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The part about having around 250 people join the playtest but receiving only two public feedback posts stood out to me. I suspect this is not necessarily a sign that people were uninterested. Playing something is relatively easy, but writing useful criticism publicly requires much more effort and can also feel uncomfortable.

I am currently preparing a much smaller closed test for a narrative adventure, and this makes me think that relying on voluntary public feedback is probably not enough. My current plan is to combine direct observation with a short private questionnaire and a few follow-up conversations. Were you able to see where players stopped or how far they progressed? If the average session was around twenty minutes for a one-hour build, there may be a specific early point where people lost direction or motivation.

Hi, Zachi Mann

Yes, we already have around 300 people now. I also think it’s not disinterested. It’s that I wanted people to all share their thoughts in public.

I thought it might add weight to the discussion, as people might suggest things and other people may approve or disapprove of that.

But yeah, most of the players feel that more of a private thing is better. And also, it is indeed different things - one thing is to try the game, and another thing is to write a review,w essentially.

Not all do that. I don’t do that.

But I am still grateful for all the feedback I got so far.

As for the session length - we also have a weird thing here.

The average session is about one hour, where is median session is about 10 minutes.

This means we have some players who play for a really long time, and some players who don’t.

Which is normal, I guess,s since we don’t have much meta, but it looks like the core gameplay is interesting to some people in itself.

And some people just check out the game and leave. Maybe they drop, maybe they wait for more content.

I also check demos for 10 minutes and leave, not to spoil impressions for the full game.

Yeah, I think a questionnaire would be a good additional idea.

We don’t have data tracking on our game, but judging solely from playtime and retention, I can kind of guess where they had landed and dropped.

And why.