SURVEYS

Surveys

During ideation I created surveys to gather peoples thoughts and opinions on what I have been working on. I interviewed multiple groups, including my peers, and different communities on Reddit: r/samplesurvey, for a more generalised audience, r/gamesdesign, for more of my peers, and r/terrariums, so I could have a targeted group relevant to my game. I created two different surveys, one for r/samplesurvey and r/gamesdesign, so I could get opinions on the game, and r/terrariums, so I could get a better grasp on the experience.

Glassy Gardens Survey

Evaluation

90% of participants play PC, followed by Switch(57.6%) in second, Mobile in third(45.5%) and Playstation in a close fourth(42.4%)
Simulations were the second most popular genre at (72.7%)

Evaluation (Cont.)

93.9% find nature relaxing
Watching the scenery(81.8%) came in first, followed by atmosphere(78.8%), followed by sound(72.7%)
Judging by the varied split responses, I'm going to have to carefully consider how players will take care of these creatures. This will go into my mechanics development.
- Many were also wondering how it planned to be implemented, so I will consider some options before posing another survey
There's no explicit want for a breeding mechanic, only a bit of both(57.6%), and exploration(42.4%)
90.9% are for free roaming environments, though some want to know how that will function, of course, so I will also be exploring this concept in mechanics and posing my suggestions
69.7% would be excited to find rare creatures, though one response has posed that as my experience is a relaxing one, players shouldn't feel sad if they can't catch a rare creature or pressured to catch any
90.9% think building terrariums would be relaxing
There is a pretty even split for there being social elements when playing a single-player game(54.5%) vs those saying there aren't(45.5%)
But 75% would play my game alone regardless
Decorating mechanics seem to be half for(54.5%) and the other half wanting there to be either a functional purpose or for them to be creative
90.9% like the concept I am going for
And nearly 80% would buy my game

Reflection and Evaluation (Cont.)

As part of my reflection I added another question at the end which would let players voice any other opinions they have, which is why there are fewer responses

Much like others have put throughout, one response says they don't know enough about the design, particularly mechanics, and so I will continue to research and develop ideas for that

Reflection and Evaluation (Cont.)

One response wants to know what the player can DO with the creatures
- They've offered some nice ideas which I can potentially explore. Particularly, their "intergalactic youtube" is interesting, as I've been trying to create a gameplay loop which can fuel expeditions to new areas. Currently that involves the collection of new creatures, which grants a resource, so the more you collect the more of that resource you get, which fuels the player's ship.
- Nursing injured creatures and releasing them back into the wild is a nice idea too, but I'm not sure if players would get attached or not.

Goals

Consider mechanics
- How do players take care of creatures? What do they do? How often?
- Am I going to include breeding? Or do I want creature collection to be purely exploration-based?
  - When considering these I need to bear in mind platform restrictions.
    - Am I going to include my game on as many platforms as possible, or take advantage of platform-specific features e.g. Switch and mobile touchscreen controls?
- Also keep in mind customisation/decoration

Terrariums Survey

Evaluation

Everyone finds nature relaxing
94.1% say watching/interacting with creatures is most relaxing, followed by growing plants(82.4%), and listening to the sounds(76.5%)

Evaluation (Cont.)

82.4% would are intrigued by collecting fantasy creatures
Equal split(35.3%) between relaxing and therapeutic, but same issues as with the game survey: people want to know how they'd be taking care of these fantasy creatures
82.4% say a split between breeding and exploration is ideal
94.1% find roaming environments intriguing
Most(76.5%) would find encounters with rarer creatures exciting, but one response says to be careful striking a balance between excited and anxious
88.2% find building terrariums relaxing
76.5% would decorate their terrariums
- Certain responses like only with naturally occurring materials
There is a mix of responses for the social aspects of terrariums
- Equal split between both(29.4%) building terrariums and taking care of creatures and neither(29.4%)
- More(35.3%) say taking care of creatures can be social

Reflection

This was a more generalised survey so I didn't expect many varied answers
A combination of breeding and exploration again, seems to be the preferred method of collecting creatures
More would decorate their terrariums compared to those in the game survey
And would show off their terrariums too, like Sophie had suggested
I've also noted that a lot of what I had identified in my potential user has come up in my survey responses too, which suggests that I'm thinking about the right things my targeted users want