Game in development

[BravoMDB]

Hi All,

I've been working for a while now on a game that I'm calling College Vacation, it's beginning to take shape, and I guess that I've completed about 30% of the script and have made a good start on images and movies, and various bits of game logic (freeroam, and some small amount of UI stuff). It's still too early to even call it a teaser or an alpha at this point, although progress is coming along quite well and has around 500 images and 25 clips or so currently.

I guess what I'm trying to figure out is, how folks would like to see this progress. Do I start off with just a teaser version that gives an intro to where the development is heading, or do I just soldier ahead with it and come out with a more completed version, or just release a continuous flow of updates?

I suspect given with how development is progressing so far, I'll have a more complete first taster for this end of year if I'm being optimistic, or more realistically a version of some description in early 2023.

I'm interested to see what the feedback would be as to how I should proceed if that makes sense. I've not made the patreon side of things live yet. I didn't think it right to go live there just yet until I have something more substantial that folks would actually be interested in helping to fund.

Anyway, I'm interested in the feedback and that will give me some input on how to proceed.

Thanks for taking the time to read and/or comment.
Mad.

 

[kintarodev]

I guess you should pick wathever route you feel more comfortable with and helps you to keep motivation on the project.

Some people like to get feedback for every step they take, and other don't feel comfy showing unfinished/unpolished work.

Neverthless, from experience, having an unflexible deadline for publishing helps you to keep on track with the work.

About how consumers will react (fan base, patreon, etc.), it really depends on the kind of project you present. Can't tell until you show it.

Good luck!

 

[MissFortune]

TL;DR: It's always better to start bigger, but if you feel ready to jump into the waters, then go for it.

College is a flooded setting in the VN sphere, so you're going to want to find something that sets it apart from the others. What makes it unique against the wall of other college-set VNs? Is it something in the story? Render quality? Animation quality? That's always going to be the toughest part. Play the other college-themed VNs, see what they do and see what they don't do. See what you can do that they don't do. I'm assuming you're working with Daz/Blender/KK/HS here, if you couldn't tell. Correct me if I'm wrong, though.

As for render/animation counts, that would be a serviceable amount for a standard VN, but it sounds like you're making a sandbox? If so, what are those 500 renders/images made up of? Repeatable event images? How many of them are unique renders/images in the story? If you're going sandbox, then go as big as you feel comfortable/ready to go without feedback. With a regular VN, I'd say anywhere from 800-1400 would leave a very strong impression on the users, provided the story/writing is good.

 

[MyMadGames]

Thank you for taking the time to give some feedback.

Yes, it is true that there are a lot of college based themes out there, I'm hoping that the story will evolve into something more than just a regular college theme, although that is where the story will start at least for now. Certainly I'm hoping that the render quality will be high enough(?), it's mostly Daz renders, although there are some areas that will be derived from Unreal, Davinci, Maya etc. I guess the flow will be something along the lines of Being a Dik, the use of story, paths and free-roam sections, mini-games etc.

Renders are all unique currently there is certainly some reuse for areas of dialog, but once I get feedback from an initial release I'll hope to have a clearer idea on where improvements need to be made based on feedback etc.

I'm certainly hoping that the story writing will be good, but I guess everyone has the same hopes until such time as they're told otherwise....argh! Animation is always a bit of a nightmare, some stuff works well, some stuff doesn't, hopefully the more experience I get the better that side of things will be.

Thanks again, and I really do appreciate the feedback.