The Welcome Drink, Omok

Born as a Welcome Drink

Honestly, Omok wasn't a game I put much effort into developing.

After I launched Soosooland in July 2025, some friends I'd invited said, "I don't know what to play here." So in August 2025, I made Omok as a kind of welcome drink — something easy to hand someone right away.

I didn't need to explain much to Claude. I just said, "Make me an Omok game." And Claude put it together, just like that.

All I did was take the code Claude gave me and change the board color to the warm ochre of traditional hanji flooring(장판)— the kind coated in bean oil until it shone.
and tell Claude,
"The NPC could block the user's three-in-a-row, but it's not doing that."
That's how we improved the stone-placing order, a little.

Soosooland Was Dying

Earlier this year, I started thinking Soosooland was failing, and I complained about it to Claude too: "I think Soosooland is going under."

New users kept dropping. December 2025 had 300. January and February were around 200. Then March fell sharply to 100.

*It's vacation season — what are kids doing instead of Soosooland?*

But my daughter said, "These days, kids who study well read books, and kids who don't watch Shorts" — meaning kids just aren't playing games as much anymore. And it turns out gaming participation among people in their 20s and 30s had actually dropped to a record low too. So I pictured tumbleweeds rolling across the empty land of Soosooland.

The Day Google Found Omok

Then in April 2026, something hard to believe happened.

Google's algorithm started showing Soosooland to people who searched "Omok" (오목).

Honestly, I'd only put Omok on Soosooland as a kind of formality — figuring anyone who wanted to play Omok seriously could go to a dedicated Omok site. But suddenly users were pouring in, and I felt like I needed to improve something.

Master Mode, and Two Weeks of Silence

So I added Master mode.

In Omok, when both players are equally skilled, the one who places the first stone (black) has the advantage. So I added a new difficulty where the user plays white and the NPC plays black. Omok used to have 3 difficulty levels; now it has 4 — Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, and Master.

I told myself not to get too excited even with users flooding in. Sure enough, exactly two weeks later, the people coming to play Omok completely disappeared.

*I guess I'm not great at Omok myself, so the NPC I built probably wasn't great either. No wonder I didn't want to get excited.*

Visitors Flooding Back

After three quiet weeks, users started flooding in again for some unknown reason. Google's algorithm works in mysterious ways.

In April 2026, the average CTR was 10% and the average position was around 6. By June 2026, the average CTR was 18.4% and the average position was 4.

I'm not entirely sure, but my guess is this: when people search "Soosooland," it ranks 1st, and when they search "Omok" (Korean five-in-a-row), it ranks around 5th — averaging out to a position of about 4. Also, when Google shows "Soosooland" in search results to 1,000 people, apparently 184 of them click through, which is a pretty high rate.

Over the past 28 days, about 800 clicks came from people searching "Omok" on Google and clicking through to Soosooland. That's 800-some clicks, though I don't know how many unique people that represents.

There must be dedicated Omok sites out there, so why does Google recommend Soosooland? My guess is that users click the links below the Omok game to browse Soosooland's other games, which increases time on site — and that might be why.

When Search Console results finally broke out of zero after six months of nothing, Claude got excited and suggested adding links to Soosooland right below the Omok game. I hesitated — I couldn't bring myself to tell people who came to play Omok to go try other games. A few days later, though, I added cute card buttons with little images.

The Welcome Drink Becomes a House Specialty

The welcome drink became the house specialty that saved a struggling Soosooland. When everyone had vanished, the average position was 7 — and the gap between 6 and 7 turned out to matter a lot.
🪄 Written by Soosoo, translated by Claude

#오목 #Wiziqi #gomoku #five_in_a_row #renju #connect_five #strategy_game #boardgame #asian_game #gomoku_AI