News From the Six Realms #40 - 2019 Survey Results Analysis

Hello everyone,

Time for another newspost. Today I am going to be mostly talking about the survey results, so for those of you who aren’t interested in those, I’ll get the other stuff out of the way first.

Release is going fine, everybody is well on with what they have to do this month, and I’m even going to do a little surprise myself which I think a lot of you will like very much. On the art side, we’ve got the CGs to start colouring back from MDN, Sommy is nearly done with his BG for this month, and we have a sprite coming from Keidi as well. I have to go away for a week at the end of the month, so the release date for the new backer version is the 27th.

Also, for those of you who are interested in Jessika’s Curse but haven’t checked it out yet, you can now play it online in your browser over on Newgrounds here - https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/732915

Okay, survey time! (Note: Whenever two percentages are given without reference, it is always Backer / Public). 

Pretty decent sample size, combined public and backer response number is 898. I have no real idea of knowing how many people play the game, but legitimate downloads (backers plus itch tracking) put it at around nine thousand a month. 

Unsurprisingly responders were overwhelmingly male (94.8% backer / 93.8% public), and mostly straight (67.4% backer / 68.3% public). On the public survey, responders tended to be younger with the largest section being 18-25 at 46.3%, whereas backers fell into the next age group of 26-35 (49.2%). The vast majority were either located in Europe or North America, with more backers being located in North America (54.2%) and more public responders in Europe (42%) with North America a close second. In general, most people either heard about the game on message boards, Patreon, or via other adult developers.

Moving on to the gameplay section, the new guys is backers had a whopping 97.2% combined level of strongly enjoy (41.3%) and enjoy (55.9%) when asked how much they enjoyed the game currently. The public responders weren’t far behind with a combined 92.5% (31.7% / 60.8%). Both groups are also very interested in upcoming content, with the backers showing a combined 96.8% (57.7% very interested / 39.1%), and the public a combined 92.9% (47.9% / 45%). Both groups felt like they were given enough freedom (82.9% backers / 73.9% public), that they were not forced to make unwanted decisions (74.9% / 65.4%) and felt engaged by the decision they made (89.8% / 86.5%). 

The most popular mechanic currently was castle management, with 55.5% of backers choosing it as their favourite, and 51.4% of the public. This was followed by map exploration (23.8% / 26.4%), and then NPC job placement (13.4% / 13.5%). Both groups want to see castle management expanded (33.5% / 34.6%), while in second place, backers want more job placement (21.8%), while the public would prefer map exploration (22.2%). On the question of what should be added to Rosaria, the vote was split pretty much four ways, but on the backer survey a map spanning plotline just won out at 27.4%, while the public would prefer a single location with multiple visits (25.2%). Finally the majority of people in both groups agree the current level of depth of the mechanics is fine (72.8% / 67.4%), with a smaller group thinking the game needs more depth (18.4% / 20.4%).

When it comes to narrative, the majority of people like the game’s story, backers with a combined 95% (42.1% strongly like, 52.9% like), and the public with 86.4% (34.6% / 51.8%). Most people also think the amount of story is fine as well (82.5% / 76.6%), and that the pacing is good (86.2% / 81.4%). The most popular options for how decisions are made are “Roleplay” and “Hedonism”, with the backers choosing the former as number 1 (51.6%, ahead of hedonism at 46.9%), while the public was the reverse (45.4% hedonism / 44% roleplay).

Most backers choose to serve the twins because Jezera was convincing (36.3%) ahead of seeing Alexia again (33.9%), while the public prefer to choose Alexia ahead of Jezera by a very small margin (32.3% / 31.7%). Most people in both groups choose to serve Jezera (72.4% / 64.4%), with Andras is second (18.6% / 20.9%). Most of you evil, evil people chose to kill the poor old village elder (72.8% / 69%), and feel that the twins are threatening enough to justify Rowan’s unheroic behaviour (68.3% / 62.2%). When it comes to NTR, the vast majority choose to play with it turned on (91.4% / 79.1%). Feudal is also the most popular society choice (50.1% / 54.8%). Lastly, when it comes to endings, for the backers Rowan becoming evil and joining the twins (42.5%) just beating out Rowan’s own overlord ending (41.3%), while the public preferred the overlord route (42.9%).

In terms of character, most people feel Rowan is just about right (55.3% / 48.6%) although quite a few feel he is currently too passive (41.9% / 48.2%). The most popular role for Rowan is unsurprisingly “Corrupter” (63.7% / 60.1%), with “Judge, Jury and Executor” and “Steward” following behind. Both groups agree that consistency in character and player freedom are equally important (45.8% / 45.6%).

In regards to Alexia, most people prefer a wife who is loyal to Rowan (44.3% / 54.6%), with Andras in second place (33% / 28.4%). The vast majority of people like having Alexia work in the castle (92.7% / 86.5%), and her most popular narrative is becoming Andras’ slut (32.4% / 28.4%) followed by descending into hedonism with Rowan (27% / 25%). The most popular job for both groups was librarian (30.9% / 31.9%) followed by breeding pit assistant (19.7% / 23.2%). Most people (53.3% / 45.4%) would like to see more scenes from Alexia’s point of view, even if it means less from Rowan’s. 

Helayna continues to be popular, with most people choosing to claim her (74.3% / 73.4%) and most convincing her to stay (60% / 61.9%). Jezera is also a popular girl with most people either strongly liking (43.4% / 35.3%) or liking (39.7% / 42%) her character. As expected, Andras is a bit more polarizing, with just about more people liking him than not (backers - 25.1% strongly / 33.9% like, public - 23.2% / 30.3%). The most popular female character is Alexia (44.1% / 42%) followed by Helayna (14.3% / 17.7%) and Jezera (13.2% / 15.4). The least favourite characters are X’zaratl (24% / 28.7%) and Cla-Min (21.6% / 22.9%). Despite that, X’zaratl is the second female character that people would like to know more about (43.6% / 42.9%) behind Cliohna (56.6% / 56.9%). 

Despite her already having the most content by far, both groups feel that Alexia is the character who needs more content (19% / 23.9%). In second for the public is X’zaratl (15.1%), and joint third, Cliohna and Helayna (both 14%), while second for backers was Cliohna (18.8%), and third was X’zaratl (12.3%). Both groups would like to see Rowan have serious relationship outside of Alexia with Helayna (68.3% / 68.9%) and Jezera (62.8% / 58.2%), while the backers chose Liurial in third (40.4%) and the public Cliohna (41.6%).

One the male side, Greyhide was overwhelmingly the most popular character for both groups (50.5% / 48.4%), beating Andras into second place (35.2% / 35.1%). He is also the character most people would like Rowan to have a serious relationship with (59.4% / 72.7%), again followed by Andras (44.1% / 47.1%), and is also the male character people want to know more about by a large margin (74.5% / 72.7%). The least favourite male character is, for the second year in a row, poor Skordred (38.9% / 33.3%), with Draith in second place (28.9% / 29.1%). Unsurprisingly, when it comes to characters who need more content, both groups put Greyhide in first (41.3% / 42.4%) and Andras in second (23.8% / 23.4%).

When it comes to kinks, NTR was the most popular for both groups, followed by corruption, and then pregnancy / breeding, when extrapolating data from the three pie charts and multiple choice content question. When it comes to Rowan’s straight sex scenes, the majority of people in both groups enjoyed him in both dominant and submissive positions (47.7% / 40.4), followed by dominant positions (36.3% / 39.9%). On the gay side, backers preferred both (22.2%) to Rowan being submissive (21%), while the public preferred sub (19.3% to 16.3% for both). 

On the subject of races, Dark Elves were the most popular for both groups (66.5% / 59.2%) with beastmen (50.7% / 47.5%) and minotaurs / cowgirls (45% / 48.6%) both scoring well. The majority of people are also interested in transformation content (79.5% / 70.2%) with the most popular potential transformations being Alexia being slutted up (53.2% / 48.3%), other female NPCs being slutted up (36.9% / 37.2%) and Alexia futa content (31.5% / 30.9%).

Finally, the last section - the vast majority of people are happy with the size and frequencies of the releases, a whopping 97.2% on the backer survey, and 87.8% on the Public. Most people on both also think that the currently month release schedule is the best (80.6% / 76.5%), so no rest for me. :) In a result that I’m sure will surprise no one, most people wanted additional funds to be spent on art (48.6% / 47.5%), with the suggestion to split it between every area in second (23.1% / 22.7%). When it comes to our other games, more backers than not are interested in both Jessika’s Curse (58.3%) and The Eternal Feast (58.3%), while the inverse is true for the public (not interested - JC 52.8% / TEF 53.7%). Both groups, however, are interested in another game set in the Seeds of Chaos world (97% / 95.2%).

In conclusion, and I’ll try to keep this short as it already feels like I’ve been talking forever, I think it is a pretty positive survey, both from backers and the public. The majority of people are enjoying the game and are excited about future updates, and generally feel like we are doing a good job. We’ve got some pretty useful data about the game from these as well, as we’ll be able to use that to improve the game going forward. If you want to compare these results to last year, you can find those here. Thanks to everyone who took the time to answer the survey, and we’ll do this again in a year. :)