Ren'Py Astral Lust [v0.3.1c] [Victorius]

[Ferghus]

What I'd really like to know though, is if so many of these devs do abandon their games for health reasons, what changed along the lines to where their health began to deteriorate?

Was it spending more time investing themselves in the game trying to add more content? Game engine software limitations hitting a wall and causing them headaches on their end? Developing the game isn't paying the bills so they can't spend as much time continuing to develop the game?

Whatever the reason may be, is the the developer communicating as much to let their supporters know as much or are they keeping it bottled up inside?

Either way, my suggestion on releasing a finished product, even if the finished product takes a nosedive (see Fahrenheit as a perfect example of this,) at least they can reflect that they started and, possibly more importantly, finished a difficult project. I think giving up should only be a last resort and my belief is for many of these developers abandoning their projects, it's not a last resort, it's just the easiest one is all.

It depends on the individual, but like I said before, fatigue and stress often compounds with existing risk factors. It could manifest from something as obvious as eye strain to internal organ damage. There's sometimes dietary risk factors like consuming more caffeine than they ought to keep up with work load, or eating fast food or junk food to cut down on energy/effort in cooking. As for psychological, you sometimes gets to a point where the stress becomes self destructive. It may cause them to lose their appetite, it could impact quality of sleep, or even be as severe as causing their hormones to go out of whack. The human body is a delicate thing. Oftentimes, people will ignore early signs of it for one reason or another, until it progresses to a point where you simply can't.

As for why don't they communicate, it usually comes from the experience of being ignored. If people were quick to blow off devs pausing game development due to mental health issues, what makes you think people are any more receptive if they disclose their very personal health issues. I've seen multiple threads where people are either indifferent, apathetic, or outright hostile because they refuse to believe it. Like I remember following the Lilith's Throne development blog and people were unbelievably toxic in the comments. It's no wonder devs don't share shit.

As for "last resort", I strongly disagree. I don't see the value in completing a game for the sake of completing it and I don't think they should feel guilty for giving up. I don't think anyone understands how much time, effort, and other material or immaterial costs it takes to make the game like the dev themselves. And the wrapup could be much more difficult than what they've done so far. You try to frame it like it'll be some kind of magical milestone that'll make it all worth it at the end, but that's not how that works. If you're already way in over your head, chances are you'll never finish. You just prolong the suffering.

 

[Game Lord]

I think you are equating job burnout/overload to a drug addiction. Yes, one's health may and can be impacted by stress but once they've got their health, both physical and mental well-being back in order, it's not like they have to give up on the game's development altogether.

It's like people whose jobs get the better of them. Do they need to stop working forever on account of needing to temporarily step away from what is causing them their health issues at that time? In all honesty, it's not the job that is really causing the issues to begin with either. It's the management of their own faculties that is.

I can understand anything that is life altering, such as cancer or something long-term debilitating, resulting in a game's outright cancellation but I'm of the belief most games being abandoned, this is not the case.

Obviously every case is going to be different as no two are alike but all too often in the games I was following (this game, Monster Girl Island, Sylphine to name but a few,) each was abandoned for their own reasons but only for this game do I believe was for honest to goodness health related reasons.

Again, my belief is most abandoned games are abandoned not due to legitimate health related reasons ultimately.

 

[Ferghus]

I think you are equating job burnout/overload to a drug addiction. Yes, one's health may and can be impacted by stress but once they've got their health, both physical and mental well-being back in order, it's not like they have to give up on the game's development altogether.

It's like people whose jobs get the better of them. Do they need to stop working forever on account of needing to temporarily step away from what is causing them their health issues at that time? In all honesty, it's not the job that is really causing the issues to begin with either. It's the management of their own faculties that is.

I can understand anything that is life altering, such as cancer or something long-term debilitating, resulting in a game's outright cancellation but I'm of the belief most games being abandoned, this is not the case.

Obviously every case is going to be different as no two are alike but all too often in the games I was following (this game, Monster Girl Island, Sylphine to name but a few,) each was abandoned for their own reasons but only for this game do I believe was for honest to goodness health related reasons.

Again, my belief is most abandoned games are abandoned not due to legitimate health related reasons ultimately.

I don't know where you got drug addiction from, but that wasn't what I was going for. Again, game development is generally not the job that puts food on an aspiring porn game dev's table. It's the day job. I don't think most people who had a sudden drop in health is so suicidal to jump back into their unprofitable pseudo second job that caused them to have those issues in the first place, especially if getting that ill prevents them from working their day job and the treatment to get them back on their feet is a drain on their finances. You're not forgetting that most devs effectively have two jobs, are you?

Dude, you don't get to decide whether a health related issue is "legitimate." Solo game development as a side job puts a strain on everything. You're sacrificing time and energy that you could be spending on something else, and you're doing it for an extended period of time. It makes no sense to keep going if it negatively affects your everyday life and has no signs of improving. You don't need to get cancer to decide that you have more important things to do than work your ass off on an unprofitable project for an indefinite amount of time.

 

[Game Lord]

You're assuming that most that are abandoning their games are doing so for "legitimate" health reasons. Legitimate in the sense that whether what was disclosed publicly for their health reason abandonment was actually even true to begin with. I gave you three games I recently was following where two used health reasons as their reasons for abandoning their games. This game, which I really believe was the case, and Sylphine which anyone following that game knows that guy was full of shit. You can be gullible and take whatever they say at face value when health reasons is used as often as it is here for the abandonment issue. I tend to not give the benefit of the doubt to most of these same developers breaking it out as often as they do. It's the easiest de facto standby excuse to throw out there so that hopefully those following won't grief the developer as much after the fact, especially if supporters were financially pledging money all along.

In this respect, I know we'll never see eye to eye on.

I'm just going to go with my belief that much of today's society are snowflakes. In every aspect and respect of its meaning. What yesteryear's folks deemed adversity, much of society today crumbles and breaks when met with a bout of it.

 

[Alex3Ton]

(Google translation.)
Wow, what a dialogue you have here. Have you tried writing game scripts? Such talent is wasted.

 

[Ferghus]

You're assuming that most that are abandoning their games are doing so for "legitimate" health reasons. Legitimate in the sense that whether what was disclosed publicly for their health reason abandonment was actually even true to begin with. I gave you three games I recently was following where two used health reasons as their reasons for abandoning their games. This game, which I really believe was the case, and Sylphine which anyone following that game knows that guy was full of shit. You can be gullible and take whatever they say at face value when health reasons is used as often as it is here for the abandonment issue. I tend to not give the benefit of the doubt to most of these same developers breaking it out as often as they do. It's the easiest de facto standby excuse to throw out there so that hopefully those following won't grief the developer as much after the fact, especially if supporters were financially pledging money all along.

In this respect, I know we'll never see eye to eye on.

I'm just going to go with my belief that much of today's society are snowflakes. In every aspect and respect of its meaning. What yesteryear's folks deemed adversity, much of society today crumbles and breaks when met with a bout of it.

You gave me the name of two games I'm not familiar with. I'm saying that "legitimate health reasons" is a vague phrase that doesn't have any inherent metric. What it means is going to differ between people. My personal stance is that a dev doesn't even need an excuse that other people will accept to abandon a game. You don't own the dev just because people collectively threw a few hundred, or even a few thousand dollars at them. With the attitude that a dev should finish a game that they start, even if it's not enjoyable and doesn't put bread on their table, a lot of now-successful games wouldn't even have existed. It's too huge of a commitment for anyone that lacks a safety net. I'm not asking you to believe and support every dev out there, I'm asking you to be empathetic and understand that game development is essentially a burden that not everyone can carry. Hell, most devs don't even get an audience, and you're basically asking for either all devs to devote themselves to the completion without exception, or all devs with games of worth to do it, at which point it looks a lot like entitlement.

As for the idea that "today's society are snowflakes", I'd like to remind you that it's the pre-millenial generations that struggle to adapt to a digital age and heavily rely on younger people to find answers and dumb it down for them. They're also the same at-risk group for having their identity stolen. Also, I'm pretty sure older folk are the reason why porn, porn games, and even sexual education wasn't very widespread. You've got to have tunnel vision if you've forgotten that the good old days included men who were too scared to be themselves in public and women who would accept being sexually harassed and assaulted as a normal part of life. That's not a badge of honor, that's just copium. The good old days fucking sucked, my dude. Society was fucking worse. I'd also remind you that it's the old rich dudes up there making all the shitty policy changes in the present too.
Edited because I don't want to get too into political talk.

 

[Game Lord]

Society today: my feelings, my feelings, they hurt, where's my safe space. Must retreat to it immediately!

 

[Ferghus]

Society today: my feelings, my feelings, they hurt, where's my safe space. Must retreat to it immediately!

Yesterday's society: I'm unhappy with my life so I belittle my wife and kids and pretend it's out of love. I also can't stand the thought of a woman knowing more than me, being stronger than me, or having any control over me. I'm not confident enough to talk to people about my problems because I'm scared they'll say mean things about me. I'm afraid of having or doing anything that makes people, but mostly me, think I'm less of a man.

They call it fragile masculinity for a reason.

 

[Palim palim]

Today: You share not my opinion, you are a Nazi

 

[Game Lord]

Today: You share not my opinion, you are a Nazi

Amen Brother.

And each side is right (in their minds) so you can't even have a civilized discussion nowadays much of the time.

 

[08/15Wixxer]

I stumbled upon this gem a week ago, while searching for a game with Spire like gameplay/combat.

I didn't expect much since the game was already abandoned. So I was pretty surprised by seeing the amount of content this game has to offer.

I'm having fun exploring the game world, interacting with all these different charakters you stumble across and expanding my card collection to build all kind of decks. And since I'm a loot hoarder, I realy like the option to build a vault. Being able to keep unique items, even if you die, apeals to the collector in me.

 

[Powerack]

Hope someone can pick up this project

Hope is all we can. But I still don't think that it will come to that. Authors often doesn't share their resources like images and code. Even if you can get most of it via tools like unren and even if you can make it work, it still is work of the original author you are building at.

 

[Ferghus]

Hope is all we can. But I still don't think that it will come to that. Authors often doesn't share their resources like images and code. Even if you can get most of it via tools like unren and even if you can make it work, it still is work of the original author you are building at.

Personally, I don't like the idea of some rando "picking up" a project. If someone lacking skill takes on the project, they're going to struggle even more than the dev did and are more likely to give up. If someone with completely different visions for the game shows up, the game is going to feel disjointed and may be retconed to the point of being unrecognizable. In either case, they'd be better off making their own game. And if they can't do that, what makes you think they can carry the development of someone else's game?

 

[Game Lord]

Personally, I don't like the idea of some rando "picking up" a project. If someone lacking skill takes on the project, they're going to struggle even more than the dev did and are more likely to give up. If someone with completely different visions for the game shows up, the game is going to feel disjointed and may be retconed to the point of being unrecognizable. In either case, they'd be better off making their own game. And if they can't do that, what makes you think they can carry the development of someone else's game?

Exactly. If when I use to be on this dev's Discord channel and he was readily interacting with all of us like he was back then, if I had known he would ultimately abandon the game like what occurred here, I would have loved to pick his brain to see if he would have expounded on what he had planned for the future of the game, to see if he had planned it out that far into the future back then in other words or if he was making it up as he went along?

Going back to our earlier discussion, I think those creators who haven't gotten the story fully fleshed out ahead of time face an even more daunting task when trying to implement and code their games while they try and make it up on the run as they go along as well. Obviously there will always be some modifications to the story as it comes along but if it hasn't been penned out ahead of time, often times writer's block can settle in or they run into a point where they may become unhappy with the direction it has turned and get turned off as a result of this.

I'd rather they take a break and step away from the project and collect their thoughts than a new writer take over seeing as how it wasn't their material all along but I still get why some would rather just see the project completed, them having enjoyed it as much as they have up to that point.

 

[Ferghus]

Exactly. If when I use to be on this dev's Discord channel and he was readily interacting with all of us like he was back then, if I had known he would ultimately abandon the game like what occurred here, I would have loved to pick his brain to see if he would have expounded on what he had planned for the future of the game, to see if he had planned it out that far into the future back then in other words or if he was making it up as he went along?

Going back to our earlier discussion, I think those creators who haven't gotten the story fully fleshed out ahead of time face an even more daunting task when trying to implement and code their games while they try and make it up on the run as they go along as well. Obviously there will always be some modifications to the story as it comes along but if it hasn't been penned out ahead of time, often times writer's block can settle in or they run into a point where they may become unhappy with the direction it has turned and get turned off as a result of this.

I'd rather they take a break and step away from the project and collect their thoughts than a new writer take over seeing as how it wasn't their material all along but I still get why some would rather just see the project completed, them having enjoyed it as much as they have up to that point.

I think it's hard to avoid writing related issues when it's tied to active game development.
You get feedback and by trying to meet that feedback, everything changes. Tonal shifts in the story, for example, will drastically alter the end product. You might encounter a spark of inspiration that's going in a different direction than planned. You might realize that something you're adding is going to create a plot hole later. Having branching dialogue trees with consequences, while highly desirable, adds another layer of challenge. You have to considerably write and plan for more the more dynamic the story is. In this regard, it might be more efficient to have an general outline than a detailed map prepared.

Personally, I've found detailed maps, more often than not, get in my way. Earlier ideas usually get replaced by more coherent and engaging ideas as I actually start writing.

 

[DJPwnage]

7/10 without Alice 4/10 With Alice cuz legit the other problems were okay before i had to deal with her, then i just had the constant reminder i had another Annoying Scene with her coming up. 2/10 for the grind and misleading info since the game got dropped neways, so any stats shown or not shown is pointless when they go no where. so 5/10 overall xD

 

[minhkien123888]

I downloaded and played, all of them were thrown out in the middle, your buttocks obeyed this, every 5 to 10 blessings were thrown out, I suspect that the game is faulty

 

[wookie ookie]

I downloaded and played, all of them were thrown out in the middle, your buttocks obeyed this, every 5 to 10 blessings were thrown out, I suspect that the game is faulty

WTH are you even talking about

 

[Magdragon]

I downloaded and played, all of them were thrown out in the middle, your buttocks obeyed this, every 5 to 10 blessings were thrown out, I suspect that the game is faulty

This is why you don't post things while drunk and/or stoned.

 

[Alex3Ton]

Google translation.

So I’m not the only one who didn’t understand this nonsense. Otherwise, I was scared that I had difficulties with translation.

Spoiler: Original

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