I Crave Data!

Alright! Perhaps a bit predictably, I'm posting on Saturday, but I've succeeded in forcing my own hand. Now, for the news on what I'm working on right now, let me start by explaining one of the curious aspects of writing, and how designing a game builds on top of it.

I've written a lot of stories on SoFurry and FurAffinity with the same goals I keep in mind while writing for MVOL: provide an experience that is engaging, enjoyable, and stimulates the reader both in the higher and lower brain while challenging them in some way. This means taking a very artistic approach at times, and doing things with my writing that may not be immediately apparent, or may not immediately make sense. Part of challenging readers is forcing them out of their comfort zones, and I think that's important to making a story that's enriching, that leaves the reader just a little better than when they started.

(Not all of my stories do this, and if you check through my gallery you'll find most of my commissions mainly focus on the stimulation :p But such is "the biz!")

Now, it's common for any writer to have readers that experience the story differently than they intended, but when you're trying to make every story a unique experience that does all these silly things, there's a lot more opportunity for people to interpret things in surprising ways! Many of my stories have garnered some shocking responses, be they positive or negative, and while this sometimes means I've failed to present the story as it was laid out in my head, I still find their responses immensely valuable-- it's only through this kind of feedback that I can truly improve as a writer and learn to fine tune my craft!

Now, I receive a fair deal of feedback on MVOL, but besides the diligent work from my proofers, I don't usually get anything more specific than "I really liked this scene" or "girl lith plz!" And while I appreciate praise and suggestions, it just doesn't help me make sure each scene is having the specific impact I want it to. I don't really know of a good way to make this happen, especially since each scene can play out differently depending on the player's previous choices, so I often feel like the bulk of the game I've already written is kind of a great, solid mass that I can't make meaningful changes to. But! I've come up with a way that, while I can't get direct feedback on a particular scene, I can get feedback of a much broader, measurable variety for the game as a whole.

In My Very Own Lith v0.15, I plan to add features that automatically collect data on how the game is played and send this information anonymously to my server. I'll be able to see what choices people make, what scenes they revisit often, what parts of the game they seem to try for often without getting anywhere, and what parts just don't see very much love. With this improvement, I'll effectively be able to watch the game being played, which is an important part of developing a game for any designer (without actually standing over your shoulder, as that would be even creepier than normal with this game)! I'm very excited for the chance to see for myself how my game is living out in the wild, so that I can finally go back and start making meaningful improvements instead of just kind of listening and hoping any issues will come up in peoples' feedback.

Now, I know this may raise some concerns. Absolutely no personal data will be recorded by the game. The server only tracks you by your save file. If you're still concerned, I will also be adding the choice in the options menu to turn off the data collection at any time. If you play on Android, it looks like it should still work, and we're working hard on keeping the data sent and received to an absolute minimum to avoid racking up anyone's data charges. From what I understand, it should use less data than your typical IM conversation.

I'm very excited for the possibilities this will open up for the game. With automatic feedback from all of my players, I'll be able to learn about everyone's experience, not just those of the kind few that take the time to leave their praise or criticisms on various message boards. I'll be able to refine the game's difficulty, add clarification where players might seem to get lost, and maybe even remove or replace underused features to make sure the game is getting the maximum benefit from all the hoops I jump through writing variations for scenes! I don't even know what all I might learn from this data as it starts to come in, but I'm sure it's going to be fascinating, and I'm all the more excited to get v0.15 into your hands once these features are online. I hope that you're all as hopeful as I am that this will spell massive improvements for the game in the months to come! As ever, if you have any comments or concerns, there's a comment section right on this post!

And, lastly, while it's been a bigger process than expected, we're chugging along on the implementation and I think enough has been added to the game that I can add a little to the progress meter.

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60% of the way to the next version. I'm hoping to have something ready to show my proofers soon, so things may start gathering momentum from here! Thanks for checking in, kind readers, and I hope I'll have still more news for you soon!