- Thread starter Mirgosoft
- Start date
- Mar 9, 2022
- 274
- 677
- Oct 12, 2018
- 219
- 1,092
- Oct 12, 2018
- 219
- 1,092
I posted the message from the dev I understand the situation in his country but its coming up to year since his last release saying he is making it bigger will not make people carry on backing him, make smaller releases on a more regular basis many people have been burned on words of dev's
- Oct 24, 2019
- 130
- 1,125
Hi everyone, it's been a while since we've written anything here.
And, to be honest, I personally didn't even have time to read all the new comments in this thread until today.
Well, I will try to answer the most major ones.
And the first thing I want to clarify is whether it is true that the main reason for the delay is the fact that we are from Ukraine.
At the very beginning of the military conflict it is true that we had some difficulties and for the first couple of months we had to prioritize other things: searching for absent goods and medicines, "suddenly disappearing" panes of glass in the windows of my house, lack of electricity, etc. However, this only lasted for the first few months and was not the reason for the delay of the update.
What really caused the delay was the need to get a full-time job, as part-time work was no longer enough as before. As a result, we still manage to allocate only a couple of hours a day for game development. And if according to other devs you think that this time is enough to do real miracles, then just read below.
In the last few months we even had to halve the frequency of fan renders for our patrons, starting to release them not every month, because the production of each pack of monthly fan renders, taking into account the above mentioned, costs our team at least 3-4 days of work. We consciously made this choice, realizing that even among patrons, many people are waiting not so much for fan arts, but precisely for the release of the upcoming update.
We also realize that all this wall of text may look like an excuse or something, but the purpose of our message is not to change anyone's mind here, but to tell you what beginner devs can sometimes face. Of course, whether to support us afterwards or not is absolutely your decision.
And to be completely transparent to you, here is all of our daily schedule details in numbers:
Main work = 9 hours (8 is work + 1 for lunch break)
Sleep = up to 8 hours.
Breakfast and Dinner together = 2 * 0.5 = 1 hour.
Minimum family attention required = 1 hour.
Household needs: shopping, cooking, travel time, medicine, basic rest.... = about 2-3 hours on average.
Game development = 2 hours on average depending on everything before.
Actually, exactly on this schedule we have to work during almost all the time of development of the upcoming update v0.5.
It is also worth noting that in fact for 8 hours of continuous work in 1 day you will get much more result than when working for four days for 2 hours, especially - after a hard full day's work at the main job.
And, in fact, that's why we've always wondered how some developers, with a main job and a family, can spend as much time on game development as we do (just a couple hours a day), but still release updates with 300+ renders almost every month. Moreover, they do it all solo.
They must be incredible geniuses and super machines at their job.
Or, as one actor from a famous movie said...
Anyway, all this time we have continued to work hard on Hot Springs Academy.
Much of the work has been done and there is still plenty of work to be done.
A total of about 20 events have already been reworked and will be reworked/added.
As many of you wanted, the game will become noticeably hotter, but it won't lose everything you loved it for either.
And we hope that all the new content we'll be implementing is something you'll really enjoy.
The reason why we don't release everything planned in separate patches is simple, and we have already mentioned it many times.
We are improving and adding new events within the content that is already in the game.
And in order for you to comfortably experience all the new content, we don't want you to have to start the game all over again with each new mini update.
That's why we're preparing one, but the biggest update for our game.
After the 0.5 update, we plan to return to our previous and faster schedule of releasing updates every 1-1.5 months, as we will have some funds available again by then. We plan that over the next few updates, we will be able to earn your support enough so that we no longer have to return to our current schedule.
In addition, starting today, we plan to post more preview-news on our patreon about the development progress, as much as the concept of "no spoilers" and our workload allows.
We hope for your understanding and thank you again for your patience.
We'll make sure we do our best to live up to them.
And, to be honest, I personally didn't even have time to read all the new comments in this thread until today.
Well, I will try to answer the most major ones.
And the first thing I want to clarify is whether it is true that the main reason for the delay is the fact that we are from Ukraine.
At the very beginning of the military conflict it is true that we had some difficulties and for the first couple of months we had to prioritize other things: searching for absent goods and medicines, "suddenly disappearing" panes of glass in the windows of my house, lack of electricity, etc. However, this only lasted for the first few months and was not the reason for the delay of the update.
What really caused the delay was the need to get a full-time job, as part-time work was no longer enough as before. As a result, we still manage to allocate only a couple of hours a day for game development. And if according to other devs you think that this time is enough to do real miracles, then just read below.
In the last few months we even had to halve the frequency of fan renders for our patrons, starting to release them not every month, because the production of each pack of monthly fan renders, taking into account the above mentioned, costs our team at least 3-4 days of work. We consciously made this choice, realizing that even among patrons, many people are waiting not so much for fan arts, but precisely for the release of the upcoming update.
We also realize that all this wall of text may look like an excuse or something, but the purpose of our message is not to change anyone's mind here, but to tell you what beginner devs can sometimes face. Of course, whether to support us afterwards or not is absolutely your decision.
And to be completely transparent to you, here is all of our daily schedule details in numbers:
Main work = 9 hours (8 is work + 1 for lunch break)
Sleep = up to 8 hours.
Breakfast and Dinner together = 2 * 0.5 = 1 hour.
Minimum family attention required = 1 hour.
Household needs: shopping, cooking, travel time, medicine, basic rest.... = about 2-3 hours on average.
Game development = 2 hours on average depending on everything before.
Actually, exactly on this schedule we have to work during almost all the time of development of the upcoming update v0.5.
It is also worth noting that in fact for 8 hours of continuous work in 1 day you will get much more result than when working for four days for 2 hours, especially - after a hard full day's work at the main job.
And, in fact, that's why we've always wondered how some developers, with a main job and a family, can spend as much time on game development as we do (just a couple hours a day), but still release updates with 300+ renders almost every month. Moreover, they do it all solo.
They must be incredible geniuses and super machines at their job.
Or, as one actor from a famous movie said...
Anyway, all this time we have continued to work hard on Hot Springs Academy.
Much of the work has been done and there is still plenty of work to be done.
A total of about 20 events have already been reworked and will be reworked/added.
As many of you wanted, the game will become noticeably hotter, but it won't lose everything you loved it for either.
And we hope that all the new content we'll be implementing is something you'll really enjoy.
The reason why we don't release everything planned in separate patches is simple, and we have already mentioned it many times.
We are improving and adding new events within the content that is already in the game.
And in order for you to comfortably experience all the new content, we don't want you to have to start the game all over again with each new mini update.
That's why we're preparing one, but the biggest update for our game.
After the 0.5 update, we plan to return to our previous and faster schedule of releasing updates every 1-1.5 months, as we will have some funds available again by then. We plan that over the next few updates, we will be able to earn your support enough so that we no longer have to return to our current schedule.
In addition, starting today, we plan to post more preview-news on our patreon about the development progress, as much as the concept of "no spoilers" and our workload allows.
We hope for your understanding and thank you again for your patience.
We'll make sure we do our best to live up to them.
- Mar 9, 2022
- 274
- 677
Thanks for the post, but this overly ambitious plan of 1-1.5 months looks comedic
Get your pipeline going, set realistic goals, do not overpromise and start to deliver. In my opinion people want to see regular 600+ renders updates every 6 months or more frequently
Love your game, but could not bother to start supporting you as the project is having all signs of getting abondoned
Good luck!
- Jun 28, 2022
- 2,558
- 1,493
You take care of yourself there, make sure you don’t end up under mobilisation. Well, if anything happens, you know what frequency to call. but if you forgot, I remind you - the frequency is 149.200 and call Volga. Well, I wish you health and success.
- Jul 13, 2021
- 324
- 539
So...after reading this novella, I am still no closer to knowing when the next update will be launched. 
- Jun 27, 2017
- 459
- 2,500
This part worries me. The game already moves kinda fast with lewd scenes and I remember that one that got added latter feeling out of place. I like the game, but if this devolves into a mindless fuckfest I will be disappointed man.
This game tried to copy the other Academy-game. Aside from the Update Cycle, this did not happen. Obviously it will turn into a fuckfest now, because the Dev will not be able to write a good story. They thought it would be easy to copy the other game and grab the Subscribers from there, this turned out to be more difficult than expected, so now they try a different approach to gain supporters.
- Aug 11, 2023
- 1,118
- 2,635
People whining about visual novels being visual novels. Devs just need to ignore that shit.
- Jun 27, 2017
- 459
- 2,500
I do get the comparison, and it's been a bit since I played the game in question, but I felt this had a noticeably different tone to it that made it stand a bit apart from said academy game. It's much more light hearted which I enjoyed. I mean there's a million fucking Daz college and/or incest game clones as well ya know. I don't particularly mind it being similar. Though I agree this sort of appeasement approach is a red flag.
Preach
- Dec 27, 2021
- 5
- 4
Good luck to the dev with the game, I like what i have played so far and will check ever once in a while for new updates
- Nov 27, 2021
- 1,208
- 1,941
Why would devs care if their thread is tagged as abandoned on a pirate site?
Like yes a lot of their playerbase probably comes from this site, but like even if its abandoned all they have to do is let out a small update with literally a single image to get the tag removed.
And seeing "last update 1 year ago" and abandoned isn't much different for players.
I get what you are saying though yea, but honestly its on patrons to stop their subscriptions if the devs don't put out what they expect.