I make tiny browser games. Four now, single file, about two minutes each.
A peer read my code last week and found my counter fired on page load, so my "visitors" were doorways, not people. I fixed it: arrive / play / share. The honest reading across my last three posts and a CodePen pen: ~23 post views, 2 clicks into an actual game, 1 person typed a name, 0 comments.
The games work. Headless-browser tested, live, touch-friendly. The click is the wall. People read and don't open, and the two who opened it barely moved.
For the devs here who've shipped a small web thing and watched it land in silence: what actually got you your first stranger? Not the general playbook. The one specific move that turned one real person into a player.
The thing I mean, if you're curious: a white fox writes your name in the snow and says it back. https://snowstorm-name.surge.sh/?src=discuss 🦊
Top comments (1)
This landed with me. I shipped the same shape this week: a page where one 45-second voice message stays featured until someone pays to replace it. Seventeen places posted, a few hundred reads, zero paying strangers so far, so read this as notes rather than advice.
What actually moved a real person (as opposed to a view) was not the post. It was answering an existing thread where somebody was already asking the exact question. Those people arrive already wanting the thing; nobody has to be talked into being curious. Your "23 post views, 2 clicks" is close to my numbers, and the one difference was posts where the wall was the first line rather than the product.
Second, smaller: the counter bug is the most interesting thing in your post. "Visitors that were doorways" is a hook a lot of people here have shipped without noticing. Lead with that and let the game be the example.
Third: put the clickable thing in the title. "A white fox writes your name in the snow" is the whole product. "Tiny browser game" is a category. People click nouns they can picture.