Okay so I went back about twenty pages and quickly scanned over them. Really? Can't believe that no one shared the following progress report before (and I checked). ^^' Some pretty big news here!
Like, y'know... the stuff about the
Gym side job! I mean, a lot of people thought all the side jobs were all wrapped up and done, and what you have in the game is all you're going to get. But hey, they're adding a gym side job that everyone was wondering about before; awesome! Plus, they're looking to port over another game for us to enjoy! Woo~!
I'm not posting the January 17th Progress Report or the Patch Notes for v1.0.4 since the news in them aren't as exciting as the one below. They mostly talk about localization and optimizing things for the Steam Deck. Anyway without further ado, here's the Progress Report that talks about the three things the team will be focusing on at the moment and in the immediate future. Cheers!
January 10th 2022: Progress Report and early 2022 Roadmap
Hello everyone, exhausted Rem here with this year's first Progress Report!
Why am I already exhausted in just the first Progress Report of the year, well... it's because I've been spending the last hour frantically debugging and fixing an issue with the v.1.0.3 release.
Phew......
Anyway, happy new years! Or has it really been already ten days into the new year... So first thing first, Karryn's Prison has been a great commercial success! Totaling all the combined sales from DLsite and Steam, Karryn's Prison has managed to sell over 50,000 copies within almost a month!!!!
This is all thanks to everyone's support and help!! Karryn's Prison managed to stay on the
number one spot on DLsite for the first seven days, and managed to
stay in Steam's New & Trending list for over twenty days, including during the Steam Winter Sale!! Speaking in terms of my personal expectations, KP sold much more than I was expecting in the first month on DLsite! On Steam, KP already outsold Meltys Quest's first year, but if I am to be honest about my personal expectations for Steam, I was ~kinda~ hoping that more people and outlets who never heard about KP or never played eroge before would give KP a try especially since it was trending on Steam for a few weeks. Because well, I think KP does something that is quite different from all other eroges that has come before it.
Oh well, I don't think it was bad to dream big. Speaking of which, while English outlets did not cover KP, a famous Japanese magazine that specifically covers eroges by the name of
BugBug will have a 4 page feature about KP in their upcoming February 2022 edition!!!!
This is a pretty amazing accomplishment because I grew up as a child reading gaming magazines like Nintendo Power and PC Gamer, and I would re-read the articles over and over again (mostly while pooping on the toilet) and I would be starry eyed looking at all the cool new games and stuff. So to come from that point to now where, while KP isn't featured in PC Gamer and stuff, is instead featured in BugBug where other esteemed eroge companies like Alicesoft, Eushully, Key, propeller, Waffle, Guilty, dualtail, Astronauts, etcetc that I've played and respect are also featured, is a great honor! A photo of the magazine article is at the end of the post!
Now then, I want to talk a bit about the "roadmap" and what we've been doing since KP was released! Besides bug fixing and reading feedback, we've also been working on two major things.
1. First thing is what I've already talked about before release, which is working on providing localization support.
Currently, we're working on converting the rest of the ingame text to the new text system that I developed, and we've also been working with a Chinese and Russian localization team to bring Karryn's Prison into Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and Russian!!!!
Now, I just want to stress that it takes time to create a high quality localization, and that anyone who can not comfortably read English or Japanese should not purchase Karryn's Prison while it is not available in the language of their choice. KP is currently being localized into Chinese and Russian, but there is no time table for when it will be finished.
2. Second thing that we've been working on... is actually not related to Karryn's Prison!
So during 2021, Remtairy did not publish any eroges from outside developers. This is mainly because well, I was way too busy and wanted to focus on Karryn's Prison above all else, as well as the fact that even if I didn't personally publish them, there are now plenty of other companies who can. And after Karryn's Prison was finished, I took a look at some of the eroges I've played and enjoyed in 2021, and realized that there was one specific eroge that still has not been translated into English, and I thought it is a real damn shame that it hasn't yet been localized into English. And I thought about it and thought about it, and decided.
You know what, if no one else is going to do it, then I'll do it myself.
And so we've contacted the developer, and they have agreed to let us publish their game onto Steam!!! I can't reveal what game or developer it is yet, but it's personal recommendation from yours truly, and it's a much, much simpler game compared to Karryn's Prison, ha. In fact, it's a very standard and simple RPGMaker eroge, but it's done right and done well, and I think it would be a shame if more people don't get to play it.
Now then, back to Karryn's Prison! So far, I've mentioned what we have already been working on, and will continue to work on for the first half of 2022. There's one more thing I would like to introduce to everyone that we'll be working on this year:
3. Karryn's Prison will be getting additional content!!!
Sachinama and I have discussed and debated. We want to provide a bit more content for Karryn's Prison to show our thanks to everyone. But even just as important, maybe even more so, as creative people, we have to constantly be working on something that excites us and gets the juices and blood flowing in our brain (and groin). So we debated and discussed.
After we finish converting the ingame text to the new text system so that the localization teams can fully the translate the game,
we will be working on a Gym side job.
Sachinama gave an idea about how the Gym side job would look. Then I gave mine. And Sachinama laughed and said that my idea is way too complicated and would probably take months to draw. And then Sachinama said that his idea was kind of generic and would be too boring and by-the-numbers, and then he laughed again and said let's go with my idea because it's the more interesting version.
So there you have everyone. After we finish the Gym side job, we'll re-evaluate again, and if we come up with an interesting idea together that we want to do for Karryn's Prison, we'll do it.
With these three projects, I think it will
easily take up the first half of 2022. And since this week's Progress Report is already long enough, I'm going to end it here. Thank you everyone once again for supporting us, I hope everyone is safe and warm and stay safe and warm!
