Ren'Py Abandoned Holly Curse [v0.0.1] [Tarot Games]

[TheHighSpire]

I've inquired about what was going on, but so far I've received no answer so this isn't looking good.

Pretty shitty if just pulled the plug without informing those he work with.. Oh, well, here's hoping for the best.

 

[BigJohnny]

Well, this sucks, a female protag x futas game take away from us before its time.

 

[Rosen King]

Well, I'm just the coder so they might have notified Laff and not me. In the end, he's the one who's in charge of the project so if he decides to pull the plug, there is absolutely nothing I can do since I do not own any of the assets for this project.

I've inquired about what was going on, but so far I've received no answer so this isn't looking good.

Don't panic. The tag gets slapped onto any project without consideration, just because it hasn't been updated in a while and a mod is like, "Eh, guess it's dead." This is NOT an indication that the developers have declared it dead or anything of the sort. I once saw a game get marked as "abandoned" even as the dev was actively posting devblogs on their Discord (which I and other people were copy/pasting into the thread), and the full game was released like a month or two later. All because the game's dev cycle was of the "actually make the damn game and just release it when it's done" variety instead of the Patreon BS that everyone here is so accustomed to.

 

[Spam0]

I guess this really is dead now. Patreon and Twitter pages deleted. Too bad too, it really had potential.

 

[Hellraisers3]

I guess this really is dead now. Patreon and Twitter pages deleted. Too bad too, it really had potential.

Agree, maybe he'll pick it back up in the future but I won't be holding my breath.

 

[Bob-of-Rovia]

Agree, maybe he'll pick it back up in the future but I won't be holding my breath.

looking at the demo, I had the feeling that they took too high a bar. Well, after watching a video about the difficulties of developing such games (especially by small studios), even if they continue, we won't see anything soon

 

[Kira999]

whyyyy, nooooooo...

 

[Ambir]

Yeah, I finally had a discussion with Laff about what was going on.

Basically, it was no longer sustainable to work with Satayna for multiple reasons that are between he and her. She parted way with the team and said she wasn't cool with us using her assets. To be frank, there were multiple concessions made to be able to work with her, so Laff and I decided to just do something else, because after a year of development this project is a far cry from what we'd imagined at the start and it's just easier to start over at this point.

To be clear, I still think Satanya is a great person and I was excluded from the drama so I only know Laff's side on this. However seeing as I'm still lacking some assets and would not have the ability to finish the update we were working on even if I wanted to, it's hard to argue that something very wrong was going on on the art side of the project.

So yeah, I'm not going to enter the blame game, just wanted to shed some light on what went on because for some inane reason Laff didn't tell anyone like I expected him to...

As for what's coming next, we had another artist lined up in case something like this happened, but it turns out that other person is busy and can't work with us for the time being, so things are in a state of limbo right now. I'm going to be waiting to see if Laff can arrange something. Until he does, Tarot Games (or whatever we'll be going by now that Satanya left) won't be making games.

Truly sorry that this didn't pan out. Sadly this is the most I can do for you guys.

 

[Ambir]

looking at the demo, I had the feeling that they took too high a bar. Well, after watching a video about the difficulties of developing such games (especially by small studios), even if they continue, we won't see anything soon

I can't argue with that. If I had to say one thing that went very wrong, it's the amount of backgrounds and extra art for things other than the sex scenes we included in the game and how polished we attempted to make them. Managing all that meant that we were limited in the progress we could make because to even make a new area, we had to find tons of background, design interfaces, do a lot of testing so that every single things worked properly and so on and so forth. Looking back, I think the systems needed to be simpler because with just a single coder it can be absolutely nightmarish to develop something like this.

Although I will say, even with all these issues, what really killed the project were the problems with the artist. Had we not had those, I can't say for sure if the project would have worked as the other issues might have killed the project. However it is clear that there would have been at least the next update (which had a lot of content). After that, I guess it would really just depend on whether you guys liked what we'd made or not. What ifs will always remain what ifs, so we'll never know for certain.

 

[Ambir]

Agree, maybe he'll pick it back up in the future but I won't be holding my breath.

I can confirm that we will not be working on this game with this art anymore. That being said Laff and I plan on making more games once the issues with finding an artist are settled. Money for the first few updates is not the issue, it's really about finding someone we can trust and who will do the art the game needs and won't impose weird constraints on our creativity. So, there might be a similar project in our future once we've recovered from this debacle.

 

[Bob-of-Rovia]

I can confirm that we will not be working on this game with this art anymore. That being said Laff and I plan on making more games once the issues with finding an artist are settled. Money for the first few updates is not the issue, it's really about finding someone we can trust and who will do the art the game needs and won't impose weird constraints on our creativity. So, there might be a similar project in our future once we've recovered from this debacle.

If it's not a secret, what was the problem with the artist?

 

[Ambir]

If it's not a secret, what was the problem with the artist?

Humm, when we first started it took us about 1-2 months to make the initial project you saw with all the art. Then, it took about 6 months to get the first batch of new sprites, and those new sprites were low quality versions that we'd agreed to do to be able to have quicker material to work with so we could make a bigger part of the game faster. We got more of it over time, but it was nowhere near the quantity we needed to do what was planned in the next update.

As I said in the first of the three posts up above, I was excluded from the drama, so I only know Laff's side. From what he told me, Satanya was opposed to doing a lot of what Laff needed. She didn't want to do sex scenes early in the game, didn't want to draw characters having sex with demons, and overall was trying to change the story because she didn't like some of it. Laff also told me that recently he's had a discussion with her and Satanya wanted to redo the project from the ground up because she accused he and I of making it too complex and of being the reason things were not progressing. I have no way of knowing what of this is true and what of this is false, so take it with a grain of salt.

What I can tell you for certain, however, is that most of the art I have for the game right now did not come from Satanya. Laff handled supplying me with the backgrounds as well as the UI/interfaces and he outsourced the animations. He also hired another artist or two to do some of the CGs we needed for one of the scenes. However, a part of what Laff paid for, we never saw. He got scammed by a couple of people, I think, so that was an issue on it's own.

 

[EpicReee]

A project "similar" to this one sounds ambiguous enough for me to fear for the worst. From my point of view, everything from characters, story to the general atmosphere feel like if something changes dramatically it'll be a whole different thing, which I don't know if I'll like.

 

[Bob-of-Rovia]

Humm, when we first started it took us about 1-2 months to make the initial project you saw with all the art. Then, it took about 6 months to get the first batch of new sprites, and those new sprites were low quality versions that we'd agreed to do to be able to have quicker material to work with so we could make a bigger part of the game faster. We got more of it over time, but it was nowhere near the quantity we needed to do what was planned in the next update.

As I said in the first of the three posts up above, I was excluded from the drama, so I only know Laff's side. From what he told me, Satanya was opposed to doing a lot of what Laff needed. She didn't want to do sex scenes early in the game, didn't want to draw characters having sex with demons, and overall was trying to change the story because she didn't like some of it. Laff also told me that recently he's had a discussion with her and Satanya wanted to redo the project from the ground up because she accused he and I of making it too complex and of being the reason things were not progressing. I have no way of knowing what of this is true and what of this is false, so take it with a grain of salt.

What I can tell you for certain, however, is that most of the art I have for the game right now did not come from Satanya. Laff handled supplying me with the backgrounds as well as the UI/interfaces and he outsourced the animations. He also hired another artist or two to do some of the CGs we needed for one of the scenes. However, a part of what Laff paid for, we never saw. He got scammed by a couple of people, I think, so that was an issue on it's own.

But by the way, in that video about the novels that I was talking about, just the same it says about a similar problem. And this situation exactly repeats the theses said about the problems with the development of novel

 

[Ambir]

A project "similar" to this one sounds ambiguous enough for me to fear for the worst. From my point of view, everything from characters, story to the general atmosphere feel like if something changes dramatically it'll be a whole different thing, which I don't know if I'll like.

I don't think the first title we release after this one will be anything like Holly Curse, as we wanted to make something smaller that we would be able to update on a regular basis without the headache that came with too elaborate systems. As for that "similar'' project I alluded to, what I meant was that eventually we might be doing another diablo themed game similar to this one. How similar? Don't know. It's going to be from the same people minus the person who made the art for the girl, and we'll be more experienced, so who knows what's going to happen with that.

Either way, I believe games should be judged from a game to game basis and just because we're the same people doesn't mean the next project will be a success. So, who knows.

 

[Ambir]

But by the way, in that video about the novels that I was talking about, just the same it says about a similar problem. And this situation exactly repeats the theses said about the problems with the development of novel

I'd be curious to see the video you're refering to.

 

[Bob-of-Rovia]

I'd be curious to see the video you're refering to.

here is the

You must be registered to see the links

. This is an interview with several Russian novel creation teams. But unfortunately the video is in Russian, and I don't know if anyone has translated it into other languages

I don't think the first title we release after this one will be anything like Holly Curse, as we wanted to make something smaller that we would be able to update on a regular basis without the headache that came with too elaborate systems. As for that "similar project I alluded to, what I meant was that eventually we might be doing another diablo themed game similar to this one. How similar? Don't know. It's going to be from the same people minus the person who made the art for the girl, and we'll be more experienced, so who knows what's going to happen with that.

Either way, I believe games should be judged from a game to game basis and just because we're the same people doesn't mean the next project will be a success. So, who knows.

alternatively, make a kinetic novel, or as 365games mixed (a lot of locations, but interactions for a minimum of 1 map)

 

[Hellraisers3]

looking at the demo, I had the feeling that they took too high a bar. Well, after watching a video about the difficulties of developing such games (especially by small studios), even if they continue, we won't see anything soon

I mean I can wait granted this is the longest I've waiting in a long while for a game.

 

[Hellraisers3]

Humm, when we first started it took us about 1-2 months to make the initial project you saw with all the art. Then, it took about 6 months to get the first batch of new sprites, and those new sprites were low quality versions that we'd agreed to do to be able to have quicker material to work with so we could make a bigger part of the game faster. We got more of it over time, but it was nowhere near the quantity we needed to do what was planned in the next update.

As I said in the first of the three posts up above, I was excluded from the drama, so I only know Laff's side. From what he told me, Satanya was opposed to doing a lot of what Laff needed. She didn't want to do sex scenes early in the game, didn't want to draw characters having sex with demons, and overall was trying to change the story because she didn't like some of it. Laff also told me that recently he's had a discussion with her and Satanya wanted to redo the project from the ground up because she accused he and I of making it too complex and of being the reason things were not progressing. I have no way of knowing what of this is true and what of this is false, so take it with a grain of salt.

What I can tell you for certain, however, is that most of the art I have for the game right now did not come from Satanya. Laff handled supplying me with the backgrounds as well as the UI/interfaces and he outsourced the animations. He also hired another artist or two to do some of the CGs we needed for one of the scenes. However, a part of what Laff paid for, we never saw. He got scammed by a couple of people, I think, so that was an issue on it's own.

That sucks, the art was decent and the story had promise.

 

[Artix0]

Dear lord... what a dumbass artist. A shame this happened with you, and I hope you and your team will manage to find a decent artist to work with in the future (and develop many juicy games).

Shame because Satanya's a great artist, too. Just weird that she didn't want to do extremely standard content for this kind of game - although more than 50% of her work is just pinups rather than full porn so I guess it follows a theme with her?