It is actually quite tricky as an independent, very low budget, developer to gain exposure in a way that is appropriate and effective.
Every rating and review counts and apart from one rather unusual one they've all been extremely positive and I'm thankful to the users who've left these reviews. They've also been very constructive and have made suggestions that in many cases I've implemented with a few days of their comments.
I find it important to take my users seriously since they are the ones who I want to enjoy the game.
I am mainly concerned with providing a fun experience that is highly polished and good quality. So far I believe I've provided that. I do have metrics and reports that help me work out where players are getting stuck or what they seem to be missing from the game when they play - these are very helpful to me.
Recently I've made an addition that was suggested to me to include engine flare/thrusters showing as a visual by a youtube follower. This was in the end a fairly easy addition and looks quite effective. So - I'm glad that user suggested it,since I was able to then add it in easily enough.
In terms of usage - I've noticed that the game gets a decent amount of usage by players outside the first few days of install - which is great. I was a little worried that maybe the game was being downloaded, played once, and never played again. This does happen but it is not as big a problem as I first thought.
The hard thing is that advertising costs money - at least effective advertising does. If I want to reach a large number of people I need to advertise. Also I've noticed that most online advertising, at my budget, reaches populations who don't speak English and may struggle with the game content as a result. It is very expensive to promote the game in native English speaking countries.
As such I believe that my game will gradually gain traction in terms of installs rather than be an overnight success.
I'm hoping that by June I will have several thousand users of the free app - that would be nice, and is not outside the realms of possibility when i look a the quality of apps on google play. There is a lot of low quality products on that store which do make it hard to find the gems (like mine!).
Here is a picture of the new thruster additions:
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