[FEEDBACK] Some issues and requests

[Azure Fang]

Bugs and Concerns

• Chickens can fail to "attach" to perches, causing them to hop in place until something forces them to reset (specifically, Pumpkin Smash or reloading the game). While in this state, the perch cannot be used by another chicken. Moving an affected perch drags the affected chicken with it rather than breaking the loop.
  
• Possibly related to the above, with Medium and Large Coops, a "tower of chickens" may be built over time, with chickens stacked on top of one another, flying in place, while trying to get onto the window perch.
  
• When an interactive object or coop is moved, its interaction point is not. Chickens will move to the object's former location to interact, then teleport to the object's location for animation, and then teleport back to the original location when finished. This affects everything from feeders to perches, and will even cause chickens to "appear out of thin air" when leaving coops that have been moved. Exiting and reloading places interaction points where they belong.
  
• Chickens cannot be removed. When selecting a chicken to be removed, the normal warnings appear but never result in the chicken leaving. I've tried to kick the same normal out of my farm seven times, but no manner of menu changes, reloads, or sacrifices to elder gods sees that chicken gone.
  
• Legendaries do not count toward total number of chickens for missions. Not sure if this is intended.
  
• Some object hitboxes, specifically coops, seem smaller than their polygons, leading to chickens frequently walking through walls.

Requests/Suggestions

• Snap To Grid option for object placement
  
• Snap To Angle option for object rotation
  
• Analytics Opt-Out (crosspost)
  

  Originally posted by Azure Fang:

  Originally posted by Ragical:

  Hey to further clarify why you might be seeing that, we use Unity Analytics to track stuff...

  May I make a request that you mention this on first boot of the application and give an option in-game to disable this? There are some that would be willing to throw a company under the bus for any data collection, even if its truly anonymous, and a little transparency and the option to opt-out are some of the greatest goodwill gestures one can make in this regard.

Praise

Don't take any of the above negatively, please. The fact that such a small team created this in such a short span is marvelous, and I'm enjoying the game tremendously. I can certainly say that I'd buy it in a heartbeat if it were reasonably priced, and would love cards/badges/emotes from this game if that is ever considered.

[RockLass]

Updated my chicken coop, all the hens went to sleep for the night, but none came back out on the next day. Can't seem to make them appear again though the counter says they are still in the coop. Love this game btw!

Well, I exited the game and returned and the gals came back outta the coop so that's fixed. Yay!

However, I do not seem to be getting any hen sounds at all, nor have I from the start. The music plays and when a bonus is received there is a chime, but no chicken sounds. Please say there's happy flock sounds coming!

[Antiga]

Never seen a chicken mount a perch in my farm.
Legendaries that add egg-quality do not carry this over into the information screen. The bonus does still seem active.
No chicken sounds here either, believe there are none.

[RockLass]

I've had a few chickens hop up on a perch but not very often, and never two at once. I've had them jump up on the cabbage-on-a-rope stand more than perches. No clucking from the hens or crowing from roosters!? Yikes! That's an absolute must to change in my books.

[Ragical]

Hey Azure Fang thanks for the feedback! A lot of what you have discussed is stuff we either agree with, or are already aware. Like you said the project time frame was very short, and across two platforms (with hopefully iOS on the way, think different they said) with completely different requirements.

The biggest thing for us was that we wanted to make a PC game that felt like a PC game on phones too. For us that meant proper 3D, with proper freedom of movement. Then we asked ourselves: So shouldnt they be able to place and rotate stuff wherever with no grids etc...
We wanted people to feel like their farm was unique and theirs.

This presented quite a few engineering issues to get around, originally you were only going to have 30 chooks! ANYWAY! This isn't to discount anything you have said, and you would chuckle I'm sure if you saw our notes because most of what you have brought up is in there. :D

It's purely time management for us at this point, our plan is to keep updating Cheeky and maintain support for it. To do that we will be pretty razor edge focused on what we tackle to get the most out of the time we spend, however quality of life and some of those bigger bugs and interaction issues are on our current buglists to get fixed/updated.

In regards to the analytics, it is really not common for games to present options like that, and the main reason is the alarmist reaction to it.
We are four guys in a lounge room who made a game for charity who are keeping track of things like 'global egg count' or 'average play time'. to make fun events with the community when we hit milestones.
If you have the game on Android you'll see it requires no permissions, we went out of our way to make sure of it (we avoided in game links even despite them being kinda fun sometimes).

To give you a frame of reference, the data we send to Steam on your behalf to have things like Steam Achievements is exactly the same kind of data. It's in no way different and there is no way for us to track personal data in any way.

Edit: Also.. cant remember if it was you or not that requested it but I have made a suggestions and feedback sub forum now. If you dont mind I'll bamf this over there?
Also also, thanks again for the feedback it is VERY appreciated and thank you for the praise/understanding too. :)

[Azure Fang]

Originally posted by Ragical:

In regards to the analytics, it is really not common for games to present options like that, and the main reason is the alarmist reaction to it.
We are four guys in a lounge room who made a game for charity who are keeping track of things like 'global egg count' or 'average play time'. to make fun events with the community when we hit milestones.
If you have the game on Android you'll see it requires no permissions, we went out of our way to make sure of it (we avoided in game links even despite them being kinda fun sometimes).

To give you a frame of reference, the data we send to Steam on your behalf to have things like Steam Achievements is exactly the same kind of data. It's in no way different and there is no way for us to track personal data in any way.

The fact that it's not common does not make the practice a good thing, but I'm not here to debate merit. As a consumer, having any data collected without my knowledge, even if it is truly as benign as "number of eggs sold" is a breach of privacy, and I can't support that. Unfortunately, that means I'll be uninstalling and will make sure communities to which I belong that may be interested are made aware so that they may make more informed decisions in their support as well.

[Trilum Studios]

Hi Azure! As I pointed out in the thread you started, we do not track any personal data in any way. I want that to be very clear, we are a very new team and its important to us that we set a standard.

In the next update the option to deactivate analytics will be added.

As I pointed out our time is very limited, and although Cheeky Chooks is a free game we plan on supporting it and continuing to add content. Because why not? I did not fully discount what you said but now want to point out two things.

1) The false negative that Avast gave a user, which started all this, was in no way linked to analytics. The only reason we are having this discourse is because I was fully transparent and brought it up.

2) Its the EXACT same data used for Steam Achievements, which you have over 5800 of. I am not attempting to argue or make you feel silly, or discredit you, but it is LITERALLY the same lines of code.

I understand your concern, but you have conflated Analytics, which is purely anonymous data gathering, with privacy invasion. I need to clarify this, and I cannot clarify it enough. We are in no way tracking users personal data.

Even though we disagree with you, and even though we truly feel you just misunderstand what analytics are for, if this is an actual issue for you, genuinely you should uninstall Steam because, and hold it as a giant global platform to the same principles that you are holding a small team of indies who are making a game for the sake of making a game.

Srsness aside, I want to thank you again for your input, and for just caring. About our games, about the state of the industry in general. We know the world is full of vultures and villains who only want to take..
That is seriously one of the biggest factors for us making this game.

[Azure Fang]

Crosspost from my review response:

While the promise to add the ability to disable analytics is appreciated, your commentary makes it feel like you still miss the entire point.

The type of data gathered is not at issue. The fact that you are gathering any data AT ALL without prior consent of your comsumers and without informing them that you are gathering data, the actual practice, is the point on contention. The only place that you have informed users of portions of this practice have been in two threads and this review's comment section, not places where your consumer base at large will ever see it.

Valve has made it clear, in multiple permanent locations, that Steam collects certain forms of data and that is reasonable for an online platform. It's unreasonable for an offline, single player game to need to gather ANY information whatsoever without at least informing its consumers. That act itself is an invasion of privacy.

I know Valve collects data; they've plastered that fact everywhere. Hell, I opt-in to their system surveys when they're offered, willingly giving them more of my data; They asked. But I had to find out that YOU are collecting data from an off-handed comment made to a user when their virus scanner (erroneously) pinged your game as a virus, probably due to the analytics module itself (no proof, just simple assumption).

I'm glad you'll be giving the rest of your consumer base the option to opt out. It may not seem like much to you, but some people simply don't like the thought that they're being monitored without their permission, even if it's only "number of eggs sold" and the like, and being given that option, that transparency, goes a long way to engender a modicum of trust and respect in an industry that's showing more and more that it considers its consumers as disposible assets to be used or abused as they please - an analogy I hope you can relate to, considering your association to the RSPCA with this game.

As for me, I'm afraid the undercurrent of hostility in this exchange has left me weary. Maybe my opinion will change after some time and observation, but for now it stands firm. I'm sorry.

And yes, I see you further commented here, compared to the review comment, on the virus scanner trip. To be perfectly honest, neither of us should be able to predict what triggered that user's scanner's heuristics without seeing their log - and it was Norton, not Avast - but I won't be post-editing my comment. I stand by what I say, even if I've been proven wrong on that point.

[Ragical]

We've addressed this issue, and have included a warning on load to further accommodate people who may be concerned about it. We should have this live within the next 24 hours.

I would appreciate feedback from here out be a discussion, rather than what this thread has turned into. I am locking this thread and moving it to feedback.