there is absolutely no difference between the patreon and free version apart from one edited line in the html file which enables the patreon features
HTML Female Agent [v1.20.1p] [Crushstation]
I agree that Crushstation likely isn't a scammer, and I agree that actually putting in sustainable work is the best business model, but scamming by doing the minimal amount of work possible over a long period absolutely works, especially if circumstances all come together to allow such an opportunity to arise, which I think online game making allows. The issue is most people are too stupid and unskilled to pull it off, but many scams take place over long periods of time. I would also point out though, that while you may not consciously be acting malicious, accepting money for minimal production is not exactly ethical in my opinion, even if people are fools to continue giving you the money.TLR, but okay okay, I skimmed so I read a little bit. I think you make some good points about taking courses, watching youtube videos etc. Crushstation actually talked to professional game writers and got advice from them over the phone. That's when I saw a big improvement in update times. I think I agree with you that he's not a professional writer and he could benefit from taking a course. With that said, not all writers started out with a university degree in writing. Many literally started by loving what they do and writing at home.
I don't think Crush is a scammer. And let me put this out there so other people who are considering developing a game and milking understand... Scamming/milking doesn't actually work as a business model. You do not make more money, the amount of money for work pay off is very bad, and there actually is no such thing as sitting on your ass doing nothing and getting paid. And most people who are true scammers usually get a lot of money at once, it lasts for a short time, and then they abandon the project or disappear, that is how a con works. You don't stick around forever.
The best way to make money is to make a good game. Crush's patreon $$ jumped from 3000 a month to 8000 the second he started improving the game and the update times. If he could get even faster update times he could probably hit 12,000$. The best way to make a lot of money is to have a solid reputation, not a reputation as a scammer, or a bad developer. The best way to make a lot of money is to finish a game. The completed game acts as free advertising for your next project, something that shows you complete the things you start and are less likely a scammer. The best way to develop is to complete a game. You don't want to spend 10 years on a project and your love for it becomes stale. You want to finish and work on other ideas. There's no such thing as 1 good idea, and it's the only idea that will ever make you money. This is the "logic" behind saying people are milking... but the 'grass is green wherever you water it'... there are many HTML games people would love to play and see existing, not just one about spy women. You can complete a game, and make tons of money, and you don't have to work your life away doing it. A slightly above average effort could achieve all of this, vs. sitting around doing nothing. You will feel happier, you will spend time doing things which as someone who spent 90% of their life doing nothing I can tell you spending time working feels better so long as you leave some room for other things in life. But the main point is that you can do this without being a workaholic, and it's way better than 'milking' as a lifestyle.
That being said I don't believe anything anyone says about themselves on the internet " I AM A LURKER FOR 1 YEAR AND I JUST HAD TO POST" sure buddy, and I am mother teressa. Please, refrain from telling me about yourself. I try and avoid making any claims about myself, because people would be fucking dumb to believe me if they are smart. As far as I am concerned you are part of a conspiracy to hate on this dev and bring the game down and you're not a lurker, you have 100 other accounts here and post incessantly about how bad the dev is. Of course it's not true, but in light of the fact that there will never be fucking facts on who you are or why you chose to post, it might as well be as true as the bullshit line you just fed us about yourself.
I think your bias is showing. Crush makes mistakes, is he a writer? that's debatable, the update times went from 1 year in between, to 3-4 months now. Could he improve? hell yeah. Did he basically re-make the game and we were all frustrated? yes. Is the newer version of the game better? arguably yes, i prefer it over the old one at least personally. Is crush still not making anything but a kinetic novel without life path integration? yes, it's still an issue, but given how much time it takes to add multiple paths I am willing to overlook that until more of the game is written... paths *CAN* be added in later. All in all the record is spotty, but I feel crush is more self aware than other developers on this platform, and I've seen him trying to take steps to improve whereas everyone else just shrugs off their critics and changes nothing. Am I as bias as you are? Hell no. Not *as* bias. I am capable of slightly more objectivity or maybe generosity.
In my opinion the dev grew over time and improved, there is always the chance they take a step backwards, but I haven't seen real significant steps backward. The past mistakes haven't really repeated themselves. He didn't say "hey I am remaking the game yet again" or "hey the next update will take 8 months" or "hey we're still waiting to enter bangkok"... No, I would argue the developer grew, and it was a long frustrating process for us and annoying, but he wasn't born a good developer... he literally was just some guy who thought "I want to make a game, and all I know is a little programming and maybe that writing course I took in college will help". Heck, even big game companies fucking fail to meet my standards, name a game and I guaruntee you I can shit all over it.
- Mar 10, 2018
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Hey guys! This week I converted the remaining 78 storyboard slides into working game passages.
This means the episode is now playable start to finish in the engine! But there are some critical tasks before we can release:
– Our illustrator lovely Queen Victoria also finished all the required avatar art this week! But it's currently in Illustrator format. Each new item needs to be exported as a separate asset, and coded into the game
– Some placeholder text needs to be properly written (and there’s some first draft dialogue so bad it may as well be placeholder text)
– Dynamic bargirl avatar art needs to be updated for the new episode (V is working on this next)
– There’s a half-implemented game mechanic in a certain scene – minor, but cool – that needs to be fully implemented
I’m also aiming to get some other things done:
– Victoria is working on a cool art experiment that may or may not make it into the episode – I’m hoping it does!
– I want to add in a scene pitched by xGrotesq into the start of the episode, it’s a really really good idea
– I’ve had really great feedback on the storyboard and test versions, which will make the episode about a million times hotter if I implement it So I’m implementing it!
I'm excited about this episode, it's coming out a little hotter than I expected. And it should be ready quite ! I'll get right back to it tomorrow, and let you know where we're at at the end of the week.
Okay, that's it, I'm totally exhausted! I'll sleep now but be right back in action tomorrow morning. Have a lovely Sunday night, everybody, see you with more news soon.
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- Feb 21, 2017
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Good fucking lord, ye talk a lot of bollocks. This is the only warning ye are getting: if ye want to talk nonsense, take it either to PM's or off-topic. This is not the place for yer awkward flirting.
- Jul 25, 2017
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Hey guys! I had a really good, productive week.
I spent some time on Sunday night and Monday morning developing plans for the next three episodes – the side quests White Russian, Big Mac and Booth Babe. I shared some new outlines with the team, and got some great feedback from Behbeh, The Lost Engineer and Captain Chicken Strip. I’m now really excited about two out of three of these (and I’m confident we’ll make the tricky one work).
White Russian and Big Mac are conceptually similar (the heroine goes on an optional date with an NPC), but I now feel like they’re both gonna ooze with their own vibe and charm. Can’t wait to get started on them.
The rest of the week was spent prepping episode 1.18.
- I uploaded the new avatar clothes into the game engine and dressed the heroine properly for each scene.
- I edited and improved a lot of the placeholder text and bad first draft dialogue.
- I fixed the half-implemented little code thing I’ve mentioned in the last few updates.
- I added the new scene pitched by xGrotesq to the start of the episode..
Meanwhile, our illustrator lovely Victoria made some good progress with the cool art experiment she’s working on:
It’s nearly ready for Early Access! I need to do a bit more work on the second half of the episode, incorporating user feedback to make it hotter and more interesting. Behbeh already gave me some *great* ideas on this, and xGrotesq has also been very, very helpful with some rewrites to a key scene, set in the ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛.
Okay, that’s it for the report! I’m gonna make a cup of tea ☕ then continue with the episode. Have a great day everybody!
White Russian seems like it should have just been cut. The other two sidequests at least have some connection to the agent theme. With Big Mac she might get intel about Conner, and with Booth Babe it fits her cover i.e a girl like the one she is pretending to be isn't likely to turn down good money that doesn't even involve anything sexual. But going on a date with some random guy she met at a club? Why would her handlers even agree to that? She's in Bangkok on a mission, not to socialize.
Going on a date with a guy met during girl outing looks like a good way to maintain cover of a regular girl who does regular girl things during her stay as a tourist in foreign country. Also gives her something extra to talk about with said girls she's trying to get closer to.
Not seeing any real issue here. There's also no say if it doesn't evolve into some actual spy work, similar to first casual contact in the game.
Eh, I guess. Still feels kind of superfluous to me. Especially since there still seems to be a great many existing avenues for story hooks and sex scenes. There's Tid and his mates, Paul and Sam, Wun Sen/Noodle, Ian and Clark, Bonaht, Kriangsek. Then there is still the actual bargirl stuff to come.
- Feb 21, 2019
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It's optional but not really, since we barely get contents for main quest so I guarantee everyone will not skip this 'optional' sidequest.
- Jul 25, 2017
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Hey guys! I spent last week polishing and improving the second half of the episode.
This is the explicitly sexy part of the episode, and I’m currently weaving in some hot new ideas (many suggested by Behbeh and xGrotesq – thanks guys) to make the experience sexier and more vivid. I can’t say much without dropping spoilers, but the improvements are making it much, much hotter.
I got the bulk of it, the most complex part, done last week. I’ve got some more polishing to do (basically the second half of the second half), and also several testers seem to agree that we need to add a small extra “wrap-up” scene at the end where the heroine can, uh, process some of the events from earlier in the episode. IYKWIMAITYD
Our illustrator lovely Victoria is finalising the artwork (which is nearly all implemented, and is looking great in-engine). Last week I also spent some time planning the next episode, White Russian, which is really exciting, and I can’t wait to get started on it!
But wait I must, because I need to finish up this episode and get it out to you ASAP. I’m very excited about this episode now! It was originally intended to be just a kind of filler, to get the story pacing right before jumping into the side quests, but I think we’ve added a cool story event, some good characterisation, and a hot new scenario for our heroine. I’ll continue polishing now, and report back with a release date very Soon™.
- Jul 25, 2017
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Hey guys! I was hoping to complete all the writing last week, but I wasn't able to do so. I've been having problems with a sex scene coming out a little flat and forced (and not in the hot way, forced as in it felt like none of the characters in the scene wanted to go through with it).
Fixing it was complicated a bit by the fact that two testers had told me they really liked a certain vivid part of the scene, so I was loathe to edit it out. I ended up trying to build a slightly different scene around that one vivid moment, but it didn't really work.
Fuck it, I deleted it (we can always repurpose it for a later scene where it'll fit better). Yesterday I just wrote a different outline for the scene, focused more on the character relationship and the heroine's internal emotional state, and I think it'll be hotter. I'm aiming to get this new version of the scene rewritten today!
Other stuff
- After it's done, I need to write one more coda scene, then go through everything for one last editing pass
- Artwork is nearly all done – lovely Victoria is working on a few last minute changes
- There are a couple of bugs I need to fix
- The secret art experiment is looking good!
Okay, that's it, I'm gonna get back to writing! We're almost there!
And like clockwork, the "Nothing's coming out, I need to rewrite" update for the allegedly almost ready episode. 100 million percent predictable Crush.
Well, while he does have a history, I believe he has made some progress from the last release to being close to releasing the next one. I don't think we've ever had this much progress in such a short amount of time.
It’s the aftermath of Girls Night Out, or part 2 of it, if you prefer (if I understood correctly)
- May 14, 2019
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The problem is that Crush suffers from extreme perfectionism that cripples his writing. Rather than just write the scene and go back to it later, he would rather delay his already behind schedule update rewriting the whole thing from scratch.
An entire update held back because he doesn't like one scene in it. You can't make it up.
But if he released it and then "went back to it later" then people would complain just the same that he's "wasting time" on revising already released content instead of making more. So it's not like doing it this way is making things any worse for him. People who are determined to complain will complain regardless.
TBH I'm all for it I think this game is more than just a quick fap material. I see great passion and hard work. The people who can't wait because the artist wants his creation to be good are being childish.