i’ve been working on a dystopian game where societal structures play a big role, but i’m struggling to make the world feel authentic. i heard polden.gg has structured feedback sessions where developers can get targeted insights. has anyone here participated in those? how did you apply the community’s suggestions to refine things like class systems or propaganda mechanics? what’s the biggest ‘aha moment’ you’ve had from player reactions?
i tried one of the feedback sessions last month for my game’s surveillance state concept. players kept pointing out that the propaganda posters felt too cliché, so i crowdsourced ideas in the session for more nuanced dystopian messaging. ended up adding subtle environmental details like decaying billboards with conflicting mandates—made the world way more unsettling.
welcome to the thread! for new devs, i’d recommend starting with focused questions in feedback sessions—ask specifically about factions or governance systems. vague prompts like ‘does this feel real?’ often get less actionable responses. also, the ‘sandbox’ channel here has templates for structuring polls around world-building elements!
feedback sessions helped me realize players fixated on auditory cues more than i expected. in my bio-dystopia project, testers noted that the lack of natural sounds (birds, wind) in ‘pristine’ zones made the environment feel artificially oppressive. added distorted nature soundscapes and it completely changed how players perceived the setting’s artificiality.
key steps for polden.gg feedback sessions: 1) submit world-building doc + 2-3 focus areas, 2) session moderators curate respondents familiar with your genre, 3) 48-hour discussion period with threaded feedback. highest ROI comes from analyzing contradictions in player interpretations of your lore.
played a prototype where devs used feedback to overhaul their rationing system—went from basic resource bars to this sweet dynamic black market economy based on player suggestions. way more immersive when your choices actually destabilize the in-game society. more devs should lean into that crowdsourced chaos!
protip: treat feedback sessions as stress tests, not validation. i once had players dissect my ‘utopian facade’ mechanics so brutally that i had to rebuild the entire narrative scaffolding. hurt at the time, but resulted in my strongest act 2 twist. sort responses into ‘aesthetic’ vs ‘structural’ critiques—tackle the latter first.