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Best Practices

Check out our advice on how to grow and monetize your games and streams on Dorian! Looking for something specific? Check out this guide!

Getting the most out of your games

You should always wait until you have at least 100 users in your game to evaluate your success.

Benchmarks

You should aim for the following performance numbers when you have reached 100 users.

• Completion rate for Episode 1: 60%

• Completion rate for Episode 2: 80%

• Completion rate for Episode 3 onward: 90%

• Premium choices should convert at least 5% of users

How to check my benchmarks?

You can find your completion rates and reads within your game on the web engine. As soon as you publish, you will begin to see “live episodes” which show you the count of users who have entered the episode (reads) and the % of them that completed it (completion rate). This count is made for each version you publish. You can publish as many versions as you like.

You can check how many hearts you’ve received by going to your profile on the engine.

You can evaluate the success of your individual premium choices by entering a live episode and clicking the node. You will have a chance to see the % of users who have paid for the node and how many hearts they have spent.

How to get more reads

Dorian is a community of visual novel lovers, which means there are things you can do to optimize your content to attract attention. However, the most successful creators on Dorian use their full networks to bring fans into their games.

Is your game a good fit for Dorian?

If your game isn’t getting results, the first thing to consider is if you are a good fit for the audience. You are always welcome to explore new and different topics, but the things we see appeal most to our fans are:

• Dating sims with a transparent MC and relationship systems. At least three love interests. If you haven’t already, check our Dating Sim 101 guide.

• Art styles that are not overly cartoony OR overly realistic. Check our character design guide.

• We see that games with accessible-but-deep worldbuilding perform best. Fantasy & Paranormal perform exceptionally well.

• Games that are inclusive toward queer romances and do not assume player gender tend to perform best.

How to make my game attractive for Dorian fans

If you’ve validated that your game is a good fit for the platform, then your cover may be the issue. You may need to experiment with multiple covers to get one image that performs well.

Other things to try

• Have you tagged your game appropriately?

• Have you written an eye-catching and fun description for the cover?

• Are your Episodes named with fun, intriguing titles, and does your Episode 1 have an enticing description?

If you game already fulfills the requirements for the post-launch steps, reach out to the Dorian team for more help!

In addition to all of these techniques, you should be working to bring your fans to Dorian! Find out how on the “How to bring your audience to Dorian” page!

How to improve my completion rate

If you’ve realized your completion rate is under benchmarks, there are a few things you can do to improve!

Start your opening with a bang!

Make sure your opening hooks the user right away. Think of your opening like a trailer for your game. Use these best practices:

• Add a choice in the first ten taps!

• Start with a visually interesting background!

• Avoid long narration sequences — center your characters!

Fix Leaky Nodes!

When you start reading your data, you’ll notice certain nodes have more drop-off than others. These are leaky nodes!

To fix them, try…

• Remove unnecessary exposition, narration, or long sequences with action

• Add a choice every 10-15 taps

How to improve my monetization

You should be able to convert 5% of people who see a premium choice. If your premium choices are performing at a lower rate, that’s an opportunity for you to improve through better design and pricing!

Golden Rules of Premium Design

• Create a clear story goal. Once the player knows where they’re going, you can design premium choices that bring them toward this goal in the most gratifying way!

• Set up your choices well! Would you buy a hot drink if you didn’t know what was in the cup? No! Make sure your fans know what they’re buying and just how delicious it is.

• Pay off your promises! If you’re promising them hot chocolate, make sure it’s hot chocolate! Not delivering on your sale will ensure your fans don’t come back for more.

• Include lots of bonus choices! You can reach your payout benchmarks much faster when you charge 20-25 hearts than 2-3 hearts.

• Make more of what they love! Check your data to see what your fans love, then tailor your choices to them!

• Be committed! Treat it like a professional and run your own community.

What kinds of premium choices should I design?

Your choices can fall into the following categories, but feel free to think of new options!

How to get more out of your streams

Do you want to get more people attending your streams and start monetizing and growing faster? Use these tips!

Schedule ahead of time!

The stream schedule lets fans see what’s coming up! When fans tap “Remind me” on your event, they receive a push notification and email reminder when you go live.

Share your streams with your friends and followers

Anyone who clicks your link will be automatically rsvp’d to your event AND if they’re a new user, you will both receive one heart!

When sharing, make sure you use these best practices:

• Use a direct link when possible

• Explain to your fans how streaming works and how they can access the stream

• Share clips of previous streams so they know what they’re in for

Making money in your streams

You make money when your fans support you with hearts! You can use these techniques to inspire more hearts each stream. Try to aim for getting at least 20 hearts per concurrent viewer.

🎥 Explain Hearts 🎥

Many users do not know what Hearts are, or why they are important to you as a creator. Make sure you:

• Explain how hearts work: Sending hearts is sending real money to you, and this is how creators get paid on Dorian!

• Express their meaning: Every heart spent on you goes toward supporting your livelihood as an independent creator. Try saying something like this: “Instead of having to join a game or production studio where I'm subject to others' creative control, on Dorian I can create games and do streams without hiring engineers or artists – and I get to choose what I do.” For the price of a cup of coffee, your fans can make a huge difference in your life. Wouldn't it be better to support you than Starbucks?

• Lead with emotion: Every time you receive a heart, it's a real person investing money in you. Tell them how it makes you feel!

🎥 Set Heart Goals! 🎥

Figure out what your fans want, then set milestone goals with rewards. For example, if you're a cosplayer and they want a sneak peek at your next cosplay, tell them you'll give it once you reach 400 hearts in the stream. Or if you're a singer, tell them you'll sing them a song of their choice after 300 hearts. The threshold and reward is up to you!

Don’t forget!

When your cover appears on the home screen, your title and other UI will layer on top of it. Try to design your cover so faces and important elements are on the top half of the screen.

Social Proof

People naturally gravitate toward things that other people have already validated. This means if your story has lots of likes and comments, people will be attracted to it. Ask your fans to leave you comments and heart/bookmark your story!

Want a closer look?

Preview your game in the emulator to see the drop-off on a per line basis! This can help you see trends in drop-off!

For example, if you see high drop-off when a certain character appears, or when your MC is self deprecating, it may mean you need to rewrite those scenes!

🎥 Recognize your Patrons! 🎥

The new advanced audience list allows you to see who has sent you hearts in a given stream. End your stream with a round up of your amazing patrons, recognizing them each by name!

Make sure you:

• Use a fun, clickbaity title

• Schedule at least a week in advance

• Ideally, stick to a schedule your fans can get used to

• Share the link! Anyone who uses it will automatically be rsvp’d to your event!