Keystroke counter privacy

[pillowboat]

Hi! I really love this demo and the character creation is a lot of fun. However, I have some concerns about the keystroke counter, particularly the fact that it cannot be reset/erased, and is enabled regardless of whether the character is in work mode or not. I would like for a setting to disable this feature, or at the very least reset. I am uncertain of having a game I know little about constantly keeping track of all my inputs even when they're just idling about.

[JemriJumble]

I'm seconding this, though I hadn't really considered it from a privacy perspective. I just thought it was annoying because I only wanted to see a stroke-count for what I had done while i was in study mode. It's kind of weird that it keeps running whether it's active or not. I'd much rather the counter only went up during study mode and reset between sessions. Either way it's something they should remedy.

[Rucia]

Similarly to Bongo Cat, I do not recall a way if they did stop tracking the count. Admittedly, it's hard to detect when a key or mouse button is pressed to increase an on-screen counter, but perhaps if someone took a look within to check if there were any malicious packets, we may be put at ease. Hopefully, this does not record, store, or transmit what you actually type.

[LunagiIchira]

Yeah, I've been concerned over this as well, especially since by the time I got to the part in the "tutorial" where the character suggested I right click them for the counter, it was already at a number higher than 0.

[Yinengjie]

Thank you for your suggestion — we'll work on improving this in a future update. Please give us a little time, and we're very sorry for any trouble it has caused you.

[beanyuwu]

I too worry about it, i was fooling around making characters when a friend let me know of this situation about the keycounter, I too worry about such feature and will affect my chances of getting the game once it fully released
It is cute, it has amazing customization but that is a security worry I would not compromise with

[Admiral Waltz]

Yes please, even if its technically harmless cuz nothings done with the Keystroke data, thats still basically like leaving your front door open and hoping nothing bad happens...

[Kytri]

I'm also concerned about the key counter. The game is super cute and I was having a great time with it but I've uninstalled out of an abundance of caution. I'd love to be able to reinstall if the security concerns can be assuaged.
It would be great if there were a way to turn off the key counter and/or have some more granular control over what it counts and when. It would also be nice if there were an easy way to see what it's logging. For example I noticed mouse clicks also add to the counter, does the game know that it was a mouseclick and not a keyboard key? Does it know which specific keys I'm pressing or only that I am pressing keys?

[HikaTamika]

More control options would be cool! Like being able to track word-count (by spacebar usage).

Allowing players to instead choose alternative productivity methods like pomodoro timers and to-do-lists would be handy as well.

[skeleton]

not big on the random keylogger fearmongering in here but i also would like it if there was an option to turn the keystroke counter feature off entirely. i like the idea of having my characters work alongside me but i don't want it to be tracked by a number that is visible to me as i tend to get obsessive about those sorts of things. it takes a bit of the comfort out of it for me.

edit: the person above who was claiming it was a keylogger edited their post to change the wording. calling it a keylogger implies that it is malware; calling it a keycounter is just what it is. my bad for assuming the worst they could have just mixed up the terms and weren't trying to scare anyone with it.

[pillowboat]

Originally posted by Yinengjie:

Thank you for your suggestion — we'll work on improving this in a future update. Please give us a little time, and we're very sorry for any trouble it has caused you.

no trouble at all! i deeply appreciate your response and i'm so happy to hear that it will be improved in future updates. please take your time! i look forward to enjoying more of character house n_n

[Yinengjie]

We understand everyone's concerns, and we can assure you all that our game does not use any network transmission other than the official Steam and Unity SDKs. We have also received feedback from some players who expressed concerns about the typing statistics feature — this is a feature many desktop pet games offer, and we originally designed it simply to give players real-time feedback. Failing to anticipate these concerns was an oversight on our part. If you're still uncomfortable with it, you're welcome to wait for future updates or the official release, when we will improve this feature and provide an option to turn off the typing statistics.

[Kytri]

That's great to hear, thank you!

Also I apologize if my earlier wording frightened anyone. I did in fact get the terms mixed up. That wasn't my intent and I do not think the game is malware.

[skeleton]

thank you for the response! i'll be looking forward to the option to turn it off. for the time being i'll just plop my characters down in the corner with the cheerleading perk so they can hype me up while i work.

Originally posted by Kytri:

That's great to hear, thank you!

Also I apologize if my earlier wording frightened anyone. I did in fact get the terms mixed up. That wasn't my intent and I do not think the game is malware.

i'm also sorry for jumping to conclusions there, i have been seeing a lot of accusatory posts about this game stealing data and believed you were trying to imply that too. it's completely understandable to be concerned about your privacy if you're unfamiliar with keystroke counters.