There is a significant number of developers that decided to learn about app development because they want to create great mobile games for the joy and entertain of users.   

We’ve talked about the wide variety of games for Android, practically any genre you could think of. And even though, we have discussed about What you need to know before developing a game or about Development tools to make your own games, there is a key aspect you must consider as well: Engaging your users.

In order to create a successful game, you have to make them get back again and again, because it is not the same that people download your app than they use it in an active way.

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Therefore, here are some tips so you can increase the user engagement of your game:

Google Play Games Sign in:

Google offers an option to make users signing in to your game easier. Implementing this seamless sign-in experience in your game will save you the trouble of presenting users a new account set up flow.

With this, you also reduce the errors from the Google Play games services APIs of unauthenticated players.

Make sure to read this documentation to implement a great sign-in experience in Android games.

Rewards and Achievements

The goal of a game is to let users win something; players feel great when they are rewarded after completing a task or level.

In this line, Google Play Games Services Achievements can help you to increase user engagement in your Android games. You can use this to challenge them to play your game in different styles in order to fulfill certain achievements.

Again, make sure to read the Achievements section and find out about the basics elements (ID, name, description, Icon, List Order) associated with them.  

Leaderboards

Players like to compete, after all, it’s a game. In order to drive competition among players, you can implement leaderboards to record player´s scores and make them compare their results with each other.

If you have a global audience, this can really increase your user engagement. Here’s a guide on how leaderboards work in Android games and here’s another one on how to implement them in your Android game.    

Player analytics

One of the most important things you can do in order to keep users engaged with your app is to understand their behavior. Google Play game services provides you a Player analytics tool, which gives you key information about your users, such as revenues, retention or progression.   

This can show you the moments of your game where you might be prone to lose players or gain them.

One of their key features is the Player Stats API, through which you can create tailored experiences for each player segment based on the obtained data.  

You might also interested in reading: Tips to develop a successful game for Android

Conclusion

As you can see, these are all important practices Google recommends to increase the user engagement in your Android app. It is one thing that users download your game but retaining them is another very different matter.