Player Survey III: Results (Patreon)

by Sashka

Thanks to all 1159 of you who took the time to fill out the latest survey, we've read all the responses and are back with a bit of analysis to tide you over until 0.8.6 goes public.

Note: for optional questions the number of responses is given in ()

How did you discover the game?

As expected the vast majority (78.5%) found the game via TFGames, with 2-5% each from twitter/reddit/discord.

How far into the game have you played?

The majority of responders have played the game extensively (44% to stage 4 and another 22% to late stage 4), again, not a major surprise as playing the game more presumably means you're more likely to take the time to fill out a survey... still, compared to the last survey where only 40% total had made it into stage 4 it's good to see people are progressing.

Preferred progression style:

The results here were pretty evenly distributed, so individual comments seem in order (percentages in parenthesis are what the results were from the last survey):

Varies: 25.7% - the most common response, nice to see the game can fulfil multiple niches for the same player.

For better comparison the individual style results are normalized (i.e.: they represent the share of the ~75% of people who had a specific style preference) as this matches how the question was phrased in the previous survey.

Voluntary: 30.5% (37.9%) - Still in first place, but looks to have contributed about half of the "enthusiast" fans.

Obedient: 29.0% (33.8%) - Still in second, but lost ground as well, also not surprising.

Enthusiast: 15.7% (new) - Impressively popular given that it isn't even technically released - doubly so given that "strict" won the poll to be included first (207 to 123, and 46% to 42% preference in the previous survey), though I think that reflects on a slight tilt between backers vs. the general public/sampling error. I would guess this will go up even more once enthusiast is in full release, though whether it passes obedient or voluntary seems a steeper hill to climb.

Strict: 11.9% (new) - Though new, it seems to have already surpassed its "milder" predecessor (bad girl), which matches with what I've seen in casual communication (those who want strict wanting it REALLY strict).

Bad Girl: 7.8% (20.7%) - Over half of the voters from before seem to have converted straight over to strict, not necessarily surprising, but certainly stark.

Money: 4.8% (7.6%) - Consistently the least popular of the styles, but one that I think is structurally useful nonetheless, though where it's fans went is a bit of a question/the difference is within the ~4% margin of error for this sample size.

Overall: It's nice to see that strict and enthusiast are taking off so quickly, as getting them to function was a fair bit of work, the significant swing in the direction of "strict" also plays in to the next question...

New strict/cruel scene variants: (557)

68% of you voted for a "cruel" first therapy scene variant, so that's gone on the outline pile/keep an eye out for it in future "small feature" surveys.  24% voted for manager's house, with the remaining ~8% doing write-ins, the majority of the write-ins were some combination of n/a, haven't played or some variant of "everything" ><, but of the remainder prostitution and maid are the ones that stood out.

Given the clear support for the new strict mode we will look to add some more scenes here/may solicit additional suggestions in the future, so if you see a scene that you think should have strict, call it out on discord/forums/twitter/reddit, we're watching!

Priority of psychiatrist strict mode: (991)

8.6% voted for this to be of paramount importance, with another 22.4% voting high, and 42.5% at medium. Given this relatively strong interest, combined with the prior question we've begin outlining in preparation of writing and adding at a later date.

Favorite non-work activity: (1120)

Very disparate results here, the top five were Dates with Alex (18.6%), Prostitution (15.9%), and VR therapy (14.5%), Alex RPG content (9.8%), and Assisting Dr. Twig (6.6%) of the "write-in" results the most common were things related to your pets (dogmeat, chuck, etc.), alongside milking/hucow.

Scene art preference:

A near super-majority (60%) prefer the variable "stacked" images... which is good, because that's the direction we've been focusing on. While we will try to add the odd gif/video (21% preference) it has proven much more difficult to arrange/commission.

Endings:

The order of preference here was:

68% Help manager take over (so close to nice...)

59% Help AIKO take over

53% Stay female/non-binary

47% Run away with a friend (Alex/Bob/Kurt)

29% Revenge on everyone

23% Existing bad ends

18% Escape the company

17% Side with Mr. Pawn

12% Go back to being a man

Some interesting results here, I think overall our plans should give everyone a bit of what they want, for the "write-in" results some common themes were wanting a happy/loving ending with your choice of partner (coming!), a hucow specific ending (the rumblings for this has been growing for awhile, a "bad end" for such is now on my list to write), pregnancy (planned)

Favourite Primary Character:

Once again Antlers (40%) and Alex (33%) come in as by far the most favourite characters, with the Psychiatrist (13%) in a distant 3rd with AIKO (6.9%), Bob (4.5%), Kurt (2.2%). This is almost exactly the same as the previous time we asked this question (40% Antlers, 30% Alex, 12% psychiatrist, 8.5% AIKO, 5.8% Bob, 2% Kurt) the stickiness of these results are, frankly astounding.

Primary Character to have more content:

A very diffuse set of results here, with a bit of a surprise with the psychiatrist coming out on top with 29%, followed by Antlers (19%), AIKO (18%). Alex falling all the way down to 9% makes sense given that she's the focus of current/next release. The therapist's high placing may be due to "priming" from the earlier strict/cruel mode therapist questions.

Most of the "more" requests are fairly in line with upcoming plans (particularly the future AIKO release). Continuing on from some of the prior questions there were a number of suggestions related to more therapist content/the effects of VR content "bleeding" into the real world more aggressively, and we'll see about adding a bit more in the vein.

Favourite Secondary Character:

By an even more dominant margin than before, Candy is the most favourite secondary character (50.9% this time out, 39.2% last), Serena again came in a stronger second (28% vs 21%), after which things shuffle a bit, with Twig 8.8% (up from 4.6%) in third.

For additional secondary character content the overwhelming response (55%) was for Serena, Candy pulling in only 18.8% and third place being satisfaction with current at 9.1%. We'll definitely be taking these responses into consideration with future planning.

The big theme here is Serena, primarily cuckolding, but also reconciliation and revenge. Peeling back the curtain a bit Serena was always intended as a bit of a genre subversion in terms of not being a "focus"/driving factor for the game. While she's grown a bit from that/does show up in a couple places (fetish club, gym) we remain uninterested in steering things in her direction at this time. For other characters/content requests things are fairly in line with plans (and some requested items have already been released, eg: Candy quest)

Favourite Tertiary Character: (1090)

A definite spread on this one, the following managed to pull in > 200 votes each:

398/36.5% - Chuck the Plant

308/28% - Dogmeat, your Pet Dog

302/27.7% - Lisa Soto, the Hucow

282/25.9% - Dafne, the Bartender

269/24.7% - Bambi, your Predecessor

259/23.8% - Nina the Maidtress/Friend

247/22.7% - Luna, the Punk Girl in Alex's RPG group

230/21.1% - Erica Schanze, the Fellow Secretary

225/20.6% - Kat, your Pet Cat

Tertiary Character to promote to Secondary Character: (1053)

Bambi, your Predecessor - 10.2%

Dogmeat, your Pet Dog - 9.3%

Dafne, the Bartender - 9%

Lisa Soto, the Hucow - 8%

Chuck, the Plant - 7.7%

Tertiary Character to Have more content (973)

282/29% - Chuck the Plant

263/27% - Dogmeat, your Pet Dog

236/24.3% - Lisa Soto, the Hucow

234/24% - Bambi, your Predecessor

204/21% - Dafne, the Bartender

Some interesting results here, the shuffling between the two questions was definitely infesting, probably the biggest takeaway is how, even with substantial content already existing, there remains fairly strong demand for more with the three pet characters.

Common themes here include more hucow content, more interaction with Danny and other characters, more pet content, more black box content, and more content with Blake. Creative juices are churning on these (and a couple other things) so keep an eye out in future polls!

Favorite Scene/part of the game: (400)

A wide spread here, some ~expected multiple mention standouts (promotion events, prologue blowjob scene, the historic fem scene, various VR, black box), but a real range with callouts across the game and across styles, everything from non-sexual character/compassionate scenes to some of the more extreme more brutal/cruel content. All we can really say here is thanks - it's an honour to know that we've managed to make such a varied impression to meet such differing interests.

Scene/Variant you wish existed (305)

A number of interesting ideas that we've noted for possible future/inspiration. In the immediate term/in response to a point that was raised several times we're announcing a new "bug bounty" for scenes that should have a willpower override, or that should be more "forced" based on high fetish stats, submit a save for such a scene and we'll check/write a variant.

Wiki Prioritization (194)

The requests have been passed along to the wiki writer for incorporation into future work.

Additional Comments (244)

Thank you for the many kind comments. Two notes on things that were mentioned repeatedly: 1) an "all female NPC" option is coming in 0.8.7 2) we are aware that the quantity of items is straining the inventory/shop system, an update is planned, but no ETA