Others Completed Future Fragments [v1.0.1] [HentaiWriter]

[Spatula22]

Of the text in the game, probably less than 2% is of a sexual nature. Shows with sexual content that are localized into other languages, like Orange is the New Black and Game of Thrones, I would estimate have a similar amount of sexual content in their scripts/events as our game does.

I was kinda expecting this response, but it's still disappointing. Since you've set up the story around a sex deprived populous, with sex robots, where you can get raped in literally every encounter, I'm going to assume you're lowballing that number and the percentage of erotic text is much higher. If the text isn't during a sex scene, set-up for a later potential sexual encounter, or otherwise intended to make me wet (erotic worldbuilding included) then it's probably wasting my time.

And really, it's also been a selling point in almost any game that has it for most of gaming history. Star Ocean 2 had 80+ plus endings, and featured that statistic prominently on advertisements for the game; in modern days, the Stanley Parable is literally just a "multiple endings" simulator and people chart out all the crazy things you have to do to access the most obscure endings.

Both games were commercial successes.

If a game has multiple endings, the player gets more freedom of choice; they can get one ending and call it quits, or they can go for multiple endings. Having only one ending means they only get that one ending, and that's it.
More choices / ways for the player to engage with the game / play it, is a good thing in most people's books.

Yeah, multiple endings is a selling point, but how many games have more than a few endings? Catherine is a similar idea to yours. Story interspersed through gameplay. "Your decisions matter". Only had three endings. That might seem a little disappointing but I also don't think the game would be much better if it had 80. It's the kind of game people will play through multiple times, but most people won't.

I haven't played Star Ocean 2, but it seems "endings" are short scenes and you get multiple on a single playthrough. Advertising it as 80+ endings is a way to try to sound impressive. Advertisers love big numbers, they think they sound cool. Like when devs brag about their 100+ hour games (of daunting filler), or rather than X number of powerups you can mix-and-match, why not say X³ combinations of powerups!?

Each story in Stanley Parable takes between like one and ten minutes. This game is not the same. Stanley Parable works because it is all about choice, and it would not be as popular if each ending required the same core four hours of gameplay. The game only lasts like four hours total.


I bought the game on the promise of competent gameplay and sexy sex scenes. Multiple endings and choices mattering is not a bad thing, I think you've just taken it to the extreme in planning and not been reined in. For where the game is, I think this project has actually been managed well. Progress on some fronts has seemed slow, but you've almost always been able to show progress towards clear goals. But I also think you've spent more money and time on this game than the value returned.

All of this is to say, I am sure I will not be disappointed in the time and money I spend on this game. I don't quite understand the patrons that have been bankrolling you all these years but I hope they're satisfied too. But I expect your next big project (EE or whatever) will be in another ten years so you won't be seeing much more money or interest from me. I'm at least hoping the Faye game doesn't take five years.

I'm not sure what you mean about this; why do you think story is locked behind difficulty selection? There's only normal and easy mode, and playing either one doesn't lock you out of anything story-wise.

"(In the full game however, [Easy Mode] will block access to the true final ending.)"
I'd think that because you thought that. I'd assume this was a very early development idea, but I've not seen you recant the statement, and someone brought it up recently and you didn't correct them.

 

[HardcoreCuddler]

Holy shit, Eromancer gets a shit ton of money but still doesnt come close to the amount of content you make

goes to show the progress someone can make if they actually invest the money into the actual game instead of investing into DRM, gatcha shite, multiplayer, or just straight up using it for things completely unrelated with the game

 

[Dexhellhound]

I can't see how this is a negative outside of a raw effort vs financial gain comparison. Yeah sure if you're looking for max profit with as little effort as possible it's better to churn out renpy incest games with daz models or RPGM with base tilesets and recycled assets. If you're looking to make an actual game then it's gonna take time and effort.

just throwing this out there but oki is just trolling i wouldn't take him serous

 

[HentaiWriter]

I was kinda expecting this response, but it's still disappointing. Since you've set up the story around a sex deprived populous, with sex robots, where you can get raped in literally every encounter, I'm going to assume you're lowballing that number and the percentage of erotic text is much higher. If the text isn't during a sex scene, set-up for a later potential sexual encounter, or otherwise intended to make me wet (erotic worldbuilding included) then it's probably wasting my time.

That's fine, but the game was setup with sex to be interwoven through the game's storyline and worldbuilding as *an* aspect of it, not *the* aspect of it.

Doing a game where you have nonstop sex constantly in every scenario is about the same to me as games from the 90s that had nothing but violence and used it as their sole selling point.

So no, I promise I am not lowballing that. You could go the entire game without seeing sex. You could also see lots of sex scenes and events per level, too.

Yeah, multiple endings is a selling point, but how many games have more than a few endings?

Not too many, which is why we wanted to do that. Future Fragments is a game about doing things in games we wanted to see in games because we rarely saw it done and said elements were things we liked in games, but again, were rarely done.

I haven't played Star Ocean 2, but it seems "endings" are short scenes and you get multiple on a single playthrough.

No, it's literally different endings.

is all about choice, and it would not be as popular if each ending required the same core four hours of gameplay.

I think this might be where you're missing the intent and design we have planned.

You can save scum to get the endings, but the game is designed to be a different experience each playthrough, as there are literally a thousand plus cutscene variants. So each playthrough should have different content, etc.

I bought the game on the promise of competent gameplay and sexy sex scenes. Multiple endings and choices mattering is not a bad thing, I think you've just taken it to the extreme in planning and not been reined in.

TBH, we cut out sooooo many things we had planned that I've definitely been reined in, lol. I posted a list a few pages back.

But as far as the choices and endings for this game go, this is the baseline for me. Future games will definitely have more of both.

For where the game is, I think this project has actually been managed well. Progress on some fronts has seemed slow, but you've almost always been able to show progress towards clear goals. But I also think you've spent more money and time on this game than the value returned.

For context, we're at 45k wishlists on Steam alone, so if even only 20% of those convert AND we never get another sale again on any platform, I'll have broken even at a minimum and paid my debt off entirely.

But I expect your next big project (EE or whatever) will be in another ten years so you won't be seeing much more money or interest from me.

Eroding Ego should take far less time than FF both due to experience we've gained on FF, as well as having our own engine now. Also, a lot of the assets are already done for it.

"(In the full game however, [Easy Mode] will block access to the true final ending.)"

This is very old; we changed this out back around 2020 or so I believe. If I still have this up somewhere, let me know and I'll fix it immediately.

 

[HentaiWriter]

Weekly Progress Report #61 for Future Fragments

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Literally nothing notable to report, just still pumping out content/getting stuff in the game!

 

[limenghan]

I choose the easy mode, but he is still too difficult for me, after death will return to the place of birth, I hope I can in the first place can use cheat mode to enjoy the game rather than by complete achievement can unlock, hope you can give is not good at action games people a friendly choices rather than embarrass them, by the way, As a former sponsor of your game, I think I have the right to suggest this to you

 

[HentaiWriter]

I choose the easy mode, but he is still too difficult for me, after death will return to the place of birth, I hope I can in the first place can use cheat mode to enjoy the game rather than by complete achievement can unlock, hope you can give is not good at action games people a friendly choices rather than embarrass them, by the way, As a former sponsor of your game, I think I have the right to suggest this to you

So while it won't be in at launch, there will be a setup for bosses where if you lose to them an excessive amount of times, you'll get a pass to instantly defeat them.

 

[limenghan]

So while it won't be in at launch, there will be a setup for bosses where if you lose to them an excessive amount of times, you'll get a pass to instantly defeat them.

This is a little disrespectful, but it doesn't help me at all. I'm just asking if I can use someone else's save when the game launches if I can't finish it.

 

[MortimerScharf]

This is a little disrespectful, but it doesn't help me at all. I'm just asking if I can use someone else's save when the game launches if I can't finish it.

What's disrespectful? Adaptive difficulty has been around since the late 90s. This game is giving you a pass if you can't even beat a boss on the easiest difficulty. I don't get why some people get all butthurt from told to "git gud".

 

[HentaiWriter]

This is a little disrespectful, but it doesn't help me at all. I'm just asking if I can use someone else's save when the game launches if I can't finish it.

As far as using someone else's save, we aren't going to have compatibility for that built into the game, but we also aren't going to make it impossible to use someone else's save either, if you want to put in the effort to do so.

 

[HentaiWriter]

Oh steam. How long are your business days...

Just for context, the one-level demo took a little over a week to review; NextFest is running now, and the game is 7x the amount of content the demo was.

 

[abletothink]

Just for context, the one-level demo took a little over a week to review; NextFest is running now, and the game is 7x the amount of content the demo was.

You seem to be pessimistic about the review process. Do you think you'll be rejected and if so why? To me your game looks competently made and polished compared to a lot of the broken trash that gets put on there. Also how is the fulfillment for the Patreon backers going to work? Will we be able to get the game day one?

 

[HentaiWriter]

You seem to be pessimistic about the review process. Do you think you'll be rejected and if so why? To me your game looks competently made and polished compared to a lot of the broken trash that gets put on there. Also how is the fulfillment for the Patreon backers going to work? Will we be able to get the game day one?

99% likely we'll be rejected, because the build we submitted has no endings in-game yet (they're recorded, written, with music and CGs, just not in game yet since the way we get endings in is different than cutscenes currently, so they have to be hard-coded which eats up time for the programmer unlike most of the cutscenes which I normally handle myself).

Per Steam policies, the game needs to be "playable from beginning to end", so if there's no endings...

As far as the fulfillment for Patreon backers works, it's possible you'd be able to get the build day one; it depends on two factors.

A) If you want the game on Steam
B) If Steam is willing to give out keys en masse the day of launch

Steam has to manually review key distribution stuff when you ask for a large amount, whereas other platforms don't, so if they let me get a bunch of keys, then great, if not, then...

That said, the game is likely to have a few issues day-one, so you're probably not missing out if you don't get a key the immediate day of, to be fair.

Once it launches, we're estimating about a month more of development time to finish off anything else that we'd need to get done for the core game, so the launch will be effectively a "soft launch" so to speak.

 

[dragonsix6969]

99% likely we'll be rejected, because the build we submitted has no endings in-game yet (they're recorded, written, with music and CGs, just not in game yet since the way we get endings in is different than cutscenes currently, so they have to be hard-coded which eats up time for the programmer unlike most of the cutscenes which I normally handle myself).

but deus ex this did not stop from being released, he-he.

 

[abletothink]

99% likely we'll be rejected, because the build we submitted has no endings in-game yet (they're recorded, written, with music and CGs, just not in game yet since the way we get endings in is different than cutscenes currently, so they have to be hard-coded which eats up time for the programmer unlike most of the cutscenes which I normally handle myself).

Per Steam policies, the game needs to be "playable from beginning to end", so if there's no endings...

As far as the fulfillment for Patreon backers works, it's possible you'd be able to get the build day one; it depends on two factors.

A) If you want the game on Steam
B) If Steam is willing to give out keys en masse the day of launch

Steam has to manually review key distribution stuff when you ask for a large amount, whereas other platforms don't, so if they let me get a bunch of keys, then great, if not, then...

That said, the game is likely to have a few issues day-one, so you're probably not missing out if you don't get a key the immediate day of, to be fair.

Once it launches, we're estimating about a month more of development time to finish off anything else that we'd need to get done for the core game, so the launch will be effectively a "soft launch" so to speak.

Why did you even submit it if it's not finished and you know it won't pass? I really hope there wasn't a fee for doing so. Not wanting to come off as overly critical but I seem to remember you saying you needed it out by this date for financial reasons. If you need the game to make it's money back then releasing an unfinished product is the absolute last thing you should do. The early reviews (from both Steam and websites) will be negative and it will turn people off of buying the game. Even if you fix it later it'll still have that stigma from launch. Best example is Assassin's Creed Unity which still has the reputation for being a disaster from launch even though they fixed it and now it's one of the best city based AC games.

I've been following this project for years and really want to see it succeed. You clearly put a ton of work into it, it plays fantastic based on the demos, and you've been a class act with your community interaction. Please don't self sabotage at the finish line.

 

[HentaiWriter]

Why did you even submit it if it's not finished and you know it won't pass?

I could have sworn I covered this in the topic, but looking back, apparently I didn't.

The reason why is because when you submit a game to Steam, there's a lot of little checks they do to make sure the submission is, well, submitted right; things like files being in the right place per their system, the right "filters" or "tags" on things, lots of other stuff needs to be done correctly.

When we submitted the NextFest demo earlier this year, we submitted it, only to wait around a week and be told "yeah, uh, you didn't even put your build in the right place", as there was a specific location we needed to submit it to, for that specific type of demo build, etc.

So by submitting it this way, we did so as sort of a "check" to make sure we were submitting the final build right; if we get it back and it says "yeah you need to fix this and this with your submission", then we'll know that going forward for when we submit again, reducing the potential that we get it all ready, send it off, and... we get rejected because of some small mistake on our end.

I really hope there wasn't a fee for doing so. Not wanting to come off as overly critical but I seem to remember you saying you needed it out by this date for financial reasons.

Oh no, there's no fee for submitting a build, there's only fees for when you initially get your game up on the Steam Store (like, the store page everyone can see right now).

If you need the game to make it's money back then releasing an unfinished product is the absolute last thing you should do. The early reviews (from both Steam and websites) will be negative and it will turn people off of buying the game. Even if you fix it later it'll still have that stigma from launch. Best example is Assassin's Creed Unity which still has the reputation for being a disaster from launch even though they fixed it and now it's one of the best city based AC games.

While I do agree with this, the game is going to be mostly complete by launch (like 95%); that said, we can't really push it too much farther because I've literally maxed out my credit cards, so unless someone just suddenly drops $4k on us or something (and I don't want anyone to do this, to be clear), we've got to release it at the start of November at the latest.

I've been following this project for years and really want to see it succeed. You clearly put a ton of work into it, it plays fantastic based on the demos, and you've been a class act with your community interaction. Please don't self sabotage at the finish line.

Same here, but I don't think it's as in dire straits as you might think; when we launch, we should have all cutscenes in-game, it's just that some of them may not be voiced, and there may be a few things to polish through the first month of launch.

 

[dragonsix6969]

if the game is won't not on steam where will you release it?

 

[HentaiWriter]

if the game is won't not on steam where will you release it?

If, in the absolute worst case scenario, we can't get it on Steam for whatever reason, we'll still get it on all the other storefronts we had planned for it.

 

[anonymousbruh]

do you think you'll release the submitted version on itch.io early since it's ready to go and steam is taking awhile?

 

[HentaiWriter]

do you think you'll release the submitted version on itch.io early since it's ready to go and steam is taking awhile?

We can't, actually, per Steam policies. The game has to be released on Steam first.

(That, and it's definitely not ready to go; we still have more core storyline/gameplay content we want to get in there, but as noted above, we can't go past November cause I'm maxed out in terms of finances.)