2024 Survey Results & 2025 Roadmap
We're listening to your feedback to make plans for 2025!
Happy Mystery Monday!
Last week, I asked both our newsletter subscribers and Discord members to fill out our yearly feedback survey.
I like surveys, and some of you made it clear that you do too, so I’m thankful to everyone who took the time to fill it out.
Today’s article is a very long post, so brace yourself and enjoy!
2024 Survey Results Summary
All results were submitted anonymously and will remain that way.
I’m only sharing the data that will help you understand my goals for improving the community in the near future, so some responses may be omitted from this article — but are still taken to heart just as much as everything else I’m sharing here.
Roughly the same amount of people filled out this year’s survey compared to last year, but ultimately (because we doubled in size) that means the percentage became smaller.
So, it’s tough to estimate how much this reflects on the whole — but it likely does reflect the opinions of our most prominent supporters, and that’s what matters the most.
Anyway, onto the results!
Newsletter Questions
The most popular newsletter posts are developer interviews, lists of games on sale, and game design / analysis. Those latter two categories have usually been exclusive for our paid subscribers, so that was pretty interesting to see!
Mystery game reviews also deserve an honorable mention, but between the fact that this category received one dislike and that these kinds of posts require a lot more time and effort for me to write each week (time that I could be spending on other parts of the website / community) I will probably limit the amount of those types next year.
The other categories — various lists of games — unsurprisingly received the lowest amount of likes (though zero dislikes, so that’s good). These posts are relatively quick for me to type up, and if people like them, I am more than happy to keep doing them.
One respondent suggested customizing the game info beyond just a copy and paste of the Steam description — this is very reasonable and something I probably should have been doing anyway. A short explanation of why I picked that game to show off is easy enough, and something that I’d like to do regardless.
50% of respondents prefer longer posts, while 40% had no preference. The fact is that longer posts also take longer to write (for example, the one you’re reading right now took me over 5 hours!), so as much as I enjoy reading longer posts myself, the short list posts can save me a lot of time if people are just as satisfied. Alternating between long and short posts every week or two is probably an ideal setup, at least for now.
The most time-consuming — but also most exciting — posts are the developer interviews. This was a highly requested feature from last year’s survey, and I’m glad we started making it happen.
For these posts, I spend at least a few hours playing the developer’s games and researching their history to come up with a list of interesting questions (which 80% of respondents agreed that they are indeed interesting). The interview itself usually takes about 2 hours, with another 3 or 4 hours for editing the audio (adding the intro/outro, adjusting volume levels, cutting out silence, and fixing moments where we talk at the same time).
Overall, I can easily spend 10 to 20 hours making just one podcast episode alone. I do enjoy the whole process, but they are easily the most “time expensive” posts to make, so that’s why they’ve only happened once a month.
Here is the full list of requested interviews for the podcast in 2025:
If you see your name above and you’d like to get on the podcast, schedule a time here!
I’d definitely love to interview everyone on that list, especially those bigger names, so I’ll see if sometime this year (when time permits) I can reach out to see if it’s possible.
As for interviewing myself… I’d absolutely like to do that at some point too, but I’ve been trying to figure out how to make it work. Who would ask me the questions? Does anyone want to volunteer? Or should I just go it solo and talk to myself for 2 hours straight?
One respondent also suggested I write about my progress working on Detective Butler — at the moment, I just haven't had the time to actually sit down and make much progress on it at all. This is mainly a matter of life circumstances right now — but I do think it could be a good way to come up with ideas for longer blog posts, such as dealing with challenges in mystery game development as I happen to face them myself.
Discord Questions
The answers to these questions were very mixed this time around.
The question in which people gave the most neutral responses and most people disagreed (52% and 32%, respectively) was that the community helped them grow into better people. Lots of game-playing and game-devving doesn’t necessarily translate into an improved way of life, I guess, but it’s still something I hope to help people achieve long-term.
The question in which people gave the least neutral responses (16%) was that they feel comfortable voicing their honest opinion in the server. 63% feel that they do and 21% feel that they don’t — still a good number, but I think we should be doing better. But clearly this is an issue people strongly care about.
The question with the most mixed results was that the server helped people make new friends. I’ve been aware of this problem most of the previous year, and my goal to fix this in 2025 is by hosting more community events for people to actually get to know each other and form friendships through frequently recurring activities. It is very difficult to get to know other people when most are just lurking, but I want the community to actually be a community where people network with each other and form real friendships. The survey respondents provided a good list of ideas for different activities, and I will likely use some of them this year.
The question in which the most people agreed and least people disagreed (68% and 5%, respectively) was that the server helped them discover new mystery-themed entertainment. Thankfully, the good news is that we’ve got our core mission nailed down well at this point.
The runner-up question, with only 10% disagreement, was that the moderators have done well handling disputes in the Discord server. However, those who disagreed were vocal about why, and it was regarding what was essentially the only incident we had during the entire year, so I kind of expected someone to bring it up.
Trying to mediate that situation in the moment was especially difficult, so it is good to know that 90% either feel satisfied or at least neutral about the way the server has been run. I am always open to feedback and suggestions for improvement, but if the overwhelming majority are satisfied, then I should probably continue doing it.
Please don’t take this personally or in a negative way if you are one of the 10% who disagreed. Just remember that I can’t always satisfy everyone, and that I appreciate everyone’s honest feedback, even if it is critical of the way I do things.
Speaking of systems that don’t need fixing, it also seemed like very few people wanted to remove any channels from the server. The core argument, from multiple people, is that all the channels serve a purpose even if they are not being actively used (i.e. people just aren’t talking). I was actually surprised to see this, because I thought the number of channels may have been too overwhelming, but (with one exception) nobody actually wanted anything removed.
The top three channels people wanted to see added, by a considerably large margin, are the following:
75% wanted a channel to discuss mystery media other than games
63% wanted a channel to discuss a “mystery game of the week” — this is an idea I came up with to try and focus discussion around one game, and with the hundreds of mystery games that are out there, it’s a good way to shine a spotlight on games that haven’t had much attention.
50% wanted a channel that I call “help me solve a mystery” channel — another silly idea that I came up with while writing the survey. Maybe there is some kind of mystery, whether it’s related to a game or not (but within reason), that you just need some Internet sleuths to help you solve… I’m sure a lot of people in our server would help!
All three of these channels will be added soon. If it doesn’t work out, we can always remove them.
One user suggested a “mystery game ideas” channel, which I think is an excellent idea for a channel. However, just to keep things tidy, I think it can be combined with the “mystery game design” channel, which hasn’t seen much discussion, as they are both overlapping topics.
Mystery Developer Questions
Our term for aspiring gamedevs is mystery novice — someone totally new to game development who hasn’t gotten started but wants to learn how. The overwhelming majority of developers in the server fit into this role, but in this survey we received the least amount of responses from them (15%).
So, I really want to focus on improving the experience for these people, but I’m not sure how much the survey results will actually help with that.
Last year, none of the novice respondents wanted monthly voice calls, but this year 66% of them did. That percentage seems high, but due to the low number of actual responses, I am still not sure if enough people would show up to such calls to make them worthwhile. We will see if it makes sense later this year.
As for the more experienced mystery game developers, I don’t think there is much I can share about them, either. 77% agreed that the community has helped them solve game development problems, but only 55% agreed the Discord server has helped people discover their games. These numbers are not bad, but we can do better.
Maybe most significantly, 78% of our developer respondents are currently hobbyists (making games on the side of work/school) and 88% of them are definitely interested in making a community-wide project in the Summer/Fall of this year. So, I’ll definitely start planning another Mystery Gamedev group project in 2025!
Favorite Games of 2024 and 2025
Respondents said their favorite mystery game released in 2024 was… actually a 3-way tie: Paper Perjury, The Rise of the Golden Idol, and the Reflection Link demo (all 2 votes each). Notable mentions of games from members of our server include GENBA no Kizuna and The Specter’s Desire (1 vote each).
Anticipation for upcoming mystery games was much more divided with no clear “winner.” Notable games from our members include Decide 4 God, Beyond R: Rule Ripper, Anamnesia, Reflection Link, and Thief’s Roulette.
Mystery Gamedev Roadmap For 2025
Two questions were asked about the Mystery Gamedev website (not the Substack). 84% of respondents cared the most about using the website to discover new mystery games, and wanted better search features and algorithmic recommendations for that purpose. 57% of respondents wanted to find the best deals on mystery games, while the other features about rating, organizing, and discussing games apparently were not nearly as important to most respondents.
So my first priority is to not only add more games to the database, but to make it easier to search for and discover them. I won’t abandon the other features, because some people do still want them, but my priorities will be focused on discoverability.
Speaking of discoverability, let’s talk about the discoverability of Mystery Gamedev itself.
In last year’s survey, most respondents made it clear they preferred video content over books (Whoops! I forgot about that when I started writing my book), and so I narrowed my focus down to three types of videos I could make. I think these more recent survey results speak for themselves:
75% voted for a case study / analysis of good mystery game design
20% voted for a showcase of newly released mystery games
5% voted for a playthrough of a new mystery game demo
Although the latter two types of videos are faster and easier to make, they are not the kinds of videos most respondents actually want to watch — and when trying to reach new people through video, that makes the biggest difference.
When asked about what respondents are looking forward to the most:
60% said tools that speed up and simplify mystery game development
40% said educational resources teaching how to make mystery games
It’s a very close margin, but I do agree that tools are more important right now. I still plan to make both, but it’s good to know my priorities for the year ahead, and to make sure that my plans align with what people actually want.
Last but not least, we will run another Mystery Game Jam in April. The rules will be a bit different this time around to include voting and rankings (more on that next week), but in this survey I asked a question about the theme of the jam. There were many good suggestions, so we will likely go with one of those — but we’ll figure out which one when the time comes.
Final Thoughts
Overall, 60% of respondents agreed their time in the Mystery Gamedev community was well spent, and 35% felt neutral about it. This is down from last year’s 84% agree, 16% neutral response rate, but it’s still not a bad score.
One explanation is that I’ve been spreading myself too thin trying to do too many different things, resulting in few of them resonating very strongly. I also had a lot of things happening in my life outside of Mystery Gamedev that required my attention last year, and because of that, we didn’t get as much done as I had hoped. So I’m sure it felt like some months were slow, without much discussion or interesting content.
However, the addition of the Mystery Game Database, Mystery Game Jam, and Mystery Gamedev Podcast are all huge accomplishments, and my goal is to streamline my processes so that they become less time-consuming to manage and ultimately provide more value to everyone. Adding recurring community events should also take the pressure off of myself to provide all the entertainment.
All I can say is that I am doing my best with my current situation, and I greatly appreciate all of the support I have received. I know that the people who speak positively about Mystery Gamedev are all incredibly passionate about it. I can also tell from the survey responses that you all really value what I am doing, and that’s all I can ever ask for.
So as always, thank you for coming with me on this journey, and I look forward to more exciting developments in 2025!
Thanks for reading!
If you want to learn how to make your own mystery game…
Or if you want to discover the best mystery games before anyone else…
Join our 300+ member Mystery Gamedev community today!
And please consider sharing our newsletter with a friend — we appreciate it!