Myself and my development team spent well over a year working on a game titled “The Maze Master.” The game is based off a popular movie and book series, “The Maze Runner.” The original version of the game got 250k+ visits. This was a stroke of luck as I had just began my development career. The game was absolute garbage. So I decided that I would remake it. This time I pulled a dev team together and the game turned out much better than I ever expected. The issue? Only a couple thousand visits over the past couple months. The original made at least 15k robux. The new version? 0 robux. I just don’t understand how this could happen. The original version accumulated 1.5k+ members in my group, so there was a playerbase who was anticipating the release of this game. Yet somehow, it flopped.
Any feedback is much appreciated. The failure of this game has caused immense loss of motivation so I decided to permanently discontinue this game. I’d like to know for future projects what I did wrong though
I think you should try finding a new game to make. Mazes can get confusing for little kids as it is ROBLOX’s general player base. Wish you luck though!
Yes, I know, but the original game was also a maze and was a huge hit for the younger player base. This game is significantly better but performed much worse.
But yeah, like I said, I abandoned that game and am working on another project.
I played the game and greatly enjoyed the building work put into it and actually found it to be quite fun, but there were some aspects missing though that I think would have maybe made the game better or possibly gain player retention:
Tutorial: A tutorial of some sorts that introduces the player to the world and the dangers within it to get them excited to try your game, this could be done in a more interactable format than just a statement of ‘go here’ and ‘do this’ and maybe something like a mission of sorts.
Objectives: Multiple objectives for the player, possibly a system in place to do that rather than just for them to imply they need to complete the maze and earn escapes and cash.
Replayability: I noticed that the maze was quite linear, whilst I probably know that’s to keep performance costs down, it made getting through the maze quite uninteresting after the first time as I could trace the path I went down, unlike the maze runner where it shifts. That would probably be difficult to implement as it would require procedural generation but it would make it more fun to go through the maze multiple times.
Threat: Possibly making the game scarier by making it darker at night, and giving more of a threat to the game such as grievers; on my travels to the end section I didn’t really find anything at night that proved itself a threat besides the water rising when I entered in the wrong code, though maybe I was in the wrong place.
Advertising: A non-game side issue, but I’d say to advertise the game if you’d like to gain players. This can be done through ROBLOX’s official system or maybe you could gain a small community by going to for example youtubers and getting them to review your game or communication servers to advertise your game.
All in all, I think you have a pretty good game here. I know you abandoned it, but if you ever decide to pick up working on it again you have a great framework for something special.
honestly. Its mostly an issue of advertising, accessibility and luck. Have you ever had a game tester that tested the game on a low end device and see if it runs well? Have you advertised your game at all? But sadly, luck is a huge part of being successful. Whether it would be finding streamers or youtubers to play the game for you, or how well your advertising goes, or how roblox’s algorithm supports your game. Its unlikely that you have the motivation to somehow revive it. But its just how it goes at game development in general…
So, you made a game… But what did you do for players to find your game? If you just expected for people to discover on their own and player count to grow organically, then… that just doesn’t happen, welcome to reality
Roblox groups are the worst way to promote anything, I doubt anyone is checking them regularly.
Advertise outside of Roblox, Best place is shorts and tiktok. Make sure it has something that is relevant among kids today as they are the biggest demographic on roblox. Just do whatever is necessary to get to people. Even if it gets annoying thats how you get recognition.
My thoughts:
I joined the game. Not very impressed with the building/artstyle (lacks polish I guess) but my standards are very high so it’s probably fine for most people. I walked out of the elevator thing, checked out a shop, left the shop, and started heading to the gap in-between the maze walls.
Aaaand I’m bored.
I can tell that the gameplay is probably over there. And it might be fun. But maaan, it takes so long to walk all the way there. If I weren’t reviewing the game I would’ve left already.
However, I will say that I really like the voxel-ly design of the walls:
So, I don’t think the game is good. Why do I think this way?
To put it simply, in the game… there is really no game. Even now, after being in the game for probably 10 minutes, the only notable thing I’ve done, seen, or have happened to me, is entering a shop. There is simply no game loop, no incentive to play, no guidance (whether it be direct like a tutorial or indirect like a cleverly designed world), no goal, and most importantly, no fun.
And that is why your game failed. People join it, but don’t spend long enough time for more people to join. When a game is fun it can grow organically because people will play the game for a good period of time and come back even after leaving. That is how games become popular without luck.
For your future projects, I recommend really thinking about the game design of the project and how to make a game that is fun. Maybe watch some game design videos on youtube. And play your favourite games! What makes them fun? Why is it fun? What do you dislike about them? What would happen if you removed mechanics? Or added new ones? Maybe even write a review of a game you liked (or didn’t like)! Game design is a really cool, unforgiving, but fun topic. And if you manage to master it, you can make really fun games that are guaranteed to survive.
Yeah, I completely forgot to add a tutorial. A big oversite on my part. There are objectives in the game in the form of quests. There is a board at spawn where you can grab different quests to complete for coins. There is also a shop with different items that help you through the maze. There are also grievers which come out at night (The animations are broken though)
I never advertised the original game and it did quite well so I just thought maybe I’d get lucky again. I guess not. I think another big thing is that the game is very low performance on mobile. There is a lot of lag, sadly.
Thank you for your feedback though! Much appreciated
You’re absolutely right. I spent so much time on the little details that I completely overlooked one of the most critical components of a game. I definitely should’ve put a lot more consideration into the game loop. I will say though, the game does get more interesting as you get towards the finish as the design of the maze changes and there are new obstacles. But yeah, I think you just named one of the main issues that caused the game to fail. Other people have said that it was because I never advertised the game and that is definitely an enormous factor as well.
I will definitely take your reply along with the replies of everyone else into consideration when working on my next project. Thanks for the help
This is actually very promising, I don’t think it’s much your fault that it failed, more on the side of the roblox playerbase and what kind of games they make, if you’d be willing to give me a shot I’ve helped build a massive playerbase for a game I worked on called “Out Of Gas” and I’d be willing to help you. Also I know what movie this is inspired by haha! Maze Runner!
It’s not your fault. You are obviously skilled and competent and I’m sure you learned a lot from this project, so don’t think of it as a waste of time.
I don’t think the game is the problem. The problem is that there’s no audience for this game. When you made the old game, there was one, but looks like that’s not the case anymore. Your game might just be too niche.
Next time, don’t spend 1 year on a game. Make a basic version of the game, and if it does fine, continue. If not, then drop and make something new.
(but seriously i love the build bro)