alright features in the game as well but it is FAR from a finished product and the UI is the real bottleneck you need to work out first.
A few other notes: This is a photography simulator, but I see no sign of any real photographical technique. The only thing you can control is the composition of an image, thereâs no sign of zoom, exposure compensation, aperture, shutter speed, or other supplementals like tripods, ND/poalrizing/novelty filters, no FOCUS or depth of field. The list goes on. Youâll have a hard time selling this experience to anyone whoâs picked up even a digicam (let alone an SLR) without making the gameplay reflect the real activity at least in some capacity.
EDIT: Also what??? Are we for real?
Played a bit more now, more complaints: tiny hidden stamina bar hidden behind center bottom camera button. Depletes but has no consequences. Skill trees are a mess, they can be cut content frankly. Gameplay rewards are somehow a hassle to click through due to poorly made UI issues and the immensely fast buildup. Not satisfying. Random like the game and join the group popups are annoying. If I was going to play a photography game I wouldnât play one with so much clutter and mess, both mental and optical. Bag/battery encumbrance is not well-structured. No sign of where to charge battery (took me ages to find it, someone younger or less determined would never be able to). Canât go first person because ???.
Basically like half of the content here is distracting and harmful to the experience and you need to cut that half and focus on the good half. Core fantasy here is âbeing a photographerâ, core loop is Explore â take cool photographs â sell or display for money and fame â upgrade/replenish â repeat. Condense your upgrades. No need for gear, (!!4!!) skill trees, boats, milestones AND achievements, REBIRTH. choose like 2 or three AT MOST. (Achievements + Gear is my advice, plus one restrained skill tree if you must), merge what you can from the others and ditch anything you canât. Minimap is unreadable, and unnecessary for such a small map. Rework or discard. Photo trading and buy/sell economy is a neat idea but I donât see it really working. Really should reconsider allowing players to photograph other players in general (and subsequently display), thatâs just asking for the system to be abused (photobombs or inappropriate acts). AFK tag above my head never goes away after appearing. Tutorial/guide arrow is incredibly obnoxious and points to the wrong places.
Also no need for automatic photo bounties, youâre better off offering things like that as repeatable quests from a specific NPC or something. The terrain floats in the water. Boulders mostly basically float rather than sitting in the ground. The blocky terrain does not lend itself well to an aesthetic photography game. prefer stylized low poly or realistic-style maps, you WILL need to commission someone for the quality of map players will expect from a photography simulator. the dollar store minecraft look is NOT gonna cut it.
Economy is completely busted and makes no sense. level-capping gear upgrades is as annoying as it gets, scale your economy better and let it control upgrade availability instead. Levels can go entirely or provide only skill points/intrinsic bonuses. The events also are not interesting or fun. Weather system/bonuses are inconsequential, unnoticeable, and arbitrary.
Also the map is horrendously broken in places:
TLDR; If you didnât or couldnât read all of this, copy/paste this into ChatGPT 5.6/Claude or whatever and ask it to condense and isolate the most important information and give you the appropriate next steps. Then get it to do your fixes or whatever for you.
6 Likes
No, I appreciate any critique. I am currently working on fixing these issues. And I agree with you, I used to do a lot of photography, and the way it functions is nothing like real life. I was trying to keep it simple. I will let you know when the ui is fixed. Im redoing it somewhat, and im adding ways to remove it off of the screen when needed. The other issues Im working on too and I will let you know when im dont if your interested in seeing the game again.
2 Likes
Sorry I just updated that heavily. Also just to be clear Iâm not ragging on you for vibecoding or whatever mostly everyone does it to some extent or another these days, the trick is hiding it well. I think one of the major issues with that âkeeping it simpleâ mentality is youâve actually taken the fun parts (controlling exposure, isolating subjects with focus, choosing the right aperture/zoom, etc.) and left players with an empty shell of the activity. It might be best to let the âBasic P&Sâ camera be just that: composition. But further upgrades should quickly introduce players to other modes (aperture priority, shutter priority, full manual, etc.) Then if you want a ârebirthâ system you can introduce interchangeable lenses and whatnot for prestige and depth. I think the biggest issue I have with your game is there are too many non-photography related features that do almost nothing for the playerâs experience.
Youâre probably best off doing something like so:
- Rebuild map so that it is more scenic (Use Roblox terrain, especially since the upcoming updates are VERY promising, and even now I would say it WILL look/work better.)
- Restructure core gameplay (photography) to be more believable (not necessarily realistic)
- Cut out all the fluff. Bells and whistles can be nice, but if thatâs all you have to offer itâs just gaudy.
- Restructure economy/upgrades to flow better (I can elaborate on this and provide examples if you need me to)
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if you like let me know how to reconstruct the economy.
Probably from the ground up. Starting with sources of income and currency.
As it stands, you have 2 (primary) ways of generating income that are sort of at odds with each other in the ways they function:
- Selling photographs; Instant returns, permanent photo loss
- Display; (slightly) Delayed rewards, photo retained (takes up gallery space)
You also have secondary income sources, these are a huge issue for the early game economy:
- Rewards; large lump sums for minimal engagement.
- Quests; medium-large sum for photography objective.
- New subject rewards; small-medium amounts (depending on subject rarity?)
Essentially you have a ton of inputs you need to try and balance.
As for outflow/sinks, the only destination I can see is the outfitter (and auction house, but that has itâs whole own set of issues).
The issue with display income is that the formula looks to be something like $/s = (displayedImageValue * 0.01). Essentially every 100s you make your entire galleryâs worth back. so essentially you could just load your gallery with as many relatively high value photos as you can (6 by default?) and walk away for 20 minutes and have 12x their worth. Or you could just sit in the spawn and spam-click as fast as you can, sell all your photos, recharge immediately, and repeat for similarly low-effort income (another unrelated issue).
A simple fix to this is a double economy; sell photographs for money, display them to generate some other currency that has itâs own uses decoupled from the gear/standard upgrade economy. Also recommended that sale value is NOT directly proportionate to passive generation. One can take in all the different photo attributes and the other can simply derive the value from the photo Grade. That lets some photos be better for one and others better for the other. This is a good way to build in skill points or some similar system.
I think the general shop upgrade structure right now is headed in the right direction at least. You have some control over player effective range via boat speed, though I think you probably need to almost hard cap how far players can go with each boat (if thatâs not already a thing). This allows you to gate gameplay behind upgrades properly âOh my boat isnât ready for waters that roughâ, rather than letting players beeline the furthest biomes immediately for maximum income.
With that said, you probably need to give players a more direct camera body upgrade path via the shop, rather than the lootbox system you currently have. As is, it is weird, luck-based, and not fun. RNG rolling can be relegated to cosmetics only. Camera body upgrades are the most readable upgrade path for new players and gives them something concrete to work towards. Itâs also something relatively easy to balance, if you introduce megapixels as a balancing lever. First camera can be something like an old smartphone. Small sensor (so noisier), low MP, no zoom, no aperture controls, fixed shutter speed. Things like MP can directly impact price of final photo, and things like sensor size can have different effects based on the light level of the subject (more light = less noise), and the type of subject (smaller sensor = less DoF effect, good for macro and some landscape, bad for portraits, that sort of thing). Note that Iâm not suggesting you add all these modifiers, you should probably pick and choose a few, and save the rest for prestige gameplay, like any interchangeable lenses and whatnot.
This way you can sort of directly scale player income to the camera body they are using, and also give some cameras utility in certain environments while making them worse than others elsewhere. The way it should work in essence is first camera should provide a decimal modifier (something like 0.1) on photo value, with no special modifiers for certain environments. Then as you progress through camera bodies, the specs get better and your image value scales alongside special bonuses. Scaling it so that the base mult is 1MP = 0.1x, 10MP = 1x, 20MP = 2x is probably the simplest method, though youâll have to work that out yourself to know if it will work.
Basically if you can control what subjects are available (max base image value) and what camera body a player can have (max image mult) based on the quantity of money they have, you can pace gameplay better so that players earn roughly fast enough that theyâre never grinding hard for an upgrade or producing income faster than they need to be. You will also need to SEVERELY limit the value of low-grade photos, and ensure that no higher-grade photos can be taken in places where photos can be spammed. Battery recharge should either disappear or require you return to your base, and be free (maybe a short wait period while it charges, that leaves natural time for players to sell/manage photos). Battery % should also be more visible, as well as storage space. Deleting/dropping photos should also be an option so players donât need to return with a bag of duds every time. This paves the way for obvious upgrade paths for battery life, battery charging speed, and storage/bag space.
Economy scaling basically boils down to limiting income sources and creating enough money sinks so that players always have to work a little for their income, but it never feels like a slog grinding for something they NEED to progress.
Semi-related, you need a sell all (non-displayed) photos option, and displayed photos should not be saleable unless intentionally removed from display. Players also should have a way to store photos without cluttering inventory, other than the display area.
As for rewards/quests/etc.: you really need to dial in the amount of money these grant. I canât really give instructive advice based on the current economy, but just structure it so that any like playtime rewards (after the first, which can be a little more substantial), give only minor boosts. You donât want them to break the entire early-game economy for new players, just help them along if theyâre struggling or accelerate their progression if theyâre already engaged.
Then, looping back around the secondary currency (âFameâ or whatever) can provide minor bonuses along exponential cost curves. Lets say you have one that multiplies all image base value according to the upgrade level. The first upgrade could be a 1.05x mult for 100 fame. the second could bring the mult up to 1.10x for 1000, then 1.15x for 10000, etc. You can build this into a prestige/rebirth system so that the only way to obtain high enough quantities of this currency is to rebirth and engage with rebirth systems to take photos that generate more fame.
Mostly spitballing, but thatâs how I think I would personally try to restructure you economy, off the top of my head. The main takeaways are:
- Tightly control how players can obtain currency
- Ensure that currency has well-defined uses that adequately absorb playerâs income, without overdrawing it so that the whole game feels like a slog
- If youâre finding it hard to fit in a secondary system cleanly (gallery passive income), sometimes it is best to isolate it and/or repurpose it so that it doesnât supersede the primary systems in utility.
Let me know if you need any further clarification. I wouldnât guarantee my outline here would translate 1:1 into your game and youâll definitely need to work on any ideas I detailed here, as they are mostly incomplete Iâd say, but I hope itâs helpful in some way or another to you.
Hey I made a lot of changes, what do you think now?
UI has certainly improved, but you really need to like scrap/remove a ton of the UI + actually custom-make the UI basically from scratch. AI generally produces a functioning prototype UI but has absolutely no regard for UX or proper styling. You probably need to make at least a few UIs yourself, port the rules into stylesheets, and then you can maybe get AI to other build UIs for you from there, if youâre careful and do it piecemeal.
In general things like having the battery % displayed (+button for recharge) at the top is a huge improvement, but really you do need to rebuild the entire UI component of the game.
Iâm noticing a few other changes/some other content has become more visible to me now, so fwiw, you do not want to rely on AI-generated content like this:
It looks tacky, kids can tell, adults can DEFINITELY tell. And an even bigger issue is the massive quantity of camera bodies. More content =/= better experience. Ideally you want a few much more recognizable and memorable bodies per tier. Otherwise people are going to look at the rarest pull, never get it, and not care about the rest because there are so many it may as well not matter which you get. That is not a good strategy for engaging players. Like I said earlier as well: progression content should not be locked behind a slot machine, it should be made through deliberate purchases.
One last thing: never ever ever make a game with persistent progress and randomly reset player data with an update, UNLESS you make it VERY clear that the game is in an unstable test phase and any and all progression is likely to be wiped without notice and with any update.
So basically: UI has improved (hiding/battery), but the best path forwards is really to cut a ton of content/systems and focus on the core game, or youâre going to be perpetually in a massive bowl of spaghetti that can never be untangled.
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Thank you i will work on that.
hey can you check it out again? I made an update i dont think people like it, im looking for bugs i dont see any. But players are staying in longer. and i fixed the lag issues
So uh, switching up the game mode completely is probably not the way to go here. I would advise against any complex AI/wave/combat systems becuase AI cannot create or integrate systems of that complexity cleanly or effectively and it will basically always make your game feel worse. Re-iterating what I said in earlier posts; there was the shell of a playable game inside the previous iteration (before it turned into a steal a X game) of this game, but you really, really need to stop adding content, cut everything that isnât needed or doesnât function, and rebuild slowly and deliberately from there. compile design docs, plan out your progression/gameplay loop(s), and work on building higher quality assets and maps.
If you want the original âBe a Photographerâ concept to work, you need to reduce the game to one simple core loop (explore â take photos â sell photos â upgrade), then expand functionality. The bare essentials are:
- 1x solid map area, land based, hand-built.
- 1x shop NPC for selling photographs
- 1x equipment/upgrades NPC, for spending currency
- 5 or so display slots max
- Importantly: A believable camera-mode-esque minigame for taking the photos + simplified photo rating system.
Any features beyond that is a waste of time and energy.
Ive been working on a update for a few days, the reason why I picked the minecraft style is because the terrain is seed based and randomized. It still is, but now im doing it with roblox terrain, its just harder.
Hey,
I took a lot of your advice, I was wondering what you think, or what I could do to improve the game?
Current state of things: core loop is a little more approachable now, economy and progression still needs some serious dialing in. Feels very mushy at the minute.
Guis still reek of AI, but they are vastly improved from before. That said, there are still some major issues with some parts of it (overlapping safe area in bad ways, some text is too small, GenAI icons are messy and not very readable). Also bag capacity (for photos) should live on the HUD not float above the playerâs head.
Terrain is better, but youâre better off like importing a heightmap or something than relying on procedural generation (procedural generation is more for like, when you need a variety of different maps or whatever generated usually at runtime. Seeing as your game uses only the one pre-generated map thereâs no need for procedural generation). In a nutshell: make the map by hand, import a heightmap if you must, and place down landscape features yourself with brushtool or outright manually.
In the same vein as that: the assets you use are all very disjoint, for example: the bear is a blocky style, and things like the deer are rounded old roblox part style. Speaking of the deer: the torso part has the wrong orientation. Salmon also look really weird. I would really dial back the quantity of animals and maybe focus on getting landscape features and flora nailed down before introducing fauna to the game. That or make them static and more like an easter egg hunt than an exploration sim. That way animations arenât on the table, and you can focus on making the models themselves look right.
New photo settings and whatnot are welcome but you probably need to give players better ways to adjust them (hotkeys or sliders, not sure. even stylized dials might work). Also auto mode supersedes them and defeats the point of allowing for players to make they own adjustments. Probably another simple thing is players shouldnât be allowed to move or at least as quickly in photo mode.
I think right now your focus really needs to be on making the first 5-10 minutes of gameplay fun, and the first 1-2 minutes bearable/interesting. Right now the content I think probably just wonât land with anyone. Progression goals are amorphous, thereâs too much content to keep track of (better now, for sure though), photo minigame is literally point and click until you see a big number ($$$). Very little interactivity.
Until youâve fully fixed the map, guis, and progression + first 10 minutes, I probably wonât have much more to say to be honest.
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As others have said, UI feels clunky. Buttons were cluttered, text was too small on my laptop, and I got a âStarter Packâ popup within my first 30 seconds.
Aside from that, I followed the tutorial, and got stuck on the part where I get a boat:
Where do I take more pictures? Whatâs even my objective? I didnât know what to do, got bored, and left.
Sure, Ive made maps before, I had one saved for this project a while back. I wanted the terrain randomized and infinite. But Ill go back to my original map, and ill redo the ui, fix any bugs, and make a clear objective.
thanks for the feedback man, im going to work on all of thoes issues.