A week ago, my casual FPS incremental game officially launched its Steam Playtest. Back then, one stat from the backend absolutely crushed my spirits: the median playtime was zero minutes!!!
It was honestly heartbreaking. It wasn’t that no one tried the game. Most players would boot up the demo, play for just a few seconds, and quit right away. Plain and simple—the game just wasn’t fun enough.
I knew staying in my own bubble and tweaking the game blindly wouldn’t help. It was time to face the truth head-on. After that, I spent all my time reading every comment and hanging out in player communities, carefully collecting every piece of genuine feedback.
I’m so grateful for every one of you. You didn’t leave lazy complaints—you pointed out every issue straight to the point: floaty weapon feel at the start, weak hit feedback when killing bugs, a boring and underpowered early skill tree, flat stats with no satisfying payoff, and so many other tiny but critical flaws.
Thanks to all your thoughtful suggestions, I pulled multiple all-nighters iterating and fine-tuning the game. I adjusted every detail based on how players actually felt while playing, no stubborn biases, no blind self-indulgence.
Hard work truly pays off. When I checked the backend today, the player count has skyrocketed, and our median playtime has jumped straight from 0 minutes to 24 minutes!
As a solo indie developer, this turnaround is the most genuine and precious recognition I could ever ask for.
Now that I’ve found the right direction, I’m going all out for future updates! Desktop Exterminator is confirmed for the October Steam Next Fest. The brand-new demo will feature highly requested content you’ve been asking for, including immersive dealer girl interactions and brand-new mini-games outside of main matches. The overall gameplay experience and satisfaction level will be massively upgraded!
Feel free to jump into the current Playtest version anytime. All your feedback, wild ideas, and feature requests—whether it’s crazy fun tweaks or tiny detail improvements—are welcome in the comments or our community group!
I’ll keep polishing and iterating the game alongside player feedback, step by step. My goal is to turn Desktop Exterminator into an incredibly satisfying, stress-relieving incremental game that every player loves!