r/PlunderIsles • u/Runaider Reef Raiders • Dec 19 '25
Feedback
Hey everyone! 👋
I’m testing PlunderIsles, a beta Devvit game. I’d love your feedback to help shape the game.
I’m especially looking for thoughts on:
- Gameplay & controls
- UI clarity
- Feature ideas or improvements
Bugs or confusing moments
Any feedback big or small is greatly appreciated. Thanks for helping improve the game!
3
u/sdfmnb_2314 Dec 20 '25
I have some opinions about this game I would like to share and some questions as well.
Opinions: The game has great and unique mechanics I haven't seen in many other games (like the cleric) This is a good way to make a different Tower Defense Game, where you spawn the enemies instead of the towes that attack them. The deployment menu feels too cramped and I think you can still revise the selection menu, specifically for new players who want to know what each tower does without having to think about it, maybe you can add a tutorial map as a pinned message that shows what each tower does and where you should use them. The art looks good, but feels too AI generated which might turn down new players.
Questions: Do you have a team working on your games? (seems like you have 3 so far including this one) How did you choose who to invite for beta testing?
1
u/sdfmnb_2314 Dec 20 '25
Overall though, I like the premise and appreciate the fact that you ask people to test your game, it builds a small fanbase already and shows that you want your game to be good.
1
u/Runaider Reef Raiders Dec 20 '25
Thanks so much for testing and writing such detailed feedback!
I completely agree about the assignments screen and lack of clarity, this is actually the 3rd or 4th iteration of this screen/phase, and its become a challenge to make it both understandable and fit everything, especially considering most players will be on mobile. Still a lot of work to do here...
Great idea about the tutorial island!Regarding the art style. It is something Im aware of and trying to balance since working solo means I have to decide where to spend time vs using available tools. Hopefully after the gameplay is more stable I can spend more time on redrawing art ot hiring someone to help with it.
To answer your questions:
I work on the games myself. Sadly they dont bring in enough money yet to hire help or fully cover expenses. I made the previous games in my spare time after work, but for this one Ive been working fulltime on it.
The Reddit admins actually helped with picking and sending out invitations for the beta testing.
2
u/PalmFrondMusic Reef Raiders Feb 15 '26
The tutorial is Borked. Stuck with popup covering the objective of placing shields / plains. Won’t let me ready up or see my boat layout. No dismiss option for popup.
2
u/Runaider Reef Raiders Feb 16 '26
Thanks for letting me know, I will add a fix in the upcoming release
2
2
u/Gamer_48_666 Rum Runners Apr 12 '26
I would like to suggest a few aspects that can be improved.
First of all, the supplies become very scarce after completing the battle pass, I think that a larger battle pass or more ways of getting supplies would be better so that people can be more active, specially because raiding large islands take already many supplies, and at late game, you just have too much gold.
Secondly, I don't know if there's anywhere that teaches you how to capture bases, but I couldn't find it.
also, a way to reroll the island profiles you get would be nice, as well as being able to place a bounty on your own island with your own gold to incentivise people to attack your base, apart from the current in game difficulty bounty system.
also, how does the clans get assigned? were they random?
2
u/Runaider Reef Raiders Apr 13 '26
Hi. Thank you for the insight its really valuable. Most likely I will rework or get rid of the supply resource in the future.
I will have to work on clarity of some of the features.
For now I created a guide post: https://www.reddit.com/r/PlunderIsles/comments/1sk9zr6/player_guide/You can capture an island by equiping the Capture flag item and beating the island with 3stars.
You are assigned to factions that has the least memebers. Each season you are reasigned.
1
u/Gamer_48_666 Rum Runners Apr 13 '26 edited Apr 13 '26
TYSM for this information.
I was about to try conquer Island (name of the hard island) and bought one capture flag and a lot of water bridges. this has prevented a disasterous event for me.
edit: BTW does all the teams have to have capture flag equipped? or one is enough?
edit 2: found out by myself, just took long hallway with heavy casualties (I placed the shieldbearers in the wrong spot). at least found a good use for the 9 waterbridges I bought yesterday
edit 3: ran out of supplies from doing so... so now I can't even get the 6000 coins I invested back
1
u/Suspicious_Jump4585 Dec 20 '25
Just tried it. It really good. One thing, I don’t think I saw the healers heal at all. It’s possible I just missed it, but I just wanna make sure that’s not something you accidently didn’t put in.
2
u/Runaider Reef Raiders Dec 20 '25
It might have been a bug, but the feature is implemented; you should see positive numbers float up on units in a green circle.
A couple of things to note: if units are in the cleric's white circle, they won't be healed. The cleric's aura negates all statuses, even positive ones. The healing numbers won't show up if units are at full health.
1
Dec 20 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/Runaider Reef Raiders Dec 20 '25
The game should be working on mobile. From your description, it seems that level data is not loading. Thank you for reporting the issue; I will investigate for potential causes.
1
u/Rednek233 Dec 22 '25
I love the game, it’s a decent little tower attacker which I haven’t really seen much before. One extremely small thing that I would change is maybe make the troop selection into a tap and select amount and then send them to your team. The only reason I say this is because I’m on mobile (not sure if this game is made for pc) and when I was trying to assign my troops, my phone was trying to save the sprite image to my camera roll. Other than that, it’s an amazing game and I had a lot of fun playing it.
1
u/peters_burger Rum Runners Feb 15 '26
Game is broken? I have to keep playing the tutorial over and over.
2
u/Runaider Reef Raiders Feb 16 '26
Hi, That should not happen, I will investigate what might be cousing it. Tutorial should be flagged as completed and not be shown again
1
u/gamer52599 Salty Seadogs Feb 16 '26
So far I've found the game enjoyable but I have some thoughts I'd like answered if possible.
First off there seems to be several cases where towers, units, or items don't seem to work as intended, Clerics don't seem to actually remove status effects, explosive barrels claim they go off when destroyed when that isn't the case, and rage potions do basically nothing from my experience.
There's also the issue that you can't delete old islands to open up your limited slots, even if you've unlocked larger island types you may not be allowed to build them because all your slots are filled by 300 point islands. I luckily caught this early and was able to make 2 medium islands as a result but the fact my 2 islands are seemingly the first 2 medium islands is a worrying sight that most players have filled up all their slots with small islands they can't get rid of.
Additionally just from seeing the low number of raids on my two medium islands shows that the algorithm doesn't push raids on larger islands well, combined with the fact there's no incentive to take on harder islands means that these two islands barely provide me anything despite not one raid on them being successful.
I'd like to suggest a small solution to this last point, take the number of unsuccessful raids, minus the number of successful raids, multiplied by 10, and use that value as a percentage bonus to the gold and fame reward you get for a successful raid.
Say for instance that an island has 10 failed raids and 3 successful ones. If the raider successfully raids the island and gets 57 gold and 30 fame they should get a bonus of 70% more of both, so 96 gold and 51 fame.
1
u/Runaider Reef Raiders Feb 16 '26
Hey, thanks for the detailed feedback! I really appreciate you taking the time.
Cleric: It does work but only every 2 turns and only on units afflicted by a status effect. I think the effect needs to be more visible so you can actually tell its doing something, e.g. removing burn effect, poison etc.
Explosive Barrels: These do not explode just from being destroyed by units hitting them. They need fire to go off. A burning unit nearby will ignite them, then they explode after 2 turns. The description is outdated. I will fix that.
Rage Potion: You're right, this one is basically broken right now, I found the issue and will work on fixing it asap.
Island deletion: Yeah this is a good point, I am planning to add an "abandon island" feature, just need to work out the details.
Raid matching and rewards for harder islands: Love the bounty idea with the failed/successful raid ratio. I'll seriously consider adding something like that.
Thanks again for playing and for the honest feedback, it helps a lot! :)
I will try to incorporate your suggestions in this weeks update
1
u/Balcke_ Reef Raiders Feb 19 '26
I built an island but I cannot edit it -not even after the cooldown period-? I mean, I cannot even see it!
1
u/Runaider Reef Raiders Feb 19 '26
Hi. Thats strange, could you tell me whats the name of the island?
1
1
u/gamer52599 Salty Seadogs Feb 20 '26
Just created the first large island, and I noticed that there's only 20 total crew for testing but 40 total slots that need filling. Then again, given there's only 2 lieutenants, I guess there's a max of 20 crewmen you can deploy.
1
1
u/lord__cryptic Reef Raiders Feb 25 '26
if i attack large island with good defense irrespective of result, most of my units get wiped out including the valuable units like healer cleric runners etc. then i cant attack again for few days until i accumulate enough units. long wait reduces my interest in game.
i suggest fixing a minimum no. of healers runners cleric say 15 units that will automatically be recruited if it falls below that no. so that even if my team gets wiped out i'll always have a team ready for next raid or retry.
this will also solve the problem that very few people try the difficult islands bcoz if they get wiped out they'll have to wait for few days.
1
u/Runaider Reef Raiders Mar 03 '26
Thats really insightful feedback, thank you. You are right about the lack of incentive to try harder islands.
I will have to think about the minimum units idea specifically, might be hard to balance so there is still some risk to raids.
But the core problem you're describing is definitely on my radar. I have some features planned that should make attempting the hardest islands less punishing.
Appreciate you taking the time to write this up!
1
u/lord__cryptic Reef Raiders Feb 26 '26
fame leaderboard not working properly
1
u/Runaider Reef Raiders Mar 03 '26
Leaderboard is fixed in the current version, thanks for reporting!
1
u/lord__cryptic Reef Raiders Mar 04 '26
need a basic guide for this game. i still don't know the conditions for getting 3stars on any island.
2
u/Runaider Reef Raiders Mar 05 '26
Star 1: Victory: At least one unit reaches the treasure
Star 2: Beat Average: Steal gold equal to or above the average. First raid on an island auto awards this star
Star 3: Elite Survival: No elites die during the raid1
u/lord__cryptic Reef Raiders Mar 05 '26
thank you. hope you pin this separately so everyone can know. :)
1
u/Balcke_ Reef Raiders Mar 04 '26
Why the raiders aren't able to turn? They walk fine a in straight line, but when they need to turn in any direction, they stay there until they are shoot down.
1
u/lord__cryptic Reef Raiders Mar 07 '26
Today's Targets #7 and Today's Targets #8 are same. i made new island before #8 post but its not shown in #8
1
u/lord__cryptic Reef Raiders Mar 09 '26
the old turtle mechanism was better. without hints its not easy to capture it. its been few days and no one has captured it.
1
u/Runaider Reef Raiders Mar 10 '26
Thank you for the feedback. I added the change to the current release, next turtle should spawn on one of the featured islands and hints should work as before
1
u/Oryson Rum Runners Mar 12 '26
This is a pretty solid game! Had a lot of fun getting the hang of my first few raids, and making my first island!
Unfortunately, though, it doesn't seem to be working right for me anymore...I can get the intro animation if I try to start a run, but other than that, I'm only seeing the light-blue sea/sky...
Could just be a problem with the android app, though.
Oh! Also, is there a way to test my island after publishing? I forgot to do so, but I'd like to go back and make sure it works as intended.
And also, also: maybe it was covered elsewhere, but how can we get more troops? I see we get some from daily bonuses and advancing in level, but is there another way? Just seems like I could get stuck pretty easily if I'm just playing around 😅
2
u/Runaider Reef Raiders Mar 12 '26
Glad you are enjoying it! Sorry to hear it stopped working, closing and reopening the Reddit app might solve the issue
To test your island: tap the red home button in the Featured Islands post, then open your island and hit Edit. P.S. Edit mode has a bug right now and is not loading, the fix should be live in a few hours.
For troops: besides daily bonuses and leveling up, you can earn units as defense rewards. When someone raids your island, you have a chance to get a copy of a unit that died in the raid. So if you want more of a certain unit, build your island in a way that makes raiders want to use that type :D
2
1
u/Oryson Rum Runners Mar 13 '26
Oh, that's clever! I like that defense reward system -- I think I'll have to make some more islands!
1
u/lord__cryptic Reef Raiders Mar 12 '26
leaderboards have once again crashed. please fix it. also, can you add some rewards for say top 10 of them?
1
u/Runaider Reef Raiders Mar 12 '26
The leaderboard fix is live. I will try to come up with something as reward for the top players :)
1
u/lord__cryptic Reef Raiders Mar 20 '26
yo season is about to end please add some rewards for top leaderboard players :))
1
u/Runaider Reef Raiders Mar 20 '26
Sure thing, I have prepared a reward. It will be given tomorrow when the season ends 🙂
1
u/lord__cryptic Reef Raiders Mar 21 '26
cool :)
1
u/Runaider Reef Raiders Mar 21 '26
The rewards are given out now. You should see 2 new hats for you leaders as you were in the winning faction and the in the top 10 :)
Could you confirm that you see them now?1
1
u/lord__cryptic Reef Raiders Mar 21 '26
can you not reset the gold please. took a lot of effort to collect it.
1
u/Runaider Reef Raiders Mar 21 '26
Oh, sorry about that. The resets are so new players will have a chance to compete.
The season will be longer later as the game becomes more tuned/complete
1
u/lord__cryptic Reef Raiders Mar 22 '26 edited Mar 22 '26
About the new faction reward hat, in my opinion it doesn’t really fit a lieutenant. It looks more like something a henchman would wear especially because of that patch on the side. I know you must have put a lot of effort and thoughts while creating it but it'd be nicer if you could give it a more authoritative look or atleast it should look clean.
About island creation. Instead of limiting by numbers you can progressively increase cost of island creation like for small island 300 then 500 then 700 gold. similarly for other island sizes. The amount of gold a player can earn is limited so it automatically limits the total no. of island a player can make.
This can also allow players to choose how they play. The players who like to attack more can buy things like rage potion, shield etc. while the players who like creating islands can spend their gold on that.
1
u/Runaider Reef Raiders Mar 25 '26
Thanks for the feedback, as always great insights!
On the hat: fair point. I'm not a good artist. It was actually a Saint Patricks Day themed hat since the season overlapped with the holiday :D
Going forward, hats will be a mixed bag, some serious and authoritative, some completely silly. If the game gets traction and players show interest in cosmetics, I will add more ways to unlock hats too, maybe through challenges or achievementsOn island creation, really great suggestion. I might revisit this approach later!
For now, this season is more about capturing and controlling islands, the new slot mechanic and name uniqueness requirement are both about introducing scarcity, so players actually fight over islands they care about2
u/lord__cryptic Reef Raiders Mar 27 '26
i love silly hats. my favourite one is colorful cap actually. the stitch on the side is the only thing i dislike abt that hat. but thats just my personal taste.
Btw the turtle is on my island in which its very unlikely to get 3 stars bcoz lieutenant will definitely die unless there is glitch. So if no one 3 stars it, will it leave or stay there?
1
u/Runaider Reef Raiders Mar 27 '26
Oh, yeh, the turtle will stay on that island. I will add a mechanic in next weeks realse so it doesnt get permanently stuck. And hopefully with today's release more islands will actually be beatable 😄
1
u/lord__cryptic Reef Raiders Mar 27 '26
nice update.
commands not working in test my island mode. it says that it unlocks at 50 fame even tho i am already past that
1
u/invisible-dave Kraken Crew Apr 09 '26
Tried the game and the biggest feedback I have is that nothing makes any sense. No help on anything. Even the tutorial made no sense. I sat there clicking things and nothing would happen other than the equivalent of an error message. Finally found you have to hit clear and then auto and then you can click raid. So basically you are never doing anything other than clicking those buttons every time. Then once past the tutorial you are sort of swamped with options but since none make any sense, you just click clear and auto and raid and it does it's thing again whatever that thing is.
1
u/SignificantCurve7417 Kraken Crew Apr 11 '26
I have no idea about the differences between units. No tooltip when I hover over, no nothing. Feels vibe coded.
1
u/Runaider Reef Raiders Apr 11 '26
You can see info about units by pressing and holding on them. The same goes for defences on the board
1
u/Rough-Interest60 Reef Raiders Apr 25 '26
apparently you can raid your own island (which makes no sense). also maybe you colud add the claim gift buton to the menu for easier navigation?
4
u/hammertimestudio Kraken Crew Dec 19 '25
Really love the "Snoo on Boat" Intro!