No one can say for sure when the final complete product will be released in this instance. I play a lot of indie games on <vaporised water> (don't know whether we can advertise other sites or not, sue me) and usually, they release alfa or beta versions of their games but you only pay ONCE. Patreon (I know I saw this one many times in this forum) and others like it got corrupted and a lot of people (devs and patrons alike) think this is the way it's supposed to work. I agree to some extent but I see others that work much harder and get much more content out for their patrons (not always that many) than a lot of the "developers" trying their hand at an 18+ only game.
I agree, generally. Patreon model has it's downsides, for sure. However, see my point below.
I tried and succeeded in making a game myself. It was just a short project mostly to see how hart it actually is. Using an engine like renpy is ridiculously simple and the only time-consuming thing for me was the art (used daz). I have no idea how long it takes this team's illustrator to come with new images but I know there are a lot of assets being reused. I wish we had more of an idea of what's going on behind the scenes, like other devs started doing, e.g.: action trackers, a full plan including completion date (without too many spoilers where possible). It would be easier for some to see exactly how long this (but not only this) game will take, where it will go, and then decide what tier patron/supporter they want to be or if it's worth it.
Well, it depends. Simple and straight-designed games are easy to develop, especially if you have the right skills. However, here we have a quite complicated project, a fucking mess even, I would say. I don't know the whole story behind early stages but that was sure as hell not a great start, judging by the early acts of the game itself.
You see, it's easier to work alone than even as a small team like this in terms of decision-making, overall design, that sort of things. And they've tried to shove in this game so much stuff that it became too complicated for them to properly sort the shit out and to prioritize. They have the main quest, side quests, puzzles, skill system, time management system, UI girl, enormous amount of items and so on. And even at this point, they're incapable of cutting things out in order to focus on the most important stuff. Futhermore, they've continued to change the game and expand, just look at the latest change log. And they did spread story to two branches recently
on top of all that.
Some people might say they're doing that in order to intentionally slow development process down, to "milk" patrons for ages. I disagree and would say the reason lies in: lack of experience, lack of a strong team leader, lack of skills, in a nutshell - incompetence. Despite the bugs and everything I would say their coder is competent enough though for an amateur team. Their artist seems to work on his own terms and it's fine as long as he receives clear and persistent work tasks but I guess it's not the case with these guys. But all that's fine, as long as we look at their patreon as a tool to encourage some people's hobby and even to get something (erotic art/funfiction/puzzles etc) in return (and in our case - for free, although it shouldn't stop us from critisize things). Instead of pretending like it's some kind of serious business and their patrons - a bunch of fooled shareholders. No, from what I've heared, they're mostly happy so I guess they're belong to the first category.
So breaking the saves is confirmed on purpose? Greedy cunts
Nah, I wouldn't go that far. Given amount of bugs every fresh version I think it's a simple malfunction. Besides, they didn't give away saves for everyone before, that was patrons only deal.
