Design Notes · Retention · 4 min read

Why players quit strategy games

Most people don't leave because they lost a fight. They leave because the gap stopped closing.

Players will accept losing a battle. What drives them out is feeling that no amount of smart play will ever catch up, or that the game demands they be awake around the clock to keep what they built.

Our rules of thumb: give newer players protected time to grow, make defense rewarding, keep catch-up paths open, and make sure a player with one hour a day still has a real job in the alliance.

Hold the Field

Free battle game in your browser. Raise an army, pick a captain, hold the line.

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More design notes

The alliance is the real gameThe map is where players fight. The alliance chat is where the war is actually decided.A march timer is a promiseTravel time turns an attack into a story with a beginning, a middle and an alarm clock.