Unity community,
I am looking for some feedback on my game Medieval Mayhem. It has been released for about 1 month and the results have not been great. It is free to download on Google Play and iOS.
I followed all the things I thought I needed to do prior to release like setting up social media pages, creating a landing page Quatro Designs, creating a press packet and making it accessible on the landing page. I contacted all the major app review sites and sent out press packets to them and local papers. I ran advertisements before the game launch to attempt to gain a following and advertising through launch. All this and at launch I did not see many downloads and the downloads I did get the retention is incredibly low.
What I really want to know from all of you is,
Is the game fun or enjoyable to play?
What can be improved upon to increase retention?
Is this game salvageable?
Thanks to anyone who takes some time to download this and provide feedback.
Hey BTL - seems to me the biggest improvement that could be made is to graphics. I saw some minor timing issues - like enemies dying before a ‘visible’ attack happens, but that is minor to the overall aesthetic of the entire presentation. UI seems to be kinda all over the place, inconsistent throughout the game, but what is most obvious is all the assets look very flat and 2D - without any shading or cast shadows. I can’t tell from the video if you are in fact using 3D characters in the main gameplay, but the environments they run around on is so flat looking, the only conclusion I can draw (without playing the game) is the game doesn’t present well to folks.
This all seems like stuff that anyone should do, however maybe your timing was off. Did you do this near the end of development? Basically hoping the masses would come with the pages available to see the game.
I think this is something that should be done as soon as the game is in a presentable state so people can become interested in the ongoing development and follow the progress towards release.
This might be due to the visuals not being that good. How about sending out to all the minor app review sites?
This might be due to timing and the games graphics. Where did the adverts run? Most likely the adverts didn’t have a positive return because the graphics of the game aren’t great.
I watched the trailer several times - and even though the graphics are pretty low quality, the mechanics made me interested enough in the game to check it out. So I think the game is salvageable as long as it has a complete graphic overhaul. Visual assets, lighting and shadows, UI and FX.
Lastly - you mentioned retention is low. This is most likely due to the ‘hook’ of the game not presenting well right off the bat. If the ‘fun’ part of the game - the hook that is supposed to make players want to play the game more, if that isn’t apparent right out the gate. There could be other reasons for low retention, but reflect on if there is a ‘hook’ and where/when it is presented to players first starting a new game.
A note on presskit. The download was very slow. I know my connection is fast so this has to be from a metered host or something on the web site side.
VerticalCreenWithTitle_HD.png is a very bad image, with the goofy character face staring at the camera. I’d get rid of that image from all advertising material.
It was meant to be a 2D look. All objects are 3D models. There is depth there just wanted to take it away in hopes of being very high performance on many devices and give a board game feel. Maybe a poor choice on my part.
Yes. About a month away from release I started advertising and promoting. I used facebook ads and ran adwords campaigns.
Since you are a artist and I am not here are the ads I created to promote the game.
Can you let me know what you think about them?
Did you enjoy the game mechanics after you tried it?
So my take away here is it is not pretty and the hook is never presented to the player. This is good feedback. I will attempt to improve upon this.
It comes across like you probably spent more time and effort creating adverts and promoting it than making the game, itself. Here’s what you do. Forget about Medieval Mayhem becoming a hit game, that ship has sailed. Now it’s time for you to pivot gracefully and learn from this experience.
Grab all of the player feedback you can from this game, what they like/don’t like and write it all down. Get some playtesters/find a forum and make an open development process and get feedback constantly as you make a new game using the first games’ engine, modifying it to fix what didn’t work the first. time. Then, hire an artist to re-do all of the graphics from scratch, you can’t afford to be cheap on it, either.
Then, re-release as a whole new game, in no way associated with this game, with a completely different graphical style and vibe (pick something trendy like orcs or zombies or something from hollywood movies that people like) and try again.
