I did nt reply initially when I saw that Patreon post from L&P, as I did nt want to be too rash into making a judgement.....
Many of us are fans of the game for a variety of reason. For myself at least the reasons include in no particular order: the beautiful renders of some stunning girls, the attempt (whether successful or not) at realism or at the very least believability within the confines of an adult VN, the aim at telling an erotic story rather a meaningless fuckfest, and above else, Soiphia as a goddess. I love women with natural curves and Sophia certainly started that way, even if she has got a touch cartoonish in some recent updates. I love her interest in both arts and science, sport and music. She is smart, intelligent, a caring mother a great balance between career and family. In short the woman of my dreams.
Now we have seen before that L&P will use excessive number of renders - there is no harm in having the occasional large text box over a primarily black background if it conveys essential storypoints in a more efficient manner than having each line of thought or dialogue each having their own distinct render. There is no harm in occasionally reusing renders, especially if a conversation between two people who have nt moved. We dont need EVERY thought separately rendered. The point I that we love L&P's rendering style, but that sometimes, less is truly more, and in this case L&P would be bettr shaving off 10% - 20% of his renders. I mean if an update could have had 650 renders, then if you shaved of 20% = 130 renders, that would still leave 520 renders to tell that storyline.
And we have said before that L&P spends a lot of time customising each render. This shows up in the quality of his work. From the beautiful lighting effects to the variety of facial expressions are a big part of why his renders are so beautiful. But the revelation L&P could spend up to 30 minutes tweaking a single render to get it "just right" goes beyond the search to provide a quality product. It is the quest for limitless perfection taken to insane extremes.
We have said before L&P has spent a lot of time building up the portfolio of characters that we have in the VN. And that is great in terms of adding realism as compared to some VN's with maybe 6-8 characters in total. It does make the VN world feel believable, But already we have seen the quantity of side characters grow to unrealistic levels. Did we NEED to give the choice between two side jobs, neither of which seems likely to get anywhere any time soon. And yes I know L&P said a "hot" scene was coing up in the second side job. Yet I remain unconvinced that we will look at it afterwards as a worthwhile step in the corruption of Sophia to get to the Promised Land i.e. Sophia actually having sex with someone not called Liam. And what was the point of the postman or the jaitor or even Mr Bennet if they don't pay off in a concrete way in the near future. The point is we could have saved a little bit of time with some of these superfluous secondary characters., and that could have a few more unnecessary renders over the last few updates.
Then we come to the number of different routes. Anything more than 3-4 routs is unnecessarily complex. We should have had Goodwife Route, Lesbian Route, Filthy Route, and maybe one route without incest. I am not clear how many routes we have but it feels far more than that. I mean we are going to have Sophia helping Cathy choosing a wedding dress in the next update and most of us had forgotten who the hell Cathy was, having been in one scene way back on Day Two. That means we no doubt have the Stag and Hen parties both coming up soon. Both probably giving further5 routes and options to choose. Some people hate Kinetic novels where there is NO choice but L&P has gone to the opposite extreme with seemingly limitless options, each of which requires more time coding, and you guessed it, yet MORE renders.....
Now a Development TEAM could have probably coped with such an ambitious project. Maybe one person specialising in Renders, another in scripting the dialogue and storyline, and yet another specialising in coding. Because this what many Game Developers do in practice. Some even have offices after thy have got established with a track record of delivering product to their Patreon subscribers. But even if each of them is working separately in their on study /spare room etc they could work as a Team. Now I understand that being Creative is a difficult process, and that it can be hard in getting people doing what you need / want. But circling back to the insane quest for perfection, it seems that L&P is too stubborn and pedantic to consider sharing the workload, and thus delivering product more often, and thus attracting more Patreons, and thus receiving more monetary rewards.....
The point is that L&P COULD do some or all of the above. He COULD share the workload, getting some help in the areas that he felt least comfortable with, whether as a partnership sharing risks and rewards, or employing someone as an employee. or even just as a consultant on a pay-on-delivery basis. He COULD trim a few unnecessary renders, cutting down in corridor shots, reusing some renders or black screens for conversation, cutting down internal monologues. He COULD limit his search for perfection and only spend 10-15 minutes tinkering on a single render rather than 30 minutes. He COULD stop introducing new characters, get rid of superfluous characters, start simplifying the myriad story routes, and thus save on time for coding and renders.
But will he heck.....
Luckily I have found a few other games / VN, which even though they are not as perfect as AWAM could be, are entertaining enough to cover the long gap between AWAM updates.
And my naïve, optimistic side can yet believe that L&P see some reason and consider doing even a couple of those things that have suggested that he could do to produce AWAM in a more efficient manner.....
