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Player-Game Fit

See how well a game matches different player types. Use this view to understand who the game appeals to and why.

Updated over a week ago

Player–Game Fit shows how well a game appeals to different types of players based on design elements, systems, and emotional triggers. It's one of the most powerful tools in Lumos for understanding who you're designing for — or who you might be overlooking.

Whether you’re validating a concept, refining a pitch, or analyzing a competitor, Player–Game Fit helps you bring player psychology into your decision-making.

Player Personas

Lumos defines eight unique player personas based on their core motivations:

  • Warriors - Warriors enjoy the feeling of power that comes with outlasting and defeating enemies. They love competitive features.
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  • Challengers - Extremely goal-oriented; these players love challenges and crave recognition & validation.
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  • Adrenaline Junkies - These players love immediate action. They prefer dynamic and fast-paced games for the dopamine hit.
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  • Planners - Strategic thinking, planning, and management are important to these players. They love complex games with lots of depth.
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  • Creators - Creators want to express their personal tastes through gameplay. They prefer games that offer lots of customization and creation.
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  • Explorers - Driven by the hope to find new things, these players prefer games that satisfy their curiosity.
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  • Zen Gamers - These players love calming and soothing games. They play games to relax and relieve stress.
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  • Social Gamers - These players love communication, teamwork, and competitive games. They enjoy social interactions.
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These personas are calculated by a robust model that evaluates over 22,000 possible game features to estimate how each player type would respond. The model is fully transparent — you can see the exact features that influence each persona’s appeal directly on the Player–Game Fit overlay.

Navigate to Player–Game Fit

  1. Search/open any Game

  2. Scroll to the section labeled Player–Game Fit in the Game Breakdown page

  3. You’ll see a radar chart with all personas mapped by appeal level

Interpret the Radar Chart

Each point on the chart reflects how appealing the game is to a specific persona:

  • High appeal = strong alignment with that player type
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  • Moderate = partial alignment
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  • Low = minimal or no appeal
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A balanced chart suggests broad appeal across multiple personas, while a spiky chart indicates targeted appeal, highlighting specific player types.

Example: A game with high appeal to Planners and Challengers but low appeal to Social Gamers likely targets strategic solo play rather than multiplayer or cooperative experiences.

View appeal by Feature (go deeper)

Click “View appeal by feature” to open a detailed modal that breaks down which features are influencing each persona’s appeal.

This is where you can:

  • See which mechanics boost appeal for a certain persona

  • Compare appeal patterns across similar games
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Each concept tag is clickable, leading to a deeper analysis of how it performs across the market, allowing you to pinpoint which features drive appeal for your target personas.

Importance

Use Player–Game Fit to:

  • Refine your game loop or onboarding around your core persona
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  • Shape your pitch or marketing to resonate with the strongest fit
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  • Spot and avoid mismatches between your feature set and intended audience
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  • Validate competitor success based on who they're really appealing to

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