I've made a mine sweeper on mac that give money back to remove real landmines - not many players after 6 months live, need advice on what to do next?
Hi fellow devs and macOS users. I have built Mine Squad as a way to give back to society for myself and other. Live on the appstore here: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/mine-squad/id6744436982 Long story short: I like the mine sweeper but found the game a bit flawed. I wanted to redesign it. And I always wanted to link software, what I do, to a way to give back to society. War mines are increasing now, 100 millions in the world. Someone has to remove them. I signed a partnership with the Halo trust, the #1 org in the world doing that and I give back 50% of the revenue to them. Money comes from free version and ads, or tip jar to unlock everything. The issue is that I still have very little usage and downloads. I have released this for a while on iOS, iPad. Recently shipped MacOS to increase visibility. I posted on my channels (linkedin, facebook, reddit), ask the Halo trust to repost, and did a few apple ads campaigns in the app store. I optimised the website a lot for SEO. (https://www.minesquad.app/) All humanitarian press are ghosting my messages. Still feels buried... I am not sure what to do now. Does anyone has some advice on what to do next? Focus on app store? the app itself? other distribution channels? focus more on mac vs iphone? I would really like this app to grow so that I can contribute to this cause. Any feedback really appreciated 🙏
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Nobody will play a game just because you donate 50% to a charity. The game has to be compelling; otherwise, not many will play.
oh this is very nice! i thought about this some time ago. cool concept and artwork
Thanks!
I wish I could help, but unfortunately not really my area of expertise. But this is such a cool project. I hope it goes well, I’m all for anything that really provides a tangible benefit for society/those less privileged. But do push it. I know loads of people get annoyed when products/services are marketed heavily, but nobody can use or recommend an app that they’ve never heard of. Just accept that you’re going to annoy people, but at least people will know about it - and eventually a not insignificant number of them will try the app out anyway…humans are naturally curious. There’s a reason companies spend an absurd amount of money on marketing constantly. Edit: I’d love to see something like this succeed. Rather than one of the thousands of subscription-based, vibe-coded slop apps.
Thank you for the encouragements 🙏 it’s tough out there 😅
Its a nice idea but in my opinion, the theme is too dark for me. Anyway, nice one. Ask KI for help to promote it. Promoting needs a lot of effort, especially in this genre.
Theme too dark you mean visually? I’ve parked a light mode for a while but that was the initial idea.
You’ll have to make a twist on Minesweeper itself to make this engaging. Add a social element or competitive element. Change the rules slightly maybe to be more addicting. Im not a game designer so this isnt my forte, but the core loop needs to be satisfying. The charity part of it just means you have good PR to get the word out afterwards. Whether people stick to it or not depends on if it’s actually fun or not.
I have made changes to the gameplay. With rocks in the grid, power ups to scan disarm cells, and destroy rocks. I’ve also made daily levels so it is not the same size grid everytime. People compete on time for ”today’s grid”. I also have a leaderboard. But this is the paradox. For social features you need enough of a critical mass of players otherwise it is just empty….
So, I know to some people it may seem like Minesweeper is just something everyone who has used a computer knows about but you would be surprised. I know so many people who have never played or seen minesweeper and they've been using computers since they were children. Your video shows 1 image of game play and spends the rest of the video talking about features and donations. Show more of the game you're selling to people.
That’s very true. The majority doesn’t know what it is and half who knows don’t know how to play… thanks for the tip!
Maybe start with slowing the vide waaaay down
Great concept with good intentions here. I can't say I'm very interested in minesweeper. Maybe that's the issue? What if you make a different game with an original concept that's also related to charity so you can do something similar?
I think the biggest issue is minesweeper isn't really a fun game to begin with, its more annoying. The reason people played it (sometimes) was it came pre-installed on your computer, mixed with 90s boredom.
This is macapps not macgames
regarding growth. dm me, i got something for you. code for this. still work to do, no auto bot ai pilot. but can be helpful in research. just released didnt even started promoting yet. https://apps.apple.com/at/app/signalhunt-find-your-leads/id6768570237?mt=12 promo code as soon as i make it. (that is if ur interested)
Nice DM on the way