I recently have been trying game development on roblox studio and have been having issues getting the first few people to join the game. I have tried going through a couple icon redesigns to make the game seem more “clickable” but it hasn’t seemed to have done much.
I have gotten one or two visits so far from a user that isn’t friends or family. The game has been in a released alpha state for approximately 2 weeks. While I would like to be open-minded and consider the possibility that my game isn’t incredibly well designed, it feels hard to attribute that to be the issue when I can’t even get the visits. I would understand if I was getting clicks, but bad user retention, but I am unable to tell that without the initial visits.
I am assuming paying for advertising is off the table for now as I have seen many people advise against doing it until your experience is profitable, however I would appreciate hearing anyone’s thought on this. I have the money and wouldn’t mind throwing 100-200cad at some ads before its profitable.
Is there something I am missing that just isn’t getting my game caught in the Roblox algorithm? Better title? Better icon? Better thumbnails? (I assume icons are encountered more)
I will add my game link below for reference. Additionally if anyone wants to give generic suggestions for a new developer it would be greatly appreciated! A few things I already have planned is:
prestige system
rare electric gem fountain drop that speeds up your fountain for a fixed time period
I’ve noticed a few issues with the car system and UI that need to be addressed:
The car doesn’t work on mobile – It’s completely unresponsive on mobile devices.
Missing GUI animations – There are no hover effects, pressing effects, or any other visual feedback for UI interactions.
No sound effects for the GUI – Button presses and other interactions are silent, making the UI feel unresponsive.
Game Pass icons lack proper backgrounds – Right now, the icons just display the model itself without a real background, which looks incomplete.
Also, I think it would be great to add a new thumbnail where some players are in the middle of the map, running after the Coin Rain. This would make the game look more exciting and engaging for new players.
I had no idea about the car not working on mobile! I was just using A-chassis and assumed it would work on all devices! Thank you for the heads up. I will take a look at the SFX for the GUI because I had them working on PC at least but maybe I screwed something up in a recent update. My GUI skills are pretty lacking as this is the first time I have ever designed a GUI. I don’t have a lot of game dev experience but I have a strong comp sci background so this feedback helps a lot. I will look at getting a better thumbnail too. Would you suggest keeping thumbnails gameplay related? I was considering adding a wide version of my icon as a thumbnail.
I thought I had fixed that issue too haha. Currently it forces the player to jump if they are seated and teleports them after a 0.1s delay but I may need to up that if it is still doing that. Thank you for that info! It’s all super appreciated
you need to own the plot to drive the car. sub-par system to avoid the bug I was encountering of people controlling the car that they do not own but not being seated in it, but that’s what I have for now lol
To put it bluntly, It’s not successful because it doesn’t have a proper gameplay loop.
A gameplay loop is supposed to look like: Objective → Reward → Anticipation
Yours is: Collect coins (Objective) → Pay to spawn more coins (Reward?)
As you can see, there is no reward, which is the most important part of game design.
What I would do Collect gold and fill your bag (Objective) → Sell gold at store (Reward) → Use money to buy bags with more space, different fountains that spits it out at a faster rate, coin collecting NPC's. (Anticipation)
Since this type of game would attract kids, a tutorial would also benefit it.
Edit: To address the amount of people that play it, just advertise it on Tiktok with the link in the comment section.