Need Help Increasing Session Time

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#1

Hi everybody,

My parkour/tower of hell inspired game titled Hill of Heck has had zero players for the past couple months until last week when I made a couple monetization changes and the algorithm picked up and started recommending it heavily. It has been performing surprisingly well in every category except engagement (average play time is around 4 minutes it should be around 10). I need help figuring out how to improve it.

I have reduced respawn time, added a currency bonus that increases exponentially the longer you play, made players spawn at the beginning of the course facing where they have to go instead of the lobby, and made an algorithm that changes the difficulty of levels selected based on the average skill of the people playing. None of these have had any drastic effect on the play time. It seems as if most players upon joining for the first time play a couple times and then leave. However they all complete the tutorial successfully and seem to understand the concept so I don’t believe its a problem with misunderstanding.

Another statistic thats interesting is the retention, the game has very decent retention (day 1 has been as high as 30% before) so most of these players will come back, they just dont play long.

I truthfully have tried everything I can think of to improve play time so if any of you have any recommendations it would mean a lot. I feel like there’s something obvious that I am missing. I just want to avoid any scammy/unethical practices like adding loot boxes and what not.

Here is the games link: here

2 Likes
#2

The game is pretty much a jump over parts obby, there’s not much to do other than sliding and jumping over or to the next obstacle, I did notice that there was a wall hopping mechanic, though I was only able to try it out once before dying because I had no clue how it worked (I played for about 3 rounds and only once saw 1 wall hopping part, each time getting around the halfway point).

A few things I’d add/change

  • Make the characters faster and also add more VFX for when they’re moving fast,
    Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JVM7mbVh6U

  • Change or remove the slinding to a sprint (I keep jumping up a little every time I fall from a big height, sometimes killing me as I thought I’d do a normal jump and not a weak small jump)

  • Automatically force shift lock and change the sprint button to Shift Key

  • Add a double jump and dive mechanic

  • Make the wall hopping/running more like an actual wall hop/run

  • Maybe lower gravity and increase jump height a bit more

  • Make the obby sections more lengthy and better. And make sure that they utilize the game’s mechanics (seriously, I was really itching to do more wall hops).

1 Like
#3

The game isn’t all that fun, really. I feel like the concept is too basic and repetitive for it to be successful. Just my take.