Stranded VN Build 1 Survey Results
Intro
Thank you so very much for taking part in our survey! As of 20th Feb 2022, 12:30pm (GMT +8), we received 73 responses within 48 hours. It's given us all some valuable insight on what is important in making this VN. Let's go through some of the results together!
Responder
- You're almost all guys (97.2%). Wow.
- There's quite an even distribution of VN experience, but we can safely say playing visual novels is nothing new for the player demographic.
- Genre choice is also well-distributed, with romance, slice-of-life and fantasy RPG having somewhat high values.
- The story is the most important aspect of a VN, followed by visuals. Of lesser importance are minigames, as well as knowing your friends are playing the game or not.
Story
- A slight majority wasn't scared of the plane going down. I suppose the itch.io description helped with softening the blow, hehe.
- More than 90% of you believe the survivors are normal for talking to one another. Same!
- Kim is leading in the "desire to spend time with" and "anticipated route" questions! We're glad you like him! Below is the table of weighted averages:
Aspect | Kim | Beru | Terry | Lucy | Owen |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Like Score (w.avg.) | 4.71 | 4.07 | 3.98 | 3.85 | 4.01 |
Route Score | 57 | 33 | 41 | 22 | 35 |
- From this, we can tell that Kim is greatly anticipated. Good thing build 2 has more of the blue husky... hehe. Though Beru, Terry and Owen have somewhat lower responses, their values never dip as low as Lucy's. With this in mind, we are
changing Lucy to a guyer, we will focus on writing the main story first, and start to work on side routes once the main route is solid enough. Figuring out where everyone's going is hard! - A majority (56.5%) want the main character to be seen. Hmm... defining him/her/them is also in my favor, but this needs further deliberation and requires more effort put in, most of all in art assets. We'll keep you updated. Also a comment about lack of information on the main character's part, hmm... The idea was to allow the player to dive right into the game's first conflict within minutes of starting, but I will admit it is quite little. Thanks for that input.
- Yes indeed, not a single one of the survivors experienced a panic attack in chapter 1. This is a bit out-of-line with tragedies in real life, where people often spend months or years trying to feel normal again. We may consider adding more of that stuff in the future, if that's ok. For now, assume everybody's just not used to one another and aren't ready to share their fears yet. Or it's like wine, the horror needs to manifest over days.
Graphics
- We're very happy that Flunky's art is so well accepted! His name isn't even mentioned in the credits yet, but you already mention him in the comments.
- Text size scored the poorest in the textbox survey. I will increase it by 1 (one) point for you all. Gwahaha.
- The quick menu is admittedly in need of an overhaul. I am working on making it bigger, raising the textbox to compensate. We will be experimenting with icons too. (The "hide" button is available on pc builds but not on mobile. My bad! Will be fixed in build 2.)
- 12.7% of you believed the sudden-ness of some text and not knowing when the text is finished is a problem. To combat this, we are dialing back the use of {w} and {nw} tags, basically the thing that makes text appear suddenly without user input. In addition I am considering adding a click-to-continue icon at the end of a block. Now should it be at the bottom right of the textbox, or right after the text...?
- Most of you are more comfortable with nudity and vulgar language than with blood and violence. Point taken, I'm squeamish too.
- With regards to GUI focus... hmm... The point is taken. We will definitely need to experiment with different layouts. But I don't think any changes will be made in time for build 2.
Audio
- Response is overwhelmingly positive! Our resident music makers (Rex Revon and Zammu) are pleased.
- Sound effects need more variety. And a comment about making original sounds. ...heck I don't have any foley artist friends...
- 93% want the tracks online! OK, maybe we'll take a page out of Nekojishi's playbook and post a music playlist on youtube!
- "Just need more Zammu musics owo": ZAMMU YOU HAVE A FAN! I swear I didn't type that one.
Additional Notes
- Support for additional languages is hard without a resident translator. However, if you're offering your services, we ask that you refrain from translating in your own free time right now; even today the text for the prologue and chapter 1 change a bit, and it would be hard on me to force you voluntary translators to work again and again. Maybe wait for a bit? We'll let you know when the story is stable enough to be accepting translations.
- Will putting the VN on Steam be worth the investment? It does cost a bit to get it up there... but I've always dreamed of getting on Steam. Hnngh... we will deliberate on this topic.
- Your words of encouragement are music to our ears! Thank you many times over! The project is not currently in danger of being cancelled (looks at wallet) ...for now.
- About a public discord server, I've been quite OK with this! That way all you nice people can talk to us directly. But it isn't ready yet. Please be patient, we'll inform on Twitter if it ever does go live.
Thanks for answering the survey. We may release another one after build 2 comes out. See you again next time! - B.P.
...psst. Want a sneak peek for the next build?