You must be registered to see the links
This is a looong post, so I divided it in different topics in case you're not interested in reading everything.
Why I'm not releasing anything right now:
This is a hard post to make, damn. It's hard because I had a lot of stuff to decide before talking to you, and a lot of things in motion that I'm still not sure if they'll work out the way I think they will, so I'm trying to not share too much before the time is right.
First things first, let's talk about Farmer's Dreams. Yes, I'm still making it. No, I won't stop making it until it's finished the way I want it to be - I'm not going anywhere. In fact, for some time now, the entire script and all the CGs for the next release are already finished, and yet I still can't release a new version of the game. The reason for this is simple: I've not been entirely satisfied with the last few versions of the game. The game's quality was suffering because of the previous pace with lots of bugs, bad coding, the lack of some mechanics I just didn't have the time to implement and also a certain amount of refinement I was really proud of having before.
Making this game is really challenging for me, specially the programming part, and that's part of the reason I love making it so much, but boy that's not a good thing when you're trying to release new version every month!
Anyway, so I had a decision to make - to keep the releases coming every month, maybe change the game a bit to make it more simple and lose some quality or start making it on my own pace and end up with a far superior game in the end. It can sound like an easy choice, but not so much when you think that I make a living from this, making games is my job, not something I do
just to have some fun anymore. What really helped me making this decision though is that I've been really busy with my job - between the 3 games I'm currently doing I've been working for about 1.5 year without vacations, most of my days working from the time I wake up to the time I go to bed. So I'm obviously a bit burned out, and I decided it was time to start making some adjustments (in all my games) that would allow me to live a happier life =) I really thought for a long time that I should just pause the pledges here until I could start releasing games every month again, but honestly, having less people supporting my work is way better than having none, because I'm still working, still making games and still spending a lot of money to make it happen, so your help as a more patient patron will surely help me a lot!
Will I be able to go back to monthly releases with FD? Maybe. Probably. But right now I can't make any promises about that. Will you get monthly releases again anyway? Hell yeah you will! If not with FD, its VN version will be released monthly, and hopefully some other games too (although that's something I still can't talk much about).
================================================
What I'm working on Farmer's Dreams
Right now I'm focused on fixing all bugs in Farmer's Dreams, writing a new walkthrough, writing new scenes, rendering some pictures and just making the game better than before. Basically everything I was already doing, just not under a tight self imposed deadline. With more time to make everything I finally got to make animations again for example, so already in the next version you'll get a nice 45 CGs scene with Nina plus an awesome 20 frames animation. We'll also get more stuff to do, more ways to make money, and a bunch of other cool things I wasn't having time to make.
================================================
Visual Novel?
I've been talking about this Visual Novel game for a while now, so what the hell is it and when do we get to play it?
The original idea was to make a different version of the same game, Farmer's Dreams, just to present it to people who weren't too interested in the gameplay of the original game, so it's a game focused on the dialogues and sex scenes, pictures and text only, and some choices, but not as many as you have in the RPG game. Then I decided I wanted to offer a different experience to the players who already enjoy the original game, not just the same scenes but something original too, and that's what we are doing now.
This game will have 12 chapters (or releases) and will tell the same story of Farmer's Dreams, with a few differences and some new content. We already have 4 chapters fully written, and writing a new one every month! Because I need to focus on FD, I'm currently talking to and training people to work in most of the exclusive pictures for this game and the programming. I had some difficulties with this in the past so I'm taking this process slower this time, hopefully we'll get some awesome new devs around here soon!
The girl from the picture above is called Nova and is probably the biggest difference between the 2 games. She's your housemate and she's been living at the farm since she was little. We can talk more about her later, but I must say we are really enjoying writing her, she's such a fun character, BRM (the writer) is really making a fantastic job here! I'm dying for you all to meet her!
But while we got a new character in the story, we also lost a bunch of others: Sam, Vincent, Roxie, Amanda and Heather didn't make the cut and won't be in this game.
I'm aiming for January or February of 2019 to start releasing this one, but I'll keep you informed.
======================================================
Thanks for reading all this and thank you very much for all the support you guys always gave me, you're fucking awesome! For the patrons who prefer to stick around only when we have monthly game releases, I totally understand you, and I hope we meet again in a few months, please keep following the page and the discord channel until then =)
For the ones who are still supporting me through this adjustment time, be assured that I'm not disappearing on you, that I'm still working hard everyday to bring you some quality games and that things are changing for the better for sure!