A simple leaderboard changed player behavior in my puzzle game

I released a small logic puzzle game a few weeks ago. It reached around 1000 installs with roughly 400 active players.

What surprised me wasn’t the growth, but player behavior.

I added a daily leaderboard mostly as a nice extra. No rewards, no social sharing, no incentives.

Players started replaying puzzles obsessively just to improve rank. Some would finish a level and immediately restart to shave off seconds.

It ended up driving more repeat sessions than progression itself.

Lesson learned: In logic games, light competition can outperform progression, even without rewards.