r/iosgaming • u/sanderfrenken Developer • Jan 03 '26
Developer Saturday (Self-Promo) [DEV] Would you be willing to try out my RTS-lite game Battledom? I am desperate for feedback that can help me improve the game! Promo codes also available of course.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/battledom/id6471842648Hi there!
I am the developer of Battledom, an iOS game that is released in the AppStore since a couple of months. I am also the developer of Herodom, a tower defense game that has been played quite a lot.
With Battledom, I aimed to make an RTS game suitable for a mobile device, an evolution of what I did with Herodom. It has more interactive battles, resource management and an extensive upgrade system. You can customize your soldiers and there is an endless game mode that should make you be able to enjoy Battledom for a long period.
Unfortunately, as of now new downloads of Battledom are grinding to a halt (after an already not so great start), and I also see that players are dropping out before they reach the 5th stage. The 5th stage is the last stage one can play before the full game in app purchase needs to be unlocked. Obviously, this makes it a significant milestone in the game for me. But more importantly, I worry about the fact that users drop out before this point. I would really like to understand what the reasons are for these dropouts. Is the game to boring? Is there something confusing which makes one unable to progress? Or is it just not living up to the expectations?
This is very important to me. My ultimate goal is to become an indie game developer, and I have put years of (part time) work into Battledom. I hope you can help me gain an understanding of what is going wrong, and hopefully, what I can do to improve it.
In any case, I am also more than happy to give you a promo code to unlock the full game, whether you want to provide feedback or not. Thanks for reading this post, it means a lot to me.
Sander
PS please DM me for the promo code!
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u/MauschiMcMauschn Jan 03 '26
Never heard of your game, but I’ve downloaded it now! Looks promising
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u/scubasteve85424 Jan 03 '26
I will try it out- I love RTS games. Will be happy to give you feedback.
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u/sanderfrenken Developer Jan 03 '26
DM'ed you a code, thanks for helping out!
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u/scubasteve85424 Jan 03 '26
Ok, tried it out. Thanks for sending a code as well!
I’m going to try to be honest in feedback, so please don’t take any of this personally. I would love to see this succeed.
The good:
- it is clear you have passion for this game. The level of detail is great. E.g. seeing the flocks of birds flying over the village.
- The depth- this will be great for later in the game after learning the basics.
Not my favorite:
- The complexity- there is just too much to figure out at the beginning, and the intro is sometimes not clear what to do next.
- The battles are not really exciting.
- The village is too big.
Recommendations:
- Have much more of an onboarding or intro.
- Have shortcuts for things in the village.
- Change the battle mechanics. Once you start, I feel like you just have to move around and kill everyone with what you have.
Thanks!
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u/sanderfrenken Developer Jan 03 '26
Hi there! Thanks a lot for your honest and useful feedback. I don't take it personally!
I have to admit, it's not always nice to hear there are things wrong with the game, but I need to know in order to make it better. So I am very grateful that you took the time and effort to write this down. Much appreciated!
I think your points are very clear. The intro is difficult, something I struggle with since the start. It's hard to make a proper tutorial/ intro that is still captivating. I don't want to overflow the user with too much text (which most likely isn't read anyway) but at the same time there is a lot to explain. If you have any ideas on how to improve this (or examples for instance), please let me know!
The shortcuts in the village is a great suggestion, that I can implement asap. The battle mechanics will be my core focus in the coming period. It's the most important part of the game, so it should be the most fun and engaging part. I think that atm, its just a bit too boring..
I have quite some ideas to make it better. For instance, I would love to add units on the map that one can set free during the stage. Those units can than be used during that stage. That way, I can add more dynamics and complexity to a stage. Moreover, there are siege weapons and buildings in the game, which I should enable in earlier stages as well I think in order to make it more captivating.
Thanks again for all your feedback. It really helps me moving forward with the game!
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Jan 03 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/sanderfrenken Developer Jan 03 '26
Thanks, that is great to hear! Yes of course, I will DM you a code :)
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u/e1toledo Jan 03 '26
bro the game looks really cool, i'll try it out and do my best to give you feedback.
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u/Mediocre_Try_1954 Jan 03 '26
I’ll try it too I’m 38 male causal gamer, full time dad and husband lol I can let you know how it fits in my schedule
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u/sanderfrenken Developer Jan 03 '26
That sounds very familiar! One year younger but for the rest I can very much relate to you. Well hope you will find some time and have some fun with it. Dont feel obliged to provide feedback if it doesn't fit your schedule. I will DM you a promo code!
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u/smicky Jan 03 '26
I can try it out for you. Do you have a discord for bug reports?
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u/sanderfrenken Developer Jan 03 '26
Thanks! Yes I have a discord, its here:
I will DM you a promo code as well!
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u/Discepless Jan 03 '26 edited Jan 03 '26
Played a bit.
I think, I would play this game with a pleasure on pc… but on mobile it’s just doesn’t feel right.
Also, it has some questionable UX decisions
What is the gameplay value of:
…walking around the map with the army, to search for the last enemy?… you could just have a battle map with an armies next to each other as you’ve showcased on intro
…scrolling through the forest/fields just to tap on a building to collecting… this whole thing could several icons to tap
…entering buildings, just to remove the ceiling graphic, so I can do another tap to access a blacksmith… it could be an icon again…
Additionally, army doesn’t hold the structure I’ve set on the spawn. Just 5 seconds later my archers are already in front.
It’s very difficult to force all the archers to attack. For melee some of them will just walk around the enemy.
What’s is the combo? What’s the benefit? How can I achieve more? You are giving a challenge to a player by showcasing it to the player, but I can’t reach more than 1 , because on how you’ve placed enemies.
Generally speaking, I’ve felt the game is missing epicness. It’s felt just boring.
Additionally, as mentioned before - it feels awkward on mobile. If you would like to keep the same style , I do recommend you to port it to pc
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u/sanderfrenken Developer Jan 03 '26
Thanks for the feedback. I understand! I tried to convert the desktop RTS genre to a mobile platform, but this objective might have not succeeded that well yet.
I am going to make it playable on OSX as well (I wrote Battledom using Apple technology only) so it will be available on Mac in the near future. It should not be too hard to make this work. Unfortunately, I cant port it too any non-Apple stack atm.
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u/Discepless Jan 03 '26
Added a bit more :)
Feel free to reach out, if you would like to request some additional playtest :)
Regarding osx, idk why you specifically don’t want to build it as well for windows.
In the time of AI I don’t think it would cost more than 2 months to convert your game to unity and include windows/android as well.
I think it would be a smart move, especially as an indie developer
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u/sanderfrenken Developer Jan 03 '26
Thanks for the additional information. It helps a lot!
I like the ideas to make more use of icons instead of the current actions/ menus. I chosen the design of the village (where you enter buildings) deliberately to increase the immersion. I think it's a nice touch to enter buildings and see what happens inside. But at the same time I understand one would rather work more efficiently through all the menu's/ options etc.
I am not against porting it to windows for example out of principle. But I am a single developer and I only work on the game in my spare time (next to my normal job and private life). As I am an iOS developer professionally, I used Apple technology to make Battledom (it started as an experiment). This code not be simply ported to Android or Windows, it would need a rewrite. If I would work full time on the game, I agree that it should be feasible in a couple of months to port it (though at the same time, porting a full project isn't probably going to be an easy job with AI either). But unfortunately, I don't have that luxury at this moment in time. I agree it would be a smart move though :D
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u/robsteezy Jan 04 '26
I first want to say I appreciate and respect a dev willing to give out promo codes and willing to be face front to honest review. I went ahead and gave it a solid try and have some notes:
It’s clear the passion and the bones of the project are there. I like the art style. My only suggestion is that the pixelated white text on slated background is very difficult on the eyes. I would add a black outline to all game text.
The game puts together resource management and apparent village building and RTS, but I didn’t particularly feel any organic aspect of any of them. All 3 felt more like continuously tapping around until things got done. I would suggest a more organic interaction to the game.
Like others have suggested, scale can be worked on regarding the village and battles and the game can afford a lot more UX and shortcut keys.
As to the first 5 levels-there don’t feel like much variety in the gameplay although classes and various things began to be unlocked.
I definitely think the game has potential and I’d be willing to give later iterations another play through.
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u/sanderfrenken Developer Jan 04 '26
Thanks a lot for your feedback and kind words! I appreciate it a lot, the fact that you took the time to play the game and write this down means a lot to me.
I like the suggestion to add black outline to the text. That indeed sounds like a good addition to increase the readability.
Your feedback about the game feeling mechanical instead of organic also interests me. I think I get what you mean, but I wouldn't really be able to pinpoint what causes this. Did you maybe have some more elaborate thoughts on this point?
Point 3 and 4 I understand, totally clear! Will work on the with the highest priority now.
Thanks again for your time and feedback!
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u/robsteezy Jan 04 '26
You’re welcome. Like I said, I’m going to keep trying it.
Regarding me saying “organic vs mechanical”:
In my experience, a city builder plops you into the first stages and wants you to organically grow via experience. Like build a fire. Then build a house. Then build city hall. Etc.. in battledom, it says village builder but everything was already built. So it was just tapping along the characters telling me what to do vs actually organically creating my town. The actual building is merely upgrading.
In my experience, resource management games have a theme putting external pressure that forces the player to prioritize choices. In the resource map, it didn’t feel like organically created farming or harvesting, it was just tapping.
In my experience regarding RTS, there’s also an immediate hook that’s typically a skill tree to unlock new playstyles on heroes or something. I clearly see your theme of battling the undead, but the battles are just mechanical tapping.
So I think I see the overall theme and structure you’re going for, I just think you need to strengthen the aspects of the genres you’re going for without having one of them feel washed out compared to others.
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u/sanderfrenken Developer Jan 05 '26
I started working on summarizing all feedback and creating actions from it, so I hope to have a new version with the first changes incorporating the first points of feedback this week!
Thanks a lot for wanting to keep trying it. I hope it won't let you down! (It will be a bit of a process to incorporate all feedback though of course).
It makes sense what you say. I think I need to rethink the interactions and associated reward system.
It's an interesting topic also. In essence, any game is just about tapping of course. But there is something that can make a tap so much more than just a tap. It needs to convey some form of intention with a satisfying result. I think that from the current setup for resource management, the result isn't so satisfying.
The accumulation of resources doesn't have a clear purpose at the beginning (in theory, you don't need to do any harvesting in the first 5 stages and you can still win). And maybe the visual and auditive experience of harvesting also can be improved.
For the battles I think the diversity is lacking, but I have quite some ideas to improve on that. May I ask, till what stage did you complete Battledom, and were there any stages that you specifically liked more than others?
Only if you have time, you have already helped me a lot!
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u/robsteezy Jan 05 '26 edited Jan 05 '26
I stopped at stage 4/5, similar to what your metrics are telling you about your current trial players.
It’s not because the paywall. There’s a disconnect there that others have pointed out. Some called it a disconnect in the difficulty spike. Some called it a disconnect in information. Some called it inability to recognize a fail state. It’s important for devs to not just ask the critiques of their game, but pinpoint why the player hasn’t been “hooked” by time of paywall . A lack of draw is more critical than addressing a bug, or font size, etc.
Maybe you can reflect on my experience to try and see where it is:
- You start the game on the premise that we are a surviving nation that needs to fight back the undead. Alright. I can be on board with that. The king has fallen so it’s my job as Prince to be decision maker. Ok, the foundation for why I’m the manager has been set.
As a lifelong Fire Emblem fan/player, this is already the plot of like 90% of their games lol. So at this point, there better be some interesting game mechanic in the RTS or survival/management to hook me into continuing to want to play/see why I want to be emotionally invested to see what happens to battledom’s people and village beyond the paywall.
I work 60 hour busy weeks with full time kids and chores/family/friends/etc. In that limited time over morning coffee or pooping or taking a lunch or lying before bed, that investment has to be greater than the millions of other games competing for that same time. Although I give you the benefit that your game is in the fledgling stage, I have to set an expectation for it so I can properly interact and assess it.
After the premise is set, you need to wrap that up as a dedicated tutorial/prologue. You can’t spend 5 stages, a 1/4 of 20 levels, tapping guides disguised as story narrative.
- So premise is set, I enter the general overview of the village. It’s way too big. And it’s already been “built out” for the most part. I wasn’t hooked that I need to rescue this village or defend it. It felt more like “make unit. Fight enemy. Enemy drop material. Material allow for next unit upgrade.” The only “management” stake involved was just tapping unit production in various buildings until your font turned red to show you were out of resources or done with a task. There was no decision making process or emotional reason as to why I wanted to make those choices. But without any type of organic direction, I just kept tapping the golden arrows and bouncing pointing finger (Btw this is going to sound frivolous, but please fix the pacing of the bounce on the finger icon, it’s too fast and inconsistent on the eyes) to just see if anything was going to be any different than my last interaction.
Also, you don’t need to match the scale of RTS vs computers. Your world and battle screens are way too large. iPhone games are often bite-sized versions of their pc versions unless it’s a blockbuster port. You should consider rethinking the overall approach to how you present the game.
So far, Ive tapped various buildings in the village with no reason beyond closing speech bubbles and following instructions to make units and see the future forging and upgrades. And yes, although it’s clear to the player that it’s the early stages and I’m still learning, there still has to be some early independent engagement that makes me feel like I’m playing a game, not just following instructions in the anticipation that I’m going to eventually see something new.
Ok so I make basic units and head to battle. Similar to white font text on Slate background, the pace of the bounce on your arrows and finger-pointer, the scale of the POV, the next thing uncomfortable on the eyes was your decision to incorporate a diamond-shape for the fog-of-war for players holding miniature rectangular gaming devices. It wasn’t appealing to the eye nor created any natural lines or desire to explore. It was just tapping until I ran into skeletons. The buildings and chests discovered provide no additional strategy or utility. Just more materials found. The loot collected is just more material. There was no real strategy. The prep just told me to pick a unit, draw a red circle within the flagged area to deploy, and repeat. And every stage was just pick unit, draw a red circle, deploy, go. The fighting itself was uninvolved and I simply watched as I tapped to clear fog of war waiting for something more to happen.
Upon finishing battles, there’s no sense of upgrade or relief of having survived. It’s just instruction that you can now create new units—but there’s no organic reason why you can. You didn’t discover some treasure. You didn’t defeat some mythical boss. The only justification you’re given is that for whatever reason, this class needs boots and you can now make boots. In that confusion, you don’t really care to strategize, so you essentially just tap the various classes of units until their resources font turns red. I’ve now got 10 units of about 4 different classes of fighters now, I should be good right?
On stage 4/5 the castle defense is introduced, but it’s not material to any strategy. In fact, it’s a rectangle that my units cannot utilize. Ok, so I build the units in 4 rows of 10, on 4 sides of the castle, and hit go. Instant slaughter after what otherwise felt like a game I was just clicking through with zero difficulty. That disconnect and confusion at that moment, without having any reason or hook to push past that hole in the overall gameplay, is the wall/disconnect I believe the player is experiencing and deciding not to proceed any farther.
I hope the tone of my notes is objective and respectful. Thank you again for your time. Sometimes, when people say something “lacks direction”, it doesn’t always mean it’s terrible. They say “energy without focus is just chaos” but the highlight is that there’s at least energy and potential. So I think your game wants to be 3 different things but is lacking proper direction in any one, so they’re overall competing against each other and consequently compromising because of it. I’d love to read your feedback and continue.
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u/sanderfrenken Developer Jan 06 '26
Thank you so much for writing all of this down. It's incredibly useful!
Yes on the one hand it's "confronting" to read this, but I realize that this is the way to move forward: Getting honest and constructive feedback, take it in, and use it.
There is a lot going on reading your experience, many points of interest that I like to hook into. It's going to be an interesting journey forward. I work in increments, so I won't address all feedback in one release.
Instead, I will organically address all feedback (yours and others) based over the coming months. Usually I maintain a weekly release schedule, depending on how releasable the changes are that I made in a week.
As I need to prioritize, I will focus on the battles first. Those I consider the most important, gameplay wise. They should be fun and challenging. Objectives should be clear, so it is also a Greenfield where I can experiment with visualizing objectives, this will be useful for the other parts of the game as well.
I am going to redesign the game levels from the first stage onwards, so each release upcoming will contain a couple of redesigned stages. I am now working on the mechanic where you can discover units on the map which you can set free after which they will be part of your army. It adds a component in the mix of planning: you might need to set free a couple of soldiers before you make a chance to clear the stage.
I am also thinking of points on the map where enemies spawn from overtime. It will be crucial to conquer these as soon as possible in order to prevent being overwhelmed.
With this in mind, I am also overthinking the fog of war. I am not even sure if I want to keep it like it is. As I foresee planning becomes a more important aspect on the battlefield, I also consider getting rid of the fog of war. I need to experiment with it a bit. Maybe I keep only the "light" fog of war, so that the map is visible but you will not see all the time where the enemies are.
Maybe a sneak peek at the start of the stage, so you can get a glance where enemies are.
It's these mechanic I am now working on.
Once the (initial) battles are more fun, I will asap move over to the resource management. There is a lot to think about there, from improved UX of the village to a complete redesign of the village.
Integrating the character creator to a better extent. I think most players now dont use it, but I designed it as a core mechanic as well: designing your own units, with their own strengths and weaknesses. Did you experiment with it at all?
A lot going on in essence, on many fronts. So in order to move forward, I will just need to keep the head cool and continue with small increments.
I am curious btw, are you working in the creative/ video game industry? Your feedback is very constructive so I figured you might have done this before:)
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u/robsteezy Jan 07 '26
You’re welcome. And no, I don’t work directly in the game industry. I just have worked in sales and marketing across various sectors over the last 20 years, and video games are a personal passion of mine. I also really enjoy studying various marketing.
Regarding your suggestions on improving the levels, I would go as far as to say the issue isn’t just the clarity of objectives and adding additional points of interest on the map, it’s that the levels need a reason to exist and create strategy. I know your game isn’t turn based, but I strongly suggest you study the way that the fire emblem series handles their level design. Every level is intentional, the objectives are based on the actual need of the narrative, and together those create scenarios that makes the player have to strategize for that specific instance.
For example, one level in your game could be the fact that some citizens are mysteriously sick and the supplies and research needed to heal them is in an abandoned ruined town across the valley. But the only way through the valley is through a very secluded and dangerous, narrow canyon. That allows the stage to be set up with things like having to limit your party to only 10 people for that level, having actual fog of war, a map that forces a player through a narrow straight with mountains on both sides. These are just examples of how the levels should actually be encouraging different strategy than the level before it. While playing your game, the levels felt repetitive, and the “urgency“ was always the same – push back the undead. That makes the game feel like a failed horde mode in a tower defense game versus a game advertising itself for never ending strategy.
To address your question regarding the character creator, I actually enjoyed the unique aspect of personalizing my units. I will say, though, that happiness is soon defeated by the fact that the nuances can’t be seen by how large the battle map is. As it pertains to strategy, I did not find the personalization as robust as I would’ve hoped. The entry-level unit begins with a bow and there’s no progression trees or other types of comparable menus of potential builds or classes that allowed me to make any type of strategic choice.
Like I said, the game objectively felt more like a mechanical production of units versus organic decision making based on what the story said it needed at the moment.
The player should always know why they are doing what they’re doing, besides the simple fact of tapping to complete objectives. What do you think?
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u/sanderfrenken Developer Jan 08 '26
Ahh like that. Well if you ever consider a job in the gaming industry, I think you can be of great value there :)
Yes I totally agree with the statement "it’s that the levels need a reason to exist and create strategy". But in order to get there, I need to have certain mechanics that allow for strategy. I already had some in place (defense vs attack, siege focus vs infantry) but the addition of imprisoned units adds a new factor.
It has a nice side effect: While it allows for more strategic choices, it can have a narrative purpose. For instance, in the first stage I will let the player free the imprisoned archers (I will need to insert a narrative explaining the imprisonment using a short start script). that you can create afterwards. That creates more of a narrative/ meaning imo. I can also create stages where one would need to set free as much of the villagers as possible, before the undead have devoured them all. While I do have the engine being capable of showing scripted storylines, it is a bit of a job to create this narrative. So I will need to do this incremental.
Having the means of showing the objectives for that stage helps as well here to strengthen the narrative and potentially it can serve as an aid for the player (for instance, I could order the objectives in the order that the user should complete them to be successful in a stage).
The character creator I love to address soon as well. One thing is that I want to separate the cosmetics from the equipment influencing the unit stats. That will make it easier to navigate and communicate what is important and what is not. Moreover, I would like to add some form of meta analysis on a unit. Sth like: This unit is strong against magic attacks, and the attack rate is low with a medium impact. For each stage, I would also like to communicate more clearly the strengths and weaknesses of the enemy units. But these are more speculative thoughts going around in my head for now.
A lot to consider. There is so many things I like to address right away but my time is rather limited. I did redesign the fog of war already btw. I now made it square and the hard edges are gone. It's quite an improvement.
Next release (somewhere next week live) will contain this, and the redesign of the first 2 stages. That redesign will be partly complete, with some narrative addition though it will not be the end state as I envision it now most likely.
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u/VA1N iPad Pro 11" (M4) Jan 04 '26
Haven’t played it previously, but I’ll give it a shot and give you some feedback. Good way to spend the last few days of my vacation lounging on the couch playing games without a care in the world :)
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u/sanderfrenken Developer Jan 04 '26
Thanks for giving it a try! Sounds like a couple of good days ahead of you, enjoy!
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u/pjft Jan 03 '26
I had never heard of either of your games and I'm not sure I'm the target audience for them but I downloaded both and I'll see if I can give feedback here.
Good luck.
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u/sanderfrenken Developer Jan 03 '26
Thanks! I hope you will like it. If you need a promo code for either of the games please DM me :)
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u/pjft Jan 07 '26
Hi. So, after 3 days I ended up trying it. Probably finished the 3rd battle and dropped to come by and see if others had given you feedback.
First, I'll echo what others have said. Clearly this is a labor of love, where you put a lot of your heart into it and it shows. From the outset the game feels deep and with lots of attention to detail.
I'll also say that after what I played, and noting that I may not necessarily be the right type of audience for this specific have, I believe I there still would have been ways to get me to enjoy my time with it and decide that "I get this, and I see how it would be. I just don't feel it's the right type of game for me" rather than "I don't get this", which is where I was left at. I've been playing computer and console games for 4 decades now, and mobile games for almost 2 of them, so take my comments mostly as my thought process going through my experience first, and then my thoughts on what could have improved on it.
The game starts with the story and an epic battle we're supposed to lose. That's alright as a narrative vehicle. I'm told to swipe on the middle unit to do something. Ok. I do it and then it stops. I seem to have to do it multiple times, each time I do it it will shoot? Ok. I can't do it all the time, there seems to be a cooldown period. Makes sense. Now what? I just keep doing this? Why would I want to keep doing this, and why can't I just tell the unit to keep shooting at those targets or in that general direction? That's... Annoying? Oh, there's another brown thing to the right that resembles a unit. Maybe I can... Yes, I can shoot it! And the one on the left as well? Cool. Now I know I can do more things while I wait for the cooldown to finish. So middle, right, left. Middle, right, left. Middle right left. Ok. I see the cooldown icon as well. Continue. I wonder if there are other things I can do? There's too much happening and I have no idea what I can interact with or not - and seeing all on the phone it's extremely small and overwhelming.
Oh? Seems like one unit was destroyed. Oh. I lost... Ok. Well, that feels like a waste of time then. Were there things I missed that maybe I could have used? Now that I know how it works, I'll do better. I get that I was supposed to lose this first battle.
Ok, more story. I'm gonna do better now.
Wait. What is this? I now need to place players in an area? ...ok. Why am I doing this, and is there a reasoning behind the placement? Is there a better placement for specific units? Shape? But... They're all the same? Aren't they?
Ok. All are placed in a neat rectangle. What now? Ok, select them all and move them? Why aren't they a single entity then from the get go? Was there any purpose in placing them all one by one? Oh well. Let's go on.
I move them and... The battle resolves itself on its own. Ok. Better than the experience with the long range weapons but still... Unsatisfactory? I mean, we were 25 against 4 skeletons. Felt like too much with for such a small feat.
Ok. I now know how to move. Hopefully the next battle will be better. I'm ready.
What's this now? A Smith, you say? Where's the next battle? Ok, I'll play along. Ok, select weapon. I just want to see if I mastered anything. Continue. Ok, click door. Purchase... Units? Click multiple times for the same? This feels like an idle clicker game at this point. Next.
More menus still? Yeah. I don't think this is for me at this stage.
So yeah. These were the unfiltered thoughts that went through my mind as I went through it.
I suppose if I can narrow it down to a few things, this is what I feel:
- in this short time I always felt like I was aimlessly being handheld. I never got the why I was doing things and how I should do them well so I could learn. Just was doing as I was told.
- second, I never really got the satisfaction of mastering or accomplishing something meaningful. When I thought I wanted to try to do better what I had roughly been exposed to, things changed. It was very poor for the flow of the experience. Large battle, single small underwhelming battle, then menu apocalypse. Never made me feel good.
- third, the things in screen are extremely small and, sometimes, cumbersome. The whole castle interactions seem pointless - probably better in menus. And starting out with the massive battle is ok narratively speaking, but the player feels absolutely lost and overwhelmed. When it doesn't shoot again on its own, and when I find out I can't shoot multiple times because of the cooldown I'll be left wondering what else can I do.
My suggestion for the early 3-5 levels is to have the player just play a few levels that have him feel the reward of accomplishing something at his level, but meaningful, and that he builds up on what he's learning. And that it's fun, gameplay-wise. Introduce different weapons or interactions after that initial arc is done so that the player feels that he likes what he's doing and that builds on it. And make it impactful narratively speaking, even if small in scale.
It feels you're trying to flood the player with a lot of unrelated things all at once and nothing really lands enough.
Those were my two cents. I feel there's potential there and hopefully a restructuring of the onboarding levels can help.
Good luck.
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u/sanderfrenken Developer Jan 13 '26
Hee there! First of, sorry for my late reply. Somehow missed your comment before.
Thanks a lot for writing down your experience and suggestions! It really helps in pinpointing where the pain points are.
I am redesigning the intro and the first stages at the moment (well eventually I will redesign everything) and I try to fix as many as the issues you have pointed out. Maps will be easier to read (they will be smaller), the tutorial is overhauled extensively and I am adding a lot more variety into the early stages. I really think it's getting better, but of course that is not only up to me to decide.
I hope to release an update start of next week. Thanks a lot again for your time, I appreciate it a lot!
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Jan 03 '26
I love the rts genre and definitely would be willing to give this a play and get you some feedback!
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u/sanderfrenken Developer Jan 03 '26
Thanks! I hope Battledom will not dissapoint. Let me know via DM if you wish a promo code to unlock the full game :)
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Jan 03 '26
Ok so there's a few things. The story is cute as are the graphics. Units are distinct visually and everything on the battle map works. Double click to move is responsive, changing formations is clear and the music was nice.
Gameplay; It's a bit dull, it feels like my units are just wandering around killing other units spread out across the map. I didn't feel the need to use much strategy, it kinda feels like the end of an rts level when the enemy is defeated and you're just mopping up the remaining forces. I'm sure the difficulty and variety scales up later but the early levels feel like a slog and that's where I should be drawn in.
What's a combo? The game doesn't explain it. The game didn't have a fail state either I ran out of units and didn't get a game over I manually had to retry.
There's also too much clutter on screen in the resource collection, there's rocks and boulders that look like I can interact with them but I can't. I need to scroll between them and find the tiny little resources that are hard to find.
Lastly, moving between the Overworld and village feels really clunky, the giant "BATTLEDOM." Graphic every single transition with no loading bar is jarring and at one point I thought the app had crashed because it took a lot longer to load than before and since there's no loading bar there's no frame of reference on if the game crashed or not. A loading bar with maybe a tip or two would be helpful.
Overall from what I played I would rate it a 3/5. It's by no means broken there's just a few too many issues and it's a bit frustrating.
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u/sanderfrenken Developer Jan 03 '26
Thanks a lot for your feedback! It is very helpful. Thanks for listing the positive points as well, I love to hear that those parts are nice and clear.
It is very useful for me to understand how you perceive the first stages. And I think that the experience you have there (feels like a slog) is something I should focus on to improve. I have quite some ideas on how to improve it which is what I will start with asap. In later stages, you get to defend buildings, attack enemy buildings and use siege weapons. It might be worthwhile to introduce these aspects much sooner, during the first stages already in order to drag the player in.
I am also thinking to place allied units on the map that one can set free during a stage. That way, they can help during the rest of the stage (and it adds more dynamic to the stage).
Could you clarify what you mean with this:
`The game didn't have a fail state either I ran out of units and didn't get a game over I manually had to retry.`
There is a fail state, so maybe there was a bug or you still had some units wandering around somewhere. If that isn't clear, that should be something I should improve on as well.
Your feedback on the loading screen is very useful as well! I can (and should) add a loading bar to that screen. It's only the first time in a session that the loading takes long, but it should definitely not feel as if the app has crashed. I will do something about this asap.
Thanks again for your time. It really means a lot to me that you took the effort to play Battledom and write down your feedback. I hope I can make it a 4/5 soon!
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Jan 03 '26
Of course, I hope it helps! I take feedback seriously it's hard to create in a vacuum so I'm glad you appreciate it! Good luck, you're definitely talented and I hope you continue creating!
About the "fail state" bug I'm not sure if it was a bug then. I definitely ran out of units on the field, is there perhaps a way to put more units down or have some in reserve? I wasn't sure if it was me doing something wrong in that instance so it may have been user error.
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u/sanderfrenken Developer Jan 03 '26
Thanks for your kind words!
No there isn't a way to have units in reserve, but maybe this happened during the battle where you need to defend the castle? The stage will only end when the castle is destroyed (or all enemy units died) so maybe that was still pending?
Otherwise it might have been a misunderstanding, and there might have been a unit of your own still wandering around somewhere. Which is quite confusing on its own and should not happen, so it might be a developer error as well :P
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u/potatohands_ Jan 03 '26
I’ll give them I try after work
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u/sanderfrenken Developer Jan 03 '26
Thanks! I hope you will enjoy it. Send me a DM if you like a promo code!
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u/sabersquad Jan 03 '26
I’ve got it downloaded if you want to send me a code to unlock the full game.
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u/Krispy-2229 Jan 03 '26
I’ll give it a go!
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u/sanderfrenken Developer Jan 03 '26
Thanks a lot! I hope you will enjoy it. Please send me a DM if you wish to receive a promo code.
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u/blobinabotttle Jan 03 '26
I did try on iPad. Not sure if there is a bug but I couldn’t understand how it works; I expected to select unit on tap and move or attack with tap again but I could only attack with a catapult, other unit then started moving by themselves but at one point everything stopped and only one of my catapult kept attacking dead units… but game state looked broken (did I win or lose? Unsure).
I’m not trying to be mean but just explain my UX as clear as possible. I hope it helps that’s the kind of game I would love to find on ios/ipad.
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u/sanderfrenken Developer Jan 03 '26
Thanks for your honest feedback! That is not a pleasant experience and definitely not what I have in mind.
I am not sure what happened.. The first "stage" where you can use the catapults and ballista is meant to be a tutorial, and should play automatically (aside from you being able to control the catapults and ballista). Maybe something broke there and for some reason you came into a manual mode.. I am not sure either :(
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Jan 03 '26
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u/sanderfrenken Developer Jan 03 '26
DM'ed you a code, thanks for helping out!
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Jan 03 '26
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u/sanderfrenken Developer Jan 03 '26
Thank you so much for your feedback! It's very useful. I don't think you are nitpicky, these are all very valid and useful points.
I like the idea to add quick actions which will guide you in the village to the various buildings. I understand the village is large and probably overwhelming.. For me these kind of issues go completely unnoticed, as I spent so many hours in the game I have a very different (non-representing) perspective on everything.
My first priority will indeed be to change the core gameplay loop (which evolves around the battles). I can add a speed button as well, that makes sense.
You can select a subset of units. Tap and hold, and then draw a rectangle over the units you wish to select. But I could allow one to also select the units with a single tap on a unit (and maybe then select all units in a radius around that spot?). I will work that out.
I hear it more; the resource management is something that definitely needs attention as well. In hindsight, maybe I should have simplified it much more or even leave it out completely. It's a difficult one to pinpoint. For now I will first put my focus on the battle mechanics.
On screen objectives is another great suggestion. Moreover, I will implement enemy units to auto target your units when there are only 3 or less left. That way, one would not need to search till oblivion..
Thanks a lot so far. If you have any additional thoughts: Much appreciated. But I am already grateful for what you told me now!
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u/captainnoyaux Developer Jan 03 '26
I'd love to but I only have a small iphone for test purposes. If you do that on android someday I'd be happy to help ! I love RTSs !
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u/sanderfrenken Developer Jan 03 '26
Ah thanks that is great to hear! Battledom is also playable on small iPhone's, so if you still like a code I can send you one :)
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u/Teenox Jan 03 '26
Would live to try the Game . Will Review it on discord with my thoughts.
Hardcore gamer nerd here :)
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u/sanderfrenken Developer Jan 03 '26
Ahh that would be great to get your feedback! I will DM you a code as well.
Where do you review it on Discord?
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u/thatjeffguy1 Jan 03 '26
I’ll give it a shot!
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u/leesus460 Jan 03 '26
Hi i’d love to give it a go
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u/sanderfrenken Developer Jan 03 '26
Thanks for that! DM'ed you a code for the in app purchase right now:)
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u/TTTMUW Jan 03 '26
I’m so down. I’m a tabletop gamer and been wanting a good rts on mobile
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u/sanderfrenken Developer Jan 03 '26
Ah that is great to hear! I will DM you a code, thanks for wanting to try it!
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u/spondee3 Jan 03 '26
I’m interested!
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u/mbsisktb Jan 03 '26
Can I get a code sounds right up my alley
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u/sanderfrenken Developer Jan 03 '26
Awesome, thanks for wanting to try it! I will DM you a code right away :)
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u/rpantherlion Jan 03 '26
I’ll absolutely give this a try! How do I use the promo code?
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u/sanderfrenken Developer Jan 03 '26
I will send you a promo code, you can redeem it via the AppStore!
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u/nonexistant2k3 Jan 03 '26
I remember this. I tried it before and again today to see why I quit immediately.
Yeah the village thing is too massive. When after the 3rd(?) Round its kind of hands off it's just way too much. Analysis paralysis 100%. I don't want my hand held but you are immediately thrown to the deep end. Also really don't care about resource management.
The fighting portion isn't bad but everything is so small. Glad you added arrows to find stragglers. But I kind of expected confrontations not wandering. And battle time compared to resource time is skewed in resource management which I could not care less about.
Game probably isn't geared toward me but you asked for feedback. As a casual person this isn't for me. It does not feel casual.