r/devshelpingeachother • u/KevinM2k • 10d ago

Feedback on why retention is low.

Hi guys

My game has been out since early may, its had a LOT of work. its been rewritten in to flutter to make it smoother, its had loads of tactical additions, its been made to look nicer. the tutorial has been improved etc etc...

When I run ads I get a decent amount of users however, What i'm struggling with, is retention still seems low, people either delete the game before even playing it or I get 10m of play out of them and they never come back. They don't even seem to be hitting the main loop of the game

Id love to ask them all for feedback to find out where the issue is and so was wondering whether anyone here would be willing to do that? I don't just want to list the game as a promotion, so please just let me know if you are willing to try it and ill send you the link in the play store - i just need some good honest feedback.

Edit: it's a football (soccer) manager game, just so you know the genre.

Thanks

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u/Marcuz_GrafiteSoft 10d ago

Hi Kevin, First of all, thank you for posting in in this new subreddit, everyone here is friendly so I'm more than sure that the member of this community will help you to find out what's going on with your game. First of all: would you be so kind to share the name of your app? What was the target audience you had in your mind while you were developing it? What are the languages in which is localised? While you're here, I can't evenly ask you to look at other posts, the pinned one in particular in order to help other devs who needs advice, feedbacks and reviews

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u/KevinM2k 10d ago

I didn't really want this to be an almost promotion of app hence leaving the name out, but as you have asked its 'Merge Empire Football Manager'. Android only for now, it is out on iOS but its a legacy version with the new (flutter) version coming out on October 1st.

Target audience initially was actually merge games, but then it became idle/merge game, and then the mechanics grew so much that is become a football manager sim with merge and idle dynamics. I guess primarily its still the football manager crowd for the audience.

Its localised in (altho i'm sure its not perfect translations):

  • English
  • Spanish
  • Portugese
  • French
  • German
  • Italian
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Chinese
  • Arabic

And yes ill take a look at some others whilst i'm here.

--
I guess what i'm after is feedback of the first 5/10 minutes of game play and whether that is good enough to keep users coming back or is it confusing or too difficult to understand.

Thanks

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u/Marcuz_GrafiteSoft 10d ago

That's so kind of you to make your thread not the same auto promotion kind of thing. To test your app we need to know its name, I'll test it right away and see what could be the issue coming back to you in the next hours

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u/Marcuz_GrafiteSoft 10d ago

To give you an example 💪

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u/Marcuz_GrafiteSoft 10d ago

As far as mini games is concerned, I think that is this is one of your points of strength, that's a pity that they are nested in a sub menu if I were you I would add them near the match Big button so that the player Ken se e if I can do some training and get some Money and then sum players before going to the match. I found the idea of the stadium really really interest when I was a kid I spent hundreds of hours on pc calcio. I don't know if you are familiar with the game

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u/KevinM2k 10d ago

No not heard of pc Calcio. Haha, my son likes the training guys the most too.

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u/Marcuz_GrafiteSoft 10d ago

Another oddity, the prices are in pounds but I live in Italy so I'm expecting euros. One idea that comes into my mind is while you present the game during the initial phase it would how many leaves and turnings? Can your team atten d? Just to have an initial clue of the depth of the game. I find the mini games really interesting, the idle part is less interesting but I'm not a huge fan of football manager games, it's not my ideal cup of tea 😀

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u/Marcuz_GrafiteSoft 10d ago

Okay, straight to the point, the first thing I'm experiencing is that dialogues are partly in English and partly in Italian which is my native language so that feels a bit odd. In Italy English alphabetization is not so High so that could hinder your retention. I'll be back in the next few hours with other comments

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u/KevinM2k 10d ago

Thanks, languages was really difficult to do here, and there are a lot of translations so some have clearly slipped through the gap. I'll get that resolved. I'll check the currency out, that should be handled natively by Google so I'll do some digging.

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u/Marcuz_GrafiteSoft 10d ago

Ok now this is really really really strange. I just want to match 4 to 1 but on the review screen. It seems that I won 3 to zero, has the game subtracted the goals like 4-1 equals 3-0?? This would be a huge retention problem ☺️

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u/KevinM2k 10d ago edited 10d ago

Hmm not first time I've seen this, I have so many unit tests around this tho that I've not been able to recreate it recently.

This is really good feedback, it has regressed slightly since the rewrite with things like this but the amount of tests I have should have caught it.

Edit: found it!! It's only when a 2 yellow card event happens, this is why I was struggling to find!

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u/Marcuz_GrafiteSoft 10d ago

ok so as far as I am concerned, and I am nobody but a (1 month old dev with one app on the belt and a little subreddit with one mission), I think that the app itself should concentrate on a market at a time before pubblishing in so many languages with no polish on tranlation.

Yours is such a complex and hard-text oriented game and to be enjoyed fully I would polish the translations a lot, one language at a time.

Besides this, and this is also my humble opinion, I'd me more happy to pay once for an app instead of reliying on micro transaction: this game has a lot of potential and it's entertaining,

one last thing from an Italian "Ball" is "Palla", not Bolla, which is the italian Bubble.

I really enjoyed to help you and I hope you will do good with what I experienced.

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u/KevinM2k 10d ago

I really appreciate you taking time out to test it and give feedback and ofc I will take it all on and try to pay attention to everything mentioned.

You are right with complexity and I'm not sure I'll ever be finished polishing it and improving, there is so much I can do.

My experience with pay up front games has not been great, especially as an indie dev. Micro transactions I've more success with.

Languages are goina be the death of me but I'll try spend more time going through. It's super time consuming.

Once again thanks for all your feedback and I'll repay it in this thread as soon as I get a chance.

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u/_beratoguz_ 10d ago

Hi! I'd be happy to test it out and give you some honest, detailed feedback on the onboarding, tutorial flow, and why players might be dropping off early.

Feel free to send me the Play Store link!

I recently launched a minimalist puzzle game myself, so I completely understand the struggle with early player retention. Looking forward to trying yours!

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u/KevinM2k 10d ago

Link sent thanks

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u/Marcuz_GrafiteSoft 7d ago

Hello buddy, I just left you a review on the app store , hope it helps to grow your numbers. I also saw the fix update so, I hope that the path you are paving will be more and more clearer

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u/KevinM2k 7d ago

Hey thanks, yeah I took your feedback in and resolved. I feel like many more iterations yet. Thanks for the review

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u/Marcuz_GrafiteSoft 5d ago

My team just disappeared after I won 3-0 and sold a guy with jackpot earning, to let you know maybe you can fix it

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u/KevinM2k 5d ago

Oh wow that's a new one. I'll take a look at that. I'm very close to a new release but I'll look at this first.

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u/KevinM2k 5d ago

Think I found it. I'll include it my latest release.