My Facebook game. Looking for feedback and play testers

[Marek]

I've been working on a Facebook game for a while, and it's close to being finished. In fact it's already playable!

ChessQuest!

I'm looking for feedback and I'd like to invite you guys to playtest it report any bugs you see.

Being a Facebook app, it requires a Facebook account. Why did I go with Facebook? My hope is to explore how to take advantage of (1) the large established casual player base there and (2) the social aspect of the platform.

The game has two features that have to do with the social aspect: a friend score leaderboard, so you can compare your progress with that of your friends, and the ability to share in-game achievements on the your profile (e.g. level-ups). Except that I haven't finished the leaderboard, so it doesn't appear in the game yet. I'll be adding it in soon.

Let me know what you think.

[pixlepix]

WOW. Amazing game, will keep me busy for many days to come

[pixlepix]

Not sure if this is possible, but I would love an report of what you did wrong and what you did right

[Marek]

Once I get around to it, I'll definitely write post a thread about how I did it and what I learned.

[toxin]

Nice. I am sure you already thought to try to add a timer for bonus points or something else to brag about. If not just a suggestion.

[Marek]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

I'm working on improvements and updates.

Hopefully I can get a new version up in the coming days.

[Marek]

I've been busy with other things and I haven't done anything to promote CQ, so I was expecting the user count to stagnate completely. That hasn't been the case at all, and I'm surprised at the growth.

I considered it a victory that the game has attracted any users at all, to be honest. I wasn't expecting much.

Days 0-4 were when I posted links and told friends about it. What did I do at around day 15+? Nothing. It seems to have taken off a bit, with no action from me. It's a bit of a mystery; the only explanation I can produce is that it's just organic growth.

There are a few mechanisms that allow for organic growth when you're on the FB platform.

• FB posts a short note in a user's profile feed when they first start using an app, allowing their friends to see.

• The app can prompt users to post a message on their profile feed -- currently CQ does this when you level-up.
• Allow users to "like" the app. This makes it show up among a user's likes in their profile. CQ currently has 17 likes. With the addition of a prominent "Like this" button on the app itself, this can be increased.
• The Facebook app directory. No idea if any visitors come from there. When searching for "chess", CQ on the 5th page or so.

I didn't think that these factors alone would be enough for generating user growth. Have I underestimated the Facebook platform?

I need better metrics. Facebook has a analytics tool called Insights. It gives you a few graphs but they're not as informative as I would like. I don't see any stats indicating the source of referrals, which would a be very useful thing to know. As far as I know, I can't log referrals in my app itself because it's accessed through an IFrame.  Apparently there's also an Insights API that allows you to access the underlying data, but I yet to look into it.

I have a "feedback" box on the app. I've received a couple of helpful messages. But it's been a rare occurrence. In fact, of the few messages I have received, most have been along the lines of "sadasd" or "21ERWER" (actual examples). Oh well.[/list]

[CygnusX]

I am still a firm believer that word of mouth is more powerful than Google.  Congrats on the success.  Keep us update on what happens over the next few weeks.

[Sunchaser]

Question: Are FB APIs easy to learn? Are there APIs for make a game in FB?

[Chris]

Allow users to "like" the app. This makes it show up among a user's likes in their profile. CQ currently has 17 likes. With the addition of a prominent "Like this" button on the app itself, this can be increased.

I have 39 since a few days and no registers from FB, althrough I have no "connect via FB". So either Like does not work or work only if you have "App". Or the "website like" and "app like" are different things?

[Mufasa]

Just a note, you MAY be losing players by requesting wall-posting permissions off the bat. Most games only request this when necessary (and many reward the player for granting the permissions)

[pixlepix]

Are you marek from imperion?

[Marek]

Sunchaser: There is the Graph API for interacting with Facebook and its data. There are no *game* APIs per se, you have to code all your app's functionality on your own.

Chris: Yes, users can also Like particular URLs. So perhaps there are users who are simply Liking your game's URL.

Mufasa: That is probably true. However the new "preferred" method of getting permissions is requesting all of the right at the start. That's how Facebook wants apps to do it now, rather than prompting users for individual submissions. I'm not sure if I'm interpreting the Insights data correctly but it looks like the number of users who leave on the permission screen is not too significant, only something like 10%.

pixlepix: Nope I'm not familar with imperion

[Zeggy]

Have I underestimated the Facebook platform?

Top fb games have 10mil+ daily users, and they all (ab)use social networking features - like, publish on wall, invite friends for a bonus, become fan of fan page, etc, word of mouth at its best. Every action one of your users performs, their friends will see. Simply by having one person playing your game, you can reach their friends as well. Growing an app on facebook can be so much faster than growing a website.

[Chris]

Have I underestimated the Facebook platform?

Top fb games have 10mil+ daily users, and they all (ab)use social networking features - like, publish on wall, invite friends for a bonus, become fan of fan page, etc, word of mouth at its best. Every action one of your users performs, their friends will see. Simply by having one person playing your game, you can reach their friends as well. Growing an app on facebook can be so much faster than growing a website.

But many/some of these features have been nerfed or disallowed by FB, so nowadays you might be unable to copy it (they said that "Zynga climbed and pulled the ladder by spamming via these features so FB disbaled these and now competitors can not use it while Zynga retain ther already acquired insanely sized player base"). All this is pure rumour, but...