- Aug 23, 2020
- 2,518
- 12,062
I'm late to the party!
But the rest of this paragraph is a major red flag to me Stoper, and I don't think it's really been acknowledged. If entire day(s) of work are being tossed out because "things aren't clicking", that's a problem. And considering that this development cycle is going on six months, I have to imagine that it wasn't just once or twice that "things didn't click." If these days resulting in negative returns are compounded by days of low production, you have a real project management problem on your hands. If multiple days of low production are then tossed out because "things aren't clicking", the problem has compounded on itself.
And you know what? Sometimes "good enough" is really good. Sometimes it's better to push through on something that isn't perfect instead of tweaking it to death. As someone who suffers from paralysis by analysis, I have to consciously make the effort to pull the trigger and keep moving forward. Otherwise I get stuck in a constant loop of evaluation and research. The end result is sometimes better, but often only marginally than my original plan; and it came at the expense of my time and effort. Did all that time and effort really net me a result that was proportionally better? Almost never.
I don't mean any of this as a "fuck you, I need my p0rn!", but as someone that has supported your Patreon in the past but can't do that again strictly because of the production problems. The game itself is really solid, and I would happily provide financial support, but these update cycles are a real problem.
I can accept that not every day is super productive, I think anyone that has a hobby that they love can attest to the fact that some days you kick ass and then other days you can't complete even the smallest step.
But the rest of this paragraph is a major red flag to me Stoper, and I don't think it's really been acknowledged. If entire day(s) of work are being tossed out because "things aren't clicking", that's a problem. And considering that this development cycle is going on six months, I have to imagine that it wasn't just once or twice that "things didn't click." If these days resulting in negative returns are compounded by days of low production, you have a real project management problem on your hands. If multiple days of low production are then tossed out because "things aren't clicking", the problem has compounded on itself.
But this? This is a five alarm fire. I can understand some days you're feeling more productive than others. I think it's a problem, but I can also wrap my head around entire scenes/groups of renders being tossed out because they aren't clicking. But reworking the very nature of a scene only when you're deep into production is really, really, poor project management. I've said this before, so I'm in danger of sounding like a broken clock, but whether it's a hobby or work, you can't be blindly stumbling through your efforts and changing horses in midstream. This is costing precious time and is totally avoidable. It's one thing to tweak a scene, but you're talking about completely rebuilding them and doubling or tripling the work. That's madness. Details such as branching paths and story elements should be worked out long in advance during the planning process, not during production.
And you know what? Sometimes "good enough" is really good. Sometimes it's better to push through on something that isn't perfect instead of tweaking it to death. As someone who suffers from paralysis by analysis, I have to consciously make the effort to pull the trigger and keep moving forward. Otherwise I get stuck in a constant loop of evaluation and research. The end result is sometimes better, but often only marginally than my original plan; and it came at the expense of my time and effort. Did all that time and effort really net me a result that was proportionally better? Almost never.
I think this is also the wrong approach. It's one thing not give a release date because you're afraid that you'll miss it by a few days. If we were talking about an update that was almost six days late, and you were getting shit for it, I could understand the frustration. But we're talking six months. And endless, undefined, open-ended development cycle invites the problems mentioned earlier because there is no sense of urgency. Sometimes the structured environment provided by a release date can be a good thing, and I think you could benefit from it.
I have a hard time accepting this. If we're measuring content by the number of renders, then ok maybe I can see it. But this update is barely going to advance the story, we only have the one major scene. To me, this meets the definition of the Law of Negative Returns. You're pouring all of this effort into a single scene, spending months of your life doing it, and we're barely advancing the story more than a couple of hours. This is negative returns because "more is less." We'll have to wait and see how the scene turns out, but I'm having a hard time accepting the idea that one scene with three routes is the same as a normal update with multiple scenes with varying routes. It feels a little disingenuous to me at this point, but we'll see how it works out.
I don't mean any of this as a "fuck you, I need my p0rn!", but as someone that has supported your Patreon in the past but can't do that again strictly because of the production problems. The game itself is really solid, and I would happily provide financial support, but these update cycles are a real problem.
