desmosome

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Sep 5, 2018
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Yea there is only so much time one can spend on it considering how little support he's getting. Hope it continues but it is what it is.
It's not even about the money, imo. Dev finished Law school. If the game is making bank, would he just put off his career path and make porn games? I don't presume to know, but this was always gonna be a hobby project if you ask me. But that could also mean that the dev won't outright abandon it due to low support. We could read it on our death beds, at least.
 

Grohotes

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It's not even about the money, imo. Dev finished Law school. If the game is making bank, would he just put off his career path and make porn games? I don't presume to know, but this was always gonna be a hobby project if you ask me. But that could also mean that the dev won't outright abandon it due to low support. We could read it on our death beds, at least.
If he was making thousands a month on it he could more easily justify spending more time on it.
 

-CookieMonster666-

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>make thousands a month with your game
>release 4 updates since 2021 (thread start date)
Choose one
Drawn entirely by hand by a single artist, I'd say 4 updates since 2021 is pretty damn good. At least very often, cartoon episodes of around 20 minutes can take 2–6 months to make, and they typically have teams of 200–300 working on them. So I'm not sure what you're trying to say exactly, but Worlaix never made this VN to get rich quick or anything. That's actually why he has a day job that takes priority over this. But he does this out of passion for his story, so I wouldn't expect this ever actually to be abandoned, though obviously it very often will have the Abandoned prefix because of F95's policy on applying that.
 

Perfect S

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Drawn entirely by hand by a single artist, I'd say 4 updates since 2021 is pretty damn good. At least very often, cartoon episodes of around 20 minutes can take 2–6 months to make, and they typically have teams of 200–300 working on them. So I'm not sure what you're trying to say exactly, but Worlaix never made this VN to get rich quick or anything. That's actually why he has a day job that takes priority over this. But he does this out of passion for his story, so I wouldn't expect this ever actually to be abandoned, though obviously it very often will have the Abandoned prefix because of F95's policy on applying that.
I don't think it's a good pace at all. Like I said earlier at this rate the game is never getting finished. I'm okay with that, but it's a shame, since it actually had a good story unlike most games here.
What i meant is he chose his job/career over making this game and that's fine. I'd argue it's actually the logical decision even. But then you can't expect game funding. Not saying he was, as this never really evolved beyond a hobby to a serious game development project.
 

Kerre_22

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Nov 21, 2023
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I gave you such a reaction because the Abandoned tag sounds to me like the author is a swindler who abandoned the game as soon as it stopped giving him money (or another option - as soon as he thought he got enough from it). In my understanding, this game does not deserve such a tag, because there is no scamming here (unlike some Woodchester with its micro-updates and pompous announcement statements).
As for the speed of development - this is a traditional scourge of such projects, especially when the team consists of one or two developers. I really like Refuge Of Embers, but the development there is also moving quite slowly and I often wonder - how many years will pass before the game is finished. And won't the developer get tired by that time?
 
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-CookieMonster666-

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I don't think it's a good pace at all. Like I said earlier at this rate the game is never getting finished. I'm okay with that, but it's a shame, since it actually had a good story unlike most games here.
What i meant is he chose his job/career over making this game and that's fine. I'd argue it's actually the logical decision even. But then you can't expect game funding. Not saying he was, as this never really evolved beyond a hobby to a serious game development project.
I think history proves otherwise so far with this game. Unless I'm confusing him with someone else, I believe he's also only a couple of years out of college or whatever. So he's young and has a long time to finish this. You can doubt if you wish, but the dev's track record so far makes me believe that he'll absolutely keep working on this when he can and that he will eventually finish.

Saying this is just a hobby sounds wrong to me, like he doesn't take it seriously or anything. No, he's not making a business out of this, but he does excellent quality. I'd call that passion rather than merely a hobby. But that's probably just my own life experience tinting the meaning of the word.

And I understand you're probably comparing this with other games and so don't consider the pace to be good. But rendering engines (Daz, HS, VAM, AI, etc.) make things far faster than doing everything by hand. I would strongly suggest that comparing in this way is both unfair and unrealistic. Hand-drawn art has always been much slower, obviously: it's why we have computers, to do things much faster and more efficiently then we ourselves can. Since a person can't really compare this in any fair manner in terms of time spent with the tools most devs use for VNs — and if that person is truly honest about it, they really cannot fairly compare — I continue to believe that Worlaix is doing an excellent job at an absolutely acceptable and good speed. So, agree to disagree, I suppose.
I gave you such a reaction because the Abandoned tag sounds to me like the author is a swindler who abandoned the game as soon as it stopped giving him money (or another option - as soon as he thought he got enough from it). In my understanding, this game does not deserve such a tag, because there is no scamming here (unlike some Woodchester with its micro-updates and pompous announcement statements).
Still doesn't explain why you put an angry reaction on my post. I merely explained something; I never said I thought this dev was scamming anyone. I don't believe he is. If you're pissed at someone, bitch at the staff who make the rules. Being actually angry because I explained their rules is just ridiculous. But apparently clarifying things triggers you. :FacePalm:
 
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ffive

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Jun 19, 2022
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So he's young and has a long time to finish this.
The thing is, if you only ever work on writing something occasionally and in small doses, sooner or later you're bound to forget the plot you've built so far, the details you've put in, the hooks for the sub-plots which were supposed to develop down the road and pretty much the rest of it. You also lose the sense of the pacing your story had up to that point, and likely have altered the way you write (because years are plenty of time for your style and focus to change)

Even with the best intentions of continuing, you can find yourself picking up the half-finished work, struggling to remember where the heck was any of that supposed to go, and concluding that you'd have to re-read the whole thing just to get back your bearings, and you simply don't have enough free time for that. Especially as years go by and you've gained new interests, new obligations, and way more things to take care of than you had when you're just out of school.
 

-CookieMonster666-

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The thing is, if you only ever work on writing something occasionally and in small doses, sooner or later you're bound to forget the plot you've built so far, the details you've put in, the hooks for the sub-plots which were supposed to develop down the road and pretty much the rest of it. You also lose the sense of the pacing your story had up to that point, and likely have altered the way you write (because years are plenty of time for your style and focus to change)

Even with the best intentions of continuing, you can find yourself picking up the half-finished work, struggling to remember where the heck was any of that supposed to go, and concluding that you'd have to re-read the whole thing just to get back your bearings, and you simply don't have enough free time for that. Especially as years go by and you've gained new interests, new obligations, and way more things to take care of than you had when you're just out of school.
What you say could be true, depending. If he's now finished writing all of his script, though (meaning story, not programming), the voice could be maintained throughout, as could story beats, etc. You're assuming he writes as he goes, which might not be the case any longer. I have no idea what he's done since releasing Episode 5. You raise some valid concerns, though.

Ofc, I was only implying that it wasn't like he was likely to die before having the chance to finish. But this isn't even what was being argued earlier; it was about whether he could have gained enough momentum to have made a career doing this. Given the pacing of hand-drawn work and what he himself has said previously, I don't believe that ever was his intention. He was doing this because he wanted to, not because he wanted a career as an AVN developer.
 
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f45450

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Oct 21, 2021
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I gave you such a reaction because the Abandoned tag sounds to me like the author is a swindler who abandoned the game as soon as it stopped giving him money (or another option - as soon as he thought he got enough from it). In my understanding, this game does not deserve such a tag, because there is no scamming here (unlike some Woodchester with its micro-updates and pompous announcement statements).
But if we will remove abandoned tag solely on the promises, then there will be uprising swindlers who feed promises in buckets. And forcing "minimal update volume" is fairly dubious solution.
Hence abandoned tag indicates either lack of any updates in reasonable intervals, or the dev going dark.
Your (or mine) opinion is fairly irrelevant, as these rules are made and enforced by the site owner.
 
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Tripeldeez

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Sep 5, 2022
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As someone who chats personally with the dev on Discord a couple times a month or so, I have it on good authority that the game is NOT dead. As has been mentioned, he is a young professional working fulltime and trying to have some semblance of a personal/social life as any normal person would. He also simply doesn't have the savings to live off of and therefore couldn't feasibly swing making the game into a fulltime gig. Alas, he must work on it during what little free and spare time he has; it is his baby though and he is incredibly passionate about making it but it will take time, likely years before it's anywhere near complete.

What I can tell you is that the game is currently undergoing a restructure of the narrative to have events and choices make more sense, insert additional decisions/dilemmas, and to allow for future relationships and parts of the story to develop. This restructure is what is taking the up the majority of the dev's time at the moment and why things aren't as simple as "releasing the next episode".

I have advised the dev that it might be in his interest to be just a *bit* more forthcoming with updates on his whereabouts, even if it's just to check in and say "Hey guys, I'm still alive!", but of course that's easy for me to say. He is a bit of a perfectionist and quite particular on the quality of his work, so naturally that tends to manifest in less frequent updates and releases.

Ultimately, I think those of us like myself who see the immense potential here are more than willing to wait for Worlaix's vision to be realized, however long it takes. Not everyone has that kind of patience though, and that's perfectly understandable.
 

BodaciousBoar

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As someone who chats personally with the dev on Discord a couple times a month or so, I have it on good authority that the game is NOT dead.
I can't find the relevant post to link so maybe it's changed, but the abandoned tag just means hasn't had an update in 6+ months. Once something new comes out it'll be removed.
 

-CookieMonster666-

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I can't find the relevant post to link so maybe it's changed, but the abandoned tag just means hasn't had an update in 6+ months. Once something new comes out it'll be removed.
It's a little more involved than that:
  • Placed On Hold, but after 6+ months, still no update
  • No communication or new version in 3+ months
  • Despite even regular communication, no game update in 18+ months
  • The developer explicitly says it's permanently suspended / abandoned
The second point is what applies specifically in the case of this VN. (FFR, it's item 3 at this page.)
 

Tripeldeez

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I can't find the relevant post to link so maybe it's changed, but the abandoned tag just means hasn't had an update in 6+ months. Once something new comes out it'll be removed.

That's fine. I'm not concerned at all about the tag; like I said, I know the game hasn't been abandoned. My point was to shed a little light on why there hasn't been an update, or much news at all, in a long time.
 
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