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Hey everyone! I've been doing some thinking about Survivor (and other Large Social Game) games having thought about the last couple dozen games, and I was hoping to look into two specific areas, game design philosophy and the idea of how people consider individual members of game modding teams. As such, I have prepared a survey to get some opinions. The survey asks for your identity, but it won't be revealed to anybody else (it exists solely to try to make sure people are being honest and only submitting once). I'm hoping I can get some answers over the next week or so because these are things I would like to open a discussion on. It's a dozen questions only, shouldn't take you longer than fifteen minutes at the absolute most.

Feel free to PM or Skype me with any questions, or use the Additional Comments section on the survey if you need to ask me anything.

I am very interested in these results.

Bump in case anyone else wants to do this!

Seven mods surveyed said they preferred to focus on Aesthetics over Humor in game design.
Five mods surveyed said they preferred to focus on Humor over Aesthetics in game design.

Nine players surveyed said that a game was associated with a single one of its moderators most of the time.
Four players surveyed said that a game was associated with a single one of its moderators about half of the time.
Three players surveyed said that a game was associated with a single one of its moderators only occasionally.

(players could give multiple answers here):
Thirteen players responded with some form of associating a game with its most active mod.
Six players responded with some form of associating a game with the person most instrumental in its design.
One player responded that it was based on who he/she tended to Skype chat with most while playing the game.
One player responded that it was based on who other mods seemed to defer to when asking questions.

(players could give multiple answers here; the question was flawed in that it referred too directly to Humor/Aesthetics designations):
Four players said they don't (again, flawed question).
Six players responded with some form of basing playing decisions on the mods' design decisions in previous games.
Five players responded with some form of basing playing decisions on the character and track records of the mods (from an integrity perspective).
Two players responded that creating aesthetics-based games was important to them.
One player responded that the mods' sense of humor was important to them.
One player responded that the effort the mods put into previous games was important to them.
One player responded that he was much more likely to play a game that the mods personally invited him to play in.

• It seems I pay a lot more attention to the aesthetics/humor thing in games than most people do. I personally find it really easy to tell which one the mods prefer just based on looking at the challenge posts, game and challenge names, and looking at the forum theme. A lot of people seemed to struggle with answering the questions about specific games and moderators for this reason based on survey responses and comments I got from people before and after doing the surveys.
  
• I personally think that when a mod is focusing more on aesthetics, a lot of people are going to really like the aesthetics of the game, but when a mod is focusing on humor it can be more hit and miss. This comes because generally professionalism gets agreed on, whereas obviously with humor not every joke is going to hit with every single other person. I personally associate humor-type games with a particular moderator that I do not find as funny as a lot of other people do.
  
• Of course, challenge and mechanic design, as well as casting, as well as a lot of other things, are really important when it comes to good moderation. A really pretty game with really attentive, funny moderators that just runs RAF as every single challenge is a bad game. Or if they decide on some twist that's universally considered bad. Or if a moderation situation comes up during the game and something accidentally compromises the game while the mods try to deal with it. Or players just making the game boring.
  
• When it comes to the Lead Moderator stuff, I think the results were about what I was expecting with activity and whoever seemed to have the "vision" of the game from the start (which is usually pretty evident, just look at MLS and how BRO has been pretty vocal about being a big soccer fan since he started playing LSGs). When a single mod is both most active and has the vision, I think almost everybody sees them as the lead mod. That's not a bad thing, but it is definitely something that people attribute with the game in the future.
  
• Xof said she wants more people to mod games. So go for it, everyone, mod games!

In post 3, D3f3nd3r wrote:

Aesthetics versus Humor in moderators:

I personally associate humor-type games with a particular moderator that I do not find as funny as a lot of other people do.

I think ur funny cc

...funnyLOOKING!!uptopflameaxe

Yeah I don't see any reason why that's an awful thing to say. There are a lot of people that find CC funny. But no jokes hit with everyone.

I'm not offended, I was just calling you out on trying to be vague

I'd like to say I focus primarily on challenge design and fairness, and I think my humor is just a byproduct of me trying to keep people from being bored most of the time! I wouldn't say the humor is a "selling point" of my games though, since I try to keep the gameplay far removed from the jokes. Cutthroat and Ned's in particular I feel like we put a lot of effort into the challenges and I'm proud of what we accomplished there, whereas the "humor" is always just our way of not making all the challenge posts and mod posts boring to read

In post 8, CuddlyCaucasian wrote:the "humor" is always just our way of not making all the challenge posts and mod posts boring to read

I personally don't find them monotonous enough that you have to stick a twist in the majority of them to make them readable. There's nothing wrong with doing it occasionally. For example this was an incredible post. I'm not saying that challenge design is anything wrong, the first words in the survey were pretty much "right now challenges and mechanics are not a thing" because I feel like aesthetics/humor philosophy is different for different people while "make good challenges" is a goal in every single game.

In post 6, MattP wrote:...funnyLOOKING!!uptopflameaxe

ayoooo

challenge posts more fun when entertaining

In post 9, D3f3nd3r wrote:

In post 8, CuddlyCaucasian wrote:the "humor" is always just our way of not making all the challenge posts and mod posts boring to read

I personally don't find them monotonous enough that you have to stick a twist in the majority of them to make them readable. There's nothing wrong with doing it occasionally. For example this was an incredible post. I'm not saying that challenge design is anything wrong, the first words in the survey were pretty much "right now challenges and mechanics are not a thing" because I feel like aesthetics/humor philosophy is different for different people while "make good challenges" is a goal in every single game.

i fell asleep reading that post

Omg I forgot all about that post, I was so proud of how it kept introducing new terminology with absolutely no explanation for any of it

I think what I'm trying to say is that I don't actively consider aesthetics or humor when designing games, it just.. happens!!

this is literally just RAF isn't it

I found the baby challenge the most amusing myself <.<

(It was a joke post since there was a twist immediately following)

In post 14, Shadoweh wrote:this is literally just RAF isn't it

I found the baby challenge the most amusing myself <.<

Thanks

the idol hidden inside a baby is probably the most humor has ever factored into actual game design

I think all mods just focus on having it playable.
By whatever means necessary

What I have been confused by the whole time is why aesthetics and humor are considered opposites. To me, humor is simply one aspect of making the game enjoyable for the players. In other words, humor is s part of the aesthetics.

I just feel like there's a sense of "one or the other" in most games. Some games just have a more serious, elegant vibe to them, while some are a lot more lighthearted.

Different definition of aesthetics then, because I feel that both of those games you described can be aesthetically pleasing (or both could not be).

Yeah but it's almost like some games just try to let the former do the talking and some feel like they need to supplement that. It's not like the Spookz or RSX or 2016 boards looked bad.

In post 8, CuddlyCaucasian wrote:I'd like to say I focus primarily on challenge design and fairness, and I think my humor is just a byproduct of me trying to keep people from being bored most of the time! I wouldn't say the humor is a "selling point" of my games though, since I try to keep the gameplay far removed from the jokes. Cutthroat and Ned's in particular I feel like we put a lot of effort into the challenges and I'm proud of what we accomplished there, whereas the "humor" is always just our way of not making all the challenge posts and mod posts boring to read

flashback to that baby stabbing challenge where the entire challenge post was written in dumb flavor

In post 22, D3f3nd3r wrote:Yeah but it's almost like some games just try to let the former do the talking and some feel like they need to supplement that. It's not like the Spookz or RSX or 2016 boards looked bad.

I don't know that I would call #2016 a humorous game?
I mean kinda, there were a couple of jokes. But for the most part it was loyal to its mechanics.