Hard At Work Episode IV: A New Hope

Hello everyone, it's time for another update post!

This time I'll cover the results of the last development poll.

The poll this time had a response rate on the low side, particularly when compared to the previous poll. I feel like I probably didn't make it obvious enough on the Patreon post, something I'll have to keep in mind in the future. Anyhow, let's go ahead and get down to it!

Of course, it seems like over one-third of the respondents rarely report bugs, if they do at all. Bug reports are pretty important, and nothing makes me want to scream like seeing someone write something like "the same bug has been in there for 3 versions now!". We fix 99.7% of reported bugs with each new release, so if someone has seen a bug multiple months, it means nobody has reported it and we don't know about it.

As we'll see later, people find it difficult to locate new content in the game. I think part of this is that we use the change logs to list all the new content we add to the game. So, if you don't read the changelog, finding most of the new content is going to take a good deal of searching and experimentation. I'm still trying to figure out a better way of handling this, but for now, the changelog is still important.

I think all the drugs for AW are pretty interesting. A lot of people are apparently going to be going the D.A.R.E. route, which basically means "take all the drugs in sight!" :D

I basically put all my favorite shows on here as options, so things turned out pretty much as expected. The Great Rape Escape took the lead, as it's featured with some actual writing in the female start. I think Creamy PI and Gina Warrior Slut Princess will both get some support when I have time to write an episode for them :D

Now for the more "serious" questions:

Well, I'm glad that people don't seem to find it too hard to learn. We definitely need to improve the tutorial images as well as finish creating some of the tutorial and guide content. More information about metal stats, and finding things to do in Appletree, will both probably make things easier.

This is the question I mentioned earlier... how easy is it to find new content. It seems like the changelog isn't commonly read, so I think many people have a hard time finding things without it. I've also noticed that the changelog itself tends to talk about new content in the context of existing content. So using our cave question above as an example, telling people that you can find a cave in the Hoden Springs area doesn't mean much if you have no idea what the Hoden Springs are.

The pie chart is another look at the data above. I think it makes it more clear. While 13% of people dislike the SVG portraits, 43% like them, and the most common opinion is neutral.

We got a spread of answers on this one. It seems like the predominant view is that they like the SVG face portraits, though there are also those that dislike them. I think the solution for those that dislike them is to allow the portraits to be disabled. There are a lot of advantages to using SVGs, as mentioned in the SVG blog post a while back, so for now, I think we'll continue with them. We can always re-evaluate later on, particularly if we get access to some improved art assets.

People do tend to view art assets, particularly portraits, as being important. I think having a PC portrait that is SVG-based, with a lot more customization available will be popular. :D

Aside from the development poll, we've been hard at work on version 0.22. I'm wrapping up the male prologue, and Besty has been working on a few minor items that have needed attention, such as handling fluids. :D

Hope you all have a great weekend!

ThaumX