August 10, First feedback
Fresh look outside
I’ve been working on TrappedTogether for three years — adding one thing, then another.
After every update, I hope that now the game will finally be fun. But every time I check the stats, I see the same thing: players stay for less than 5 minutes, then delete the game and never come back.
Maybe I just don’t see something obvious? I really needed a fresh look from the outside.
So, I posted a screenshot of the game, a Google Play link, and a request for feedback in an indie dev group on Facebook.
Here’s what happened.
A few encouraging comments
It’s hard to explain, but for an indie dev, positive feedback and player interest are everything.
No interest = no demand = no motivation to spend evenings working on the game.
One funny comment was:"The game looks like something GPT-5 could one-shot."
But overall, I got a few positive comments, and that really boosted my enthusiasm and motivation to work on the game in the evenings after my main job.
A lot of real advice
Before this, I showed the game to friends. Back then, it was still a pre-release version… and except for polite compliments, I didn’t get much from them.
But today, I got a lot of tips and bug reports.
Here’s the short version:
- Exit button closes the game completely instead of going back to the main menu. I never noticed that… but it’s true.
- Tutorial plays again after restart and cannot be skipped.
- UI is too big, takes too much space, and sometimes blocks zombies from view.
- Hits feel too random — I want every hit to deal damage.
- Attack animation is too slow — modern games have faster, more dynamic animations.
- Movement speed control is too sensitive — walking turns into running too easily.
- Attacks don’t affect breathing.
- Player turning speed is too slow — while turning, zombies attack and deal a lot of unnecessary damage.
- Game doesn’t feel engaging — it looks like a survival strategy, but survival games usually have multiple ways to reach a goal. In TrappedTogether you just walk to a zombie, hit it, eat berries to restore HP.
- Movement is a bit clunky.
- No reward for killing zombies.
- Suggest changing movement to a “tap where you want to go” system.
- Add a stun effect after hitting a zombie — it won’t move for a while.
- Move the attack button to where the movement toggle is now.
- Make attack speed variable: quick tap = fast, low-damage attack; hold = charge for stronger attack. Could combine attack with movement button so the character stays in place and turns to aim.
- What’s the main hook of the game? What makes it different from other similar games? Why should it hold my attention for more than 10 minutes?
17 august update:
- Error during GooglePlay auth: Access blocked: Trapped Together has not completed the Google verification process
- Your UI is not scaling properly across devices, so the bottom part is half cut out. Clearly, your UI design doesn't support multiple resolutions, which is a very fundamental feature in any application, games included
- Your map and many other elements in the levels do not fit together from a visual style perspective. You really need to establish a mood board and revise all your game assets accordingly
A new stage
This is amazing!Real users, real feedback…
Now I have a much clearer idea of where to go next!
