What do you want to achieve? Keep it simple and clear!
I would like to improve retention and playtime in my game where you play through obbies while avoiding huge speeding walls.
What is the issue? Include enough details if possible!
After players beat the first obby, most tend to leave the game. They do not bother going to higher difficulties of the game.
What solutions have you thought of so far?
With each update, I have been adding more obby stages, items, and events to buy in the shop. What else can I do to keep players engaged and having fun in the game?
I would like to start off by saying always assume the player knows nothing about the game, even if it is a super simple obby. With that in mind:
The beginning is “confusing”, you’re put into the lobby and several leaderboards/shops/and other random stuff are shown first rather than putting you straight infront of an obby. However, this is mostly optional but would help with making sure players who first join don’t leave right away after being a bit confused. Mostly this issue can be resolved by other methods as well such as pointing a big arrow towards the first obby to let the players experience it.
Try checking how long it takes them to beat the first obby and see what they struggle on. Get a good idea on whether or not they’re leaving because:
They found the first obby too difficult and assume the other obbies are more difficult.
They found it boring.
They found it unfair when they die to the wall.
Etc – gotta always have Etc
Adding random items and stages will not help with the issue if they are leaving after beating the first obby. Try focusing your effort on that first before adding other things, otherwise you’ll fall into the same issue I see with other devs where they get burned out trying to add more ontop of an existing issue thinking it will solve it.
Not enough ADHD… I mean simulator elements during the obby part. Usually for most obbies, there would be a significant amount of check points between each part which would play a nice sound, maybe some particles, show their stage number go up (people love numbers going up). So it tends to get quite quiet/boring when playing through the obby. Players may go through the obby hoping there would be something more, but when they reach the end and only get a few points without too much surprise or benefit, they leave.
Add a visual indicator for the wall, although the sound somewhat works, certain players may disable sound OR have a harder time processing sound fast enough to catch onto the fact there is a wall heading straight towards them.
Respawning takes way too long for an obby, people want to play the obby game, not play a wait to respawn game.
Wow! Thanks a ton for such a detailed reply! I’m going to run some possible solutions by you for some points you bring up, let me know if you think they could work.
The beginning is “confusing”, you’re put into the lobby and several leaderboards/shops/and other random stuff are shown first rather than putting you straight infront of an obby.
I was thinking of redoing the map so that spawn is DIRECTLY in front of the first obby, and the other obbies circle the lobby spawn area. This way, the player doesn’t have to do so much walking.
Try checking how long it takes them to beat the first obby and see what they struggle on.
The average playtime is around 5-10 minutes. from what I’ve seen, this is how long it takes for players to beat that first obby. I’m very confused on what to do for this part because if I dumb it down, some people may find it too easy. If I make it harder, beginners may quit before really experiencing the game.
Adding random items and stages will not help with the issue if they are leaving after beating the first obby.
Wow, I never thought about this. Thanks for knocking me back onto the right track. I needed to hear this!
Not enough ADHD… I mean simulator elements during the obby part.
I have considered giving checkpoints a sort of bounce effect when you reach them and having confetti fly across the screen when you beat an obby. I kept putting it off because I felt it was superfluous. I’ll be sure to add this in the next update!
Respawning takes way too long for an obby, people want to play the obby game, not play a wait to respawn game.
You are so right! I’ll be sure to cut down on respawn times.
Again, thank you so much for all this feedback! Because of you, I can make my game better!
Reducing the amount of walking will 100% help. Of course, make sure to monitor players during playtime (or log the locations of players to check instead) to ensure the effect is actually what you intend to happen. (sometimes changing things results in unexpected issues)
I personally think its fine to make the first part extremely easy. As long as your core gameplay is interesting enough, people will find it more enjoyable to get a quick win straight off the bat rather than struggling. You should ideally have a ramp up in difficulty with the first obbies or so being very easy but still interesting enough to show different aspects of gameplay. Then, afterwards, make it more difficult.
Making fast visible progress is much more fun than struggling immediately.
Also, since you have a wall, make it more active if the player goes faster and slower if they seem to struggle if you want the difficulty to be more player dependent.
This game is pretty fun, I’ve only played it for a few minutes. A few suggestions:
Limit the amount of system messages in chat, this could get annoying fast if you’re trying to chat with people in a large server
Make the walls have different shapes. As far as I know there’s no way to dodge the walls besides doing a jump around the edge of it which is pretty difficult in most situations. Maybe add a hole in the wall to make this easier
Funny you say that, there is a wall EXACTLY like that in the game already! It is the “Skully” wall where you have to jump through the skull’s mouth.
This kind of points out my problem in the og post: people aren’t sticking around long enough to see what all the game offers.
I spent ALL of yesterday redoing the entire map of the game. Player’s should need to do a lot less walking around now that everything is closer together. And the respawn time is much shorter.
I have also made the first obby way way easier so player’s can get that quick win at the start. I have also done some framing for what the player sees when they first spawn. The first obby is directly in front of them and there isn’t so many things stealing their attention such as leaderboards or shops.
I have yet to add more juice to checkpoints and winning yet. I also haven’t added an indicator for the walls yet.
I’d love to hear what you think about these changes!
Although the changes have certainly reduced some amount of walking, certain obbies seem quite far away from the spawnpoint leading to again, the same walking issue. Although there is a conveyor of course to remedy the issue, I think slightly speeding up the player + bringing the obbies closer to together when they’re at spawn might be a more interesting solution that’ll also allow you to expand spawn a bit more significantly.
Normal obbies work pretty well in the fact that as soon as you finish one stage, you’re basically right at the next stage automatically. For obbies that have several different obbies separated, making sure the player is near the entrance/portal to the next group of obbies helps significantly.
You can try taking a page out of ETOH which has all their similar difficulty leveled towers/obbies near eachother so walking to whatever one you want is pretty quick even with any conveyors/walkspeed boost
I think the main culprit is the fact that in order to try the other obbies, you’re forced to replay the same obbies that were completed previously in order to get enough to buy a tix for the next obby. If possible, avoid doing that. It forces players to play it as boringly as possible by re-doing the same obby multiple times to get enough. In addition, once players do get enough, its a tad clunky to realize that to get the tix, you have to step on a purchase button behind (when you spawn) with no significant bold highlights to indicate it is purchasable. In addition, the tix also disappears when you respawn which is odd?
ETOH I think solves this issue pretty well by giving you multiple obby options to play from with varying difficulties (but still roughly in the same group) before proceeding to the next level/world with more difficult obbies.
However, something i’d like to bring up is the “fun” part or goal of your game. The goal is to avoid the wall and reach the end. Pretty simple but you should 100% be building upon that. Although there is checkpoints for players to avoid the wall by waiting it out, emphasize risk by rewarding the player if they avoid the wall (give hints or temporary platforms to the player to let them know that is possible) by jumping to the side away from it without using a checkpoint so fast players can play fast with risk and slow players can take their time.
In addition, certain stages within the obby are copy and pasted, consider adding more color/material and difference in positions/shapes, doesn’t have to be anything extreme, just a slight bit more difference so it does not feel so same-y.
I realize now the running issue of the obbies being too far apart is due to obbies REQUIRING a certain amount of space between them so players cannot jump from one obby to another. However, with this one comment, I think you have given me the solution I have needed this entire time.
Instead of having the obbies as places you can walk to in the lobby, I can have the player spawn in front of a large collection of portals that teleport the player TO the obbies. This way, instead of having to walk 100 studs between each obby, it would be more like 5. This idea for portals also solves many other issues with the game. I can have better tutorialization and it would be easier to script a way to warn players when a wall is coming.
Running with the portals idea, I could have players buy tix to unlock a GROUP of walls instead of having to buy tix for EACH wall obby. For example, the player initially only have the Jimmy obby unlocked. Once they beat that obby, they immediately unlock Tammy, no tix needed. After Tammy, they unlock Cinnammy. These three walls can be a part of the starter “Basic” walls group. Then, the player would have to buy a tix to progress to the more “Advanced” walls group like Skelly and Nerdy. This way, players do not have to play the same obby over and over to unlock the next one, but they still have to buy tix to progress even further.
I have a seamless tutorial built into the game so once a new player has enough points to buy the Tammy Tix, they spawn in front of the shop button for it instead of the normal spawn. This teaches them how to progress and shows players where the shop is. This didn’t happen to you because you have already completed this tutorial. I am a bit confused on what you mean when you say “the tix also disappears when you respawn.” What exactly is happening?
Adding a sort of “Close one” bonus for dodging the wall would actually be pretty interesting. I’ll look into adding that!
I have been expanding on the mechanic of dodging the wall by giving different ways to dodge the walls. While Jimmy, Tammy, and Cinnammy are all “wait on a checkpoint for them to pass” types, Skelly and Nerdy are different. For Skelly, there are no side platforms and you must jump through his mouth to avoid him. For Nerdy, again, there are no side platforms and you must go through the right answer door to not die. As a player, what other quirks for the walls would you like to see?
Thank you so much for this incredible write up! I truly believe you have solved my issue with players needing to travel so far to get to each obby. I don’t think I would have reached this conclusion without your suggestions. I’ll be sure to add them when I work on the game next. For now, I am going to take a little break to avoid burning out over this. Again, thank you for all the feedback and if you have any suggestions, don’t hesitate to send them my way!
Have a good morning, good evening, and good night!
EDIT: I have never heard of or played ETOH before your comment. I checked it out today and I have been completely addicted. Thanks a lot lol!
This is the last post ill be doing here so I’ll make it quick:
Dying by falling off the map or hitting a barrier just makes the tix (in the inventory) previously purchased go away.
I think it could be interesting to make the wall interact more with the obby, as of currently the wall gameplay is you either avoiding the wall and just going through the obby (basically playing a normal obby with the only change being a wall) or a slightly different wall but still the same obby.
What you could do to make the wall “interact” with the obby is to make certain platforms/obstacles. change when the wall passes through it. It could randomize killbrick positions, change collisions, or make physics related objects shake around. Of course, this expands the scope so make sure you get your previous gameplay issues resolved first before deciding to add this.
Glad to have helped, make sure to log gameplay behavior and utilize that data to make gameplay changes.
