Unreal Engine Breeders of the Nephelym [v0.761.53] [DerelictHelmsman]

[Luden]

I wouldn't read too much into that 100k "goal" he has on his patreon, it's been like that well before the game went to steam. He used to have actual goals for certain milestones but after he found a certain amount of success he both disabled the public showing of his monthly income and axed all his goals for what we see now. I think the main reason he removed all his goals is that he decided to implement them anyway over time, I recall many being "if I get x amount of patrons/money I'll create a new hybrid/race".


I won't argue that it hasn't been slow but hiring on more people (especially if you're not a people person as Derelict has stated to be) is a good way to cannibalize your project. Something to keep in mind is that a lot of these games start out as a single weird dude working alone, typically the only time you see someone want to work in a team is when they've already worked in the industry like the devs behind wild life, or real life sunbay. It's easy to see those big numbers and then look at the updates and think someone is slacking but the truth is no matter how much money someone is making they can only do so much alone.

That's one of the biggest drawbacks of patreon, in my opinion, as you will quickly see diminished returns. Once you can afford to go "full time" anything you make after that is just extra money unless you're willing to invest it on the risk of having more cooks in the kitchen. Do those that find this amount of success have an obligation to branch out like that though? Personally I don't think so. I'm not defending Derelict but I can see why he and many others choose to continue working alone despite their success, either due to greed or fear of having "too many cooks spoil the broth".

Makes sense to me.

 

[FruitSmoothie]

I won't argue that it hasn't been slow but hiring on more people (especially if you're not a people person as Derelict has stated to be) is a good way to cannibalize your project. Something to keep in mind is that a lot of these games start out as a single weird dude working alone, typically the only time you see someone want to work in a team is when they've already worked in the industry like the devs behind wild life, or real life sunbay. It's easy to see those big numbers and then look at the updates and think someone is slacking but the truth is no matter how much money someone is making they can only do so much alone.

That's one of the biggest drawbacks of patreon, in my opinion, as you will quickly see diminished returns. Once you can afford to go "full time" anything you make after that is just extra money unless you're willing to invest it on the risk of having more cooks in the kitchen. Do those that find this amount of success have an obligation to branch out like that though? Personally I don't think so. I'm not defending Derelict but I can see why he and many others choose to continue working alone despite their success, either due to greed or fear of having "too many cooks spoil the broth".

Thing is, when you're paying somebody, you don't need to accept their input on the game. He could have somebody just working on animations or something while he does gameplay or creating species or something. He doesn't have to give up any control or split the profit directly with anybody, there are plenty of ways to add more people without most the risks. It's not a guarantee that adding more people would hurt the project in any way, that's just on him and his possible inability to work well with others. You say adding more people could hurt the project, I'm saying it's as likely to improve it at the very least. Assuming +1 would immediately be worse than leaving the project just to him is sure an interesting take, especially with the way the game is being handled right now with him solo.

What has he done on his own that's so worthy of trust? Not completely abandoning the project yet? We sure have low standards for game devs on Patreon. I just personally have trouble trusting anybody who doesn't give me a reason to trust them, lol. I've never been able to find any kind of long term goals/timeline for this project. Dude talks real nice on his Patreon and stuff but it's all just fluff and vague assurances if there's not even a plan to back it up. I feel like a lot of people might just be filling in the gaps in information without whatever they want to believe could happen with the game. Reminds me of the people who review games as 5/5 here when the game is at like .01 in development based on its "potential". Yes, the game has "potential", every game does when you have no idea what the fuck the dev is planning to do with it.

Should be a damn requirement for patreon games to have a "What's planned in the next release" description. That or a full timeline of content addition plans. I'm not personally seeing any of this "Full transparancy, no bullshit" basically.

 

[Caerna]

"All" he has to do now is:

Musthaves:

• Make bodies distinct and good looking (just hire someone to do this, PLEASE ),
• Make faces distinct (same as above),
• Add missing exotics (same as above),
• Add more poses,
• Rebalance fluid/favor/perk systems (for now they are pointless or time consuming),
• Make futas exceedingly rare (too cheaty),
• Make player home into a base with customization, not just checkpoint,
• Same with barns, they look like solitary confinements (size of the world will be a problem, but they can be moved to biomes and one big breeding barn can be present at the farm with nephs roaming around),
• In-game char customization,
• ...does anyone care about the story...?

Doables but hards:

• Add items or technologies to make selective breeding easier (items could be created from fluids, tech could be sent by goddess in exchange for good nephs (something like lab from rack 2)),
• Add items or tech to make fluid production more efficient or automated (hired workers/trained nephs, toys, chems or foods),
• Possibly add in-game competitions between different ai breeders,
• Add sky biomes and move flying nephs to the islands (first time move there by asking emissary, after that using transformation into flying neph),

Maybes:

• Add weather,
• Make some nephs appear only at night or in a specific weather,
• Add swimming and move water nephs there with water poses,
• Persistent nephs in the wilds, it's weird that they appear and disappear randomly within a minute or two, maybe at least a day or two,
• Rare or even unique versions of nephs/alphas with unique visual features/perks and capturing mechanics,
• Transforming into neph, gives you new powers, like fast speed, flying, jumping, swimming, etc. And makes capturing other nephs of same type easier,
• Farm blessings,
• Farmwide orgies with random outcomes and debuffs.

Unlikelies:

• Bigger world, bigger biomes (maybe different "worlds" like main archipelago, ocean with islands, sky with islands, underworld, all through loading into new zones),
• Bigger town,
• Visiting ai breeders/npcs,
• Dynamic npcs, not just snack machines,
• Wild neph packs/clans/families with distinct features,
• Make hunting nephs harder, with stealth, lures, traps and etc. (but that's a long shot, world is too small for that),
• Seasons.

Impossibrus:

• Make nephs fit.

In general game doesn't have any real goals, end game does not exist. Can think about the end goals, but post is already too big. Whoops.

 

[Spillthebeans]

Thing is, when you're paying somebody, you don't need to accept their input on the game. He could have somebody just working on animations or something while he does gameplay or creating species or something. He doesn't have to give up any control or split the profit directly with anybody, there are plenty of ways to add more people without most the risks. It's not a guarantee that adding more people would hurt the project in any way, that's just on him and his possible inability to work well with others. You say adding more people could hurt the project, I'm saying it's as likely to improve it at the very least. Assuming +1 would immediately be worse than leaving the project just to him is sure an interesting take, especially with the way the game is being handled right now with him solo.

What has he done on his own that's so worthy of trust? Not completely abandoning the project yet? We sure have low standards for game devs on Patreon. I just personally have trouble trusting anybody who doesn't give me a reason to trust them, lol. I've never been able to find any kind of long term goals/timeline for this project. Dude talks real nice on his Patreon and stuff but it's all just fluff and vague assurances if there's not even a plan to back it up. I feel like a lot of people might just be filling in the gaps in information without whatever they want to believe could happen with the game. Reminds me of the people who review games as 5/5 here when the game is at like .01 in development based on its "potential". Yes, the game has "potential", every game does when you have no idea what the fuck the dev is planning to do with it.

Should be a damn requirement for patreon games to have a "What's planned in the next release" description. That or a full timeline of content addition plans. I'm not personally seeing any of this "Full transparancy, no bullshit" basically.

I'm not saying that adding a single person to development would be worse, only that it would be a risk. Perhaps he saw enough infighting from games like Towergirls and Breeding Season and decided he didn't want the risk. I don't know. Some people just aren't risk takers, for better or worse. His focus has been discussed before on discord, with him stating that his patrons seemed to want more racial variants than actual gameplay. Maybe it was an excuse? Maybe he feels pressured to focus on what the players want? I'm not a patron so I don't have the full story of what goes on in that patron only channel.

I never said anything about trust, just because I don't personally believe the dev is a money grubbing scammer that doesn't mean I trust him. Who knows, maybe he is taking everyone for a ride and intentionally working as slowly as he can to get as much money as possible, the incentive is certainly there with how patreon is set up and plenty of people do so. I just don't think that's the case here though I may be terribly wrong.

 

[awud]

is there some kind of dialogue to have sex when the npc is milked?
I mean sex while milking or breeding scenes when milked

 

[Miato]

it is calculated to do mini updates and suck money from you.

 

[Windfaker]

Look like I was right when I say 3-5 month ago about slow work dev but mostly just reject me and defense dev "on no hes work soo good stfu dude" now 90% complain about his work and suck money from u all thats why I dont even download this game when get new update becuse I know there is no more than more skin and some small bug fix.

Funny is this when he have low ammount of patrons those update are good but he got more and more ppl who donate him money but the updates begin small and small In that case he will creat this game 5-8 years with those updates and suck from 5-8 more years from you money I must say its nice idea I mean look u get extra cash every month for max 1 week work XD

But at least he give some updates not like one dev who name his game "Monster girls Is***d"

Consider guys If you want donate cash for next years and get those updates or better give this cash for devs who really deserve for this becuse they work so faken hard to make thier game good and they dont complain about goals steams and dont cry "HEY I WORK SOLO WHAT I CAN TO DO"

Maybe when he start earn 20k each month then MAYBE he hire someone to work.

But as I said its easy path to earn easy money from u for minimum effort of his work just consider it guys

 

[TheInternetIsForThis]

I'm considering creating a bunch of nephelym presets to play around with ingame. If I do, would anyone be interested in my sharing them?

 

[IlIKEASD]

i understand u all but seriously dont have much faith in this game anymore

 

[TheInternetIsForThis]

Actually, I suppose I should provide examples before asking if you guys are interested. Just fiddling around with dragons at the moment, but I've got some examples of two color schemes I was toying with attached:

 

[ThatWeirdGuyWithaWeirdHat]

In general game doesn't have any real goals, end game does not exist. Can think about the end goals, but post is already too big. Whoops.

I'll only touch on a few points:
I heavily agree that the world needs to be a lot bigger. That way you're actually looking for nephelym to capture. I don't necessarily agree with making futas rare, but I do agree with making them rarer. As for the point of the currencies, I only agree with the favor. Making fluids and money time consuming to get is kinda the point since you're on a farm. I do not agree with the one where nephelym capturing has to be more difficult, even in a larger world. It kinda makes what the beginning NPC tells you at the start, that nephelym are kinky little shits who absolutely love humans, make not as much sense.

 

[Caerna]

As for the point of the currencies, I only agree with the favor. Making fluids and money time consuming to get is kinda the point since you're on a farm.

Time consuming was more about favor, but getting fluids is extremely boring and pointless, you can buy them all using only foxes.

I do not agree with the one where nephelym capturing has to be more difficult, even in a larger world. It kinda makes what the beginning NPC tells you at the start, that nephelym are kinky little shits who absolutely love humans, make not as much sense.

True, but again, you have to sex them in your farm and when capturing them or use fluids, a bit samey and boring, something different for capturing would be a plus.

 

[Dirgha]

• Persistent nephs in the wilds, it's weird that they appear and disappear randomly within a minute or two, maybe at least a day or two

That's a terrible idea, because that would totally overload memory/CPU/whatever, and players with low end systems won't be able to play at all.

The rest of suggestions are fine. Though I'd prefer to get consumables and equippable items first of all. And various idle animations, emotes, dances, etc. should be added to the list of "must-haves" in the first place.

 

[EstadoYSociedadGriegos]

Hey guys, never tried this game, have a question. I don't like big boobs. Can I enjoy this game? I know there are lots of big and giant tits from what I can see from the preview images. But I see it also includes catching and breeding girls. My question is: can I ignore the big boobs then? Is there a way to customize boob size on the bred girls or at least discard the ones I don't like from the girls I breed/catch in the wild? Or it's more like pre-generated big-boobed girls?

 

[ThatWeirdGuyWithaWeirdHat]

Hey guys, never tried this game, have a question. I don't like big boobs. Can I enjoy this game? I know there are lots of big and giant tits from what I can see from the preview images. But I see it also includes catching and breeding girls. My question is: can I ignore the big boobs then? Is there a way to customize boob size on the bred girls or at least discard the ones I don't like from the girls I breed/catch in the wild? Or it's more like pre-generated big-boobed girls?

You might get surprised sex-ed by them, but you have an option to actually catching them or not. No there isn't a way to customize them. You can let the ones you don't like go.

 

[R.D Carpet]

Hey guys, never tried this game, have a question. I don't like big boobs. Can I enjoy this game? I know there are lots of big and giant tits from what I can see from the preview images. But I see it also includes catching and breeding girls. My question is: can I ignore the big boobs then? Is there a way to customize boob size on the bred girls or at least discard the ones I don't like from the girls I breed/catch in the wild? Or it's more like pre-generated big-boobed girls?

You can catch small breasted girls and bred them to get that trait and sell big titted ones however some species have quite the size from the get go... however I think the editor / gallery thingy can make and save new presets I'm not sure haven't really used it

 

[Ed360]

I am the only one who believes that the success of the developer in Steam went to his head? I mean you saw little content almost every week now is the same amount of content but monthly and earning more than before. It almost reminds me Cloud Meadow but in this one there is a team.

 

[Caerna]

That's a terrible idea, because that would totally overload memory/CPU/whatever, and players with low end systems won't be able to play at all.

Why though? Constantly spawning nephs strained my potato much more than one big pack that was roaming around without new spawns. I'm not saying that nephs must stay, but:

1. New day starts,
2. New packs of nephs are preloaded in every biome,
3. If you go to the biome, those packs load in, but no new nephs spawn,
4. When day ends, all packs are removed and new generated.

So every day old packs go away and new spawn.

And it's UE4, it's highly optimized and customizable. Even before there was options menu, I made it run much smoother by using config files and I had a potato pc. From what I've noticed, biggest problem is how needlessly highpoly models are and how performance heavy animations are (sometimes it feels like every frame of animation is different model loading in), that's on Helmsman to optimize, not engine's problem. Oh, and how spazzy world streaming is, bigger loading zones are needed, though it's maybe due to how small the world is.

 

[Ravenger6660]

Hey guys, never tried this game, have a question. I don't like big boobs. Can I enjoy this game? I know there are lots of big and giant tits from what I can see from the preview images. But I see it also includes catching and breeding girls. My question is: can I ignore the big boobs then? Is there a way to customize boob size on the bred girls or at least discard the ones I don't like from the girls I breed/catch in the wild? Or it's more like pre-generated big-boobed girls?

What many people don't realize is that this game teach you about Selective breeding. Meaning breeding animals to particular traits together to get best results.

There is also a way to create your own monsters the way you want.

 

[Dirgha]

If you go to the biome, those packs load in, but no new nephs spawn,
When day ends, all packs are removed and new generated.

And how do you expect to catch a neph with a certain rare trait when it is not in the pack and no new nephs spawn? Wait till the next day, check the pack, wait another day, and so on?

biggest problem is how needlessly highpoly models are

You mean, how FURRY.