In my opinion the biggest issue is the eyes. He's not quite looking directly at us, but he's not really looking away either. It's a little weird.

He's not quite looking directly at us, but he's not really looking away either. It's a little weird.

Good point! Hadn't really noticed that until you mentioned it.

I've tweaked the eyes now and changed the hair a bit - what do you think now?

imho the armor looks like plastic and his face looks like it's made of wax.

You might find this article interesting. Honestly, I don't think the icon matches the game. It looks a bit like CG from the late 90s rather than cartoony (not sure if that's what you were going for)? Your gameplay video and in-game art actually look quite nice, maybe you could mash up some in-game art for the icon?

I dont know why exactly, but i dont really like backgrounds that are just a plain colour. I would maybe add some sort of gradient or border ...

Scaled down, the mustache looks like the top of a large black beard, and the mouth looks like a white hole in the middle of the beard.

Therefore, I suggest removing the mustache and making the lips slightly thicker and realistically red.

Thanks, that's the type of brutal feedback that is useful!

I'm sticking with it for now. We've launched and are getting decent results: we're nearly at 1000 downloads.

I agree that it doesn't really fit the game; however, I believe quite strongly that a characters face is more catchy that something symbolic, and our artistic skills aren't really up to drawing a decent looking face. Hence the render.

I might run an experiment later on and see if we get better click-through rates with a different icon, but will leave it running like this for a few weeks to see if it stabilises.

Thanks a lot for the feedback!

It's not telling me TOO much about the game. I checked out the video you provided and it looks cool. But the icon doesn't really symbolize the fast paced action within the video. If anything, the icon reminds tells me I might be playing a tower defense game.

The face of a white guy with European features, smirking, represents a Samurai game how, exactly?

While I like the cheeky smile and that kniving glance, the facial muscles around the eyes/nose/cheeks failing to conform around his grin makes it look like the picture is oddly warped rather than him grinning.