
Ask HN: My game is growing fast. What should I do? - m0dE
Hi HN.<p>I made this game out of passion: braains.io, and it&#x27;s getting some traction. What should my next step be?
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csallen
Fun game! Where's your traffic coming from? Is it growing rapidly right this
instant? If I were you I'd (a) double check the servers aren't going to crash,
(b) start pitching as many bloggers and Twitter personalities about it as
possible, (c) try to "capture" traffic with prominent links to a Twitter
account, forum, mailing list, etc.

For a game like this, if you want it to stay popular for a while, you'll
probably want to add more maps, mechanics, and/or rewards for players who keep
playing and do well. Skins are a fun and simple idea, as is some sort of
persistent score.

You might want to ask the founders at my site for advice, too:
[https://www.indiehackers.com/forum](https://www.indiehackers.com/forum). I
don't think any of them have made money off games specifically, but they might
have good insights regardless.

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m0dE
Thanks! It is growing rapidly. Servers have been crashing, and I just put some
load-balancing measure in the place.

Thanks for the tips! I'll be sure to check the site out too.

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csallen
Btw, I'm curious what your tech stack is. Care to share what you're using for
the front-end, the back-end, and hosting?

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m0dE
it's isogenic engine. I'm using azure.

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meir_yanovich
what game server do you use ?

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eb0la
Been there (long time ago): no sleep, server crashing, etc..

First: get some sleep. Not sleep; but time-off periods. You'll need to think /
do / whatever other stuff in your life that will be slowing and draining your
energy (well, what's left of it).

Second: Get help. Someone you trust you can tell how to restart / reboot / do
quick fix for the app while you are /away.

Third: Don't trust the stats. At least not what you think your eyes see: If
there is rising trend, probably is just a spike. Stuff does not usually grow
"linearly" or "exponentially". It grows by growth quants. That is, you get
into the 1-2k users, then jump into 4-6k, then 10-15k and so on.

Fourth: Going up need energy (time, effort, money, sweat, energy). Going down
wastes energy and is much easier and faster. This is like climbing. So be sure
to have something built-in that makes going down harder, like rewards for
daily/weekly players.

Fifth: Enjoy. Learn. Repeat.

Hope this helps.

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dezb
[http://braains.io](http://braains.io) doesn't load, cloudfront keeps trying
to redirect it somewhere.. blocked it..

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saluki
It is fun . . . what's it built with.

More maps, leader board, start a signup system so users log in to keep
points/score, username etc. Invite friends to play on a map together.

Add signups to an email list drip.co.

Good luck, it's fun to play so I'll keep checking it out.

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programmarchy
Judging by source,
[http://www.isogenicengine.com](http://www.isogenicengine.com)

~~~
m0dE
^

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HiroshiSan
Well...just tried this game for a few seconds and already a user has
identified something for you to work on:
[http://imgur.com/a/aFEN4](http://imgur.com/a/aFEN4)

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m0dE
Yes. I've added some anti-spamming measures, but it seems like finding
exploits.

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lisefromcaptiz
This is really cool!

A little story-telling + 'help' section would be great to onboard new players.

A share button, for twitter + facebook where with a description (where the
cool story-telling could play a part).

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RUG3Y
I was the first zombie, I was in a room with 6 players and immediately
infected everyone. That felt good. It's a pretty fun game.

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guessmyname
There is an XSS in the chat:
[https://i.imgur.com/Eo7dwSY.png](https://i.imgur.com/Eo7dwSY.png) ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

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m0dE
thanks for pointing that out. :)

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antoineMoPa
I made a similar error previously in an app's chat. I was using node.innerHTML
and changed it to of node.textContent.

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kqia040
Good job man, this is a really awesome game.

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wwalser
Add email capture and use that to communicate with users about new features
and ask what they'd like to see added to the game.

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jblow
Is this post just an ad?

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nopit
Yes, and so is his reply.

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m0dE
I see where you guys are coming from, and I admit that there's an advertising
nature in this post. However, I stand corrected that this post isn't "just an
ad". I am also looking for advice here.

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bbcbasic
Ad-vice

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sfx77
cool game

