Realm Rush | How Can I Make It Better?

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Hello fellow devs! I am the owner, creator, and solo-developer of Realm Rush!

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TD is undeniably an impressive game, the highest quality Tower Defense game currently on Roblox… One could see this by only playing for a few moments. I’m constantly working on it, listening to feedback from other devs, staff members, community members, and others. Realm Rush is a conglomeration of 4 years of hard work, dedication, skill, passion, and patience! From myself and thousands of others who bear love for this project.

But I have to be honest with myself, it isn’t statistically performing nearly as well as its counterparts. Or as it should be. (popular opinion)

Mentionable Caveats

RR has some deliberate disadvantages that can’t be ignored;

  • It targets a smaller (but growing) demographic of teenagers-young adults, as opposed to young ‘simpler’ children

  • It imposes a difficult and strategical challenge to most players, which narrows the demographic further

  • Though it supports all devices (and even has features for them), it’s designed mainly for PC, which also narrows the demographic further

  • It doesn’t cater to the increasing noise of ‘simulators’, ‘anime games’, ‘copy/paste tower defense games’, it is and looks original and unlike any other Tower Defense game on the entire platform, it doesn’t follow stingy and crass common structures or practices used in many games today

  • It’s had a rough optimization history, however since solved I fear that many who played it for their first time before it’s improvements won’t play it again (due to first impression permeance)

With all of this spoken to and known, we can move on… For all it’s downfalls, it has countless more impressive feats and features. It is many good things more than bad, but no matter how much I refine the game; the core gameplay, the aesthetics, prices, advertisements, engagement & retention, performance and code, it is constantly at an underdog state.

All time peak players is 2.6K, and that was before it’s been polished to the beauty it is today. It has since it’s conception seen neglected recognition from Roblox (it isn’t even placed on the Tower Defense sort despite being one of the first successful TD games), and meagre returns for the thousands of hours of my life I’ve spent on it.

Most people I talk to admit and confess their admiration to Realm Rush over all other Tower Defense games, even people who don’t play TD much at all pay respects to it. It’s honoring, humbling, and rewarding. But in many ways it hurts seeing everyone place their love on the game and yet its still in a pathetic state of 100-300 concurrent players. Whilst it’s counterparts and competition lap up upwards of 50K players, despite there being clear and obvious gaps in quality, immersion, and drive for retention. Realm Rush comparatively coming out on top in at least one of those everytime.

But I’m no fool, the market decides in this pseudo-capitalistic platform, but that’s why I’m here;

How Do YOU Think I Can Improve Realm Rush? How Do I Get It To Where It Surely Deserves?

(constructive criticism please!)

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This game has a unique aesthetic. I’m going to keep my post brief, but I’m glad someone’s finally done away with the linear tower upgrade system.

My main suggestion would be to do away with the menu cinematic altogether, because with all the movement and loud sounds paired with the interfaces that appear when you first join, it’s a lot to take in in only the first few seconds of the game. Maybe you could replace it with a panoramic of some of the maps.

I was personally deterred by the many things happening at once in the lobby menus (tutorial, updates, cinematic), but once I actually started a round the experience was much better. I’d say the best feature of this game is the tower mechanics because of the deadzone system, animations and detailed upgrades, but I also liked the generally subdued colour scheme you kept to in the enemy designs.

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I’ve played your game and It’s really good as far as tower defense games go. One major flaw in my opinion is that everything is very small (except the bosses lol). Enemies, towers, weapons ect. seem so far away due to their size. In my opinion, it’s harder to immerse yourself in the tower defense experience when all of your towers are somewhat dwarfed. This especially applies to your game because the towers are very detailed. I’d like to see them a lot closer up so I can fully immerse myself as a commander of my troops.

This is just my opinion but I hope you can take something from it!

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Every feature you said about the game is true, it’s an outstanding game. I love the UI, the gameplay, and the style overall.

But I do think that the fonts of the text could be changed from Arial or the other default fonts. Some of the text also doesn’t fit the UI button and goes over it, such as the “Legendary” game mode button.
Other than that, it’s very well executed!

I’m sure you’ve tried advertising your game, but have you tried social media platforms? Do you have connections with popular influencers? That might give your game traction if popular Roblox influencers play the game or even mention it.

That’s all I have, good luck with your future endeavors!

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Great game, but overwhelming at the start.

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Nice to see you want feedback

Your game is very appealing and seems original compared to other ones that come along I would take the time and add more content to the game like more events or even more troops

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honestly UI is really hard to understand

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I tried it out from mobile and this was prob the second TD game i have played. To be honest the UI was quite confusing for me, i would suggest adding an optional tutorial with some pointy arrows showing where to click and such to navigate straight into a first tutorial battle because it took me a while to know where to start. Then when i got into a battle, Riverside Easy i believe, i received some free damage because again, i couldnt understand how to place units. Then around round 10 i started to struggle and ended up losing later down the road because i didnt know how to upgrade my tower for more units or something like that, so yea, maybe some tutorial could help and some better UI. Other than that, fun game i might come back to it later when on desktop.

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So reading all of these helpful and constructive replies (which I deeply appreciate) I’ve applied some improvements to the game.

I’ve added an interactive player hub and a few other smaller things. As well as a game rebrand. The name is now Realm Rush: Tower Defense, for multiple reasons.

Following this update I’d just like some fresh input on how to make the game better! Any ideas?

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Ok gotta say the Hub was a fantastic idea! I can suggest you add a zone within the hub that has like portals and such. That when the player steps in opens the GUI to play, even better if it allocates grouped players together according to party size. Other than that i still cant figure out if you can increase the cap of 11 units placed in game, i still lose because of it near the end of a level.

Suggestion number 2, i play Paladins on steam, its super fun to play with friends, and i can see the potential in this game if there is more ways to encourage party play of course. So maybe add a bonus gold or reward that scales with your party size, since that would encourage players to play in bigger groups. As of right now i see most go play solo mode.

Also, theres a bug on mobile with the UIs on troops, skins, and one more i cant remember, when u tap on the button it switches back and forth super quick between the menu i tap and the one i was already at, makes it super frustrating to check stuff in the shop. Maybe add a debounce for when i tap? Or idk.

Thats all, looks promising. I think some more tweaks and updates more to get the game silky smooth and you could try making some cool
and funny video edits for tiktok, youtube and social media since those helps tons when done right like it or not.

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I want to eventually add parties, though coding that will be no easy task.

The main thing I keep hearing from people is to use content creators. Unfortunately I feel it’s notoriously difficult for content creators and Roblox game developers to get into contact.
They don’t link or answer their e-mails, they have friend requests off, it’s just too difficult. Suggestions?

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Mm my suggestion as i previously said is to make sure the current features are crystal clear and work well, maybe add or tweak some quality of life features.

Today i played and noticed some animations on the Chad and Karen to be kinda weird, not sure if broken or intended when previewing in the shop. So all that has to be fixed, same for the mobile things i pointed out cause that is stuff that can influence player retention and first impressions.

As for the influencers thing, it sure helps and is the best boost. I would still suggest the idea to build a social media brand and fun, short bite content so its easily consumed and spread. Reason for this is, if YOU can produce interesting content, that will make people want to play your game and also if influencers see it or have their communities interested in it, they are more likely to play it since they see you can do content on it, why not them too? Thats my suggestions