I’ve put a tremendous amount of effort into creating FNAF Nightmare, and I genuinely believe it’s the best FNAF 1 game on Roblox. It offers a level of quality that no other game can match.
Despite the quality of my game, it’s receiving very poor visibility on Roblox. Here’s why:
Search Issues: When I search for “FNAF Nightmare,” my game doesn’t show up in the results.
Forced Search Still Unfair: Even when I force Roblox to search specifically for my game using quotation marks, it still ranks lower than much less functional games.
Example:
Quotation Marks Search:
Why is My Game Ranked Poorly by Roblox?
Despite being the best FNAF game on Roblox, my game is ranked poorly. For instance, a non-functional FNAF game outranks mine even when searching specifically for my title. This is incredibly frustrating as my game:
Was released on July 6, 2024 (80 days ago).
Is fully functional and provides a unique experience.
Is superior in quality to any other FNAF game on Roblox.
My Question
Why does Roblox’s algorithm seem to be ignoring the quality of my game? Despite being superior to every other FNAF game, FNAF Nightmare is ranked poorly and given minimal visibility. Why is this happening?
To clarify when I say my game is the best FNAF game on Roblox, I mean the best in terms of design and similarity to the original game (Not Free roam, survive the night, manage power, FNAF 1).
I do not believe my game is the best FNAF themed game on roblox or most enjoyable, but I do think its the best in terms of appearance, similarity to original gameplay, and is severely underrated.
For the short answer, could you change your title of the game so it appears better in search results? You point out that a lot of games already use the title. I think workshopping the title could help.
For the longer answer, I have to refresh myself on how Roblox ranks games in search results and compare games to yours.
It’s all by algorithm. Check how many plays the other ones have so far.
Your game has been on the site for only 80 days. The other FNAF games have likely been here for years and have more plays even though they aren’t anywhere close you your quality. That’s what the search tool is probably looking at.
As you’ve seen, someone searching for FNAF is going to get hundreds of search results.
The fact that you’ve only got 16 likes and only 3 dislikes (84%) is a good ratio, but it shows the game isn’t gettting seen.
Have you tried advertising in any way to get your game seen? The more plays you get the more it’ll show up in the search.
Also maybe try an icon that includes a shot of the gameplay. Others obviously show similar graphics to what you have, but if yours stands out with a combination of the current icon and an image of gameplay it’ll get more clicks than the others.
Thanks for the feedback regarding the name. I have been thinking this a lot in terms of how Roblox probably has thousands of games named Fnaf. I wonder if the algorithm Roblox uses rates games based on previous games with similar names (A lot of FNAF games are very poorly made)
However I do hope that it could potentially pop up in more natural searches such as just searching “Fnaf.”
You probably need to sponsor and advertise it first.
Games don’t just blow up, the caveman roblox game algorithm considers this game the same as lower quality ones because of it’s visit count and creation date.
I would love the advertise is but I do not have the funds to do so. I’m also not 18 yet and I’m pretty sure I need to verify that before I can.
The best bet is what happened with Furry Detector: People just decide they like it and YouTubers make videos. I think the only way to get a game to be played if you’re under 18 is for that to happen (or to build your own YouTube channel up for years).
Suggest the game to streamers. Maybe advertise it in Discord servers. Really just get creative with ways to advertise it. Even this is one of the ways to advertise the game.
That’s exactly what happened to my Boat Obby. I made it for fun and was happy it was getting 10-100 players a day.
Suddenly it showed up on YT and suddenly I was getting 100s of people playing at the same time.
Also this game ranks higher than mine . Roblox thinks my game is worse than this
Now that I think about it roblox probably is ranking me poorly because:
Singleplayer: Roblox is a very social platform and singleplayer games are rarely ever played. Roblox likely doesnt favor my game for this reason against multiplayer fnaf games (even if those multiplayer fnaf games are made by an 8 year old with free models)
History: My game has little play history and the algorithm is likely skeptical at my likes. They probably value quality over quantity and when I showcase my game to people they likely never play again giving a bad impression to roblox.
Saturation: There are a lot of Fnaf games and Roblox might compare existing games to new ones. They might see that lots of Fnaf games are lower quality and assume mine is too. They might also have trouble ranking mine against the thousands of competing games
That’s something to think about in the planning stages of the game. At this point you should try to find a different way to advertise it to the target audience.
There are singleplayer games that reach 500 players. But roblox fnaf and singleplayer do not mix.
make a different game that is more unique + is multiplayer so the algorithm favors it and then use those funds to advertise the fnaf game
or
Spend a few years making a YouTube channel. Use the superior algorithm that is actually competent and that are more diverse in terms of what content is displayed (unlike roblox’s algorithms hiding singleplayer games)
Your game has 400 plays. There is likely insufficient data to rank your game against competitors. You should run ads - even just the minimum of 5.00 ad credits should be enough. If the game is engaging, Roblox will rank it higher.
Your game is also however likely in violation of various intellectual property laws, so you should look at differentiating it more from the original game.
Can you give some examples of what I can change to not be in violation of intellectual property laws? Also I’m pretty sure Scott Cawthon states that you’re allowed to remix the game. I changed up some stuff such as making the animatronics freaky and a cool map.
. Roblox thinks my game is worse than this
