Welcome to today's blurb!

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. It's been a while since the last blurb, hasn't it? Like a literal month?

For one, I slacked a little too hard. After that, when I planned on releasing the blurb on Monday (4/21), I had a car-related emergency. Guess who shelled out $900 and a whole day getting their car repaired?

But I will say, it is a little funny that the reason that this blurb in particular has been delayed is as a result of me being both caught up in chaos and getting a little too lazy. Surprising!

But fret not, today is the day the blurb releases, so get your plate of crayons, cause we're going to eat some dinner!

You may notice that this blurb actually loads pretty quickly! That's because recently, I've been making efforts to make the blurb a lot more user-friendly in terms of image loading. It's not fun having to wait 20 seconds for a video or an image to load completely. So hopefully everything loads pretty quickly for all of you!

In our speculation column, we'll also be taking a look into the survey results given by the community regarding the Demo release of Brickadia! How did the playerbase respond? Do we need more animal bricks like the frog brick? Will I FINALLY get the rat brick? Stay tuned, and let's look at what the community has been up to!

Hello blurbers!

Recently, the developers published a new blog post on the official Brickadia website. This new one, however, takes a look at the results of the demo, the lessons learned, as well as a bit of an interesting surprise at the end!

If you haven't read it yet, read up on it here: Next Fest Wrap-Up: Survey Results, Plans for EA

Thanks for writing the post, wrap! Now it's time for us to unwrap whatever's in this blog post:

Now frankly, we could just skim through this whole thing and only touch on the important things. However, part of the "results" that's talked about in this new blog post is PLAYER FEEDBACK! How did they get something like that?

During the release of the Brickadia Demo, a survey was provided in-game that allowed players to give their thoughts and feedback on the demo itself! According to the post, roughly 2,000 completed the survey and, adding on to that, it's said that this was 5.5% of the community that responded back. Doing some math, that gives us an estimate of around 36,000 players at the end of the demo run of the game that ended up playing. This is consistent with the statistics we see at the end of the first week of the game, which describes there being "25k total players," as well as "22k new players."

It's also mentioned that 1.5k people responded at the end of the first week of the demo, meaning an additional 500 people responded to the survey during the second week demo extension. Neat!

With this in mind, it would be worth dedicating this speculation column to taking a look at how around 2,000 people decided to respond to the survey, and speculate why people may have responded the way that they did in regard to the demo release. Then in the next speculation column, we can take a look at general feedback, as well as plans the developers have in place for the future of Brickadia!

Player statistics aside, what exactly were the results and feedback from the Brickadia Demo survey?

Based on the results of the user survey provided to people who played the demo:

• 46.9% of people who played the demo had previously played the game before.
• 72.3% of players were dudes.
• 59.5% of players were between 18 to 25 years old.
• - 56.9% of people prefer to play with their friends. 15.2% of players play by themselves. Losers! (Just kidding, you are all perfectly valid in your own right).

And now for the information that I can't substitute with fairly short descriptions:

Based on this chart, it seems like a lot of folks just like to play around with what already exists! Completely understandable, and I do believe most players, in regard to any sandbox/creation-based game, tend to try new, existing things instead of trying to flesh something out for themselves, minus making a neat avatar for themselves! What I find interesting, though, is how there's a split between people spending no time hanging out in a server versus folks who spent a decent/a lot of time hanging out in a server. That makes the data about building anything in general all the more curious, though I suppose one can be exclusive from the other.

Most people enjoyed Office Corp! What's interesting to note is how high Bevel Bend Raceway is. If I recall, that was the first option in the list of worlds to pick from, and I remember that being the case cause I picked that world first. So perhaps there is some bias coming into play for worlds people liked the most for that particular world...

Based on this charge, people strongly agreed that the game runs great and the graphics look neat! It seems the developers are yet to push through on making the game interface naturally understandable, but the game interface being clear is a huge testament to their due diligent effort in making sensible UI layouts, hints, and binds! I also find it funny how most people disagree that the game is unstable, despite the fact that the demo was prone to crashing a lot. I imagine this lessened over time due to the number of patches that came out during the first week. Given that a second week was provided a demo, I imagined that probably skewed the results even more. I can guess that when it came to "The game is full of bugs", that was partly the case. The good thing is that most people disagree that the game was hard to play, but I can guess that there are folks who are neutral on that potentially due to the early instability/bugs that were hidden at certain points, but that is purely speculatory!

People love the avatar system. I imagine people were only Satisfied and not Very Satisfied for "The ability to make exactly what you wanted?" question because there are no caveman, neolithic cosmetics to choose from. I am convinced that if the player were allowed to give themselves a giant unibrow, a tiger hide, and a terrible odor in physical form, then it would immediately skew to Very Satisfied.

On a serious note, I do believe that the selection of cosmetics could be just a little more diverse. From what I can remember, there are a lot of similar, modern-themed cosmetics. I think if there was some work put into making a more culturally diverse selection of cosmetics, people could be more satisfied. I don't see a kimono sticker, and I definitely don't see a sombrero of any kind in-game. I want to wear a turban, devs! I need to complete my Squidward cosplay!

Now what's interesting about this chart is how for "The material options" part of this question, this is the segment with the greatest amount of unsatisfied players! Or rather, it has the highest unsatisfied level. While it is still extremely small compared to some of the other satisfaction bars, it could be possible that some players may have been hoping for a couple more material options. I, for one, would not be opposed to a material that looks like the gritty-texture on regular slope bricks. But that doesn't mean I won't a wood material, if I have to make myself clear!

Apart from that, the portions with the most everywhere-results seems to be "The anti-griefing features (trust etc)?", "The component system?", and "The admin tools (/clearobjects etc)?", which is fairly understandable.

Components are pretty easy to understand, but I can see how it probably isn't the most satisfying thing ever to figure out when first handling it. If it were up to me, I'd replace the UI for adding components with a more grid-like list with dedicated icons to better distinguish what certain options are, as well as what they do.

Regarding admin tools, they don't exactly seem to be the most user friendly. What do I mean? In short, to do some more admin-related things, like clearing bricks, you have to type it out in chat like a command prompt. While typing clear objects is pretty simple in itself, it probably is a bit rough figuring that out as a new player how to clear your own bricks. Perhaps there could be a UI element in the menu that acts as a clear objects action of some sort? Or perhaps it could be a UI element in the hammer tool, that's a neat idea!

Now for the easiest tool to use:

Would you believe me if I told you the hammer was the hardest tool to use? No? I wouldn't believe me either. Probably because I don't have caveman accessories and cosmetics to make the idea of me having difficulty using a hammer more believable.

I can see how the Selector, Applicator, and the Connector may have been a little tricky. For one, the Selector isn't exactly the smoothest tool to use. I think having corner elements to drag the selection box would make selecting things feel a bit more "ergonomic", so to speak. On top of that, while it is INCREDIBLY obvious what the Selector tool is meant to do, I wouldn't be surprised if there was some initial confusion as to how to use the tool. You equip it, and your first instinct is to click and drag to select, but probably not on the build itself. But you can't make a selection box in the air, and you can't make it out of the baseplate. So as a result, you have a small hiccup in understanding how to even select something. Of course, you figure it out by selecting a brick, but now you have to drag by the sides. A slightly clunky process!

I can also understand why corner drag elements probably aren't added, kind of makes selecting things a little confusing. But if not that, at least let the side grabby thingies something that can extend the selection box just like how a corner drag elements would. Now this isn't the biggest problem in the world, but if I had to put my two cents on why the Selector tool is Easy/Alright and not Very Easy to use, it's probably cause of that.

Now what about the Applicator? While it's obvious to us that it's for us to slap cool elements and components onto stuff, I don't think the reason for being mostly Alright and not Very Easy to use isn't cause it's hard to use the Applicator. If anything, I would assume that rating comes from trying to figure out components with the Applicator, which I think is pretty understandable. To this day, I continue to get Point Light and Spot Light mixed up with each other.

And the Connector? To be honest, I think this is a tool that will be inherently difficult just as a result of the nature of the Connector tool itself. I don't think of it as a beginner tool someone starts off with right off the bat. So instead of exerting extra brain power into it, let's use my remaining juice to figure out why the Builder tool, the literal BUILDING part of the game, is only Easy and not Very Easy.

How in the world does that happen? I mean, it's super simple! You pick brick, you place, then you build! Now frankly, I don't think that is the problem. What may potentially be skewing this result can probably be answered by this question: WHAT is being built? After all, you are placing bricks, aren't you?

Considering a largely emphasized facet of building during the demo was physics and vehicles, I can believe that some folks may have had some difficulty at first figuring out how to build with the new bricks + features that they have! Bearings and sockets? Motors and Logic Gates? And I have to make them physics for them to work? Odd, weird, it make brain hurt! On top of that, you have a lot of people trying out the new features of the Builder tool itself, ranging from the new UI, a new way to rotate bricks, updated keybinds, and so on and so forth. If anything, I think it's just a momentary instance of the community trying to figure out the Builder tool.

People prefer mouse controls for building! Not surpising. To be fair though, follow mode is an excellent tool for precise placement of bricks, while I feel like mouse controls are just for the fast, easy placements, and considering mouse controls literally is just point and click, it's not hard to see why people favor it over WASD or numpad controls.

I remember trying the new Builder tool control scheme, and then realizing that right click removes the brick. I then proceeded to never use the right mouse button ever again realizing that. For me personally, I prefer to hammer when I delete, and builder tool when I build. I can see why people prefer the convenience of using the right click though, it does save an extra button click. What I am most curious about though is what the last remaining percent is. 95% people use either the Builder tool's right click or the Hammer. What is the 5%? Are they CTRL+Z'ing the entire time? Do they just accept that the brick they've placed is permanent and irremovable?

The stability of physics in Brickadia is very, very good! I can see why it's not VERY satisfying though, but satisfied certainly fits the bill. If I had to guess why it was only satisfied, it's probably cause the physics for things like bearings explode sometimes, which you can somewhat see in the high-neutral ratings for joints in general. On that note, "The range of joints provided" having the lowest Very Satisfied rating? Can we use this as justification to add more joint types? Probably not, but it does feel like we could use a couple more joint-types in Brickadia, but it seems that most people are alright with what's provided. Overall, seems like people enjoyed physics across the board, as did I!

Self-explanatory, people figured it out for the most part. However, for more than half of the results for "A moving platform", people couldn't make one! It is a little curious, but I wonder if the result accounts for people who actually tried to make a moving platform versus those who didn't.

This one is also pretty self-explanatory. I think the results of the last question, "Create a new vehicle that drives well," can be mitigated with some of the feedback I had regarding vehicles in the last blurb speculation column, where it's really only a couple of default settings that need to be tweaked. Anyone can make a vehicle, but the default settings can make it tricky figuring out what should be changed or what shouldn't be changed.

And now for the interesting stuff:

NOBODY CARES ABOUT THIS GAME COMING TO SWITCH. STOP TRYING TO MAKE IT HAPPEN. Just kidding, but it seems people don't really think TOO much about cross-platform gaming with regard to Brickadia. But I can assure you, the second it does come to Switch? If it ever does, I am buying it.

I can see people REALLY want flying vehicles! Interesting how they left boats and regular water-based craft out of the list of questions. Are the developers trying to short-change us? I want boats with cool water physics, you can't do this to me!

I also agree with the server list feature, it is such an incredibly important feature to have in the game. Of course, I can completely imagine that it's obviously going to be in the game once it comes out, but I'm also hoping for a version of it where it's grid-based, perhaps with their own thumbnails? While that DOES sound very ROBLOX-like, it is not a concept exclusive to that game.

How can everyone give such middling results for a photo mode? That would make recording stuff in Brickadia so much easier. But I am really glad that everyone agrees that we need a new prefab system for saving small contraptions. Having to re-add wheels everytime I bust the car save out is a bit annoying, if not cumbersome. I do feel like a better system of server moderation tools needs to be in-game, and it's interesting how the results for that part of the survey seem a little okay about it. That's probably because of the fact that there weren't really a lot of bad-actors during the demo, I can really only recall 2 cases where I had to ban someone for griefing. Beyond that, for a full release? I feel like there should be more at the server host's disposal for moderation.

It seems there's also somewhat of a middling results for the want of large, editable voxel terrain maps! Frankly, I think this one is a bit tricky to gage. For pretty much every single one of these questions, we can imagine pretty easily what they'd look like. But voxel terrain? How would it be done? Would they look like bricks? Would they look like the terrain we see on the Peaks map? Could we make separate bodies of water? How much voxel editing would lag the game? How detailed would the voxels themselves be in terms of actual smoothness?

I think that as a result of how much we don't know, that's what stretches out the results across all answers. Of course, we don't know exactly what flying vehicles will look like, but compare that with imagining voxel terrain. You'd probably have a clearer picture of what one looks like compared to the other.

Now for the rating of the game! (or at least, the demo release of the game):

It seems like based on these answers, the average rating for this demo would be roughly 8.5/10. Not bad! It'd be a 10/10 if they added a rat brick, not gonna lie. I think it's pretty easy to see why people like the game, and I don't think it's hard for any of us blurb readers to see either.

I can definitely see a lot of the answers to this survey as being actual, good information, on what should be changed, added, or considered for the full release of the game. I, for one, would like cool boats, which I should again make very clear since it wasn't a question on the survey apart from flying ships.

Now stay tuned, for the next blurb, we'll be looking at what the developers realized were issues, plans for the future, and a neat lil' reveal!

Until then, enjoy withdrawal symptoms from not playing the demo release of the game!