I recently released my space-themed Tycoon Game called Astro Tycoon!
Since this is my first game, I’m struggling to get it to take off without having any following… Right now I’m trying to improve the rating of my game, to help it pick up some more momentum.
I’d be grateful for any feedback on high priority issues to fix, or features to implement!
Make the controls simple enough to allow anyone to play without difficulty. I believe that a good part of the game takes place on the ship, and controlling it is a bit confusing on PC (I imagine that on mobile it can be even more complex). Check games that did this kind of controller (all directions airships) before, from my experience, don’t try to go too much away from it, players are used to it.
In my experience in advertising, mobile and console had a much higher CTR than PC, which greatly harmed the game’s statistics, and PC ended up being more expensive to achieve. So keep it simple targeting for mobile as well.
About interface: The more lines and details you put on the icons, the more complex they become to read, the gradient also ends up getting in the way.
In addition, there is the vehicle interface that deviates from the established standard.
It is understandable what each icon is about when you look at them individually, the problem is when you look at the screen as a whole, you don’t know where to look.
Personally, I didn’t click “Next” button in “Welcome to Astro Tycoon”, because I hadn’t even seen it at first moment.
I went straight from the ship to try to destroy an asteroid (what you’re showing in your thumbnail) and then left the game.
Also there was an area to be built (after all, it is a Tycoon) but I got stuck in the sky with the ship.
Thanks for your response, that’s really interesting! I’m trying to think of scenarios like that which players would be getting stuck, quit, and thumbs down the game…
Yeah, I released with a rough UI believing I can improve it later. However, if people don’t even notice there’s a tutorial, then that’s a problem! (or the next button). I suppose I can brighten up the next button, but I just didn’t want the tutorial UI to get too much in the way of the game. Since the Tutorial UI is visible while you’re playing (especially while flying).
Can you mention a game that has some standard flight controls? I believed I had made these controls as simple as I was willing to go. They’re similar to the controls you’d have in Roblox Studio or Unity, except you set the speed with W/S. I didn’t want the ship just to be “running in space,” the Jetpack controls are more like running in space (in the screenshot, you’re in Jetpack mode).
I’m aware the game is more complex than a typical tycoon, but I was hoping to make it a casual space game rather than simply a space-themed tycoon. It’s a bit disappointing if I’m going to take a ratings hit for making the game a bit more complex than usual.
For ads, I removed mobile because the game is currently too small on smartphone (difficult to see the small asteroids, and laser). (I was also getting too high CTR on mobile) It’s playable, but I need to have a good think about how to make the game read better on smartphone. The touch controls also need to be larger and better positioned.
Most of the plays I’m getting so far are PC and Console, tablet (which I am advertising for) also seems to be struggling.
Thanks very much for your feedback! This is exactly the kind of thing I’m looking for!
These type of complex games don’t work too well on roblox unfortunately, you always need to take in consideration mobile players, the simpler the game the better.
Improve the onboarding, i didn’t see the tutorial either, first thing i did was going inside the ship and blasting an asteroid, then noticed the tutorial and finished it, the tutorial talked about some ship upgrades but it didn’t continue for some reason, just make it continue so you get your first upgrade with the tutorial, this will help the average session time.
Add something as progression that gives you passive asteroid collection, so people can go afk and keep earning
The flying is a bit complicated compared to many Roblox games, but other than that I think the loop is quite simple. Space games off of Roblox tend to be much much more complex. But it may be like you said, if it’s not super simple it may not be very successful… Roblox is gradually starting to attract an older audience, but it may still be too early to expect much.
I think I’ll try to make the tutorial stand out a bit more, maybe a lot of users are doing the same as the two of you. The original tutorial took you to the station, but you don’t have enough credits in the beginning to upgrade so it was a bit strange. I also felt the tutorial was a bit long, so it was split into two parts. The first part teaches you the core loop, then once you’ve gotten the conveyor upgrades, the tutorial picks up again and introduces the main station where you can upgrade.
Perhaps that part is not too clear, someone else also mentioned that I should introduce upgrading in the tutorial. I’m not quite sure how to clearly convey “keep upgrading your tycoon, later on the tutorial will continue and show you how to upgrade your ship.” I started developing a hint system, which could maybe always show you the next task you have to do. (but I’d have to track progression to implement it).
The next building of the Tycoon has passive income units, but yeah unlike most tycoons you need to work for some of your profit. Maybe a lot of users don’t like that…
Thanks for your feedback! Looks like onboarding and UI clarity are big issues!
