Assuming you want an honest answer, philo, I think there are three major obstacles to this community flourishing:

1. Vague/misleading images - Many of the starting images are vague enough that they could apply, for instance, to over half of the thrash songs from the past two decades, whether obscure or well known. Others are almost adversarial with how far they stray from the source. A recent example is the prompt for "The Lady in Red," which prominently featured a beautiful young woman... in a silver dress. People who are interested in guessing can easily become discouraged when it seems like the game is tilted strongly against them. Many won't hang around to figure out how to create their own posts if the game seems unfair.

Suggestion: Make an effort to weight prompts in a way that adds some degree of emphasis to bits of the lyrics thar make a song unique. In the event a particular song is more obscure or niche, provide some level of assistance either at the outset or after a set amount of time. This could take the form of the decade of release, an additional image that highlights other specificity in the lyrics, or even a witty hint about the artist/band.

2. Unfamiliarity with prompting - I get the sense that there are many who are intrigued by the pictures and the concept but do not know how to create images that they feel accurately convey the song lyrics in a way that is guessable. It can be frustrating to feel like you're stumbling in the dark without much guidance. Some thrive on discovering things for themselves, but I'd say the majority probably abandon their attempts once they feel like the price of engagement is sufficiently high.

Suggestion: Increased availability of information about how to prompt successfully. Providing assistance and advice when asked for it.

3. Your attitude - Without regard to any justification there might be, you often come across as prickly and unwelcoming. There have been times that the community has seemed to be less of a cooperative space and more of a power trip. People who pass the first two obstacles may be turned away by the overall atmosphere here. Very few will want to play against the actual challenge, the added difficulty of vague or outright misleading images, and the nagging sense that the community leader is an active antagonist.

Suggestion: Less iron fist, more silk glove. In TTRPG terms, the DM shouldn't be playing against the players if they want to create engagement.

None of this is meant as an attack. This is my honest opinion of why this community is relatively inert, and some thoughts on how it could be invigorated.

Not everyone has, or wants to have the skills to use or learn AI tools. And as often is the case with niche communities, the people who post are often only a small percentile of the people reading/subscribing.

This is not a bad thing. It's just how it often is.

You've discovered the power of a niche social platform. I single-handedly provided content for a classic car community for over one year before realizing that it was less of a community and more of a blog. If it's not political or technical, a lemmy community will most likely die when the single provider gets tired of the wall of silence.

Welcome to the DM's quandary.

The Dungeon Master puts in all the extra time to build and run a campaign, but never gets to play.

I like this game, but even with the genre hints it's often very hard. It takes a bit to get into the habit of just taking a stab at it.

I think getting more hints, in words or images, in response to guesses would increase the interest.

The more challenges the better IMO because we all have different music taste and knowledge so many challenges I have little hope of guessing. But would still be interesting if there was more back and forth. I wouldn't mind challenges lasting longer if the op would give clues because then even in a genre I don't know well I could learn something new.

I don't expect things to move very quickly as I only check things twice a day or so myself. I like the idea of browsing through a bunch of unsolved games to find one that I have a guess for, I don't care how long they've been up, and as poster I don't mind responding to old games, or if I get tired of it can always post the answer.

I have three suggestions: Longer time, maybe a week, before posting answer.

List of songs already played (not that you should never reuse one, but in some ways this is helpful and inspiring to those who might post a challenge). Not all of the Lemmy apps have ability to search within a community.

Don't just reply "Nope" if you've got time to be a little more helpful--the game is hard.

I never know the right answer but i like seeing the pictures and the guesses. As I'm terrible at the game, i haven't been inclined to post a challenge for others. Lack of input does not equal lack of enjoyment, but i get that it's not fair to expect to be entertained. Thank you for the work you put into it. Hope you're doing well.

For what it's worth, my typical Lemmy habit is to pull up the "subscribed" feed in the morning, sort by "Top Day", and then scroll until I hit all of the posted content from my communities. After that point, I might transition over to "All" and sort by "active" to see if there is anything out there getting traction that I've missed. This is the first post I've seen from this community. It's an interesting concept, so I've subscribed today. As others have said, this community is still establishing itself. Keep generating content, and if what you publish is enticing (as it was for me today), and you'll attract others. Some subset of that population might also have the the drive to create content as well, but it wouldn't shock me if the proportions of lurkers to posters was 99:1.

I think it's too hard for me.

I've posted some challenges myself and will occasionally take a stab at guessing one of the entries, but I don't get around to engaging every day or even week. For me personally, I think the game is very fun, but the number of challenges per day/week is too high. If you scaled back a bit, I think you'd get more participation on each individual challenge.

Not enough Taylor Swift songs.

On a more serious note, I made one a while ago but I didn't think it was good enough quality. Sorry bud, next time I'll post regardless.

Sorry, what game are we talking about?

Better question would have been what good is a community where nobody wants to participate?