March 30, 2020: Progress Report and Roadmap
Hey everyone, Rem here with this week's Progress Report, and also a Roadmap for the near future!
This is going to be very long post because I'm going to be writing down my current unorganized thoughts. So for the people who are only interested in when Karryn's Prison v.5 is coming out: Not this month, most likely next month.
Anyway, get comfortable because this is going to be a stream of consciousness.
First of all, I want to thank everyone who worked on Monster Girl Club Bifrost, and everyone who brought Club Bifrost on Steam. You all are the best, period.
Second, I want to address Karryn's Prison and the coronavirus.
There are people who might be holding the belief at this point that I'm, or we, are trying to live off of the Patreon bucks as long as possible by dragging out the development time for Karryn's Prison as long as possible. They might have read my first paragraph in this post stating that Karryn's Prison is not coming out this month and go, oh boy, just another one of
those western Patreons who want to milk for as long as possible again.
I can't and won't speak for other Patreons who may or may not be milking their fans, but I will say that I'm not, and also Sachinama isn't even a Westerner. And this isn't even a 'believe me because I said so' kind of thing, but let's think about it logically: If we wanted to make the most money possible, then 'milking Patreon bucks' is NOT the way to go. Because the better way to make the most money would be to sell Karryn's Prison on Steam ASAP, so we can make the Steam bucks on Karryn's Prison while getting Patreon bucks for working on our next game, sell that game and earn Steam bucks for that game, and continue earning Patreon bucks for other next game and so forth.
And then an EVEN better way to make The Most Bucks™ would be to put Karryn's Prison as early access on Steam, and then start up another new game in development and milk the new game and Karryn's Prison on Steam and Patreon at the same time.
Of course, Sachinama and I are not doing that, we are trying to finish, but not rush out, Karryn's Prison, sell it on Steam and then work a new project. Keeping Karryn's Prison in development forever would be the stupidest option, not just in terms of making money because honestly, neither Sachinama or I are in this to make money beyond what is needed to support our families, but because we love making eroges, and purposely dragging out development to 'milk our fans' would be the best way to kill both our creative energies and our love for the genre.
With that out of the way, I want to next talk about why Karryn's Prison is being delayed so heavily. The first thing is that originally, I planned to have v.4 come out after both Club Bifrost and Island SAGA were released on Steam. But then both games required much more extra work to be done on them than I expected. The original plan was to actually released both of them around October/November of 2019, hence why the original Steam date on their store pages said 2019. I actually could have released Club Bifrost in 2019, but then it would be in a much more significantly inferior quality than what is currently being sold. So I decided to spend more of my time to personally manage Club Bifrost, as well as spend more money for more editors and testers to go over it. I think the difference between Club Bifrost in March 2020 is night and day compared to what Club Bifrost was in Janauary 2020, nevermind what it was in October 2019.
But I wanted to release a good, high quality product, not just throw it out there, take the money and run. So, more of my time than I expected was spent in there. And so I decided to release v.4 without the Level 2 Defeat Scene or Receptionist job. Because remember, the original vision for v.4 was Level 1 Subjugated, Level 1 Rioting, and Level 2 Anarchy. So really, v.5 is finally what the v.4 was meant to be.
But, that is not to say there haven't been a lot of other unexpected stuff added. As said in previous posts, Sachinama hasn't been idle and has been putting all his time into Karryn's Prison the whole time. The various facial expressions and such for each pose and position is time consuming, and was kinda supposedly to be something done near the end of the development cycle to polish everything up. What I'm trying to say is that even when I'm temporary absent from Karryn's Prison development when urgent work on Club Bifrost or Island SAGA is/was needed, work is still continuously being done on Karryn's Prison to make it closer into a final product.
And also honestly, the truly unexpected thing so far during development is the side jobs (Waitress, Receptionist) turning out to be a lot more work, program wise and art wise, than originally expected. But with two side jobs about to be done, there is currently two more planned so that's not a huge deal development wise. Level 2 is going to get the glory hole side job, and then Level 3 is planned to get another one. There is no side jobs planned for Level 4 because the original vision the whole time has been:
Level 1 Anarchy is essentially the game's tutorial, and then the game opens up with Level 1 Subjugated. The bulk of the game's side content is going to be Level 1, 2, 3, with Level 1 being the most heavily focused since it's essentially the post tutorial hub. And then Level 4 and 5 are your final stretch of the story. If we are to compare progression to Meltys Quest, then Level 3 would be around when you get access to Barry and the Succubus Forest virgin's scenes as side stuff, and Level 4 and 5 would be Grolido's Castle and the final dungeon, which had no extra side stuff.
And then for the completionists and people who want to try and experiment with different builds and stuff, I created the Title system as a form of persistent progress to reward people who like to do challenging stuff and/or play around with different builds.
So that's the plan for Karryn's Prison. This version and that version might be delayed and such, but Sachinama and I always have one eye towards turning Karryn's Prison into a final product, not sit by idly dragging development forever to earn Patreon bucks, which may not even be a thing in the future if Patreon is really hellbent on banning products with Japanese art. But if that time comes than it will come, I recommend that everyone follow us on Twitter and join us on Discord in the event that this Patreon page gets shut down.
Now, the coronavirus. So despite my best efforts every day, I couldn't release v.5 this month in a form that I would be satisfied with. So I'm making the decision to hopefully release in next month. I've actually been dealing with a sore throat for around almost two weeks at this point. Nothing serious, just a mild persistent sore throat every day. But today, my sore throat started hurting more, and I've developed a cough.
Now, I'm as much as I'm trying to convince myself to panic and that I don't want anyone else to panic, this might not be the coronavirus. But as long term followers of me might know, I'm really jumpy in regards to anything slightly negative that concerns my medical health, especially my throat area. And just this weekend, two of the non-chain groceries stores that my family frequently uses just announced that they are closing indefinitely. So now, in NYC, the epicenter of the coronavirus, more and more people are going to congregating and packing together in the same few remaining groceries stores that remain open. It's almost like it's inevitable that every single person in NYC is going to get the coronavirus at this point. But I am really, really hoping that our family gets it later rather than sooner, because right now our hospitals are packed and getting closer to overcapacity.
So I'm starting to ramble but anyway, this is not to say I have to coronavirus because some painful sore throat and coughing, but I can't say that I'm not scared, not just for myself but for my elderly mother and grandmother that I live with. It might honestly might not be the coronavirus that is the cause of my sore throat right now. Because ever since a few days before Club Bifrost was released on Steam, I've been working non-stop on Club Bifrost, on Island SAGA, and also on trying to get v5 of Karryn's Prison out by the end of the month.
And now that with a day away before March is over, I've come to accept that I can't finish v5 by the end the month, and I want to ask you all to allow me to get some rest and release v5 hopefully in April instead. I want to get some proper rest, and hopefully this sore throat and cough is just from fatigue and not the coronavirus.
So I'm sorry to anyone who was waiting for v5 to come out to this month. Thank you everyone who has shown their support by purchasing Club Bifrost, and expressed their enjoyment of the game on the Steam forums, in Steam reviews and in Discord. Reading your messages made delaying Club Bifrost's release for months to fix up quality related issues all worth it. And please look forward to Island SAGA and v5 of Karryn's Prison. I'm not going to just delay Karryn's Prison and give nothing in return. We're going to add even more facial expressions and variances to sexual positions that weren't going to get any added for v5 of it was released this month, as well as add a new Sex Skill that Sachinama really wanted called "Cock Stare". Karryn is going to stare at a dude's cock. Why is she staring at their cocks? Because you selected the skill, duh.