Okay let's see how FTB changed since the last devlog. As currently working on it full time the answer is quite a lot. I will literally just go over the commits.
Remove auto start match setting(was dumb idea). Fix issues when player that controls the bots leaves the bots(now minions) are stuck for 10 seconds(ruined experience).
Game modes now sound cooler, upgrades now called evos. Changed descriptions to be less technical and sound more cool. For example one upgrade(newly evo) changed from shield to energuard. It was very easy to change the display names but the impact on experience, once stuff is less technical and more cool, relevant to the game is enormous.
As we discussed in the previous devlog, the core strike update, it is finished - everything except the smart bots. This challenge was too hard for me and decided to focus on everything else for now, very tricky training so smart bots. But everything else implemented.
There is now a leaderboard in classic and duels. In classic for minion(previously bot) kill you gain 1 point, for stronger players you get more points. Then the winner wins and new game starts. Duels it's a lot more cool as you create room and once someone won automatically new game starts shortly after, and leaderboard tracks number of wins for each player - so no need to start new game each time like previously. For brawl added victory panels too of course at end of game.
Regarding match duration when published update some weeks ago game time was 3 minutes. I increased match time from 3 to 4 minutes because, while in smash karts it's indeed 3 minutes, in squad busters it's 4 minutes. Why? cause in smash karts there are no upgrades, levelup or become stronger system. In FTB there is, so it's legit to give more time to farm and become stronger so fights do not end immediately. Think it's a good balance between that matches are short on mobile, and allowing enough time to farm and fight.
Now regarding runes. It's cool that each rune has unique power - strong but slow, fast but weak etc. But still, it felt kind of boring because you just need to acquire runes and play with them and thats all. It could be improved. Therefore added rune mastery concept, or Ancient Trials. The idea is that by playing with a specific rune, you will get mastery. Every some mastery milestone(100, 300, up to 1000) you will get a reward. It can be coins, chest, or even upgrading the rune itself to become stronger.
This will help feel great about progressing, mastering rune, while making every stickman class a lot more unique, and not requiring too much commitment as it does not take too long to reach to the fullest rune potential. Also it makes buying runes more worth as you kind of get almost all the value back. I like it and adds another progression system except of the regular xp to upgrade account level and gain chests system.
Now regarding UI. Room creation is a lot more convenient now - there is no room name for you to type, and on creation a random, 3 letter name generated. It's so short that you just can tell your friend or copy easily to enter game. Removed dumb sounds in game(like each human kill scary sound played. Like WTF). also on UI there were still some leftover default assets used for checkmarks, sliders - now they have smiley, and my photoshop created assets. Looks a lot better!
How did I miss it. Now optimized it significantly and loading time now around 4-5 seconds! not smash karts, but significant improvement. Removed the studio logos in beginning, the sleeps and optimized to not load non critical stuff before menu, so can load for example chats when already in lobby, no need to hold players for it to load.
Also significantly reduced game size. As backgrounds now blurred can reduce their quality without players noticing, can remove too large elements from the game etc. All this resulted in reducing the game size by 20MB, which is in mobile standards a lot. Fixed specific bug on iOS that caused me to keep minimal stripping level and it reduced final size by another 25MB on iOS specifically.
Improved missions. Again, rebranding, now they are called quests. First, previously they were technical so now improved language so they sound cooler. Second, before the system was kind of dumb - on quest finish it immediately replaced by another one, and you could watch an ad to refresh a single quest out of 3, and if did not refresh they stayed forever. Now changed the system so quests on finish are not immediately replaced, but waiting for refresh.
Also regarding watching ad to change nickname, previously you had to watch ad every single time you want to generate another name variation - now you watch ad once to get access to the generate button and spam it until you get a great name you want to proceed with.
Next. Fixed bug causing sometimes instead of player name player id to be shown on global chat. Improved onbooarding experience- as first time FTB requires network connection for setup, previously asked players to exit game and retry, now I listen to network and continue automatically once detected.
Regarding improving the feel of the arena there was waterfall sound near zone 6. In addition to that added more sounds - jungle sound near zones 4-5, sea sound in zone 7. Singnificantly improves the feel of the relevant areas in the game. Also changed the white squares dropping from above to actual snowflakes, sorry took this long.
I upgraded heal, damage zones power by twice. Damage zones were too weak, and heal zones because I do not want you to have to stand for 30 seconds to regenerate health after a fight - once you escaped get back to fighting as soon as possible after healing. This powerup achieves this goal.
Now regarding store page & ASO. The game name previously was FTB: Stickman Fight Games. I selected it once because stickman fight games is a phrase with a lot of monthly searches, popular etc. But some issues arise - first fight games you could imagine they are like 1v1 tekken like, not big arena like FTB. Second, I can't compete with already very popular games in the genre with established audience, so my game won't rank high for those keywords. Third, if someone did manage to find and install FTB,it is less likely that it is what he expected.
As part of the stores optimization changed icon. Previously it was 20$ icon paid someone on fiverr, where he just took the images I sent him and added the sticks on top of grass. As icon most important asset - both for players to click on my app on the store and to look good so he will play on the device, updated it to closely, looking 2 sticks fighting. You could argue that could be improved, and that's correct, but it is better than the old version. Also changed game name on device from 'for the battle'(no one will search for it) to FTB arena, so if you search for the game on your phone more likely to find it among other apps.
Refactored the stores system. While it looked cool that we have 3 podiums that refresh daily, it made issue that if you want to buy specific items you could not, because the chance of them to appear on the store when there are only 3 items that refresh daily very low. Also offered to watch ad for refresh but who would watch it? Also came to an understanding that there are a lot of menus in FTB and may be complex to navigate. The items players would want to buy are more likely to be runes and skins.
As part of reducing the number of menus, removing inventory menu(where there were emotes, skins etc buttons) and just brought these buttons to the main customization menu, and made the menu itself more appealing with various sticks, cool objects, crowns etc. Also added chest drop rates - because first required by the stores and second, showing you the exact rates will increase the interest, and likelyhoold of you geting a chest by knowing that it's worth, not worth etc the exact numbers. Of course chests are worth to buy and carefully calculated the average value of each chest in the past.
Bear with me a bit more - we are getting to the end believe it or not. Next sounds. I had just one button sound that I put it everyhwere, and it begins to hurt and sound bad over time listening to this everywhere, in menu, in game buttons and even buttons where sound not required. I read a bit about sound hierarchy - the point of sound is giving you feedback that something happened. In smash karts for example there are no button sounds at all, almost, and when you click in app purchases section there is(maybe to encourage you to buy stuff).
So in FTB now there are more sounds and they fit better - new item unlock sound, the previous button sound for navigating between menus, and added new mini button sound for actions smaller than navigating between menus - selecting rune, clicking on evo name to read, clicking arrows etc. Also removed not needed sounds like in game when you click on emote or chat button, as no need to distract you from the game in this case.
Also, to make the sounds less repeated and irritating, made that button sounds changed a bit every time you hear them, their pitch can be -3% up to +3% different from the original. It is small enough so you do not notice, but it causes your ear to not hear the same sound over and over again and you would not get irritated(psychology sound stuff apparenty).
And the final improvement - global leaderboards. The issue in FTB is that the game operates on creating custom rooms and playing in them. There is no ranked, competitive mode or something currently. Previously was, but then removed it view past devlogs for more info. So what I made - now there is a leaderboard that refreshes daily. I do not mean the specific in game leaderboard, but a global daily leaderboard.
The top 10 players each day will earn great rewards. From treasure chest for the first place to coins. The change creates feeling of competition, showing you in comparison to other players. It encourages players to play online, and till the end of match. It makes the 'play' button game feel more like official, competitive game for this reason - a thing FTB lacked before with only create custom rooms system. Having everyone enter game this way causes it harder to cheat via farming friends.
It makes the game feel more competitive as people do want to get the rewards, and they are worth it. The daily reset makes it worth to play a lot currently, and not wait until reset 3 months or something. And the fact that you need to have minimal amount of points(10) to even be eligible for rewards, all these definitely will encourage playing FTB, in online and more competitive way.
Also made the custom lobby button locked until level 1 - don't want people to see global chat, many game modes as may be overwhelming. Want them to first understand 5 minutes the basic of the main game to make it easier. If you want to bypass it you can enter game via friend list or an external link invite.
The leaderboards part is not live yet on android, and there are probably going to be some bugs, but once it stabilizes I think this time, unlike in the previous devlog where I said that the game is finished when actually it is not, I don't see much to add to FTB.
So what's now? well, as I said I don't have anything critical to implement currently in mind. I could keep improving of course the game, and finding what to do, but I think it's a time to stop and look at the metrics. There are metrics indicating whether a game, an app or a product is good. Daily retention, DAU/MAU etc. If after implementing the leaderboards, friends, lobbies will be full, mastery, the refactors to games and everytning, the statistics still are bad - it simply means the game idea is not great.
Today made some costs reductions. Yesterday, to break even with FTB, I had to earn 30$ monthly. Now made cost reductions so it's only 10$ monthly via various workarounds(but there are cons like app is not available in europe for iOS). Currently I definitely earned less than 10$ during the project lifetime and spend thousands of dollars on ads, fiverr artists etc. Literally reading this it's a shame people complain that solo devs sometimes use AI as it is a very tough world without the funding of big companies.
10$ monthly to spend to keep accounts, servers etc is bearable for me even if the game does not bring any income. Next few weeks will monitor closely the metrics. If they are great, if people do buy products, if the algorithm actively promotes the game well, if people are engaged for a long time - those are signs to keep going. If it is not the case - and I got ACK from the google analytics & the stores that the metrics of the game bad in comparison to other games - and bad on a non-fixable level, then it's time to move on.
We are in the endgame people. Nothing to do for me in terms of development except fixing bugs, waiting, and helping ads & algorithms promote the game via various methods.
Soon will see if FTB can be great, or whether it's time to archive the project and move to the next thing. Time to gather some data. Next update will be interesting :)
Sayonara amigos I'm going to watch Breaking Bad. Play FTB huh?
