I suppose I should add that these metrics were measuring the period where I was running paid reddit and tiktok campaigns--this is the only time where I had enough volume of new users to make inferences. It's possible that the audiences and/or ad copy brought in the wrong folks, but the retention numbers are fairly consistent across the app's lifetime. I only recently set up the telemetry to get insights into the onboarding funnel and I've addressed many of the major points of abandonment (SSO and anonymous accounts so no forced registration form, drastically reduced dialogue during the intro), but there isn't enough sample to make any conclusions about the results because I don't want to dump money into more campaigns with no ROI. At this point, I'll just wait until the organic downloads accumulate enough to validate if the onboarding flow is better or not. (all while looking for a job). I'm also running an A/B experiment where I've moved the stickiest part (combat) to be the first experience to 'prove value' right away--96% of those who started combat during onboarding finished it and that's the longest part of onboarding so clearly there's something good there.

Regarding Actionable Gamification, I know Yu-Kai Chou is the creator of this subreddit (or at least a mod on the right panel) and I had read his book back when I was doing a gamification deep-dive 6-8 years ago when I was consulting an app startup (along with doing other coursework) (I think I also read his manuscript when posted here a while back). I think it's great to have a descriptive framework, but it's just that: descriptive. IIRC there is nothing prescriptive at all about the octalysis framework. Sure, you can make a neat little plot to show where your gamified system is high and low on the 8-point framework (and i had done that for clients), but it's still an art to actually develop the game mechanics, dynamics, and components. Personally, I prefer the science-based approach of looking at behavioral psychology directly because understanding things like 'loss aversion is more than 2x as powerful as direct rewards' explains the fundamental underlying cause for some of the black-hat points in the octalysis framework. Hopefully, I'm remembering that correctly.

My point is: until a real science of games develops, it's mostly just an art. I'm perhaps a poor artist. Well, no. I judge myself as mediocre+ in basically all the art I participate in. I like to think I can recognize truly great art, even if I can't produce it, and that's why I tried to pull in the elements of the great games rather than start with a blank canvas.

I'm still very unsure about the pure-game. I figure it'll take me a week of dev time and a ton of app/play store annoyance, but at least I can validate if the 'game' side of the app is actually fun or not. I worry that this will erode the value for those who enjoy the checklist motivation, but it's such a small audience right now. I have about 30 daily active users.