Alien Flux has a nifty loggy thing in it that gives me a statistical sample of who's playing the game and so on using a variety of methods.

We know, for example, that 33% of our downloaders fail to run the game.

I've since discovered that about 6% of the people who download the game play it for well over an hour until it tells them to stop and buy it. (They get 6 goes after they've used up the 25 minutes of playing time). By the time they get to go number 6 this means their final go is likely to have lasted over an hour!!

The distribution of "number of plays" over the last couple of weeks is classic and very interesting.

sumplayed count(*)
0 151
1 188
2 60
3 27
4 23
5 9
6 30
7 4
8 2

The players who played 7 or 8 times are particularly inept; they generally haven't used up all their demo time.

So looking at the figures it's like there is a large number of people downloading the game who are simply totally disinterested in it. Imagine downloading an 11mb game and then playing it just once! These people are a waste of my time and bandwidth. Resolution: I've got to reduce the number of these people downloading my game.

Then there's a very shallow curve of people who have a couple of pops at the game, tailing off towards 5 plays... then suddenly it jumps up again at 6 plays, when the demo maxes out (and looking at the total playing time too they play far longer than the 1-5 go downloaders). These people are obviously enjoying themselves quite a bit and they've had an hour and a half of free fun out of me. Resolution: These are the people I should be concentrating my selling efforts on. The prognosis is good: if they are having as much fun as they seem to be I'd be getting a 6% conversion rate.

Looking at my sales figures (ha - sales figure, more like!) it's now clear that I've got a problem convincing these people - the ones who've been addicted to the game enough to actually play it for ages and ages until it made them stop! - to part with their cash. Without the logging information I'm collecting I'd never have known this was the problem. I'd be wondering - "Perhaps 75% of the people who download the game don't get it to work?" or "Perhaps everyone just plays it once and decides it's shit?" or "Maybe nobody plays it enough to max out the demo?"

Now I know - concrete, proper statistics. The only statistic I don't have hard data on is the proportion of people who download the game but never play when it's online, but I can make a guess based on the number of downloads I've had versus the number of installation logs I receive, and as far as I can see, this ratio is approximately 50%, so we can likely double the figures up there.

So to the subject of the thread: I'm sitting on 60 sales here. Why aren't they buying?

Cas :)

ps. one last little interesting statistic: so far, only a tiny (<1%) of people with failed installations actually go and download the drivers as we suggest. I hope this improves when we implement the system that hands the drivers to them on a plate...

Thank you for those very interesting stats, Cas.

The OpenGL drivers stats is a bit scary (the board game I'm working on is OpenGL... but this OpenGL thing has been discussed to death already).
I'll think about a more modular approach for my next "engine", to allow me to use several renderers at will...

I think I'm also going to implement some stats logging like you do!

Regarding your question, I have no idea. I didn't myself play Alien Flux long enough to see what your 60 potential buyers saw :-}.

Interseting Stats.

I understand your conclusion that at those playing about 6 times are getting the most enjoyment out of it and should be buying. You may however want to consider that these players/downloaders may be:

a) Young and may not have the means or credit card to pay for a full version.

b) They might be the type of people who download demos and play them to death without any intention of buying know matter what you do to entice them.

c) They might be a typical download.com user! Steve Pavlina and Addictive247 and probably others have mentioned that download.com downloaders conversions are poor.

I hope the above gives you food for thought.

Alfie

Personally I think the in game sales and marketing is still poor. You have to go much further to showing that what they get if they buy represents significant value and is interesting. How does the player see that the rest of the game is any good? You can't rely on the demo levels to sell the player. Its the stuff they don't have that they will buy. That's what you must present clearly and in such a way that it seems like they will receive significant value for their money.

About download.commers... again, we're making an assumption and not measuring it. Resolution: make a special build for download.commers and find out exactly what their conversion rate is. If they're dragging my conversion rate down significantly, I know that download.com is definitely not worth the $99 a month that they're charging me. (Well, in fact I already have decided to terminate Silver Service because with the rate we're getting downloads from them and the overall conversion rate means it's always running at a loss). On the other hand standard listing might be valuable, being a one-time $79 fee, bringing the same amount of visitors as Silver service. I'll upload the download.com build today and see how it does over the next month.

About people not old enough to pay for the game... well, that's an inherent problem with computer games, and it needs a solution. How can kids pay for stuff without credit cards? We've tended to, in the past, just shrug our shoulders and say, "They'll bug Dad until he pays for it if they want it." - and this might be the best we can do. However this is certainly not an optimal solution. Kids are basically not empowered to waste money on the internet and that's not going to change any time soon, especially given the troubles that adults already have with it. Resolution: find out a way to empower kids to spend their own money on the internet. Vouchers?

About people who never have any intention of paying: well, Steve P.'s sorting them out in an experiment right now and later this year I'll be doing the same thing, in a different way. Resolution: I won't be providing playable demos any more, just a rolling unlockable demo and better impulse buy facilities, and we'll see how that does.

Cas :)

Question, Cas: Are you telling people that the game "phones home" when it runs? I know a lot of folks would take offense at the thought if it wasn't made clear up front (or they would even if it was made clear, but then they just wouldn't install it).

Oh - and I also want to thank you for being so forthright about your sales and conversions. This has been very interesting data that you've been sharing with us.

Cas, don't you pay for a *lot* more bandwidth than you are using now, anyway? If so, concentrating on a higher conversion rate group wouldn't seem to be a good way to go until you actually have a bandwidth problem.

Originally posted by Coyote
Question, Cas: Are you telling people that the game "phones home" when it runs? I know a lot of folks would take offense at the thought if it wasn't made clear up front (or they would even if it was made clear, but then they just wouldn't install it).

This is a good point, if a program phones home without telling people about this, it can get a negative image in nearly no time. There are also some lists about programs which phone home, on the net.

I'm one of those people who don't install or use such programs or games except perhaps for the ones I really need and for these I block the home phoning in my firewall.

That's a lot of potential sales you're writing off by ignoring the people who didn't play it and who played it only once. Try and convert a small percentage of a lot of people rather than a large percentage of a small amount of people.

These figures tell me that it's a waste of time trying to convert those people!

Of the 33% who can't run the game we could probably assume that if they subsequently get the game working the ratio would pan out the same as the remaining 67%, and so we'd be looking at maybe a 50% increase in sales which would be nice. They are, however, very tricky to get. It's as simple as downloading a file from a website but these people simply can't be bothered. This leads me to believe that they might not actually be the sort of people who are interested in paying for a particular game anyway - they're just "supermarket grazers". So I'm going to do a little bit more to help them and then leave it at that.

Now, the large majority of people who only play it once can really, clearly, be seen to not enjoy the game at all. To play a game only once really is a sign of total indifference to it. I really don't want to waste time converting these people - entirely of their own accord they've said, "tried it once, didn't like it." It's got nothing to do with the other factors like price, GL driver issues, download size, website exposure, credit card payment worries, etc - it's purely because they don't like the game. In which case why did they download it in the first place based on the description? I've clearly given the wrong message for those downloaders if they thought they were going to have fun and plainly didn't.

So really I want to concentrate on the other end of the stats - the ones who play it loads and who are subsequently prevented from playing any more.

Cas :)

ps. started a new thread about "phoning home" as it's way off topic but interesting in its own right.

Cas :)

why did they download it in the first place based on the description?

Because they liked the sound of it and they liked the look of it?

I downloaded the game because of these reasons and played it once because of your control system.

It is impossible to tell how a game plays based on some screen shots and a description of the game - especially when the control system is such that it doesn't meet expectations.

SC

Surely a 50% increase in sale sis worth following up? How long would it take to write a Direct 3D driver? Maybe it should be something to consider for future projects? Especially if more and more people are getting windows xp.

As for people who don't like it not buying it. The question "why did they download it in the first place based on the description?" is a strange one to ask. Maybe they're looking for exactly the type of game but don't like your implementation? (controls?).

I don't think it would be a case of every person who tried it once had no intention to buy it and had mistakenly downloaded your game thinking it was something else. Every person who downloads your game is a potential customer.

By ignoring those 2 groups you're ignoring 81% of the people who downloaded your game. I still feel that's quite a lot of people to write off.

To lose 5 lives in a row because you didn't grasp the controls fully on your first ever go is totally expected. Even I was crap at it when I started playing! But to then simply move on without even having a single other go is just plain straightforward: you didn't see anything in the game, really, that made you want to play it in the first place. The screenshots and so on fairly clearly show you that the game is about shooting stuff and rescuing fluffies - but you were so disinclined to find that idea fun that you didn't bother having a single other go to see if you could get the hang of it.

In other words, you were a waste of bandwidth! :D You honestly had no intention of playing a shoot-em-up game that involved defending cute furry creatures did you? You were really just there to look at it and find out what all the fuss was about. That's not precisely what I need to filter out because all of your feedback has been invaluable, but really, I need people who want to shoot relentless hordes of sprites to bits on the bleeding edge of adrenaline exhaustion.

Cas :)

By the description and screenshots of your game I would have thought it was some along the lines of Defender meets Asteroids. I have very fond memories of both games, and I still enjoy Defender. It's a classic piece of game design and a very good example of a balanced difficulty curve.

I can only say that your game felt awkward to use and was simply frustrating (not the good kind).

I say give the 38% of idiots what they want!

SC

A 50% increase in exposure is worth following up but I suspect that the kind of people who don't already have drivers are a poorer converting rate than those that do - in other words it's a diminishing return. There's only one way to find out: get the drivers to the people. I'm working on that; you'll know the results soon.

Anyone who doesn't like the controls but plays only once is truly a waste of time. If you even had a glimmer of interest in a shoot-em-up game you'd play it at least once more just to see if you got any better at it. We're talking here about people who literally play a single game for between 20 seconds to 5 minutes and then simply exit and do something else, never ever to return. They're never going to buy, no matter how stupid I make the controls. They are simply not interested in this kind of game. I fully expect that if you put the stats log in your games you'd get exactly the same pattern. I know myself I've done this with countless games I've seen on these forums - download, play once, forget. I was never interested in buying them, I just wanted to see what you guys are up to.

And let's not forget the Big Sales Experiment thread. Steve P. has basically said as much as he's ignoring 99% of his customers at the moment so 1% will buy the games! That's plain crazy and he's doing something about it. I know I've got a reasonable 6% of potential customers who are definitely worth targeting, so I might as well make the effort on those guys instead of the other 94% because it'll be far, far easier to do.

Cas :)

By the way, Defender was one of the best ever games written, wrapped up in the most difficult controls ever conceived, and with the most extreme difficulty level you've ever come up against. Try again on MAME and then have another go on (the latest 1.4h) AF and see the difference in difficulty curves and controls.

Cas :)

I have played AF twice now. Once on the original release, and another on I think 1.4. I'd love to enjoy the game. It looks like it could be a lot of fun, but the control system instantly puts me on a downer.

I think I will give Defender a go when I get a chance. As I recall though, Defender's controls are anything BUT complicated. You can have a blast simply by holding thrust, using up and down and firing like a maniac. Anyone can play it like that. And as the game gets more difficult, you can learn to use the more advanced controls to get better at the game.

Of course, in those days games were harder. People expected a challenge, and I guess I know how to play Defender now, so the controls don't 'surprise' me. I'm more than willing to consider that if I WAS to try Defender fresh I might get a fright.

But the times, they are a changin', and I think I (and probably most others that have mentioned the controls) expect games to be a bit more instantly accessible. Maybe I've gone soft... :eek:

I don't think it's a game being difficult that I don't like. The original WipEout is one of my favourite PS1 titles. It took me about a week to get past the first track! But the controls made sense from the start, and I could see that it was the game that was difficult, not that the controls were stopping me doing what I wanted to do.

I will now not mention the control system again when discussing AF. ;)

SC

Well, that's a sure way to die in 5 seconds in Defender!
In AF you can in fact just sit still and point at the aliens and kill them. It's no harder than whack-a-mole. There are only two buttons to press in Rookie - move and shoot - and you're forced to play rookie on your first go. So maybe Rookie is so boringly easy they can't be bothered to try Normal when it gets unlocked? Unfortunately the logs can't tell me that :( Hence my cherry picking tactic: convert those that are hooked.

Cas :)

I'm another one that downloaded and only played twice. This is because:

1) Having broadband means downloading an 11mb file out of curiosity is no big deal.

2) I always like to check out what other indies are up to, and download most of the demos I come across that look good.

3) It did look good.

4) But I generally don't play games very much anymore, and very rarely does a shareware game actually tempt me to buy.

So I guess I'm in your undesirable camp... but heck, that's all part of the fun and games of shareware... and while I'm not really interested in purchasing (and I thought the controls were fine BTW), I now know and respect your work and will be sure to follow up on any future Puppy Games releases too. Which isn't as good as a sale I know, but it's something, I guess.

Well, it has to be said that you lot don't really count as a sales target anyway :) But generally speaking it's the hundreds of normal visitors that don't care one way or the other that are the problem.

Cas :)

It *should* appeal to shooter fans because it's different... I love Galaga/Space Invaders forever but I'm highly unlikely to pay for any variation on that gameplay simply because there are so many implementations available for free. (Ditto anything that involves block-dropping, or Breakout.)

I like to blow 2D things up. :) New ways of blowing things up are more appealing than the same old ways. But maybe I'm just too geeky and retro to be typical...

(My other half, however, thinks it's a terrible game because the cute widdle fluffies keep dying and that makes him sad. *grin* We have highly divergent gameplay tastes.)

Anyway, I'll link to and thumbs-up the game (one of these days, when I'm not too busy recovering from reinstalling windows) but somehow I don't think my target market and your target market are the same... :)

Ahaha! I hope they aren't or it'll confirm my suspicions that there are some weird people roaming the streets these days...!

Cas :)

This is a very very well made game. Im most impressed, and it worked first time for me without any driver probelms. Im suprised it isnt selling better. I think you and the guy who did mutant storm should team up, im sure the people who bought one game would be interested in the other.

'sfunny you should say that Chris.... ;)

Cas :)

Originally posted by princec
Now, the large majority of people who only play it once can really, clearly, be seen to not enjoy the game at all. To play a game only once really is a sign of total indifference to it. I really don't want to waste time converting these people - entirely of their own accord they've said, "tried it once, didn't like it." It's got nothing to do with the other factors like price, GL driver issues, download size, website exposure, credit card payment worries, etc - it's purely because they don't like the game. In which case why did they download it in the first place based on the description? I've clearly given the wrong message for those downloaders if they thought they were going to have fun and plainly didn't.
I really do think that this might be your your best bet to address - not to ignore. When I was doing console games what was drilled constantly in our heads by our producers at Sony was to focus on the first 10-15 minutes of gameplay. That was where you were going to lose people that would otherwise buy your game. You might have the deepest, coolest, most involved gameplay ever written that would leave Shigeru Miyamoto frantically taking notes - but if you can't get them hooked within the first ten minutes, they are never going to see it. They'll be popping in some other game that they borrowed from a friend or rented from Blockbuster - or in our case now, downloaded from the web - and moving right along.

Making an appeal to Defender isn't going to cut it - that is a different animal from a different era. It was an arcade game, and arcade games were designed to take someone's quarter within 2 minutes until they became HIGHLY skilled. ALL arcade games were like this. Defender was a scary, intimidating game --- but because it was played in a public place, a certain machismo became associated with playing and mastering the game. And of course, once it became popular enough to get "over the hump" it reached critical mass, which helped it sell itself to players.

You don't have any of these things going for you. Your primary job is to convince players within 10 minutes that this is quite possibly the most fun they've had in front of their computers in their life, and make them ready to click the "purchase" button right then and there. I'd say that's equally as important as making sure that at the end of the demo your players are left hungry for more.

It's a tall order, but I think you might be doing yourself a disservice to simply chalk the "browsers" up to a lost cause.

Interesting thread, Princec, and thanks a lot for the informative statistics - great way to find out about your potential customers!

As for Defender, the controls seemed to be complicated really only for the keyboard version, but I think joystick control makes it no longer complicated (as in my version).

I'm not going to comment on the topic of this thread but I DID want to say that you did a GREAT job on Alien Flux. It's a very well done title and I too am surprised that it isn't selling better.

If I had to make some GUESSES about your lackluster sales I suppose I'd list the following possibilities:

1. IS YOUR GAME A TWEENER?
Your graphics and sound effects are excellent and I could EASILY see this game appealing to a hardcore audience. But could these testosterone-driven fans be turned off by the cute fuzzy tribbles? My wife liked the look of your game and she LOVED the cute pink critters... but she hated accidentally killing them. Perhaps you're be'TWEEN audiences?

2. ARE THE CONTROLS TOO SIMPLISTIC?
Despite the great animation and effects the gameplay feels a bit like one of those "point and click" titles. (At least initially.) See a target... click on it. See a target... click on it. See a target... click on it. I know there's more to it, but in the first five minutes that thought did pop into my head.

Would the game sell better with Asteroids-style controls? I don't know; it's hard to play games like that with a keyboard. (But you might look into it.)

3. IS THERE ENOUGH VARIETY?
I played through the first nine levels and it didn't really feel like the game was changing that much. You introduced new enemies and weapons but they didn't vary my play experience enough to make me slobber with anticipation about the upcoming levels.

Still, it's one of the best executed shareware titles I've seen. VERY polished. I'm not sure why but it reminded me of a Jeff Minter title. (Without the insane difficulty. Hehe.)

Good luck with it and I hope your sales pick up.

But could these testosterone-driven fans be turned off by the cute fuzzy tribbles?


I've heard this said a few times now, and each time I get a sick feeling in my stomach... is the videogame audience is really so simpleminded, that only rigidly adhering to the standard genres and cliches is acceptable? Looking at the state of the retail market would indicate that yes, it is. But I really, really hope it isn't true...

Mind you, going by the number of times I've heard it said that Nintendo games are just for kids (because all "grown up" games have to look like bad macho fantasy art, apparently), I don't know... maybe there really is no hope.

Originally posted by Anthony Flack
I've heard this said a few times now, and each time I get a sick feeling in my stomach... is the videogame audience is really so simpleminded, that only rigidly adhering to the standard genres and cliches is acceptable? Looking at the state of the retail market would indicate that yes, it is. But I really, really hope it isn't true...

Mind you, going by the number of times I've heard it said that Nintendo games are just for kids (because all "grown up" games have to look like bad macho fantasy art, apparently), I don't know... maybe there really is no hope.

Well I don't know how sales figures are but if the best the retail industry can turn out is currently available in stores I'd guess they're in serious trouble. I certainly can't spot anything worth picking up. And I really want a new game.

Me too :( I guess I'll just have to write the bugger myself.

Cas :)

i played alien flux a few minutes ago for the 2nd time... i really love the genre, and the game looks really nice... also i think the controls are not bad, at least when you use the mouse.

but as i played to the 3rd level, i kind of lost interest... i don't think there's enough variety.

normally what gets me to keep playing is the sense that i want to see what the next level is like - in alien flux, every level is the same, from what i've seen, although there are different characters. maybe if there were some kind of maze component, stuff in your way... i don't know exactly.

i hope the feedback helps you in some way.

I am not any kind of expert in generating sales at this point. I've sold only a dozen copies of Brickman, but I have generated one interesting stat:

90% of my sales have been to women.

I didn't intend this, nor gear it towards women in any way. Although know I think I might change the name to Brickgirl or Brickchick or something like that, change the main character and promote it on girl gamer sites.

But, I've had this out since August and as I said, only a dozen sales. People seem to be playing it, sometimes as much as 20 times. Most people about 3 separate times. Why aren't they buying? I've tried giving more levels, less levels, nothing changed the sales. I tried adding more obvious promotion when you leave the game, and in-game promotion of the fact that it's shareware, get more levels, etc, and it made absolutely no effect on sales.

I get about 300 downloads a day, and have gotten over 20,000 downloads total, this doesn't include downloads from sites that are hosting it themselves, which i can't really count.

Does anyone have any ideas? Maybe the game is crap and only me and 12 other people like it?


http://www.techhouseliving.com/fortressgamestudio/BRICKMAN.exe

What you're saying is that you didn't get past level 3? There are a whole plethora of freaky gidrahs awaiting past level 3, and a bunch of bosses... it just gets more and more manic and crazy - if that's not your thing, then... that's not your thing.

(I seem to be getting terrible download bandwidth from your site for some reason)

Cas :)

no, what i'm saying is that i finally lost my first life on level 3, and i wasn't seeing enough changes fast enough to hold my interest.

maybe if cool stuff comes up after level 3, it should be faster to get to level 3 then.

hmm well i just played to level 8.

i used the mouse, and i wished there was a mode to move the ship backwards. because if you want to shoot, and back away at the same, you really can't do it with the mouse.

i think the game is good, actually i think i'm surprised it doesn't sell better, although for me personally it didn't hold me long enough. i want to give you something better than that, but it goes back to what i said before, i think i really like to explore varying levels (which is what you'll see in brickman)

i will have to check into the slow downloads, maybe i need to host elsewhere.

I think so. It's currently trundling in at 0.4kps and I lost the connection twice. It says it'll take 3 more hours at this rate; but I'm going to cancel it now.

hmm i just rebooted the server, is it still crap?

if so, who has suggestions on where to host it supercheap?

Maybe put your game on a good download site, and point your demo download link on your site there. Or Get a generic $7.95 a month account and you can have many gigs of bandwidth from there.

I use rosehosting, a virtual server place. I get about 20 gigs of transfer a month and pseudo root access for 29.95. But when I need more bandwidth for demo downloads I'll do what I mentioned above.

Have fun!
http://www.holepit.com/

Yes it's still crap. Very, very crap. As in, it's been going for hours, 68% done ATM, varies between 0.2k/sec and nothing. Lost the connection altogether 38 times so far.

I'm trying to check out Brickman, and here's a thought:

You say on your site:
"Download a demo here. Keep in mind that this is a prerelease beta test and there are bugs!"

and:
"The full version and the demo version are included in one download. You must register in order to unlock all the levels."

So basically you're telling the potential customer : "it's not finished yet, and contains bugs, but please buy it.". I'm not a marketing expert, but this doesn't feel like it would convince me to buy your game. (And yes, your site is mega slow, while I've typed this message, the 4 tumbsized screenshots still haven't loaded ....

Dominique

I think with such slow download speed you get less than 300 downloads a day. This may be the reason why you don't get many sales - conversion rate can be high, but you just don't get many downloads.
Oh, and try putting the price in the visible place on the site!

Well, it finally arrived... around 8 hours and 65 lost connections later. And... well, first impression was, I liked it! I love the graphics. Presentation is very good. I didn't find any bugs either, so take that discouraging message down off your site RIGHT NOW.

After playing for a while, however, I found that the levels were awfully big, the brickman walks quite slowly, and I wasn't really being challenged much - I just spent a lot of time trudging around. I got bored before finishing the demo, which is a very bad sign, and a sure sign I won't be buying it! However, strangely, I still think I quite like the game...

The music is tremendously irritating, but that fits in with the retro theme... err, I guess...

And hey! Another blitz user, huh? But c'mon, give it a proper custom icon...

Originally posted by fortressgame

Although know I think I might change the name to Brickgirl or Brickchick or something like that, change the main character and promote it on girl gamer sites.
http://www.techhouseliving.com/fortressgamestudio/BRICKMAN.exe

It would be interesting to hear how your sales react to this. Because, from what I have heard from my wife, she usually doesnt have any interest in games "made for girls".
I think Terry Pratchett nailed it, when refering to how people"*think* they should communicate with kids:
"Its silly to teach children how to be children. They`re naturally good at it".

Or something like that.

Hi,

I downloaded brickman.exe, and tried to execute it, but, ..... nothing happens!

(I'm using WinXP Pro on & P4 2.4Ghz with 1Mb of RAM & a Radeon 8500)

I rebooted the machine, & tried again, but still nothing ...

Dominique
:confused:

tried to download it... it went to 800bytes/sec, stopped and then refused to reconnect :/

Half the internet is b0rked today mind you; we're in the grip of a particularly fierce solar storm. My ISDN drops out every minute.

Cas :)

it's interesting because i did not get a single person telling me the downloads weren't working before yesterday and i did notice a tremendous slowdown to many sites/downloads, also i don't seem to have a lot of bad downloads. but i'm still going to move it - i only have 384kbps up/down right now.

as for 'games for girls', i agree - cool thing is that i can try that simple change and see what happens, so it should be interesting at the least.

as for losing interest, good comment. i have been thinking of making smaller levels... the covering of a lot of space is somehow interesting to me, but it sounds like i need to shrink the distances? add more 'stuff'? like what, level bosses, things like that? i was thinking of adding fireball throwing hydra that you have to beat on with brushes to kill for one thing...

as for music, hit N to turn it off (M was used for the map). It's in the docs and its in those ugly signs that give you info as you play, but perhaps it needs to be in a menu system up front.

it has been difficult to get good feedback like this. and personally i really like playing the game as it is, even the large levels too, so this is extremely helpful!

Nah, I knew you could turn it off - but I guess it'd be better if it wasn't irritating to begin with?

I think the big levels are cool, but some of the sections were too sparse, probably. I think if you want to keep them sparse in order for them to be nice and easy for the demo, then the first levels at least should be smaller.