HTML Female Agent [v1.20.1p] [Crushstation]

[Senor Smut]

There's probably something showing up next quarter. There was just a major meltdown on multiple levels, but it doesn't look like anything is queued for immediate release. I'm here eating popcorn and enjoying the situation. Also just saying--a number of other slow developers were off the radar from December until last week. Probably similar causes.

And notice how you never see Crush and those other Devs in the same room at the same time...

They're all Batman!

 

[vicaddict]

They do sleep up to 80% of the day, so that might explain the progress or the lack thereof.

 

[fortuna95]

[1.21] Getting there

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Hey guys! Just quickly reporting in that the writing's going much better. I pushed out a test version of the shift part of the episode yesterday and have received good feedback on it.

It feels short, so I'm going to squeeze the date with Big Mac into this episode (which is a bit shorter and lower-key than the fancy date with the Russians). That's already outlined so it should be quick to prototype – I'll get straight onto it now.
This episode has been an unexpected fucking nightmare to write. The good news is that all the struggle led to some cool and creative ideas to improve future episodes – more on that soon.

I've got more to say about this experience and what I learned, but I want to get this episode done, so I'm going to get straight into building the Big Mac date scene. Report to follow soon. Thanks so much for bearing with me and for the support while I've been creatively struggling, your confidence in the project is more motivating than you know. ❤

 

[CassieBare]

It feels short, [...] (which is a bit shorter and lower-key than the fancy date with the Russians). That's already outlined so it should be quick to prototype – I'll get straight onto it now.

It feels short because...it is. Oh, and surprise, surprise, it won't be released before the end of the month so there can be another tick over on subscriber charges.

This episode has been an unexpected fucking nightmare to write.

Aren't they all though? That's what it seems like.

The good news is that all the struggle led to some cool and creative ideas to improve future episodes – more on that soon.

Of course, struggle led to 'MFAGA' as always. Will those things ever improve the content quality, speed, or quantity? Years of research says: no.

 

[Pede rasta 1]

omg this guy is a f*** joke lol is like talk with a junky about how near is to leave the drug out of his life, (next week i will do it)

 

[HyperionTheGreat]

Can someone explain to me why anyone would support this game? To put the time into perspective: since its initial release, I've been able to enter university, complete a full six-year course, earn a degree, start a PhD, and begin working, while the game still only offers a two hours of playtime tops. At this point, it's clear that either the creators are entirely incompetent, unable to finish the game, or this is simply a massive money grab.

 

[somalimechaprogram]

2017 was the year that this game originally came out. It was also the year that Nintendo released the Switch console worldwide.
In fact, a couple of months AFTER this thread was created, the Syrian city of Raqqa was liberated from ISIS occupation. You've already forgotten about them? Well, they were at their peak when this game started.
A couple of months after that, the Russian olympic teams were banned due to doping. Since then we've had enough time for investigations, several documentaries to be filmed and released, and for people to even feel nostalgic about said documentaries.
Portugal The Man - Feel It Still was the hot new song. Conor McGregor was the top athlete, 2 division MMA champ at such a young age. I wonder how far he will go!

 

[Rixen]

2017 was the year that this game originally came out. It was also the year that Nintendo released the Switch console worldwide.
In fact, a couple of months AFTER this thread was created, the Syrian city of Raqqa was liberated from ISIS occupation. You've already forgotten about them? Well, they were at their peak when this game started.
A couple of months after that, the Russian olympic teams were banned due to doping. Since then we've had enough time for investigations, several documentaries to be filmed and released, and for people to even feel nostalgic about said documentaries.
Portugal The Man - Feel It Still was the hot new song. Conor McGregor was the top athlete, 2 division MMA champ at such a young age. I wonder how far he will go!

Now I feel old, i hope you're happy

 

[fortuna95]

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Hey guys, happy Easter! The Big Mac date scene is going well. It’s hard to talk about without dropping spoilers, but I’m finding it easy and fun to write.

It’s just a side quest, so it’s not supposed to change the world, but it does feel like a nice little change of vibe and pace. The main NPC, Mac, is kind of rugged and unpretentious, and some of the fun is our heroine going on a date with a different vibe than the previous swanky restaurants. Spies (and hookers) need to adapt and perform in situations high class, low class, and somewhere in between, so it’s good practice for her.

I want to get this episode out as fast as possible, so I’m working long hours on it. I stopped today at about 8PM and I’ll get right back on it first thing tomorrow. I hope you guys had a lovely Easter and I’ll report on more progress soon! ❤

 

[somalimechaprogram]

I’m working long hours on it

Assuming full work days, rest on weekends, and the date of the previous update, we can calculate how many words per hour our esteemed artist produces.
I will speculate the number will be underwhelming.

 

[CassieBare]

Assuming full work days, rest on weekends, and the date of the previous update, we can calculate how many words per hour our esteemed artist produces.
I will speculate the number will be underwhelming.

Interesting. We actually *should* do a retro on how many words per hour, whenever the update actually drops. Should be incredibly easy:

1. Take previous update. Load up Notepad ++
2. New update, Notepad ++
3. Scroll to final line, compare line totals.
4. Determine days since last release
5. Total lines / days since release = lines / day
6. Then have fun running the amount of line(s?) per hour he wrote per day.

 

[Ripe]

Interesting. We actually *should* do a retro on how many words per hour, whenever the update actually drops. Should be incredibly easy:

1. Take previous update. Load up Notepad ++
2. New update, Notepad ++
3. Scroll to final line, compare line totals.
4. Determine days since last release
5. Total lines / days since release = lines / day
6. Then have fun running the amount of line(s?) per hour he wrote per day.

Why would you want to do that???? Do you really want to see him write something like 0.5 words per day?

 

[okokok]

Why would you want to do that???? Do you really want to see him write something like 0.5 words per day?

Cassie wants to see Crush bust out the purple prose for the following update

 

[Ripe]

100% I believe it will lead to better content, if you trial and error anything, you usually get better results through that grind...

That only works if you know what you want to achieve in the end... which, I'm not sure Crush does. I'm not even sure he knows what kind of game he wants to write.

But yeah there's no reason updates should be longer than 3 months, especially for a side quest. Sucks that he stopped the good pattern of an update every 3-4 months, and fell back into old habits.

For a primarily text based game with almost no graphic anything over month, month and a half at most is unacceptable... so no, pattern of update every 3-4 months was not a good thing when this game is concerned.

 

[MAKE DEEPFAKES]

But yeah there's no reason updates should be longer than 3 months, especially for a side quest.

No reason? He gets paid monthly regardless of how good his planning or work ethic is. If he ever actually finishes the game, then people will stop paying him. There is every reason updates should be as long as possible and planning should be nonexistent.

 

[MAKE DEEPFAKES]

the only thing one can argue is that it's less work in a certain time frame to drag out an update. but it's probably even lesser work to do your update in 2 months, and take the third month off, no one would even have to know you do that.

Why even work the 2 months?

 

[MAKE DEEPFAKES]

Bro, I don't know what's going on in your head, but if you need to be physically imprisoned in order to stop working then you are not a normal healthy individual. Normal, healthy people work because they need money.

 

[Mr_Ainz]

I can understand the points that Sharpx23 is making but reality is never so simple. Let's say that I start a game and do updates regularly and get good rep, money and all that stuff. 6 months into development I lose motivation to continue working on that and start another job. Why should I stop Patreon or whatever it is that's making me money? I can release small amounts of content in large periods of time and get passive income until people realise that it's a waste of money.

Can I maybe make more money if instead I put more work and keep the monthly releases? Maybe, it's never assured that success will get to you even if you put in the work.

Also let's say that 60% (I'd even venture to say 80%) of the developers don't understand just how difficult making a game by yourself is. Most have an initial idea and then see themselves that they don't know how to continue the story (maintaining a certain amount of quality) and the complexity just gets out of hand. Yes, they could do a lot of things instead of milking (start another game with better planing, get outside help, take a vacation and come back with renewed energy) but time and time again we see examples of games slowly dying out.

I wish it wasn't like that, I too believe it doesn't make a lot of sense. But it's the reality we get.

 

[Senor Smut]

I'm utterly convinced that Crush is scamming, but even I don't think he's doing nothing when he's not writing. Maybe he's working a part-time job or maybe he's got a lot of hobbies he's involved in. It doesn't matter though, because he's still taking money every month and bringing in a comfortable living without producing an acceptable level of return.

I've said it before, but I think he started out with the best intentions: he wanted to give back to the community by making a game he hoped people would enjoy. But he had no clue what he was doing so he just charged ahead and very quickly found himself in the weeds and overwhelmed. That's not a crime, it happens in...well, the majority of games on this site. Making a game is a lot harder than most people think. But where most overwhelmed Devs abandon their games, Crush decided to keep milking his cash cow and doing juuuust enough to keep those on the train, on the train. That was where he went from good guy to bad guy in my mind.

 

[Senor Smut]

Maybe I'm just unusual as a person, because if I couldn't give regular updates on my game, i'd probably tell my patreons that updates will be delayed from now on for x or y reason. Or I'd just pause the patreon at any time I knew I was doing completely nothing for longer than a month.

I think the problem is Crush is doing too much scope per update. IMO he should aim for an update every 2 months, so write the game in smaller batches, and upload what he has at the end of 2 months. I'd also like to see more transparency. lol Am I like totally unusual or something? Cause if I made a game update in 3 months, and then decided to delay it one month. I would actually release what I had done in April, and then what I did until May, together, so people could see the differences and why I chose to take another month to edit the game. Like it makes zero sense not to do this. I love being honest I guess. And I also love feedback. I'd want to know what people think, if the month of edits were worth it, if it was justified and so on. I guess crush maybe does something feedback oriented with a select few people? like 4 or 5 testers? maybe?

You're where I was 18 months ago. I'd only been watching the game like a year at that point. But over on his Discord you get update after update, all saying that he's working very long hours on the game, day after day, then week after week, then month after month, and always that the update will be out SOON(TM). Enough of those and I was forced to finally admit that it's all BS -- if he were writing 50 words a day -- less than this post! -- then his updates would be be much more frequent and much larger. Instead they're short, trivial side stories that don't address the main story and endlessly recite "Why am I getting turned on by this?"