Colonist.io 2022 Summary

Colonist.io 2022 Summary
New Colonist Home Page
New Colonist Home Page

Hey Colonist Community,

We're grateful for all the support the community has provided for Colonist.

  • In 2019, Colonist was a niche game with a single game mode and only the most hardcore Catan players played.
  • In 2020, Colonist had 4 expansions and was played by many casual players.
  • In 2021, Colonist had 8 expansions, 12 maps, and most of North America knows someone who played Colonist.
  • In 2022, Colonist created a vibrant competitive community and leaderboards in all countries.
Colonist Leaderboard
Leaderboards

Here is a recap of 2022 and our plans for 2023:

Game Stats:

Category Jan 2020 Jan 2021 Jan 2022 Jan 2023
Yearly Unique Players 🤷‍ 1,669,863 1,972,919 2,146,223
Monthly Active Players 53,471 701,851 714,110 946,430
New Registered Players 6984 287,733 182,259 249,351
Games Played 🤷‍ 13,833,827 19,334,709 25,352,018
Years of Game Time 37 461 535 675
Average Minutes Per Game 🤷‍ 17 15 14

In 2022 we released 28 versions with countless fixes & features.

Covid restrictions lifting slowed our traffic growth. This year at our peak we had 3,774 concurrent users, compared to 5,200 last year.

This year Omar, Logan, Simon, Mau, Devyesh & Gabriel joined our team, increasing the speed and quality of our work.

We hosted our 2nd ever Colonist Con! If you couldn't make it, watch on YouTube.

Big Features:

We built the 5 most requested features from our community:

  1. Started working on the most requested feature, a Mobile App on iOS & Android!
  2. Added Ranked Games & Leaderboards for 1v1, 4 Player, and Cities & Knights
  3. Built a Friends System
  4. Added new Payment Methods
  5. Created the ability to Pause Games

In addition to the above features, we:

  • Built Membership feature which gives access to features and maps
  • Started producing and adding new sound effects
  • Optimized Lobby and Rooms
  • Redesigned Home and Profile page

Development Stats:

Category Jan 2021 Jan 2022 Jan 2023
Days in development 830 1,195 1,560
Public release versions 97 122.1 149
Lines of TS code 55,042 81,709 108,292
Lines of TS tests 20,752 24,442 33,397
Total lines of TS Code 75,794 106,151 141,689 (14 books)
Suggestions done 219 268 336
Team size 4 7 12

This leads to different kinds of comparisons:

Category Jan 2021 Jan 2022 Jan 2023
Lines of code per user 0.26 0.14 0.06
Years of game time per resolved suggestion 2.1 10.9 9.9
Days of game time for each line of code 2.2 1.8 1.7

This shows that making changes, improving things, and fixing even small annoyances in the game is worth it. - Kovarex

Colonist Social Stats:

Category Jan 2020 Jan 2021 Jan 2022 Jan 2023
Discord Members ~2,000 18,489 15,017 23,858
r/Colonist Members 36 574 1,034 1,533
Twitter Followers ~50 292 476 692
Instagram Followers ~50 325 2,432 2,440
Youtube Subscribers 16 72 941 987
Twitch Followers 0 400 757 1,300

We received overwhelming support from the community, including assistance with organizing tournaments, identifying bugs, and providing general support.

Colonist Community Stats:

Category Jan 2020 Jan 2021 Jan 2022 Jan 2023
r/Catan Members 22,718 34,584 44,055 65,087
DyLighted - Catan 1,820 24,000 45,600 58,900
DyLighted Plays Catan - - - 8,140
ThePhantomCatan - - - 3,740
Treeckosaurus Gaming 429 1,800 2,710 3,290
Spathy - - 519 3,270
Catan Blunders - - 170 1,390
Hakuna Matata - Catan - 17 424 1,120
Elly Catan - - - 1,020
  • In 2021, only 3 YouTubers had more than 1,000 subscribers and the first 2 Colonist/Catan YouTubers made it their full-time job.
  • In 2022, 8 Colonist YouTubers have more than 1,000 subscribers, and more talented creators enter the space each week.
  • Coolest thing that happened this year: Adam proposed to Zoe during a Colonist game! Read here: The Trade of a Lifetime

2023 Plans:

Here is our public to-do list. While we will not ignore feature requests made by current players, our primary focus this year will be on expanding our player base.

Some of the ways we plan to do this is:

  • Launching on new platforms such as mobile
  • Translating game into multiple languages
  • UX improvements
  • Trade system improvements
  • Game performance improvements

Want to help us accomplish these goals? We're looking to increase the size of our team, join Colonist now!