Buddies & Bandits is our passionate project, and what we thought was a very good game, turns out to be a disaster. I mean, yes, some features are still missing, but the core gameplay is already there and we’ve polished the game to the best of our abilities.
We have been doing a couple of days of just 6 ad credits per day. This led to about 1000 visits in total so far. Luckily the ads are performing quite well with an average of just 0.016 CPP.
Those were the positives, now here come the negatives…
Take a look at our stats for March the 30th, one of the days we were advertising;
We don’t understand how this even happens. There are no errors and as far as hooking the player goes, we have a detailed interactive tutorial, playtime rewards and login streak rewards.
Our like-ratio is sitting at 66% at the time of writing.
If anyone is kind enough to give feedback about the game or just tips in general, I’ll be very grateful, thank you in advance.
Hello, I’m not sure about it. But the problem may be caused by: Player dont know what to do on start, there is tutorial but player still think that you just need to defeat enemies and this is all, so player just leaves, show what other fun stuff he can do.
Player dont know what he is playing for, some kid probably wants to get fun at start and dont want to farm too much. Showing him how cool he can be maybe will help.
I think this is the main reason why.
You can place some powerful obtainable items at spawn so player will see why he is playing, it worked well in pet simulator because you can see many eggs at spawn and it shows what player farming for.
Player should see the reward for defeating enemy and other stuff. So he will get dopamine. And it make him play this game for more time.
I’m not great at giving advice so bare with me lol.
when I got into the game I was so lost on where to go, I wandered around aimlessly before following someone to the portal. like @nvidiagraphicsr4 said there definitely needs to be a better tutorial, something that holds your hand long enough until you dont need it anymore.
I thought the artstyle was great but the lighting bottlenecked the experience, you have a really nice looking game with great models and ui but the lighting didnt really immerse me and would probably benefit from some stylization and improvements.
the borders surrounding the screen should be removed or toned down a bit in my opinion, especially if the game is playable on mobile screens, it just takes up too much space even on desktop.
I also recommend some optimizing, I havent got the best pc and at max graphics im only getting 30fps so you can probably imagine how this game runs on mobile.
I genuinely think you have a good game on your hands, it just needs some more polish if that makes any sense
I see you spent a lot of effort on this game, regarding the pixelated blocks, guis and structures.
Unfortunately, effort does not always equal entertainment.
Please let players skip the dialogue. The typewriter effect takes too much time.
Please delete or make the patterns on corner of the screen transparent, they are bit disturbing.
Compared to other games, your game is very boring. I observed that your game is about slashing entities, but the entire game is excessively slow-paced and repetitive.
Decrease the amount of UI Objects. There are too many buttons and images, it makes the game look complicated and hence unattractive.
the game is really well made but i dont like how the core gameplay is very similar to the generic simulator type game
maybe you could do something like turn based combat or make it more like an rpg with a storyline (if there is one then it should be introduced earlier)
This game looks like it was really well made, and I love the map and all the models. But as said by a few others, the game simply appears too complicated for your average player to feel immersed. There are a few essential things you can try that might boost the player count.
First, you should definitely scale down the UI objects a bit, they are very obstructive to the gameplay experience and visuals. And as for the border, you could probably just remove that, it is a bit unnecessary, and the overall visuals of the game are already very appalling.
Secondly, you might want to consider tweaking the lighting to a more-fitting aesthetic. A good game always contains good-styled lighting to compliment the world’s visuals. You might also want to set the spawn point to somewhere more central, where everything is easily accessible. Having a more in-depth tutorial can also make players feel knowledgeable on how to navigate the game.
Furthermore, the map can be sized down a bit to add to the easily-navigable aspect, as it appears the starting-point is very free flowing. One idea to interest the player during their first play is that maybe you could add a fight with a boss, where they can learn the basics, and then they get pulled back down to the starting point after they beat it. It’d be a very fun tutorial for the players to grasp onto the unique concept of the game.
You have a very appealing game even at this stage, and I’m sure that all of us in this thread can see the potential. With all these suggestions in mind, you can also try and think what a regular first-time player would see and feel when working on your game to grasp the idea of what can be done to simplify and intrigue their gameplay experience.
Good luck, and I can’t wait to see what comes of Buddies & Bandits!
i think the main issue is your tutorial. it takes so long, there’s no way of skipping any of it, and it doesn’t feel natural. here’s a video i reccommend checking out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45csSEotJY8
also, you should try to throw players into the action more quickly, to save them from getting bored in the first two minutes. also i genuinely do not think the game’s UI is a problem.
after making changes to onboarding, you should continue sponsoring & see how your D1 retention goes, since that’s the primary stat to pay attention to rn
