SyncStrike wasn't even released and I could already tell that the game was on its way to being a huge success!
Surprisingly, the launch of the SyncStrike beta was good news even for Runestone!
That's because compared to the last few days where Runestone's growth, although steady, was a little slower than the explosive start it had, because of the SyncStrike beta made available yesterday the number of downloads of the game exploded again!
|-----------------------------------------
| Game Status: Runestone
|-----------------------------------------
| Total Players: 29,939 -> 54,896
| Average Players Online (24 hours): 18.373 -> 33.301
| Game Rank: Rank F
| Mana per Hour (Players): 1 unit
| Mana Stored in Game Core: 4,653 -> 17,207 units
| Mana Yield (24 hours): 1,102 -> 1,998 units
| Conversion Rate: 80% (New players who become regulars)
|------------------------
| Available Cards: 240 (Common, Rare, Epic and Legendary)
| Cards Used per Match (Average): 17
|-----------------------------------------
Looking at the data on Runestone's growth, I was laughing to myself at the computer screen.
It's been 11 days of development for the new game, and 11 days in which Runestone's popularity has risen more and more every day.
With an average of 33k Players online at any given time, Runestone was already competing with the games in my old world in terms of popularity!
Sure, if you were to put those numbers into the Charts of the biggest PC game store in my old world, Runestone would be fighting it out in the Top 50, but it was still the Top 50 worldwide!
In that world, Runestone was only released in a single state in a single country, and was still limited by the total number of players who could access the game.
The followers on FrostHaven Entertainment's website had already exceeded 200k, with these people divided between Players and ordinary people, but that still indicated that there were hundreds of thousands of people interested in my game who couldn't play it just yet.
As for the California Rankings, despite doing well, I was still in the Top 10.
It was in data like this that I realized how valued and powerful games were in this world.
Considering that I was only in the Top 10 in my state, while those numbers were enough to put me in the Global Top 50 in my old world, that was scary data.
The Rank of new games had already been dominated by me, with the difference in the amount of online players from Runestone with the game in second place becoming more than 10k Players.
Looking at all the data I had on the game, what got me excited was that thousands of players had downloaded Runestone to try out SyncStrike.
That's because although Runestone was a popular and interesting game, it was still just a strategy game, where the most popular trend was combat games, games that would directly help Players survive in the dungeons.
Despite being fun, Runestone was having a bit of a hard time becoming popular because the game didn't fulfill that need, only delivering Players slow, gradual gains.
But SyncStrike didn't have that problem, and that was the reason for the game's success.
Even though I spent so much MP to create this Beta version of the game on Runestone, it was completely worth it.
More than 40,000 Players have tried SyncStrike and now I'm going to look at the results of the survey I did for the Players.
"Let's see what they really thought of the game." I said interestedly as I clicked on the form.
[Number of participants: 40,000+ players
1. What did you think of SyncStrike's gameplay?
58% - Excellent, very fluid and responsive32% - Good, but could be improved in some aspects8% - Average, needs tweaking2% - I didn't like the gameplay
2. How challenging did you find the game?
47% - At the ideal level, balanced between difficulty and fun
38% - Difficult, but addictive!
10% - Too easy, would like more challenges
5% - Difficult to the point of frustration
3. Would you recommend SyncStrike to others?
92% - Yes, definitely!
6% - Maybe, depending on the person's taste
2% - Wouldn't recommend...]
"Woah..." I let out in surprise. "Gee, even though I'm sure the Players liked the game, I didn't think the approval rating would be so high!"
A 92% approval rating was absurd for any game, only creators of any kind of art know how difficult it is to please everyone.
Even if a plate of food was voted the best plate of food in the world, there would still be millions of people who wouldn't like it after tasting it.
So to get 92% of people to really like my game was incredible!
Curious to know more about what the Players thought of the game, I looked at the answers to the questionnaire.
[Akshat: I thought it was just going to be another combat training game, but this demo took me completely by surprise! The fact that the attacks synchronize perfectly with the beat of the music makes every battle feel like a frenetic dance. I've never felt so much adrenaline while battling someone, fuck, please release the full version soon!]
[Fire_Fox: The way the scenery changes as the music evolves is just insane! At the climax of the song, the background started to distort and the surrounding world became all glitchy. It was as if the world around me was being corrupted by the music and my performance in the fight... I LOVED it!]
[Sarratuga: That song destroyed me... Not only was it difficult, but it felt like the game was testing everything I knew about swordsmanship so far. When I finally got S Rank, I felt like I'd won a real duel against a formidable enemy, until I remembered that that was just the Easy difficulty of the song...]
[Nattalie Proudstone: This song... where did you find it? Ever since I heard Megalovania for the first time I've been looking for it all over the internet and the only thing I've found are videos of other Players playing the song, but nothing official, don't tell me you're the one who created this song FrostHaven?!!]
It was a lot of fun to see the Players' reaction to the game, seeing that almost everyone was pleasantly surprised by the novelty I brought to this world made me very excited.
But the last comment surprised me.
Not only because I knew the Player who sent this reply, but what she said made a lot of sense!
"Why don't I make a music video for this song?" I asked myself out loud.
Considering that the setting for the music video was practically ready, since I had already made the cyberpunk world for the game, now the only thing missing was the plot and captivating scenes.
Making a note of this as something I was going to do tonight, I intended to release the music video tomorrow.
For the time being, I continued to read the comments and messages that the Players sent, not only the good ones, but the suggestions on where to improve were also very welcome.
From some complaints I realized that some parts of the song weren't satisfying enough, or from suggestions from more experienced Players I found out that some parts of the song could create bad habits for Players, which could be dangerous for their safety in the future.
Looking for more feedback, I opened this world's video site and searched for SyncStrik reviews, and to my surprise, there were hundreds of videos posted in the last few hours, with the vast majority of videos coming from F Rank Players.
Watching these videos I realized that their opinions were valuable, but unfortunately a little shallow, as they had only been Players for a short time and didn't have much experience to share.
Fortunately, there were still some E Rank Players posting videos about the game, with some commenting on the details I received in the feedback form, but some others commenting on other details I could adjust to make the game even better.
But despite these criticisms, most of all the videos were just these Players praising the game.
There was only one recurring complaint in all the videos made by Players AND Rank:
[This song is still too easy... even with all the filters I could add, the difficulty still wasn't enough for me, I hope this game launches soon and that the Game Creator makes this evolve into an E Rank game as soon as possible!]
All the E Rank Players complained about it, but unfortunately that wasn't something I could deal with for now.
With the release of SyncStrike on Hard difficulty and with the option of filters for Players to increase the difficulty even further, it's possible that the game will become useful and fun for E Rank Players too, but I couldn't guarantee that.
Satisfied with that, I smiled and went back to thinking about what I had to do next.
"I still have to develop the Medium difficulty Goblins for the Warriors and Mages of the 10 songs, as well as finish developing the backgrounds for each of these songs... that alone will take me another 10 days, not counting the development of the Hard difficulty Goblins..." I thought out loud.
Thinking about how easy it was to develop the Goblins with the two difficulties using the Mana generated by the Runestone Players, I began to realize that it might be more worthwhile to release the game with just the initial two difficulties and to release the other difficulties over the next few days of the game.
"Considering that the Goblins for the Mage songs on Hard difficulty should cost more than 250 MP, it would take too long for me to do this using only my own Mana... Okay, their response to the current difficulties was good, showing that they won't complete these songs in a short time, so I'll release the game with just the two initial difficulties, but I'll use the MP generated by the Players to release a Hard version of each song every day for 10 days until I've completed everything!"
Having decided that, my attention shifted to another point.
"Now how am I going to make Megalovania's music video with very little MP?"