i've been having some thoughts recently related to bopimo (its present and future) and i thought i would write a forum post or something outlining them to maybe invite some sort of discussion regarding what's gonna happen to it

i want to preface this by saying that i think bopimo is really fun*. there's a reason i log onto it every day and talk with the community in the discord/forums, why i suggest a lot of things in the discord (even though a lot of them suck) and why i keep trying to make cool levels, even though most of them don't stick. i think the game is awesome and really fun, i want it to thrive, i love most of the community and i'm thankful to have all of this here, but i think they (bopimo + the community) have some *flaws*

--------------------------------------------------------------------

THOUGHTS

--------------------------------------------------------------------

1. i'd like to mention *user retention* (that is, getting people to regularly play the game after joining). the community isn't very big, and it's hardly changing at all. i think bopimo SHOULD remain relatively niche and small, as firecat and the like want. i'm not suggesting they go corporate and try to become a huge platform or something, but it gets repetitive seeing the same few faces pop up in the discord, on the forums and on the play page.

a lot of new players i've seen logged on *once, twice, a couple times but never again*, and the reasons as to why seem to vary a bit from performance issues in the client (causing them to just not wanna play the game if it lags a lot), inactivity (forming sort of a cycle i guess. new player joins -> sees little activity on the site -> leaves -> causes inactivity as a result), *just general gripes with the client* (physics too floaty, controls are weird/too hard, wanna use a controller but controller support is poopoo and the like) and other such issues.

bopimo also lacks any sort of proper tutorial or onboarding for new players. the only okay thing there really is is domas's tutorial level, but that isn't the best (even the updated version), leading to new users not knowing how to play the game well and becoming confused in other levels. most players don't even know the tutorial exists probably because it's not pushed to them (they have to look it up themselves, and likely won't even know it exists beforehand), rather they go to the Play page and load up a random level/a featured one (because they're featured, meaning it's recommended players play them) and then are confused when they have no clue what to do in them

i also think the discussions in the discord (and, on a far smaller scale, on the website) involving stuff like *politics, religion, firecat's dumb abortion jokes, the suicide bopi sticker, alex dunn, roblox clones + whether bopimo is one* and other such stuff (as uncommon as they may be) also have the potential to drive users away and should just not be a thing

--------------------------------------------------------------------

2. i think *activity* is also kind of a concern. there aren't a lot of players online/playing the game. the peak i've seen in a level was probably like 50-ish but that was at launch, the highest since then was like 12. on an average day there are only like 7 people playing levels at the highest (not the same level, just playing levels on the site in general) and for most of the day it's even lower (it's 2 at the time of writing). not a lot of players play bopimo every day, and i'm certain that pretty much all of the people that log on are just the same few faces i mentioned before

i'd wager most people that log on every day just do it for the daily clears challenge. there's a reason timeles and dog have so many plays on their accounts, and it's not because their levels are good. likewise goes for koopa's xp farm

--------------------------------------------------------------------

3. not a lot of people make levels anymore, at least not good ones. build mode is really buggy (which will supposedly be fixed or at least bettered in 1.2 but that's certain to take ages to release) which can be really frustrating, and there's also little to no incentive to make good levels.

people who make *bad, low-effort levels* (e.g. *timeles* with his many daily clears, although he's working on an actually kinda good level right now which is awesome) are rewarded in the only way bopimo currently has, plays, whereas people who make *good levels* (e.g. *rat, which has worked on several events and weeklies) struggle by comparison (timeles has nigh exactly 2000 more plays than rat has. i wonder why...)

bopimo should try to incentivise making good levels in some way. that would make it so people are more drawn to making good, high-effort ones, whereas cheap and easy low-effort ones get people to the top slower and with a far larger time-sink required to get to the same place making a few banger levels would bring you.

(continued in reply)

4.. bopimo's site sucks. this point will be short as that will change, but it really reeks of roblox clone for the time being. luckily it's the only thing that's like that (the client itself has no roblox influence and is fine) but this is still worth mentioning i think. it doesn't help the stupid "bopimo = roblox clone" argument and just makes it look worse, to new players and people part of roclones

--------------------------------------------------------------------

SUGGESTIONS

--------------------------------------------------------------------

this section will be short, as i'm not really sure what firecat and isaiah could do to fix this. suggestions will be listed from easiest to hardest to implement, if applicable

1. for the discord, just add some new rules and stop those kinda discussions from happening. it's the bopimo discord, not twitter.com. we don't need those stupid kinda discussions

for onboarding and tutorial stuff, the devs could gather a couple event people/really good builders to make a proper tutorial (which will be updated as time goes on to introduce new features, obviously) that is heavily advertised on the dashboard page to accounts that are less than a week old or so (or, better, until the account in question beats the tutorial)
the dashboard could then probably link some page on the website (i dunno, bopimo.com/tutorial) that contains a list of beginner-friendly levels (with some harder ones near the end, to actually give new players a challenge and force them to get a little good) and a tutorial achievement set (that incentivises people to do certain actions around the site/game to familiarise them with the two and their functions). beating the levels gives the player some coins and xp for each, and so do all of the achievements in the tutorial achievement set so new player can get started with some coins and xp right off the bat, allowing them to level up their spirit quickly and also letting them purchase items on the shop to customise their bopi with

as for the gripes with the game/site themselves that may put new players off (client performance and issues, inactivity on the website and game), as easy as it would be to say "just fix them lol" that wouldn't really mean anything. these have to be worked on over time and expecting firecat and isaiah to just be able to fix these quickly isn't realistic

--------------------------------------------------------------------

2. activity for the sake of the daily clears challenge can be fixed relatively easily. all the devs would have to do is make it so it works based off a different condition than just clearing a level, like an arbitrary amount of combined difficulty stars (15 for example, meaning the player has to clear 30 0.5 difficulty levels (30 daily clears) or 3 5 star difficulty levels for the daily challenge to be completed). this way in particular is flawed as, while it makes it so people have to actually play the game for a bit for their achievement, it discentivises daily clears and it also makes players have to get good if they want to do their daily clears quickly, it also makes it so easy levels likely wouldn't be played as much because they give fewer difficulty stars, meaning people will slowly gravitate towards middle-of-the-road 2.5 to 3 stars and ignore easier levels. this could also be abused, by people just rating levels higher difficulty ratings then they actually deserve

otherwise as said before, inactivity isn't just something that can be fixed. the tutorial ideas from the first suggestion would make it so new players might stick around longer and therefore might entrench themselves into the game and its community more and actually stick around, but it's not necessarily the end-all-be-all of solutions to inactivity

--------------------------------------------------------------------

3. coming up with an incentive for making good levels is difficult and solutions could be varied (1. making a spirit-like system with creator points given to good level creators (geometry dash...) or with xp gained from some sorta action (good ratings?) that can then be used to get exclusive items, coins and such; 2. more achievement sets received for your level getting good ratings or whatever; 3. rewards for having your level becoming a weekly challenge, becoming featured or for being part of an event. maybe all of these?)

coming up with incentives for making levels in general would be hard to come up with and difficult to choose from as well, maybe even harder than incentives for making good levels in particular. one thing that could definitely be improved upon are the multitude of build mode bugs (which are annoying and frustrating), which will be fixed eventually from my understanding, but otherwise i'm not sure what could be improved

(continued in reply)

--------------------------------------------------------------------

CONCLUSION

--------------------------------------------------------------------

this passion project indie game made by 2 people is flawed, yo!! who would've guessed!!

that doesn't mean i hate the game, in fact i love it a lot. i think it's great for what it's trying to be and that it's on the right path, but i'm just a bit worried about certain aspects of it and its future. i want bopimo to prosper and to be its best self

these thoughts are my own. you may have your own and i encourage you leave them down below. discussion and conversation is important and i'd love to hear what everyone else has to say regarding this all

P.S. it seems italics completely broke in the actual thread, making it all italicised lol. guess that's what i get for trying to make this look pretty!!!! dies

P.P.S. also so much for the suggestions section being "short" as i said at the start of it. it's HUGEEEEEE

P.P.P.S. kinda tired right now sorry for this all being really long and maybe a little incoherent at points

heavy agree on compensating builders, we are what keeps that game alive and we should be rewarded for making good creations. i have no intention to build anything else atm at least with how it is currently

also yeah we need a better way to hold player's attention

agreed, true and rea

definitely

i've noticed some people not even play levels if they're "long" (aka over a couple minutes) because they're so daily clear-brained, although that might've been a one-off thing and i don't remember who exactly said that, so you'll have to take it as hearsay

addendum:

i also think firecat should try to do stuff with the community more often (maybe get a moderator or something to do it if they want to). i mean things like occasional contests on the site (once functionality with them is added, or they could be primitive with just like a forum post saying the prizes, theme and then you post your level in a reply) and potentially videos on the youtube channel and blog posts (aside from update related ones) and stuff like that. these could increase activity by at least a little bit

I really agree with this forum post, whenever I try and get people to play bopimo, they think its a neat game but they usually get overwhelmed with the gameplay, and they question why I even play because of the lack of stuff to do at my stage of the game and plus like mentioned the community can be extremely political at times even tho the avg user is between 14 to 20 at most, one thing I do think would improve bopimo alot is a wiki that is linked and promoted on the site or maybe a video explaining features of the game, like how to build a level etc. (I struggled building a level for afew days for reference) another thing I have a issue with the community is that if you get a small thing incorrect instead of saying "hey that's not correct its this" they are usually made fun of which I think is extremely off putting imagine joining a new game and then being told your a idiot by calling a level a game ;-; another thing is firecat himself, from chatlogs I have notice firecat is very passionate about bopimo to a point it is extremely unhealthy imo, such has not doing school work and chatting on the discord about god knows what for example, dont get me wrong I love bopimo and its one of my favorite games rn because its a mix of roblox and sm64/mario series of games which I rlly love ever since childhood. sorry if this is not typed out very well I am just thinking from the mind atm ^_^ btw amazing post you put alot of my thoughts into one neat post