Hi,

I first uploaded my game about a month ago and received around 250 plays thanks to the initial visibility boost. Unfortunately, I rushed the page a little and forgot to ask players for feedback in the description.

This morning, I uploaded the game’s first major update, which significantly changes its mechanics.  I expect the game to remain relatively low-visibility, so any feedback would be especially valuable.

I would particularly like to know which parts of the game you enjoyed the most and which parts you liked the least, found confusing, or found frustrating. This could concern the mechanics, artwork, interface, difficulty, or a particular moment in the game.

I’m planning to make one more major update before moving on to my next game, so receiving feedback now would really help me decide what to improve and prioritize.(So far I am planning to focus on adding weapon, try to balance the game(it feels sometimes too easy or too hard for me...or just boring repetitive) and maybe make the tech tree a real tree and not a "sun")

Thanks, JPA

https://fdc001.itch.io/mosquitos

No play session on this one, so let me be upfront about what I actually did: I read the page, the tag list and the devlog, then went and measured where the game currently sits on the shelves it is tagged into. That means I cannot answer your balance question honestly and I am not going to pretend to. What I can do is answer the part you did not ask about, which I think is costing you more right now than the balance is 🦟

Credit first, because two of the things you are worried about are already fixed. The description does now ask for feedback, and you did post a devlog for the update. Plenty of people in your position have done neither.

Now the part I think explains your situation.

Those 250 plays were the newest shelf, and the newest shelf fires once.

Every tag on itch is really four shelves: Top, New & Popular, Top sellers, and Most Recent. Top is unwinnable for a new game because it ranks on accumulated everything. Most Recent is the winnable one, and it is what gave you your 250.

Here is the measurement. You published 19 days ago and shipped a major update one day ago. Mosquitos is not in the first 36 of Most Recent for clicker, and not in the first 36 for incremental. So that shelf is ordered by publish date rather than update date, and shipping a major update did not put you back on it. The initial visibility boost is spent, and no amount of updating re-triggers it.

Which means your permanent discovery is decided by WHICH shelves you sit on, and that is your tag list, not your update cadence. You are at ten tags out of ten, so from here every addition is a trade.

The trade I would make first:

DROP “AI Generated”. Your page already carries an AI Disclosure row, rendered by itch in the info panel, listing AI Assisted for code, graphics, sounds and text. The tag restates something the page is already saying on its own, so it is the cheapest slot you own. (Assuming you added it by hand rather than itch adding it for you.)

ADD “idle”. That is an 8,495-game shelf and for a clicker or incremental it is the closest adjacent audience that exists. You are invisible on it today.

If you want a second trade: drop “Colorful” or “2D”. Both are enormous generic shelves where nothing new ever surfaces, and neither is a word anyone uses when they are looking for this genre. Add “mobile” instead (4,861 games), because you deliberately built for phone browsers and are currently not on the shelf where people go looking for exactly that.

Keep clicker, incremental and management. Those three describe what the game actually is and they are the ones doing real work.

One design comment, and it is the only one I will make without having played.

You said it feels sometimes too easy or too hard, or just boring and repetitive. Separately you said you want to turn the tech tree into a real tree instead of a sun. I think those are one problem, not two.

In an incremental, “repetitive” almost never means the click rate fell. It means the DECISION rate fell. Early on every purchase is a real choice because you cannot afford everything. Later there is usually a dominant order, and from that point the player is not choosing any more, they are working through a queue. A queue with excellent click feel still reads as boring.

There is a cheap test for this that needs no balance pass at all. Ask two different players to screenshot their tree at the twenty minute mark. If the two screenshots look basically the same, you do not have a tree, you have a queue with branches drawn on it, and rebalancing the numbers will not touch it. The fix is making at least one early purchase genuinely exclude another.

That also tells you which of your planned updates to do first, which is the thing you actually asked.

Small thing: the description says “playabke” 🙂

Hello,

Thanks a lot for all the details! I’ve already changed a few things based on your advice.

I think I found my game in the “New & Popular” section, although I had to scroll through a few pages—I might be mistaken.

I didn’t know about the shelf and tag systems. I’ll try to finish the game soon, make a few Reddit posts and YouTube videos, and then move on to my next project. I’ll also see whether changing the release status makes any difference.

I’ll be more careful with the initial visibility boost next time.

I also need to update my videos and screenshots to reflect the latest update.

Thank you again for taking the time to answer!

a very simple game not my genre i play

the game is simple and i think that has a good idea behind it. the problem is that i don't understand why people get mad in the game. Am i supposed to do anything else besides hitting mosquitoes?

Hi, I played your game. Here is a video recording of me doing so: 

I do also have a game: https://simenhs.itch.io/hexatown It would be really nice if you could try it out and leave me some feedback. I like video recordings....

Hi all,

Coa: Yeah, it’s not a very complex game. I mainly made it to learn the ropes of publishing on itch.io and Steam.

Simenhs: I’ll definitely test your game. Sorry the video didn’t work out, but I tried to leave detailed feedback in the comments on your game page.

Callmematthewchris: You probably missed the parts about serving beer before customers get impatient, and removing the empty glasses. The tutorial is missing in a big way—these are core parts of the game, and I delayed explaining them for far too long.

Thank you all so much for the feedback.

About the explanations: I was in denial, thinking players would naturally figure everything out. I realise now that clear guidance should have been there from the first upload. It’s my next priority.

For the first few loops, I’m planning to add blinking indicators above the relevant areas, such as: “Click the table to serve a beer” and “Click the table to remove the empty glass.”

The upgrade tree also needs clearer explanations, probably through pop-ups with longer descriptions. For example: “Decorations increase customer patience and make your bar more attractive.”

Long story short: stars represent your bar’s reputation. A higher reputation increases the chance that pedestrians will come to a table. It becomes more useful once you have around six tables that you want to keep full of customers.

It was also meant to prevent a strategy where someone says: “I just won’t remove the glasses—no new customers can arrive, no customers can die, so I can’t lose.” With that tactic, reputation goes down and you lose bar revenue for a long time. But if it still makes the player invincible, it may still be worth doing. I might change the system so you start with 50% reputation and lose if it reaches 0—no more lives. I’m not sure about that yet.

Regarding the feedback that the game is easy at first and then suddenly becomes too hard: I’m sure I’m not done tweaking the balance. But I think I want to keep the die-buy upgrade-retry aspect. The game has a roughly 10-minute difficulty curve, with enemies becoming more numerous over time.

I tried to make the quieter moments less boring with the card game. The cards are bonuses and maluses, but yes, they also need an explanatory pop-up.

Thanks again—this will keep me busy for a while!