Overview

As project manager and lead researcher for Charming Folks, a fantasy romance visual novel, I led a cross-disciplinary team to develop characters and themes players would actually love. By combining live user feedback with large-scale fandom trend analysis, we created a data-backed, emotionally resonant cast—delivered on schedule, with 90% internal satisfaction in testing.

🎯 Problem

Visual novels live or die on character appeal. But personal taste is subjective, and our small indie team couldn’t afford to waste time on content that didn’t land.

Challenge:
Define a scope-friendly cast and game theme with a high likelihood of audience connection—before full development began.

🔍 Research Strategy

1. Live Character Testing

We began with twelve sketched character concepts from our writers and artists. I organized a public “playtest” feedback event where:

• Participants rated each character from 1–7 (interest level)

• Open-ended comments were collected on appeal and tone

This gave us direct player sentiment data for early visual and personality cues.

2. Fandom Trend Analysis

To go beyond our existing circle and explore broader tastes:

• I compiled a list of popular video games with romantic companions from the past 15 years

• For each, I scraped fanfiction databases to find characters with the most stories written about them (a high-signal indicator of fan investment)

• I created a spreadsheet of 100+ characters with game, name, and popularity rank

Using AI, I generated standardized descriptions for each character to:

• Normalize tone and length

• Create clean data for text analysis

From these, I generated a word cloud of dominant traits across the most beloved characters in fandom, revealing high-frequency emotional tones, aesthetics, and archetypes (e.g. “mysterious,” “wounded,” “gentle,” “clever”).

3. Market Validation via Steam Tag Data

To ensure the game would also match monetizable genres, I:

• Pulled the top 500 trending Steam tags

• Analyzed them by median price per game

• Filtered for narrative and cozy vibes that aligned with both our values and target players

💡 Synthesis & Design

I led a group affinity mapping session with our team to align on:

• Top character traits and archetypes by player desire

• Design patterns from successful games

• Scope constraints and dev capacity

Together, we decided on a story-rich, cozy fantasy romance featuring three central characters:

• A charming, mysterious jester

• A strong, rugged hunter

• A moody, bookish cleric

Each was designed with intentional androgyny, supporting both romantic and platonic routes to maximize emotional inclusivity.

📅 Outcome

• 🎯 Character set locked before asset production began

• 🛠️ No major pivots or late-stage cuts during dev cycle

• ✅ 90% internal satisfaction in final playtesting

• ⏰ Project completed on time and fully scoped

This research foundation directly contributed to smooth development, clear character writing, and strong team alignment throughout.

🛠️ Tools & Skills Demonstrated

• Mixed-Method User Research (Quant + Qual)

• Trend Analysis & Secondary Data Mining

• Affinity Mapping & Team Facilitation

• Project Management & Scope Planning

• AI-Assisted Synthesis for UX

• Inclusive Character Design Strategy

• Product-Market Fit Framing