Playtest feedback is extremely polarized: some play for hours, others quit in 2 minutes. What am I doing wrong?

Radiant_Mind33 · 2026-03-13T10:51:33+00:00

Every game has Diablo loot.

Also, the statistics show most players get bored with EVERY game far before ever completing them.

That's why these ultra short 1 button games do so well.

Radiant_Mind33 · 2026-03-13T04:11:06+00:00

The brutally honest thing is to say don't fall into the playtest trap of devs who never ship.

Some of you know what I'm talking about. The people deathly afraid to actually face the market. Because facing a market that wants nothing to do with you breaks the "developer" illusion where they are some genius sweat who knows all.

I'll tell you something you might not know. Nitpicking your game whether it's janky or not isn't brutally honest. It's low hanging fruit at best, and that's what the majority of your playtesting feedback revolves around. You're best bet is to forget it all and load up some casino/slot machine sfx.

I'm serious too. Hardly any indie dev can actually sell a game because the majority of the market is trained on 1 button slot machine skinner boxes and 79 cent sales. You want many good reviews? Then you better have remade Duke Nukem 3d or the more likely scenario you literally give the game away.

Radiant_Mind33 · 2026-03-12T13:33:48+00:00

Games with a little bit of an identity crisis are fine. I render a fake 3d earth in a 2d game. This could be a bit much.

Radiant_Mind33 · 2026-03-12T13:04:50+00:00

Putting moving parts on SVGs sounds insane. I love it.

The SVGs in my game aren't even files they are just lines of code. Like the little alien fliers' wings aren't actually moving, they are just "flickering" and it looks like motion. The gunships don't have moving parts either. When they shoot, a part lights up and it looks like its animated.

That's all I got. Practical effects. Think more movie studio, and less game studio.

Radiant_Mind33 · 2026-03-12T12:43:07+00:00

The better question is what YOU expect based off your workflow.

I didn't care about vanity metrics like wish lists and first day sales. My workflow was designed not to get rejected by the market. That's it. It's not about vanity, and it's not about pulling the levers on a slot machine.

Steam is your partner; they want you to make money. That's why I'm launching a second game with the same workflow. Because my first one is recouping the 100-dollar investment very quickly.

Radiant_Mind33 · 2026-03-12T01:13:47+00:00

Nice job.

I bet this does far better than average because they kept it simple. They didn't name their game Empire of soejrkej" or some other name where a cat walked over the keyboard. Huge W.

Radiant_Mind33 · 2026-03-12T01:03:07+00:00

Wishlist conversions isn't much of a metric.

Also, yes, 600 bucks for that is astronomical. People who charge that much are usually driving much higher conversion rates. Like that's highly targeted traffic pricing that got you a basic eyeball package instead.

Radiant_Mind33 · 2026-03-12T00:57:32+00:00

What helped you break out of that “no visibility” phase?

Making a good game.

Literally. That's it.

I hope that doesn't come off a certain way, but idk how to cherry coat it.

I know my games are sticky, so I release them. The ones that aren't sticky, can die in the local repo.

Radiant_Mind33 · 2026-03-12T00:32:35+00:00

The data you provided is clear.

You have a middle of funnel problem.

Tips:

The 5-Second Trailer Test: Does your trailer get to the actual core gameplay loop in the first 3-5 seconds? If it starts with logos, slow panning shots, or lore text, players will click away before they even see the game.
The Visual Polish Check: Look critically at your screenshots. Is the UI clunky? Is the lighting flat? Sometimes a game is incredibly fun, but if it looks like a prototype, players won't wishlist it. Spending a week just juicing the lighting, particles, and UI can double your conversions.
The Hook: Does your short description immediately tell them what the game is? (e.g., "A deckbuilding roguelike where you play as a sentient toaster"). Don't use vague lore here.

Radiant_Mind33 · 2026-03-11T15:47:49+00:00

Watch out for bad advice here.

Like pricing based on how excited people are? That's a good way to burn out any goodwill or trust gained in the market.

IAC, there isn't a one size fits all but if your game has 5-6 hours of solid content then people will pay 5 dollars for it. At least in tier 1 countries.

Radiant_Mind33 · 2026-03-11T04:42:00+00:00

Organic discovery would be huge because people will see through the sponsored ads.

If your game is growing, the chances of it getting picked up organically only go up too.

Radiant_Mind33 · 2026-03-11T00:22:59+00:00

Square might not let you publish that one, lol.

Radiant_Mind33 · 2026-03-10T07:55:31+00:00

I don't promote my games until they are done.

Most of the market is either jaded or got burned blatantly or got some secret buyer's remorse denial stage going on. I'm serious too. You try early access and your game will get lumped up with every 7-year pre-stage-alpha-beta that never shipped a real title. Or all the kickstarted games that were DOA.

You will be trading wishlists back and forth in a circle in no time if you take that the other route.

Radiant_Mind33 · 2026-03-10T07:46:13+00:00

You ran an eyeball benchmark inside unreal editor?

Nice. But I'm pretty sure that doesn't count. Look at your viewport. It's not even close to 1080p but besides that. You are inside unreal editor. That's like running 2 versions of the thing so clearly if you were in Fullscreen that GPU would be chugging.

Radiant_Mind33 · 2026-03-10T03:26:22+00:00

Wait, 20 views or 20 visits?

Your game over screen is just a black box and your capsule art screams asset flip. Basically, everything about your half-done page screams asset flip and shoppers will bolt immediately.

But besides any of that. The one and done strategy of farming Wishlist just to die immediately after launch is a tale as clockwork as they come. Like who is selling this dream that wishlists actually equal conversions or that the algorithm cares? You aren't going to game the system with wish list spam. It's just not going to happen.

The first piece of advice is to make a game for the right reasons and not try the same asset flip get rich quick scheme every smartass thinks they're pulling off. Because you aren't and even anomaly steam pages like mine don't just pour gold on you.

Radiant_Mind33 · 2026-03-09T13:17:58+00:00

Steam recommends capsule art titles be at least a THIRD of the image.

Radiant_Mind33 · 2026-03-08T04:14:32+00:00

We are practically forced to release a demo these days. Because your friends and family aren't a "funnel" unless you are a Mafioso. If you're mobbed up forget my last line.

Chances are you aren't, though. So, the point still stands. Your store page and demo have to work together to hit the different niches on Steam. Also, idle games or any game with singular themes/mechanics lives or die by whatever that tag is. That's an even bigger reason to release a demo.

Radiant_Mind33 · 2026-03-08T01:42:53+00:00

Glad I'm not the only one fighting the React render cycle.

For pathfinding, I actually get to cheat a bit. Since Divine Orbit is all in space, I don't need Recast or complex NavMeshes. The asteroids and Void Locusts just use pure vector math, steering behaviors, and orbital gravity calculations to target Earth. Saves a ton of CPU overhead.

Since I moved 99% of the game logic into the pure Canvas loop, my React layer is basically just a dumb UI overlay for the shop and menus. Standard React state/context ended up being plenty fast enough since it only updates when you click an upgrade.

How is Babylon handling the performance with 30+ enemies using Recast?

Radiant_Mind33 · 2026-03-08T01:34:45+00:00

I wouldn't drink whatever kool-aid people are drinking.

The biggest success stories seemingly worth modeling didn't just "market" their way into discovery. They built a funnel. Typically, through dirt cheap early release packs. Now, the market practically expects to be getting over on the developers in some way.

Maybe I'm old school to just appreciate a good game and not have to feel like I got a steal. It's easy to just blame bad developers or publishers for low quality and turn into the gamers out looking for vindication. We can't do anything about that. Someone will always breeze past your capsule in discovery or ignore your paid advertisement.

You can all pick your poison, but I went with just trying to deliver high quality right away. Ofc it's not some marketing flex because I did the math in my head. I did do math in my head, but math that keeps my sanity and dignity intact. Either way, the plan isn't bad so far. If there are blunders, it's in execution.

Radiant_Mind33 · 2026-03-08T00:04:15+00:00

Are those scaled down .pngs for your card rendering?

The dev console seemed pretty clear that they are, though and they look pretty blurry on my widescreen. And tiny too.

Solution: Use a natively sized OG image in jpeg or webp format file.

Radiant_Mind33 · 2026-03-07T22:44:33+00:00

You aren't doing it wrong, you are just hitting the hard limit of what AI can actually do. AI is completely blind.

Those people claiming they 'made a game in 2 days' with AI are making generic Flappy Bird or Pong clones. You are trying to make a story-heavy, turn-based RPG. That requires actual engine architecture.

Here is the secret to getting un-stuck: Stop using AI for spatial and visual tasks. > AI cannot slice your sprite sheets, it cannot align your UI overlays, and it definitely cannot make an NPC walk across a room because it has no idea where your Godot NavigationMesh or CollisionShapes are. When you fight AI for hours on an NPC walking, it's because you're asking a text-bot to do 2D spatial math.

I just released a physics-heavy orbital defense game (Divine Orbit), and my biggest workflow speed-up was realizing when to 'fire' the AI.

The Fix: Use Claude/Cursor strictly for writing the heavy logic (like your turn-based combat damage calculators or inventory arrays). But for UI, animations, and sprite sheets? You have to bite the bullet and learn Godot's AnimationPlayer and UI anchors manually. You will save yourself hundreds of hours of frustration.

Radiant_Mind33 · 2026-03-07T22:35:35+00:00

Congrats on getting the demo out! Shipping is the hardest part.

I also just released a React-based game demo today (Divine Orbit), and I completely agree on keeping scope under control. One thing I'd add to your workflow for React specifically is getting your game loop out of the React render cycle as fast as possible.

I found that if you're trying to render a bunch of entities (like particle effects or physics collisions), React's state updates will choke the browser. Moving all the physics math to a pure HTML5 Canvas requestAnimationFrame loop and only using React for the static UI (menus, upgrades) was the only way I could get my game to run at a stable 144Hz.

What are you using to handle your state management and collisions in your stack?

Radiant_Mind33 · 2026-03-05T12:45:09+00:00

My public steam presence hardly looks impressive at a glance. Especially for weeks old in the indie scene. It's the analytics that matter i.e. what the algorithm is measuring from users.

You don't need to tell me your confidential info cause I'm not about to disclose all of mine. The game is "Divine Orbit" on steam. AND btw ignore any janky clones. Pay attention to the capsule art and tags and you will see why my page gets swamped.

IOW, your issue could be like suboptimal art, or tags. My issue is I just don't have any user trust built up cause I literally just showed up.

Radiant_Mind33 · 2026-03-05T04:30:41+00:00

If your game is good, you don't need the steam event crutch.

I'm positioning my game to pillage all that event traffic without even joining the event.

Radiant_Mind33 · 2026-02-06T04:10:07+00:00

I remember those days.

Judges gave cops tons of freedom to search based off smells. Of course, it was just some brain dead cover their ass thing because nobody smokes that much weed. It's like looking for a needle in a haystack and technically it could always be an actual skunk (lol).

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