Market Survey

ChibiMango-Flooferz · Jan 23, 2020

Project Furdeverse/Doppelgangfur Market Survey

For two to three years I've been mainly held back on Doppelgangfur, my story, because I can't decide what kind of project to release it as. I've considered making it a book, an animated series, a comic, and a video game, but I'm incredibly indecisive over it. I see all these great options and I'm interested in doing any of them but I obviously can't do all of them. So I've decided to do a survey to see what's popular and what other people think my story should be!

If people are interested, I might release the survey results for everyone to see. But for now, I'm just doing this for my own personal reference.

Cady · Jan 23, 2020

The form a story takes is important, but the content is more important. Do you have a solid story structure or just an outline of a story in your mind? I would say the first thing to do would be to put the story in some tangiable form, then go from there. Before anyone can provide any constructive feedback on what to do with the story, it needs to come out of your head in some form, even if it's not the final form. One place to start would be to detail the story on note cards, with each card representing a new scene or a new story beat. Once it's laid out in this fashion, the right mode for the stoy might become apparent.
Best of Luck to you
-C

skip.knox · Jan 23, 2020

One way to approach this would be to storyboard it. That approach works with movies, comics, plays, and even novels. Once you have the entire thing in storyboard format, you might have a better idea where your strengths lie and where the strengths of the story lie.

There is no way for you to know what's popular, not unless you are a statistician, know how to construct a meaningful sample, and have the resources both to conduct the survey and analyze the results. Otherwise, you're doing what basically amounts to asking around at your local bar. Actually, the bar would be a better choice because at least there you can have a pint or two.

There are a number of storyboarding programs out there. Just do a search on "storyboard software" and happy shopping!

Devor · Jan 23, 2020

I would think the medium depends on what you have access to. Art takes a special skill, film takes people and equipment, video games take extensive programming hours. It’s usually the first thing people decide for practical reasons.

Looking over the description I see basic world building elements but nothing about about plot or character. Generally visual is better for action and text is better for emotional development. Games are more of a self insert story, so there are special character considerations.

Prince of Spires · Jan 24, 2020

ChibiMango-Flooferz said: ↑

I obviously can't do all of them
Click to expand...

Why not?

All might be a bit much (since all encompasses a lot...) but there's no reason you can't write a novel and a comic with the same cast or even the same story. And make a animated series for it. It's work, but then, so is writing 3 novels in a year or 5 or 10. It's a case of putting butt in chair and doing the work.

Of course, a counter question is "why would you want to do all these forms?" Do you like the idea of having your story in all these formats or is it that you genuinely enjoy creating all these different forms and you have the necessary skills to create all these. It takes time to develop each of these. And even more time to get a following for them. Are you a good enough artist that you can draw a comic? Do you enjoy sitting down for 100 hours to draw just these characters over and over and over again? Do you like programming and all the nitty-gritty computer stuff needed to develop a computer game?

If I look at myself, I would love to see a computer game made of my stories. And I'm pretty good with computers, I can program a bit, I know how to lay out an interface. But I also know I don't want to sit down for the next 1.000 hours to really learn how to program well enough to actually be able to create a decent game. I don't like programming well enough to do this as a full time hobby. So I won't be creating a computer game for my characters. (as a side note, I'd love to license them to anyone willing to create the game. I'd even write the storyboard and dialogue and all fiction stuff for the game. just send me a message )

So my advise to you is: don't think of what would be cool to see. Try a few things and see what you really enjoy doing. Be honest with yourself. Because each of these things cost a lot of time. And you will see very little in return for that time initially, so the motivation needs to come from inside yourself. Do the part you enjoy and forget about the rest. And if what you do takes off in a big way, find someone to do the other stuff for you (with you).

ChibiMango-Flooferz · Jan 24, 2020

Thank you to everyone for your replies! This was really helpful.

Cady said: ↑

The form a story takes is important, but the content is more important. Do you have a solid story structure or just an outline of a story in your mind? I would say the first thing to do would be to put the story in some tangiable form, then go from there. Before anyone can provide any constructive feedback on what to do with the story, it needs to come out of your head in some form, even if it's not the final form. One place to start would be to detail the story on note cards, with each card representing a new scene or a new story beat. Once it's laid out in this fashion, the right mode for the stoy might become apparent.
Best of Luck to you
-C
Click to expand...

I mainly just have the outline in my mind, but I've been making decent progress lately at typing out several things. I just am worried that if I change my mind about what kind of story it will be, I'll have to do major rewrites so it better fits the new format, (ex. if I start planning things from a video game standpoint and something goes wrong with programming so I have to switch to another type of project.) I want to be as sure as possible sure of what to do as soon as possible.

skip.knox said: ↑

One way to approach this would be to storyboard it. That approach works with movies, comics, plays, and even novels. Once you have the entire thing in storyboard format, you might have a better idea where your strengths lie and where the strengths of the story lie.

There is no way for you to know what's popular, not unless you are a statistician, know how to construct a meaningful sample, and have the resources both to conduct the survey and analyze the results. Otherwise, you're doing what basically amounts to asking around at your local bar. Actually, the bar would be a better choice because at least there you can have a pint or two.

There are a number of storyboarding programs out there. Just do a search on "storyboard software" and happy shopping!
Click to expand...

That's actually a pretty good idea! I could probably storyboard it. I was just asking what was popular because I wanted a second opinion. I still definitely want to do something I at least somewhat enjoy primarily, but I figured it'd be a plus if I could do something people seemed to like.

ChibiMango-Flooferz · Jan 24, 2020

Devor said: ↑

I would think the medium depends on what you have access to. Art takes a special skill, film takes people and equipment, video games take extensive programming hours. It’s usually the first thing people decide for practical reasons.

Looking over the description I see basic world building elements but nothing about about plot or character. Generally visual is better for action and text is better for emotional development. Games are more of a self insert story, so there are special character considerations.
Click to expand...

I have access to basically all of these things.

I've been drawing and writing since 2013 (though art is my main passion while writing has been more of an on and off thing)

I have a major interest in animation (I struggle with finishing animations though due to my executive dysfunction)

I have programs to make animations and videos

I own a copy of Gamemaker Studio (however I only have basic programming knowledge, so if I choose to make a game I should probably work to improve before the programming stage of development starts).

Prince of Spires said: ↑

Why not?

All might be a bit much (since all encompasses a lot...) but there's no reason you can't write a novel and a comic with the same cast or even the same story. And make a animated series for it. It's work, but then, so is writing 3 novels in a year or 5 or 10. It's a case of putting butt in chair and doing the work.

Of course, a counter question is "why would you want to do all these forms?" Do you like the idea of having your story in all these formats or is it that you genuinely enjoy creating all these different forms and you have the necessary skills to create all these. It takes time to develop each of these. And even more time to get a following for them. Are you a good enough artist that you can draw a comic? Do you enjoy sitting down for 100 hours to draw just these characters over and over and over again? Do you like programming and all the nitty-gritty computer stuff needed to develop a computer game?

If I look at myself, I would love to see a computer game made of my stories. And I'm pretty good with computers, I can program a bit, I know how to lay out an interface. But I also know I don't want to sit down for the next 1.000 hours to really learn how to program well enough to actually be able to create a decent game. I don't like programming well enough to do this as a full time hobby. So I won't be creating a computer game for my characters. (as a side note, I'd love to license them to anyone willing to create the game. I'd even write the storyboard and dialogue and all fiction stuff for the game. just send me a message )

So my advise to you is: don't think of what would be cool to see. Try a few things and see what you really enjoy doing. Be honest with yourself. Because each of these things cost a lot of time. And you will see very little in return for that time initially, so the motivation needs to come from inside yourself. Do the part you enjoy and forget about the rest. And if what you do takes off in a big way, find someone to do the other stuff for you (with you).
Click to expand...

That's true! One of the novels I'm planning to buy at some point is written by a Youtube animator, who often does animations featuring the characters. Another Youtube animator I like is making a video game featuring his animated characters, which I am definitely going to play when it comes out. I could probably do at least two of the things on this list if I wanted to do more than one.

The reason I want to do all these things is mainly that I think it would be cool to have my story in any of these formats, but in the case of animation, it's been one of my biggest passions for a very long time, even if I struggle to finish a single animation due to bouncing from project to project.

I tend to start an animation, work hard on it for a day or two, then I start a side project that's also an animation. I work on both for a little while, then suffer burnout from animation #1 so I put it on hold indefinitely, and animation #2 becomes the new main WIP... until I repeat the process with an animation #3. Over the years I've collected dozens of partially finished animations with anything ranging from a sketch of a single frame, to a fully sketched animatic, to even fully lined, colored and shaded snippets of longer projects. I can probably count the things I've posted that are final results on one hand. I love this hobby and I love researching it, talking about it, and the thrill of starting on a new idea. But I struggle to tell myself 'no' when I want to do something new or want to stop working on a specific project.

Either a comic or a book, with animations as a side thing, would likely be the best option. I'm fairly good at art and I've done plenty of research on comics, so that could work. I've been trying to improve my writing lately and just do it more in general, so that could be good too.

A video game likely wouldn't be a good idea because even though I'm really enthusiastic about the idea and I have access to some of those resources, I don't have much programming knowledge beyond the basics, and I don't have a single clue about game design.

Thank you for helping me stop and think about this!

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