Leaving DNA - Developer's Journal 4:1
This post will contain spoilers for Episode Three, so if you haven't played it yet, skip this journal for now!
Whew! What a week! I'm mentally exhausted, but I'm very pleased.
I have never expected Leaving DNA to be very popular. In a genre that is almost fundamentally built on romance and sex, the core story of ADA Rockford is built on character development and friendship. And while more and more visually impressive AVN's are being produced all the time, I frankly acknowledge that Leaving DNA is visually pretty middle of the road. Despite this, I've watched over the last three weeks as my supporter numbers grew from 77 to over 190. It's humbling, as is reading the many very nice comments and reviews that so many have left over the last ten days since I released Episode 3.
I know that Leaving DNA is far from perfect. As I have said before, when I started working on this I had no prior experience with fictional writing, with coding, or with any form of art. And my lack of experience frequently shows, not only in the art department, but I'm acutely aware of my shortcomings in the writing department as well. Nevertheless, Leaving DNA has managed to make an emotional connection with a lot of people, and so for that reason I do consider it to be a successful game so far.
Episode Three was a challenge to work on. I struggled at times to feel the direction of the chapter. I was often discouraged and felt that I had made irreversible errors which were going to crash the entire episode. At one point I was pretty sure I had made a fatal mistake making the lengthy jury trial a focal point of the episode. Players were going to find the case itself boring and irrelevant, and the themes explored therein too esoteric to hold their attention. I knew I had ruined Rockford's meeting with his sister. My effort to let Colleen communicate about her own dreams through the reading of a story would fall flat. No one would understand why they had to sit through minutes of reading verbatim from a boring old children's book. Players would be irritated over having to take Emmeline to the wedding when they had no interest in her. And as I did when I released Episodes One and Two, I feared words like "melodramatic," "boring," and, most of all for the ending/big reveal, "plot holes."
So to say I'm surprised by the last ten days really doesn't come close to describing my reaction not only to the massive influx of financial support but also to the many kind words I've received about the episode. It's very rewarding and very humbling to know this episode was able to trigger an emotional response in so many people.
Thank you to ALL of you for being awesome enough to subscribe. For the new people, whether you are planning to support me for awhile or you just popped in to pick up the update, I appreciate you. For the long term subscribers that have been with me for awhile, you guys continue to be amazing. For those of you who were awesome and mentioned the game on Reddit, either for this update or the last one, those posts were huge--thank you! Discord mentioners, pirate site reviewers, and anyone else who has helped to promote the game, thank you!
This week I will work on revising my earlier draft of the Episode Four script, which I wrote about two years ago. It needs quite a lot of work due to changes both in the story since then and improvement in my own storytelling ability. I expect this episode to take several months to finish, just as the first three did.
For the new supporters, every week I will publish a brief developer's journal entry to let you know I'm still working on the game. That will usually happen Saturday night (PST) and if I'm ever a couple of days late on it I'm probably dead and you should unsubscribe right away. You will get render previews but don't expect them every week, and I never do sex previews. I do tend to be a bit stingy on special renders, just because I have limited time to work on the game and I prefer to focus that time on the update. But the upper tier supporters will get one every month and I'll also churn some others out from time to time.
Episode Three is already up on Itch and the Steam release is March 7th. Anyone who contributes at least $12 is eligible to receive a key for either Steam or Itch. Just shoot me a message if/when you qualify.
If you are planning to buy the game on Steam, first of all, thank you! Second, if you are also able to leave a review that would be super helpful. My wishlists aren't very high even after having the store page up for ten months, which means Leaving DNA isn't going to be shown to very many people after it launches. So I will be relying on reviews to help trigger the Steam algorithm and put the game in front of a bigger audience.
Finally, I have told my supporters this a couple of times already, but there is a strong chance that Patreon will kick me off the platform at some point. I won't go into detail because I don't want to spoil anything, but Leaving DNA has some pretty dark moments, including in Episode Four, that are going to make Steam squirm. I'm not changing anything about Leaving DNA because the story is what it is, but I do feel a heads up is in order for my supporters. If that happens, I expect to still be active on SubscribeStar, but that's one reason why you may want to ask me for a key on Steam or Itch once you hit that $12 point.
Okay, that's an exceptionally long journal but I'm done. Thanks very much to all of you!
--Monk
