Here are some facts about my game:
Ecchi Sensei IS already the longest and biggest Visual Novel of all time. Means no other dev so far reached the same or larger amount of images, coding, and dialogues. Not here and not somewhere else.
I also hired more people to work on the project than average game developers from this site with the same income. Means I summary receive much less for more work I do than others.
Also about "milking": I already created almost two completely new updates after the month 1 merge. The current available Day release of Ecchi Sensei is day 20-21. I already created the images + coding + dialogues for Day 22+23 update and all images for Day 24-26 update and currently working on coding and dialogues while my coders and manager, who also works as proofreader and translator are busy with the merge of all previous released Ecchi Sensei updates.
I don't care how other game companies or dev groups work. I'm not a copycat sneaking around other games and steal code or ideas or something. I always follow my own order in case of creation, coding, dialogues, releases and management.
Since Ecchi Sensei is a so big project since the beginning of the creation process in my mind over 2 years ago, the week 1 merge and month 1 merge are extremely necessary for my future plans.
Everyone in my team was inexperienced in creating a Visual Novel but also everyone learns with every new release new tricks and a Day 8 release used different coding than a Day 10+11 release. Now we combine all of our wisdom to the entire game, started with day 1.
But it is not just a ordinary merge like that with bug fixing and putting all together. We also become multilingual by adding german and hopefully also french to the month 1 merge. Plus we say goodbye to hardcoding stuff and code almost everything by our own to drastically reduce the overall size for the month 1 merge, PLUS it also benefits for the upcoming merges. Instead of taking 300 hardcoded core images for features with us for every single update, we redcue the amount of by 90% which means hundrets of megabyte no longer need to be downloaded for each update.
About the Daz/Illusion discussion:
Some people like Pepsi, others drink Coke. You prefer Xbox? Some believe Playstation is better. I for myself decided to choose Illusion and instead of like 99,999% of all other devs who also prefer Illusion over Daz, I not decided for Honey Select which comes with an overwhelming large modder Community. I took "PlayHome" because for me, it looks better. It also means I need to create my own mods and maps and I need to fuck up with SketchUp and Unity which I really hate but I do it because this game is my passion and I like what I do.
It is up to you to decide if I'm a milker or not. But running out of ideas? Bitch please... I have not many skills, but being creative is my strongest. I'm able to create stories and dialogues in any kind of situation.
For those who are interested to know: Here is how I start a new update:
So first of all, the whole game concept and elementary story elements already decided in may 2018. When I begin with an new update I open my notepad++ and firstly decide who's in the cast of the new update which takes like 5 minutes. After that I write for another 5-10 minutes what happens in the update or what should happen. Then I take a few hours for pickung clothing and makeup for the next few days and after that I start creativ the images. After the over 1500+ images are done (yes, that many images and more I create for every single update) I prepare the coding stuff to get ready for the dialogues in Atom. I open the first image made at my second screen and I just start writing and while I write, the dialogues just flew into my mind.
So I never run out of Ideas. It is exactly the opposite. I unfortunately have too many ideas and I always want to put more into every single update but It always needs to come to an end so I need to deal with that problem.
I know. It sucks hard waiting so long for a merge which also comes with no new updates. But It never was planned to release Week 4 in Month 1 merge because the first ingame day was not July 1. No, it was July 13. So in the middle of the month. Month 2 will get four weeks. Almost the whole August and from there on every new month comes with four weeks. But, not every month means a new merge.
If you think you're upset or angry or whatever because of the long time to wait for the month 1 release, you have no idea how we dislike merging. For me, merging is like cleaning public toilets with my tongue. I mean yes, some people may like cleaning public toilets with there tongue. Heck, there is no kinkshare from my side. But I really dislike it and I love creating new content and share the new content with the many people who like the game. But the week 1 and month 1 are required.
Gladly, our foundaition will get strong enough after month 1 which means no big merge is required for a very long time. The next big merge I plan is in the year 2023. So over the next two years we focus on producing new content like we did before.
The decrease in supporters is also a thing. Ecchi Sensei is my first project and I never thought it gets that big by supporters. But it really helps out. So I was able to hire people. Especially Latecomer, my project manager who also works as main translator is very important. My english is very basic and without his help the game would never get these kind of nice dialogues. So yes, money is of course important. But I never decided to create Ecchi Sensei for moneys sake. It just helps to produce more content and increase quality of the content.
They more we grow, they more I invest in helpful hands. So with your support I'm able to increase the amount of the team to hire new modders for more and better looking clothings, maps and object. Or to add a new language for the game. Pay my composer for new calming classical piano background music etc.
And when I reach a specific amount of monthly supportance I just starty my own company and hire more people which work on Ecchi Sensei, but also on other projects I'd like to realize.
Ecchi Sensei is my baby, but it is just the beginning. I hope most people like to follow me on our journey.
So long,
Blue
