While a dedicated Matrix chat might be a bit much for The Button at this stage, I think maintaining interest in the game via this community at the very least will not only help this game do better and better with each season to the next, but also serve as a tool for user retention across The Fediverse as a whole (requiring a Fediverse account is valuable to that end).

While tools like Lemmy-Federate, Fediverse Observer, and Fediseer are useful as support infrastructure for the Fediverse, I think The Button has the potential to serve that role in a more social way, more creative than something like r/place was for Reddit, in a manner that wouldn't be possible on a platform with the scale of Reddit.

In a way, The Button being a flagship project of .zip illustrates how collaboration between instances enhances the Threadiverse project as a whole: Fediseer is associated with dbzer0, Lemmy-Federate with .world, Lemmy itself with .ml, and Piefed itself with piefed.social.

In terms of maximizing the potential for The Button in serving this role, I have a few suggestions (hopefully some useful), and encourage others to iterate upon my ideas or make suggestions of their own as to how participation may be encouraged and fostered beyond joining, tapping the button, and leaving for the rest of the season.

• Some form of leadership is necessary to onboard new users as to the gameplay and new features associated with each season as it unfolds. As @[email protected] is naturally only available at certain times, active users have successfully been performing this task to various degrees, hopefully to the benefit of new user retention. With the Senator and Chancellor system in Season 3, not only were active users encouraged to seek leadership positions, but everyone benefitted by having guidance in roleplaying via gameplay mechanics reserved for a subset of elected users. Should this system return in future iterations, I think that more options for gameplay variation should be entrusted on the elected roles, including different options specifically for Senators, or whatever the equivalent for that role would be; this could include an option to vote to recall the Chancellor (or role-equivalent) if needed. In Season 3, use of the Chancellor role ranged from survival-maximization (i.e. only handing out extra button presses) to roleplay-oriented (announcement messages), so perhaps in the future a mix of both types of actions could be encouraged to sustain roleplay while allowing the Chancellor (and potentially Senators) to intelligently wield their powers to help the button last longer. In terms of specific powers, adding 30 minutes to the button and locking it in the absence of other gameplay mechanics might leave some players with nothing to do, though it had the benefit of decreasing the risk of the button dying; perhaps the downsides could be diminished with the addition of a mechanic other than just pressing the button?

• Several interesting new features were added to the website that aid in gamifying it; here's a few potential format adjustments: making usernames tappable to view their profile statistics page, retaining season-specific group names on the Leaderboards screen (the Season 3 team names now just list the colors, rather than their Star Wars equivalents), fixing the theming button to the left of the volume button at the top-right (the dropdown theme window seems to get stuck behind the main window on iOS Safari) [seemingly fixed since I made the post], fixing the background on the "How to play" screen (transparent on iOS Safari below "No passwords, no emails."), and fixing the chat consistently listing 60 messages.

• In terms of gameplay adjustments, many things could theoretically be added to increase complexity, though I think a key part of the experience was the social component; features that promote interaction should be encouraged. Still, puzzle interaction in Season 3 demonstrated that some players look for other gameplay components to interact for the challenge of it (with the potential for additional team rewards being a bonus), so I certainly think additional puzzles would aid in adding complexity in a manner that players can cooperate on solving together (without directly passing around answers). As others have noted, solution entry should be adjusted to not accidentally reveal near-correct answers to others. In terms of gameplay mechanics that anyone could do without puzzle-solving, I think some elements from unique incremental games could be a source of inspiration without this game in itself becoming one (something that would take away from its social focus). Such potential inspirations include the leaderboard of dripstat, the crank and battery charging features of Crank, and the variety in the mechanics of Universal Paperclips. Most importantly, anything added should encourage interaction.

• As the button's survival is the primary gameplay mechanic, additional indicators of its at-risk status and limited means of giving other players extra chances to use their presses (i.e. dedicated players getting time-freezes, quizzes to add time to the button, etc.) could aid in this. Wasteful presses should ideally also be discouraged, as they negate the point of handing out such presses in the first place. Ultimately, there should still always be the risk of the button running out of time as an incentive to participate. The Button also benefits from being a time-limited event to maintain a high level of participant interest throughout.

Most importantly of all, the game should be an enjoyable experience for everyone involved; whichever changes are made, I look forward to Season 4! 👍