Hi, im an amateur game developer and i got into trouble with getting players into my first game.
I need some usefull feedback that could help me promote the game and make it somewhat better.
INFO ABOUT THE GAME AND MY PROMOTION STRUGGLE
Its a First Person Shooter (FPS) game with a special twist: blocky-fully destructible world with option to build structures.
I started working on it in June 2018 with no developement-experience at all.
I finished the first version after 4 months and then reworked it 8 months after - making it BETA 2.0.
I tested the game with my friends throughout the whole developement, they enjoyed it a lot and gave me feedback which really motivated me
Before the release i had only 3600 R$ which is not a lot to start a game.
I read some promotion tutorials on developer forum and i made an twitter account, asked people on discords if they want to play, asked popular youtubers to make videos.
On Friday and Saturday i uploaded ads for 1200R$ that gave me ~20 players after 2 days, but it quickly went down to 1-5.
Next week i tried sponsorship on Friday for the last 1200R$ i had and it went the same way leaving my game dead and my wallet with only 300R$ that i got back.
MY OPINION ON THE GAME
I always tried to make the game user-friendly with freedom of what they want to do in the game - from trying to do the objective to building defenses, no pay-2-win crap, fair progression system, etc.
I think from the gameplay side its something new on roblox that no other game offers which should catch eyes of players.
I think the biggest problem for me is just the lack of resources i can use to spread the word about the game.
The bright part of all this is that i got my youtuber friend with 10K subscribers to record video for me that will promote the game and give me a chance.
MY REQUEST/TLDR
I would like if veteran developers could give me advice on what should be changed in the game that could improve the gameplay and make it more fun/fair for players and hear some stories/suggestions about succesfull game promotion. I dont want to give up yet so i came here as a last resort to get advice.
Thanks for reading and for time spent to help me on this topic!
I am not a veteran developer but I think I’ll give it a shot. When I joined the game I noticed I was confused, I think you should add a tutorial explaining what everything does, and how to build. I also think you should let the player have a said amount of time to build a base, structure, etc. Finally, you should add some way to keep players playing, for example, a daily sign-on bonus, or some sort of reward. Maybe you could look for investors to help you raise funds to advertise. Hopefully, this helped, loertis.
I’m not a veteran developer, but I could still help you.
First Impression
How you present the player to your game is very importart. I see a very good like to dislike ratio, but the thumbnails could use some work. You should hire an artist. Ok, now let’s get to the game.
The Game
The UI is very nice, and I can clearly see I need to press the green button. Cool. Now I go into the game. I couldn’t really get the best experience since there wasn’t anyone online but I could still try to build something cool. So, I tried to move my mouse to click on the block icon. Oh yeah, I am in first person. I spent a few seconds figuring out what button I had to press. Then I realized I had to press “1”. You should change it so that the player can move around their mouse because I also have no idea how to change the colors of the blocks I am placing without using the mouse.
Other Things
When you use the scope, the gun takes up almost all of your screen. You basically can’t see anything. Also, I think the shovel should remove the amount of space the grenade blows up because it is very hard to actually do much damage to the terrain.
Conclusion
Your game is very nice! I really liked it! If I would rate it I would give it a 9/10 considering it’s in the beta stage. I hope this helped!
Hey man, as a small dev I’d like to say im in a similar situation with you in Sworge. And it seems like you tried some things, but you haven’t tried everything. Here are some ways you might try to publicize:
Reach out to smaller youtubers
Work on your monetization system
For the youtubers part, I don’t know. I don’t really watch youtube for entertainment so I can’t help you on that.
But, for monetization, it sounds like you have the mindset of “monetization is intrusive/bad, avoid pay to win at all costs.”
But monetization is a integral tool in retaining your playerbase and creating loyal fans (not gonna just leave when they spent all that $$$, will they?)
And also consider that a better designed monetization system will lead to you making back your ad money, which is hugely important to continuing to grow your game.
I am by no means an expert, and am improving at these myself. I’ll check out your game right now and see if I can make any further suggestions.
When I try to buy something in my shop and I don’t have enough money it plays a sound to warn me. What if my audio was off? And more importantly, how could I get enough money?
You should make a prompt to buy for in-game currency when that happens. People won’t find it intrusive as long as they are given an option to enter the $ tab of the store, I guarantee it.
Another thing is that the setting button (apparently) does nothing.
When I entered the game, it wasn’t immediately obvious that I had to use 1 to access the block slot. Maybe add some symbols to show 1 2 3 4 are keybinded to the block/shovel/gun/grenade.
The shotguns have super far range. They are basically snipers. Please change this. New players might be frustrated by this and quit.
The same goes with grenades. The range is crazy.
Both me and the player (another member of the dev forum) in my game were confused by them.
Overall I think the game is awesome though, and aside from a few hiccups this could be a very successful game. However, very small features can make or break your game, especially with monetization. Good luck and I hope you take these suggestions into consideration.
-Well its a First Person Shooter, i dont think there should be a mouse moving around… duh
-Theres a tip near color palette telling you how to change colors.
-I can add numbers on the icons, i really thought its already obvious at this point >_>
-Could some sort of starterpack be a good solution here? That seems fair to me.
-So if the player has not enough money to buy something, i should make a dev product pop up with enough money? Ok then.
-As i said above i will add the numbers.
-What so bad about the thumbnail that i really need to get an artist?
-Can you tell where exacly?
-Thanks :3
-Yeah i made it more clear in testing place
-i think movement is fine rn, during testing with higher ammount of players you would encounter a lot of enemies on your way and move part by part
I know it’s a First Person Shooter, but I still prefer if you could use the mouse. It’s just personal preference. Also, I did not see the tip near color palette. And lastly, you should add numbers on the icons anyways, it could help a new player.
You might want to make the button say something like “need money?” or some other prompt that brings them to the $ tab of your shop. The idea is that players have no reason to enter the pay shop for the first time unless they are informed through prompts when they don’t have enough money or when there is a deal (starter packs, as you’ve said).
As for what plasmascreen said, you don’t need an artist, but you might want to change your thumbnail orders atleast. Starting with “beautiful environments” is a bad idea because those aren’t the selling points of your game — the gameplay is. More action like thumbnails (build defend, gear up and fight) should be shown first, and if they don’t look good as the front thumbnails, they need to be improved.
I made it so prompt appears with enough money to buy the wanted item. I also added the starter pack with a weapon and some cash that pops up when you enter the game.
About the thumbnails, yeeeahh thats a good idea, i changed the order into: blocky fps, build forts and def, gear up attack and at last beatifull environments.
Thanks for that, i might also replace some of them with better screenshots from my recordings.
The thumbnail doesn’t really stand out as professionally done as games you would be competing against, it’s not an awful thumbnail it just doesn’t match the quality of the game.
I specifically noticed when I was loading into a game - I thought that my camera had bugged out!
Nice, could you post a screenshot so I can see it?
Have you actually tested this, or are you speculating?
Hey Nexus, so I just tried the game, it is absolutely fantastic. I do agree with @plasmascreen about the whole thumbnail idea. The game graphics are amazing, but it doesn’t really go along with the theme. I would suggest doing something more like this.
I could make a thumbnail like @EerieFrost suggested, not a problem.
As i said in the info about the game, i tested it a lot with friends (10-25 people) and the movement speed is fair, before it was so fast you couldnt hit anything.
Im not on my computer so i cant really show the new hotbar upgrade, ill send it later
