2023 is over and it feels like I should talk about it. Children of Morn was released in 2023 after all. So let's take a look back and after that, let's gaze at the horizon and see what will await us in 2024.
But a little disclaimer first. I was deliberating whether I should write this post or not for a long time. The reason being, that I'm going to get a little personal and talk about my struggles in 2023. Struggles that some people might get the wrong way. But ultimately I've always talked about these topics in the past and made many posts about my own shortcomings while I developed MIST too. Although this one will be a bit different. It will get a bit ranty for a while, but I promise I'm going somewhere with this.
The launch of Children of Morn:
On April the 13th, I released version 0.1 of Children of Morn. Over a year of planning and months of intense work all came together to create a new game that I thought would be a huge hit. I had never before put so much care and attention into an update before. New and improved environments, new and improved character models, a custom soundtrack, handcrafted ambiances and sound effects to go with everything, a sleek new UI and just the start of a grand mistery plot. I was sure people would love the game and praise me for this new level of quality that is so very rare in the adult game scene.
The reality was different. Some people liked it, sure. But the overall feedback was terrible. Long term supporters of my game where messaging me how disappointed they felt and how terrible it was how I was letting them down and they wouldn't play my games ever again. I was flabbergasted. I didn't realize what had happened. One-star review after one-star review rained upon the creation that was the peak of my creative ability and even more angry comments followed.
What a massive downgrade after MIST... disappointing...
Read a comment by an enjoyer of MIST on F95. Many more comments echoing the same sentiment. A review made, reads like this:
this game goes in the wrong direction compared to "Mist" the story itself is already a pretty bad idea. you play as an orc looking pathetic zombie and have to be fine with forced sex scenes and female domination which is horrible executed. render quality is on the same level as Mist if not even a bit better, everything else remains rather below my expectations. sadly
It's easy to tell, people didn't enjoy it very much. I even got my very first personal attacks, which I reported and they got removed. Somehow, people didn't like my best work yet? I couldn't believe it. I knew how much time I spent on it, I could clearly tell the differences in quality of all the aspects of the game. How can they say it's worse than MIST when it is clearly an upgrade? Sure, you can argue that you don't like the characters as much, but even then it should be a 4/5 in this ocean of low-effort adult games. Or so my thoughts went.
Stuck in the Feedback-Limbo:
In the past, feedback was everything to me. I started making games with zero skills. A tale of Eden was literally the first piece of software I'd ever made, the first 3D environments and characters I'd ever put together. So I was ready to learn. Ready to improve. I was accepting of any and all criticism and it worked fine. I had made a game that wasn't very good, but it fit. People wanted it to improve and it was reflected in their feedback. The same for MIST. Those who remember the early versions of that game might remember that it had nothing in common with what I released as version 1.0. I kept listening to feedback and I kept improving. And it worked, the feedback made sense to me. Now, with Children of Morn. I was suddenly lost.
I knew this was my best work yet. Yet so much feedback told me how it was actually worse, even much worse. Disappointing and wrong. The MC is disgusting, Enna should be deleted, the story is dumb and boring, the atmosphere is lacking and I'm just forcing my own stupid kinks on everyone and ruining what could be great. The negativity felt all encompassing to me. Not only attacking things I knew needed to be tweaked but also things I thought were incredibly well done. I could only find one answer. I can't use the feedback anymore. It felt too hard to extract the truth from blatant and unnecessary hate, so I couldn't use it anymore. On that day I logged out from my F95 account and didn't come back for months. I couldn't deal with it anymore. I reached a conclusion. It's hate, they are telling me things are bad that I know are good, it's just hate and I can only ignore it.
That's how I carried on. During this time my engagement on Discord, Patreon and Itch fell off. I was annoyed by everyone and everything. It might be hard to understand for some. But the cruel thing with creative work is that every attack of the work feels personal. And I haven't yet met a single person that was truly able to ignore it. Angry and negative comments sting and sometimes you're able to stomach it and sometimes you aren't. For months on end I couldn't stomach the negative feedback and pushed it away. In doing so, I also pushed away the real, benevolent feedback that was actually aiming to improve the game. I was stuck in my head, hurting like a child and unable to do anything but face forward and keep developing. I was truly stuck and I even knew it, but I didn't know how to escape.
Struck by Lightning:
This went on for months. From spring all the way to autumn. That's when I did something. I went to the theater. A play by Florentina Holzinger and her crew, It's the second time I was going to see them and I already knew it was gonna be good, but I didn't realize yet how good. The play started, was great and ended. Meanwhile I watched, my eyes glued to the stage, feeling... angry. I was really fucking angry. Going back home afterwards I even lashed out at my mother who went with me to the play. I was fuming and I didn't know why. A really fucking angry night and the morning after was the time I needed to sort it all out and then it struck me. I suddenly realized why I was so angry.
What they were doing that night on stage was art. Abstract, strange and impossible to understand, but I could feel it. They had mixed a wild concoction of emotions and I could feel them all. I experienced their art. And compared to what they were doing, my silly little porngame is a joke. It doesn't even compare, I'm years and years of intense failures and learnings away from reaching that level, but here I was, not allowing myself those failures and learnings because I decided everyone that didn't like my game was a hater. But they weren't, at least not all of them. I was just too hurt to be able to admit it.
I had deluded myself to think that I was some grand game-developer with skills for days that could do it all and never missed, while I was in fact, still at the very beginning as prone to mistakes as everyone else. Which, finally, brings us to 2024.
Going Forward with Children of Morn:
I looked at the comments and reviews again. Sure, some of them are just angry and dumb, but most of them aren't. The same for the reviews. They are overwhelmingly more on the positive side of things on Patreon, Itch and F95 and a few of them are unsure but provide valuable feedback. I couldn't see it before, I really couldn't. For almost a year I had developed Children of Morn blind. Without looking at myself or those around me, but I feel like that has ended. Normally I don't like writing about making changes in the future. I like making the changes and then writing about them so I don't make empty promises.
But this time I don't care. I know, that I'm commited to this game and just like I did with MIST, I won't stop improving it until version 1.0 releases. There will be changes coming to Children of Morn, to make it into the best game possible. With my best efforts and all the feedback I got, I will make sure it becomes the best work I've done to date but at the same time, I won't shy away from trying out new things. Children of Morn isn't my magnum opus, my grand, final work. It's just one game of many that I plan to make in my lifetime.
So in 2024 you can expect to see an all new Children of Morn. One that is still the same idea, the same plot, the same game, but tweaked, improved and adjusted to be an engaging, rewarding and fucking hot experience. Which will take time of course. But as I said, I'm not afraid of making these claims, because I know with time and feedback and the skills I've developed and honed I can make an incredible game. I have grown an incredible amount as a developer and have gained so many soft and hard skills over the years, now I just need to put them to practice without an inflated ego.
In the cringey words of a fansub of the anime "diamond no ace" I quote:
You've learned how to fly, now you need to remember how to set one foot in front of the other and walk.
That's what I plan to do in 2024. Nothing but good old dev-work, making enjoyable, dark adult games, with lots of sex and girls to fall in love with. Also, towards the very end of the year, you can expect a little update coming to MIST, but I don't want to say too much yet.
Happy new year everyone!
. Maybe change the name of the game to something that doesn't have 'Children', i.e. 'Spawn of Morn' or 'Seed of Morn'?
