Would you play this game?

Hi, developers!

So I’ve just finished my cafe game that is set to launch tomorrow (unless otherwise) and am looking for feedback and reviews on it. I’ve listed a bunch of questions if you wish to answer for me.

  1. How is the build and how can it improve? Suggestions, Ideas, etc.
  2. How is the GUIs? Does it look appealing enough?
  3. How do you think this game will compare to other top cafes such as Bakiez, Koala Association, Boba Cafe, Frappe?
  4. Would you play this game? Is there a point of staying and not getting bored? Do you think kids will play this game?

Link to game: 🍦Milkjam Creamery - Roblox

I have attached a few photos if you aren’t available to visit the place!

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/602374247125352450/614607404604063751/Screen_Shot_2019-08-23_at_6.38.34_PM.png

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/602374247125352450/614607412749533194/Screen_Shot_2019-08-23_at_6.39.03_PM.png

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/602374247125352450/614607415882678292/Screen_Shot_2019-08-23_at_6.39.47_PM.png

chen#0072

23 Likes

I have taken a look at this game and noticed that everything is kind of confusing. I would suggest adding more signage. I also noticed the donation GUI is a real mess; I would recommend placing the donations in ascending order.

9 Likes

Feedback

  1. How is the build and how can it improve? Suggestions, Ideas, etc.

The build is very good. The mood of the build is very appealing with the different amounts of colors and objects. I don’t have any suggestions at the moment though.

  1. How is the GUIs? Does it look appealing enough?

The GUI is okay, I would recommend maybe a button where we can hide it.
3. How do you think this game will compare to other top cafes such as Bakiez, Koala Association, Boba Cafe, Frappe?

I would compare this to other Cafe’s. It has a high quality build like those groups. And it makes me want to stay and explore a little.

  1. Would you play this game? Is there a point of staying and not getting bored? Do you think kids will play this game?

I would play this, I would add more interactive features or short games instead of a classic Cafe like the rest. This is so people / kids don’t get as bored with the same model.

5 Likes

I don’t play Cafes. If I did, I would not play yours. Here’s why and what you need to change for me to play it:

  • First Impression: Icon Looks good, thumbnails suck. Make better ones. The icon grabs the user’s attention and the thumbnails convince them to try the game out. I wasn’t convinced.

  • Second Impression: I joined the game. The surroundings are very cluttered, and I’m not sure why I start between a brick wall and water. It feels very unnatural to me.


    I also don’t appreciate this. Maybe let users explore the cafe before proposing a “job”

  • Alright, let’s move on. I’m not sure where to go after this. This is way too early of a place to split the way. Make the path to the actual cafe extremely obvious, and don’t put anything in the way. Let the user get to the cafe first, and then let them go to different parts of the map.


    You at least have a sign in this time, but users don’t want to read if they don’t have to, and the path to the cafe should be clear. If this were in a more natural setting, perhaps a dirt or stone path that splits from the main brick one would make it obvious. You can figure out what to do here for yourself.

  • Finally got to the cafe. The game seems way too monetized already. Big turn off for me. Lay back on bombarding the user with requests for tips and for them to buy the gamepasses. It’s annoying. The inside of the cafe looks alright. The stairs into the night club are way too hard to see though. Maybe add a a neon highlight to the steps like on the right side.

  • Spent a few minutes exploring the map. I’ve been everywhere and don’t know what to do now. I don’t have a reason to stay in game. I would have left a long time ago if I wasn’t writing this. The retention must be terrible. So, give people a reason to stay in game. Give them something to work towards. Award them points for staying in game and participating in activities like working, ordering, eating, swimming, buying merch, etc, etc. Add a leaderboard and things you can spend points on. Could be gears/tools, overhead titles, pets, outfits, or whatever. Add more fun stuff around the map. Maybe some fun games that people could play with their friends or other players.

Some other things that suck:

  • Brick. Super stale and ugly. Change up the colors, textures, materials, aaa im really tired i slept like 4 hours last night
  • The UI. It’s super ugly. Spacing, padding, margins need to be consistent throughout the whole UI. Currently looks like it was bodged together.

Things I like:

  • This statue is super hot
    image

I tried to make my review as brutally honest and as helpful as I could. I hope you can improve based on what others and I have said. Best of luck to you and your group!

16 Likes

Hey good night well about your game .

1.I like the Build, look so colorful.
2. i think the GUI’s should have a bigger letter cuz it is a bit small.
3. Yes maybe but if want to be better than then add some events or things that players love like mini games , battles or other minigames, egg hunts! or others.
4.Well i really dont like that kind of game also need to add more things to do it a bit better cuz there is almost nothing to do for example in game desc says: you can Surf can tell me where i could find it. not all the players will search it.

Well thats all keep improving your game.

3 Likes

Thank you for the honest criticism! I’ve started fixing a lot of the issues. Though I’m still confused on the bricks. I tried concrete and it looked too plain then I tried different color bricks (red and brown) and it didn’t go very well and I also tried smooth plastic which probably looked worse than both of them. Do you have any ideas what I should do?

2 Likes

Hello, chenami!

It’s amazing how you came from a clan leader to a cafe chairman. As a successful clan leader, I’m sure you will make Milkjam successful too. :smile:

Feedbacks

I. How is the build and how can it improve? Suggestions, Ideas, etc.
Overall: The whole cafe design is amazing. Keep the hot air balloons, they give a really nice touch to the place.
Pets: The pets should be more creative, add like hats and effects to them.
The Menus: They are too small to see, make it bigger. You can make a little slideshow for the menus.
Space and Comfortability: There should be more space between each set of tables and chairs, so it won’t be crowded.
The View: Add flowers and fewer trees.
Textures + Materials: Use a different texture or materials for the concrete, it looks too plain and simple.
Ideas: Hanging pots with flowers, art wall designs, fountains, table accessories,
working binoculars, jetskis, parachuting, boat riding…etc

Mannequins: They should be evenly spaced, and they should be the same size. Also, don’t make them stand in a straight line. It’s not shoulder-to-shoulder rally anymore. :joy:
You can make them go fishing, sit on the edge of the boat, carry on each other’s back…etc.

II. How is the GUIs? Does it look appealing enough?

image
Red Boxed: Adjust it so it looks even.
The Font: It is too small and capitalize the first letter of each word.
Milk Logo: Make it a little bigger, he looks like he is suffocating.

image
The Gamepasses: The gamepass board should be in front of the cafe entrance.

III. How do you think this game will compare to other top cafes such as Bakiez, Koala Association, Boba Cafe, Frappe?
The cafe’s style is unique in its own way.

IV. Would you play this game? Is there a point of staying and not getting bored? Do you think kids will play this game?
I won’t play this game, but I will visit this wonderful cafe. Let players work in your cafe by applying applications or attending training. You can add worker points to motivate workers to stay active. Kids would probably play this, but it really depends on the kid.

Tip: Shorten the menu list, based on psychologists, customers would have a difficult time deciding what to order from a wide-variety of items.

If you are confused by any of my feedbacks and tips, please contact me on Discord.

:honeybee: Jess :honeybee:#1623

3 Likes

Noticed. The Developer Products are ordered like that so it just followed the algorithm but I’ll see what I can do.

What would you recommend for games?

There are literally tens of thousands of customer service groups, mainly cafe groups. I am not saying people will play this game, but you have to give them a reason to choose your cafe out of the (and I am not joking) tens of thousands of cafe groups. There are very few groups that survive after a couple of months, usually they shut down before 1000 members because users become less interested if there are not tons of advertisements being put out.

I don’t think this will be a good comparison to other customer service groups, mainly cafe groups. I used to be a middle rank at the largest restaurant group on roblox, Soro’s Restaurant Franchise, and they would push out updates all the time, sometimes weekly. If you want it to become popular, you are going to have to have the best choices as far as what you can do. I mean, looking at Soro’s, there are pets, tons of toys, and much more you can do compared to other customer service groups. I don’t want to discourage anyone, but I don’t suggest starting up any kind of customer service group, mainly cafe because it is overused, because there is a 99.99% change it will fail. I think it is cool that people want to run cafe groups, but they are very easy to make and are overused too much. (Cafes and Hotels seem to be the most popular, as the basic needs for the same can be created easily.)

Really, players will come if you have a good management style. Usually I see to harsh of a corporate office and an inactive middle and high rank area. If everything is not perfect, then it will fail. I don’t want to discourage you, but there is a reason why there are very few popular cafe groups to total cafe groups. (I honestly don’t think people understand how many customer service groups are currently up. If you put in a random group ID, you are very likely to come back with a customer service group.)

Looking at your map, it looks like any other cafe group. There is nothing that would want me to stay in this game. Since your game is not popular, you are going to have to work 100 times harder than major groups simply for the fact that your game isn’t popular. Keep in mind that most popular groups started from 2014-2016 at the latest. Just because your game looks pleasing does not mean that players are going to stay. You will have to have constant staff, constant revenue going into advertisements, constantly working. Honestly, from what I have seen from larger groups compared to smaller groups, I always see smaller groups working harder (a lot harder) than larger groups and failing simply for the fact that they are not popular (and it’s very sad). Larger groups can also easily replace staff - and you can’t. If a staff member needs to be fired, it is going to be hard for you to find a new staff member because there needs to be something that makes them choose you over Frappe or the tens of thousands of other cafe groups.

EDIT: Now looking through the groups and putting in IDs and going through advertisements, and since there are over 5 million groups, I think it would be safe to say there are easily a couple hundred thousand customer service groups (and most are dead or just starting up.) Personally, if you were to ask me how to make your group popular, all I can say is to pour millions of Robux into advertisements for a couple of months to keep maybe 100 players in-game, from which your group would grow and you could lower how much you put into advertisements. (I don’t want to say anything too revealing), but you will always have to put advertisements into your group. Soro’s would put up thousands of Robux a day into advertisements. Also, unless you sell ranks, don’t expect to make more than a couple thousand Robux a day, even if you are a massive group.

I wish you luck, but I just think you should keep all of this in mind.

3 Likes

Understood. In your own opinions, what do you think is essential that a cafe should have that maybe you’ve wanted or people have wanted besides from “serving drinks and pets”.

Add in something unique that other groups can’t offer. Maybe make it so users can customize their avatar in-game (add on expensive hats, custom clothing, etc.), put in mini-games, something to keep the user active. Taking Soro’s for example, they got a new developer about 8 months ago. He has, since then, been pushing updates non stop, always bringing the players, back, such as improvements, new UI, top 100 leaderboards, pets, nametag customization, and much more. Sadly, you are going to need a very experienced scripter if you want unique features. It doesn’t take a lot to build a nice cafe, but it takes a lot to have cool custom features.

(Not trying to sound rude) The only thing that small groups don’t have that is an issue in larger groups is trollers, so I guess that’s good.

Edit: Ask your group members what they would like to see, as they are the ones involved in the community.

My developer was thinking of mini-games as well. What would you recommend for mini-games? I think a command where you can put hats on yourself might be cool.

We’ve also made a lot of different clothing (unlike cafes that just have 1 hoodie with different styles) Milkjam - Roblox to expand.

Maybe something like a maze, obbys, or other things someone can complete on their own.

Something I have never seen is a system in which every user in the game is forced to play a team minigame, such as a quick little shooter round or a race, and then once everyone has finished, have everyone respawn to the cafe as an intermission for about 15 minutes. Essentially Epic Minigames but during intermission, intermission lasts for about 10-15 minutes where users can take a break in the cafe.

1 Like

That sounds good. I have another question: Is it smart to promote around 30 people to Barista rank before launch? Because when ads are ran, they’d be already there working instead of trying to do ‘trainings’ and ‘interviews’ during launch. This is honestly my first game so I’m trying to figure out how to do this.

I mean if they are in your discord server and are aware of their promotion, then I would say go for it. I don’t suggest randomly promoting everyone in your group, as they may not know why they were promoted. Instead ask users if they would like to be promoted.

Sounds good. I don’t know if this helps but I’ve seen seperate cafe groups where it’s just one main course such as “Coffee”, “Boba”, “Burgers”, “Muffins”, “Ice Cream” so I’ve tried to expand my menu. So instead of hopping from game to game to get food, they’d just come to one cafe where it’s all there for them.

You are going to need to do more than that. If you look at Mad City, it was essentially a copy of Jailbreak, however they added in superheroes. The superheroes pull them in and is unique to mad city that jailbreak does not offer.

Personally, I have given up on all customer service groups. I don’t work for any anymore because they always seem to fail. At first, yes, some of them gained up to 30 players in-game for a week or so, but after that everyone will start to slack and give up. I don’t want to discourage you, but I think you should understand that the chances of your group becoming popular is very unlikely (like less than .1%). Usually there is some argument in the corporate office, everyone becomes inactive or stops trying, and then the group dies. Since the end of 2017, I have worked for multiple cafe groups that grew a couple hundred members and looked like they were going somewhere but died because people give up.

You can ignore below if you don’t want to hear the statistics.

I worked at Soro’s Restaurant Franchise for 10 months, then another 2 about 6 months after I resigned the first time. You think being an executive at a large group seems fun and all. It gets boring. It is fun to do interviews and trainings and supervise staff for about the first month. About the beginning of the third month is where about 75% of executives have resigned somewhere in their second to fourth executive rank. After a year, there are only 3 executives, some who are Chief Communications Officers at Soro’s, who applied with me, along with the fourty-something other executives.

At Soro’s, and other larger groups I assume, most people resign in the beginning of their third month because they are not a good rank. After the third to fourth executive rank, they realize they are going to not get promoted, for maybe a year. This means they will have to attend tons of weekly interviews, trainings, internal requirements, activity and much more weekly, They all give up. Myself, and most other executives I know, have not done a single requirements a couple months before resignation, up to the point of resigning because they don’t care.

People are going to say that they care and they will do whatever it takes to help your group out. They are going to say they will spend hours a day working for your group. They will not. They will go inactive. That is human nature. They are going to give up (sadly) and won’t want to work again. Referencing back to Soro’s, (I counted) a little more than 80 percent of their executives gained their rank within the past 10 months. To get back on topic - You were saying you were going to make some people staff ranks. This will only work in the short term. As an executive, I would never recognize any staff members name because (being respective) all staff would give up after a couple of weeks of working. The only reason I stayed for 10 months originally was because I had friends in the group. Otherwise, I would have left.

I know I said this before but I want to say it again to not appear rude - I am not trying to discourage you. However, if I could say something to my younger self, I would say don’t bother. Instead, try to make a different game, I made (at most) 30,000 Robux from almost 2 years of building and scripting for customer service groups because they did not make a large income, and I did not charge much because I thought they would go somewhere. I think it is nice that you want to do this, but I am going to tell you, you are going to have more fun applying to become a developer or executive at a medium sized popular group (10,000-50,000 members), than you will running your own group, even if you resign after a couple of months being an executive. You won’t have to worry about having to deal with activity of your staff, because the group will be popular already. You won’t have to worry about the difficulty of become a staff member.


Ok, back on topic - I honestly think you need to think of something very creative. Make a movie theater (It would have to use decals rather than videos because you can’t add videos in-game). Hey, maybe add in a movie theater to your game. I have never seen this done, and for sure I would definitely play your game. I think you should make a more interactive environment. Make trees sway in the wind, make a day cycle, add in a thunderstorm, that would be really cool! Don’t just settle for the day or sunset that I see in every cafe. Make seasons, make it snow every couple of hours. Make fish. All of this is going to be hard, but it is not meant to be easily. If it was easily, everyone would do this.

1 Like

These are my answers to the questions that you provided.

  1. How is the build and how can it improve? Suggestions, Ideas, etc.
  • The build is pretty good, everything is good the way they are placed, and thought out.
  1. How is the GUIs? Does it look appealing enough?
  • The GUIs are unappealing I would say, try making them smaller, and rounded. Instead of being so large and taking up the whole screen. Try taking out random decorations, such as the (boat), islands.
  1. How do you think this game will compare to other top cafes such as Bakiez, Koala Association, Boba Cafe, Frappe?
  • In my opinion, no. I do not think it would compare. Bakiez, and Koala seem more like your cafe. However Boba Cafe, Frappe, etc are more simplistic designs. After being a part of the cafe group community for quite a while, I have found that the more simple the cafe is, the more it is attractive. Your game is too busy, lots of stuff everywhere that are unneeded.
  1. Would you play this game? Is there a point of staying and not getting bored? Do you think kids will play this game?
  • No, I would not play this game, again it is too busy. I think kids would not play this. The typical age for cafe groups is like 12-14, kids at that age are more mature, and aren’t interested in things that look like birthday parties basically.

Try making the game simpler, less decorations, just cafe, and some terrain.

1 Like

Another suggestion, try making a touch-GUI script. So whenever you touch an item, it gives you a GUI that says something like “Buy Balloons now!”, then disappears after you walk away.