You'll notice I use the "dev blabble type-post" background...and as I should, as what I am about to explain affects game developers just as much (if not MORE than) as other types of creators - their work necessitates interaction by default.

One of the most important things to understand as a creator, especially as a game dev is your game's demographic: what type of people get invested in your game, actually take the time to play and care about the story, characters, etc?

Because the world is a both a melting pot and a salad bowl of different minds that interpret the same thing differently, it's almost never possible to predict your demographic with 100% accuracy. It's best to make an educated guess based on the results of previously published games with some similarity to yours and aim at that "target audience". And it is completely normal for your game's resulting audience to be very different from what you predict.

The demographic that whose attention you are aiming to grab with your game is your "core demographic". Everybody ELSE that plays your game is part of the "peripheral" demographic. Though one is often smaller than the other, they always coexist.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

The core demographic is something that should be predicted beforehand by taking a good look at your work and going "what type of people do I want to/think are gonna play this game?"

Asking yourself questions like these can also help:

• "How much work do I want my players to do on their own to enjoy this game?" - and I'm not just talking about controls. It's one thing to have a rhythm game where the gameplay is the spotlight and there is barely any story focus. It's another to have a cozy game where everything is easy to learn, not much lore is involved, and the graphics are simple and digestible. It's yet another thing to have a narrative-based strategy with gameplay and story tightly interwoven so that the player will have to pay attention to the story to excel at the gameplay. Determine how much your want your players to have to think to enjoy your game.

• "What aspect of the game do I want my players to have in the front of their minds once they walk away?" - As a VN dev, I want my players to keep the story and characters in mind (if nothing else), as that is the core of my games - thus the gameplay is simple, and the most work is put into story and visuals. For a horror and/or strategy game dev, it may be gameplay and/or shock value that they want the player to remember the most, so they might focus on gameplay and story integration more than anything like UI customization. This is important, as it will save you time, energy and stress to focus on the metaphorical "selling point" of your game and let that be the ONE part that merits a perfectionist effort.

• "How immersed do I want my players in this game?" - Are you building so that the players can "insert themselves" into the universe (like an MMO), or do you want them to be "the brain" of your already-made POV characters (the ones that actually go through the story instead of being NPCs)? Given that programming a greater degree of "user freedom" in your game is more of a challenge, it all depends on how much you think your mental health can take and/or the support systems you have at your disposal. Honestly, I find it essential to answer this question ASAP, as this will determine HOW players should enjoy the game.

The core demographic is essential, as it will help you make your game more cohesive overall. The core demographic for my Eternal Frenemies Project is infinitesimally small because of how specific it is (people who know who the girl in the picture is but are old enough for adult topics to be appropriate for discussion around them), and the more specific your core demographic is, the larger your peripheral demographic is likely to be.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now for the peripheral demographic - the players of the game you are not aiming to get but get anyway. Famous examples include media aimed at children getting the most attention and praise from adults because of how they are written/built.

Here are a few things to know about the peripheral demographic:

• It is NOT always accidental - sometimes the savvier creators can expect or even AIM for a peripheral demographic as they focus on appealing to the core. A famous practice of this is what is known as the Bishounen Jump Syndrome: where shonen manga (aimed at male audiences) deliberately make at least one of their characters conventionally attractive to get an additional female audience. Dating-sim games that have a target audience of one biological sex may also include a well-written "same-sex" option to get a peripheral demographic of LGBT+ members. The list goes on and on.

• It is ALMOST always inversely proportional to your core demographic - the more specific your core demographic is, the smaller amount of people you are aiming at with your game. Logically, any success for such a game would mostly come from the peripheral demographic, which often grows larger in response and can be a testament to your game's overall strength (your game's gotta have some serious quality to incite a player to "break tradition" of preferred games in order to give it a try).

• It is INEVITABLE- and I will DIE ON THIS HILL. Not only is the world full of opinions that interpret the same things differently, these opinions expand and change over time. Values resonance AND dissonance can occur, making groups switch out as the game gets older. Release any game to the world with a focused core demographic, and eventually somehow, some way, others outside your intended group WILL pop up in the game's fandom.

The peripheral demographic may not always be expected or liked by the creator, but it will always help a lot better than screaming into the void on your own. If I'm being honest, attracting a peripheral demographic IN PLACE of your core demographic is just as impressive as simply adding onto it.

For the purpose of the EF project, I want to keep my core demographic so I make sure to include nods that Angel's Friends watchers will recognize, such as Seraphia's ponytail and the influence system (and don't worry it's a personal and non-profit work so copyright is not an issue), and use that system to explore topics that are too "adult" for the Angel's Friends work to have gotten away with during its production.

The peripheral demographic is actually the target audience of the Return to Eternity VN game, as it was built to get them interested in all the things that the core demographic already understands!

I hope this babble helps, and art is my olive basket for slamming in this in front of you to read!

Also if you haven't yet, please check this post to cast your vote on which Ren'Py project you want to see next!

#renpy #godot #marketing #unreal #engine #unity #haxe #visualnovel #strategy #horror #racing #fighting #solodev #gamedev #cozygame #altgame #pygame #browsergame #webgame #tropes #discussion #advice #community #support #gamejolt