Suggestions to improve average session time & day 1 retention?

I have been sponsoring my game for about a week and a half. The average session time is ~3.0 minutes and the day 1 retention is only 2.30%. We also have only a 55% like ratio, but we also only have ~20 players who have actually voted on the game.

What do you suggest I do to improve these stats?

I played your game for a few minutes and here are some of my opinions. To start off, please don’t pump out any robux into sponsoring until you can make improvements. The sole purpose of sponsors is so the Roblox algorithm can hopefully pick up your game. With these stats it will not pick up your game, so make improvements before spending anymore robux on ads.

First off, try to address your average session time. 3 minutes is low for any genre, but obby games do typically have a lower playtime than a simulator or tower defense game. Either players don’t understand your game, they don’t understand why they should play your game (what is there to earn), or there is something wrong with the gameplay loop that isn’t fun.

General tip:

  • Aim for at least 8 minutes playtime and 10% D1 retention.

Suggestions:

  • Improve the UI: I’d recommend going with the classic simulator UI style because it’s proven to work and it looks clean. It will also be intuitive to players, for example, showing the player’s coins/cash on the side instead of in the bottom corner.
  • Use more colors: The lobby and maps at the moment are basically just grey. It’s very bland and not appealing to children in particular.
  • Physical gear shop: This makes it easier for players to see what the game offers them, and what they can achieve if they continue playing. I know this is all available in the UI, but having a physical shop can’t be missed by players and will also add more life to your lobby.
  • Playtime & daily rewards: Offer rewards in the form of cash, or gears, or whatever for playing for 10 minutes, 20 mins, 1 hour, etc. Also daily rewards are good for keeping players coming back the next day. But these will still require players to enjoy your game enough to care about returning for those rewards.
  • Easier maps: Majority of your players will come from mobile. It is harder to play obby games on mobile, and your audience will mostly be children who may struggle and ragequit if stages are too hard.
  • Larger maps: If you intend to have multiple players (runners) doing the obbies at the same time you want players to be able to space out and not be inside each other all the time. Try to give players the option to space out from each other. Eg: 2 possible paths at a certain stage, or make the platforms larger while keeping jumps the same.
  • Remove the 5 seconds respawn delay: It’s annoying, people don’t want to wait around doing nothing. At least shorten the time if you want some delay there.

Playtime could be because there’s not enough players in the game so people just leave instantly? Expand your lobby area so players can explore it while they wait for more players, use space so it takes them time to explore everywhere, and use colours so they want to explore the lobby. More colours, and the gear shop will help with this.

Retention may be low because players don’t even give the game a chance as shown by 3 minute playtime? Add daily rewards to help with this, and have desirable items in the game that players can work towards. Also change your global leaderboards so that you can show 10 players at a time without scrolling. This motivated people more to try getting on the leaderboards.

Gather a group of your friends and play the game with them. Don’t tell them how to play it. Let them naturally figure it out and then get feedback from them. This will allow you to find any problems with your gameplay loop and find out if your game is really fun or lacking something.