I’ve spent a lot of time creating a polished Roblox game called Blocky Tower Defense (Alpha) it has a clean design, good gameplay, and even a custom icon. However, I’m struggling to get players. âIt seems like unless I spend Robux on advertising or get promoted by big YouTubers, no one finds or plays the game.
Here’s the link if you want to check it out:
I’d really appreciate any honest feedback on why the game might not be attracting players and what I could do better whether it’s gameplay, marketing, or something else. Also, is there really no way to succeed on Roblox without paying for ads?
ignore the game’s AI thumbnail, i think it s pretty common to use AI in thumbnail
I wasn’t able to place any towers, and neither were my heros in my inventory. And for some reason I randomly lost to some boss that was not 30 minutes in the game
No realtime currency updates
Dev Console shows debugging for some reason
No it’s not, AI Generated thumbnails isn’t really going to help for your game or boost your game at all. It’s just going to make your game not receive attention from players or drop the player count.
Also considering that your Bulletin Board looks a bit shady as if ChatGPT wrote it, I don’t think it’s a good idea to develop if you’re going to use AI thumbnails, including descriptions too
“despite it being well-made” is a slight misconception.
Just because a project is “well-made” doesn’t mean it will perform well. One of my favorite games on Roblox is Eclipsis and I think it’s extremely well-made. Despite that, the game has a very small audience.
Similarly, there are several well-made AAA games on steam, yet an indie game with cheaper graphics can still manage to outperform such AAA games.
So what’s going on? Long story short, if the gameplay isn’t strong, then no amount of polish will save your game. Instead of focusing on making your game look as good as possible, focus on making it as fun as possible to play and also fun to watch (btw I haven’t played your game yet but this is just a general rule of thumb).
Don’t get me wrong, polishing is still important. Not to gain players but rather to retain trust in them. Polish will give the idea that the game is well-maintained, so they will be more likely to come back and even spend money on your game. However, this shouldn’t be prioritized above the gameplay itself. Substance over style is the way to go.
Game looks very unappealing from a glance. There’s a million tower defense games out there and you’re not doing much to stand out. You have to convince the player why they should bother with your game over anything else. A promise of “high effort” isn’t enough. And even if you manage to get that right, the sad truth is you’re probably not going to get more than a few dozen plays without advertising, regardless of what game you make. There’s just too much competition nowadays
Personally, any use of AI throws me off playing your game. Don’t use AI. Like, ever.
This is fairly minor, but you only have 1 image available to show your game, and from what I’m reading it seems fairly generic (Though I don’t personally tend to read descriptions for games unless the art actually interests me). With 1 image that isn’t of actual gameplay, and a fairly generic name, it wouldn’t give me any experience I couldn’t get from any other game - Your audience in this case would probably just play a tower defence game they already like and know, as opposed to trying a new one.
I notice you write about how you even [have] a custom icon., but that icon is AI. I understand you say to ignore the AI, but that’s fundamentally the issue here - Everyone has access to AI. I can go to Dall-E right now and generate what you have. AI is not “well-made” nor is it “polished”, and it screams “low-effort”. You should hire an artist or make your own art (And keep in mind, once you learn to make art, you can do so forever! It’s a really good skill to have!!)
No, you do not need to pay for Robux for Ads, and I think in your case it wouldn’t change anything. You can do advertising for free on social media, and people who like your game will ask to play with their friends anyway. Robux can certainly help a game get off the ground, but by NO means is it necessary, and it’s only really useful for “hidden-gems” which are very well-polished but perhaps target a niche audience that wouldn’t find the game otherwise.
Just hire an artist and work on it more. Maybe add some stuff that other tower defence games don’t have. Regardless, I’d personally say your game isn’t that well-made considering your stock assets and AI usage.
main factor that throws everyone off of games is ai.
when people use ai generated thumbnails, descriptions, icons, code, etc. the game just screams “i was rushed” even without clicking on it
from a couple screenshots it also seems the ui was really rushed and it doesnt adhere to the screen properly. and some ui is visible when it shouldnt be (like the inventory, and shop stuff being visible on the loading screen). the ui also has some pretty clashing colours which is usually a big no-no when it comes to anything
the amount of thumbnails on the game itself doesnt exactly give enough information or actual shown gameplay to peak interest, and the one thumbnail is very clearly ai so it doesnt give any meaningful information about the game itself, just the genre
the description seems to be ai generated too running it through gptzero which gives a 100% ai
as a general rule of thumb that i at least use, i would never use ai unless you absolutely NEED to use it for code specifically, and even then, you should try learn from that code from actually writing and it conforming it to what you need, and bug fixing things yourself. this has gotten me to use ai less and less over the last 6-7 months and now i dont use it at all even in projects as complex as a path tracer im working on. it went from 12% ai straight down to zero within 1 rewrite
you should only ever use ai as a tool for learning in a way that makes you use it less
how do you expect your game to attract players if you didn’t even advertise it by any means? there’s millions of games out there, don’t think because your game is well made or polished (i read other people’s responses, and they said it’s not well made and not polished, so it’s just a negative point to your game) it will automatically gain players. Yes, by search maybe you can get a player every month. But you need to advertise it by any means to start gaining players
not sure why you decided to add social hangout to the rating, this just automatically boosts the maturity rating already putting off a portion of the audience
I noticed you’re using the incorrect term here. “Friends” is no longer in usage, and “Connections” would be the correct term here. It’s okay though, I’ll let it slide this time!
