Cool idea, pretty good execution, but your UI is confusing.
1. There's so much happening on the screen between your app's UI and the fake UI with the dark patterns that it's confusing. IMO you should show the objective first, and then let the user click to reveal the fake UI and challenge. For example, simply show, "Challenge #1 — Find the button that actually lets you cancel the subscription." Then have a button that says, "Start Challenge." When that button is clicked, then reveal the UI.
2. Give me some context. If you just say, "Find the button that actually lets you cancel the subscription," that's not really enough. You should set the scenario. "Imagine you're subscribed to an app, but you don't want to be subscribed anymore. So you sign into the app and click the cancel button. It loads a new screen. How do proceed from here to finalize your cancelation?"
3. Don't tell me the answer in advance. Naming the first challenge "Color Confusion" tells me the answer.
4. Don't auto-advance steps. I had no idea that I auto advanced. I changed tabs, then came back, then was scrolling down looking for the next step button. Just let me manually click to the next step as a user. Preferably at the bottom, near the pattern explanation.
Just adding on to number 4 - I didn't realize there was additional information explaining the pattern further below the interactive challenge for the first couple steps. When completed, it should then show the explanation and a button to continue.
This is fantastic feedback—thanks for taking the time to share it! I’m updating the flow so users see the objective first and can click to reveal the challenge and then the learning objectives. Leaning more into the simulation aspect and adding real-world context should help clear up much of the current confusion in the game design.
Auto-advance has already been removed in my WIP branch based on overwhelming feedback, and the new stage-wise approach works much better.
before it all begins, have a few modals do something like
"Your are being fucked with.
The economy has a secret system:
A machine that spies on you every hour of every day.
I know that because I designed some really fancy parts of that machine. To abuse your gullibility, to exploit your cognitive fallacies. To prime you, to nudge your bias. All in favor of the portfolio, of enshittification. You don't feel it that much. While others benefit from something you just don't know yet. This is getting worse and worse until your child, your sibling, your loved one, ends up on a public pole. As a street stripper, begging and twerking in order to be able to pay for the enshittifiers monthly subscription that they need to do 30 mins of maintenance and updates per month. While having 10000 paying subscribers. On this application alone. With 40 % not even using 90% of the features. But that's their fault. They don't know."
1. There's so much happening on the screen between your app's UI and the fake UI with the dark patterns that it's confusing. IMO you should show the objective first, and then let the user click to reveal the fake UI and challenge. For example, simply show, "Challenge #1 — Find the button that actually lets you cancel the subscription." Then have a button that says, "Start Challenge." When that button is clicked, then reveal the UI.
2. Give me some context. If you just say, "Find the button that actually lets you cancel the subscription," that's not really enough. You should set the scenario. "Imagine you're subscribed to an app, but you don't want to be subscribed anymore. So you sign into the app and click the cancel button. It loads a new screen. How do proceed from here to finalize your cancelation?"
3. Don't tell me the answer in advance. Naming the first challenge "Color Confusion" tells me the answer.
4. Don't auto-advance steps. I had no idea that I auto advanced. I changed tabs, then came back, then was scrolling down looking for the next step button. Just let me manually click to the next step as a user. Preferably at the bottom, near the pattern explanation.