Unity LOK: Rebirth [v0.1.8.0 Test] [The Tribe Devs]

[DoorFive]

I'm happy by not being a supporter, and watching what else the project has to offer. Meanwhile, I'll play something else, or continue to mod Skyrim until CTD. I'm not perfect by any means, and a lot of you bring up valid points. But it's oft not than more so bad to bring in emotions where money is involved. Can I afford to support them? absolutely not. Therefore, I don't.

I suppose I can have that attitude because I didn't pay squat for the .8 version, so I've got no chips in the gamble. Meanwhile, others have. I guess it's much like an investment, and investments much like the stock market, don't always payout. It's not easy losing an investment, all you can do is try to pick up your loses and move on.

 

[arimouse]

Nothing new to add: Dodge the issue, as always, end.

I'm sorry you feel that way. Nobody is dodging anything, nobody is telling you anything fake here. If you don't like it, there's nothing anybody can do to change your mind. That's fine.

As Staning indicated, there's precious little that anybody in this thread will do or can do to contribute to any drama, or discuss long dead project branches or what could have been. Everybody can dream, everybody can have an envisionment of their perfect game or what they hope some game will be. Sometimes reality is in alignment with those dreams, and sometimes not. That's just how it works. It's not meant to hurt feelings or be directed as spite against anybody- it just is what it is.

I'm happy to discuss the future, and present, and not be dramatic about it.

I'll be happy to provide factual information, based off of the current state of development. And as you know, since it is software development, anything said today could change tomorrow; that's just how things go when you're building software and especially video games.

I look forward to talking with you all more.

 

[BlackStars]

I suppose I can have that attitude because I didn't pay squat for the .8 version, so I've got no chips in the gamble. Meanwhile, others have. I guess it's much like an investment, and investments much like the stock market, don't always payout. It's not easy losing an investment, all you can do is try to pick up your loses and move on.

Well, so "drama" aside, at least for the main part, let's watch it on an investor standpoint only and how Patreon works normally.

First Patreon is crowdfunding of an idea. You go for a concept you find people to fund your idea you work to bring THAT concept to reality small things change you have polls, voting and so on what could be good and should be changed on that idea and implement it.

AT no point you cancel a product over some "internal bitch fights" you just replace leaving people and work on the project, you need a solid reason for cancelling a Patreon project and start over, not a whim. I'm no lawyer, but I could imagine if you sue them, you probably have a good chance to at least get the money back. It's a small project so no one will/has, hopefully because even I would say it's over the top.

BTW you can't compare stock market(always a risky investment) with a set project with a price tag on it (goals) if goals on a Patreon are reached you have paid for it to be processed as such.

Now the Drama Part (just skip it if it hurts)
Yes, of course I am frustrated the promised game I loved and threw money at will never be made. I'm not even mad about the money, I'm mad that I was never asked if I'm okay with them starting over. A Vote about what the Subs want would have been easy and the right way to do and If the majority had said(voted) yes do the new concept I'd roll with it or cancel the sub...but that never happened the money was taken and just like the snap of a finger it was gone for nothing.

I understand that the people involved would love more to talk and only discuss the new project especially if they were not involved when shit went sideways, but you have to endure it because it was the decision to keep this thread alive by claiming the old project is alive, else the easiest way would have been and still is to ask a mod to cancel this thread and make a new one for the new project and if the devs are creative and true to themselves under a new project name not confusing people It's still about Krystal when it's not like stated.

 

[chopolander]

This is the main problem why many do not understand the anger of some on the subject. After the separation of the team, it was "disguised" that it was going to be the same game discarding everything created so far, including the visual and technical aspect for which many of us decided to support the project.
The important thing for these people is not how much you have invested in the game, but what you invest in the moment and that you continue to do so.
I'm not opposed to them doing something new, but indeed, they should have gone with the truth up front from the beginning, something that those who weren't involved back then don't give a shit about, as you can see.

 

[Staning]

I found the full image button and now I’m quite proud of myself. WIP future CG

 

[BlackStars]

The game is also no longer about Krystal. You can build a custom character, change her color, give her whatever name you want, etc.

View attachment 1599669

I found the full image button and now I’m quite proud of myself. WIP future CG

So after that statement, the first character WIP CG is about Krystal getting licked by a Lizard girl...quite funny. The concept looks good, tho, if it's not the finished image style.

 

[BlackStars]

Well, the shadowing is sluggish and the boob of that Liz girl looks flat as a result. And there is no detail on that fur, just looks like a human one neck downwards. Plenty of room for improvement.

 

[DoorFive]

Well, so "drama" aside, at least for the main part, let's watch it on an investor standpoint only and how Patreon works normally.

First Patreon is crowdfunding of an idea. You go for a concept you find people to fund your idea you work to bring THAT concept to reality small things change you have polls, voting and so on what could be good and should be changed on that idea and implement it.

AT no point you cancel a product over some "internal bitch fights" you just replace leaving people and work on the project, you need a solid reason for cancelling a Patreon project and start over, not a whim. I'm no lawyer, but I could imagine if you sue them, you probably have a good chance to at least get the money back. It's a small project so no one will/has, hopefully because even I would say it's over the top.

BTW you can't compare stock market(always a risky investment) with a set project with a price tag on it (goals) if goals on a Patreon are reached you have paid for it to be processed as such.

Bruh, that's the last time i use an analogy

Point taken, I've always seen Patreon as more of a tip jar, or a donation pile that you can burn rather than getting an actual investment back in at. A return on the investment (created game) would be great! and that is the optimal thing to shoot for. You basically burn your cash in the pretense of a finished product. Like you said, it has it's price tag and what have yous, and I'm not going to argue against that, since it would be silly.

 

[RedBun]

I rolled back to this thread on a whim to see the game's getting another reboot? I was backing this when Abelius was running the show but jumped ship after Vlad started gaslighting the community into thinking his ridiculous bloated scope of a game was somehow what was planned all along. I still see Vlad listed as being at the helm of the project, and in my opinion the team needs to remove him from that position, or even the project entirely, for the game to ever get off the ground. It's not a question of him being amateur as I've seen mentioned, he is too headstrong to change his vision for the game even when it's not remotely realistic or what the base giving him money actually wants. Some (hopefully constructive) tips for the new team to salvage this mess, apologies if they're redundant:

-Communicate the scope and intent of the game clearly to backers and fans. Vlad changed the focus of the game entirely and was either unwilling to acknowledge the change in focus or too stupid to realize it despite numerous harsh words from backers. If you're changing the direction, tell people you're making a different game and that they can either accept it or leave.
-Tacking on to the point above, figure out if your base still wants a porn game and either focus on it or don't. The change in direction made it feel like the porn was a secondary concern when it was the reason most people backed the game. If it's still going to be a porn game, then making good porn should be the focus, not an afterthought, and the game systems should lead into this.
-Use backer platform communication tools. Discord should not be your primary point of communication unless you're trying to skirt Patreon's content filters. Your backers are paying your bills. Polls and project updates should use those platforms. Some people can spend all day on Discord, but the backers usually have jobs and probably don't have the time to scroll through the hundreds of messages that pile up daily or even take part in those conversations.
-Cut down the scope. Looking at the current goals, the listed perks either need to be kept very simple or cut down. There is too much there for a small dev team. Figure out what features can be streamlined. For instance, 0.8 featured being able to move forward and backwards in the environment despite it still being mostly flat. This was unnecessary and required tons of additional animation and coding. It should have been cut. Probably too late to do anything about it now, but figure out time sinks like this and chop them out.

By some miracle this project still has over 2000 backers. It still has the potential to produce something decent, and I don't want some of the other team members to suffer due to incompetent leadership. I won't be coming back as a backer, I think 2D platformers make terrible porn games (I don't have the 3 arms required to play them) but apparently others do.

 

[chopolander]

No matter how much we emphasize these points, they will never recognize them. It's easier to come along and say that F95 is full of people they don't like for doing so.

 

[RedBun]

No matter how much we emphasize these points, they will never recognize them. It's easier to come along and say that F95 is full of people they don't like for doing so.

I think ultimately money is what will have sway on their decisions. As I pointed out there are still over 2000 people financially invested in the game. While I'm confident the points I made will improve the game production process, so long as no backers leave the team will have no incentive the change anything and the problems will continue. I can't imagine backers are happy with the current state of things, but they will need to be willing to pull their support to show it. I could be wrong though, I left the discord a long time ago, maybe everyone's delighted with the current game and will keep backing for the next two decades it takes to actually deliver Vlad's bloated game concept. Should that be the case then our thoughts on the matter are irrelevant. Whatever, I blew my load about the project's problems. If they listen or don't it won't affect me in the slightest.

 

[Staning]

Welcome back RedBun.

Simply put, your points have, and are being addressed. Since November there has been a concerted effort to be open and clear on what this game is. Don’t take Tony “Chopolander” Montana too seriously XD. This forum is very obviously being listened too.

If you haven’t read Arimouse’s posts I would highly recommend you do so. They include a lot of talk on the reductions in scope. And with this includes the attitude that change is always on the table. You’ll see adaptation instead of the old plan of slamming your head against a wall in the hope you get somewhere on talent alone.

Don’t get me wrong. The roadmap is a very lofty goal. And if you are only interested in following the game after it is completed in full. Then you will have to wait a long time. But you’ll be seeing the game progress to that place a lot more consistently and predictably over the coming months and years. So hey maybe I can convince you to show up every 4 months to check in XD.

Where you are 100% correct is the lack of communication on Patreon and Subscribestar. They have to be better period. And you bring up a great point that you can’t just cater to the vocal minority who are active within the discord.

Thanks

 

[dvalkyrie]

Well! After the information received in those 101 pages, I wonder if I live enough to see 1 hour of play.

 

[Staning]

I hope so buddy :]

 

[arimouse]

I rolled back to this thread on a whim to see the game's getting another reboot? I was backing this when Abelius was running the show but jumped ship after Vlad started gaslighting the community into thinking his ridiculous bloated scope of a game was somehow what was planned all along. I still see Vlad listed as being at the helm of the project, and in my opinion the team needs to remove him from that position, or even the project entirely, for the game to ever get off the ground. It's not a question of him being amateur as I've seen mentioned, he is too headstrong to change his vision for the game even when it's not remotely realistic or what the base giving him money actually wants. Some (hopefully constructive) tips for the new team to salvage this mess, apologies if they're redundant:

-Communicate the scope and intent of the game clearly to backers and fans. Vlad changed the focus of the game entirely and was either unwilling to acknowledge the change in focus or too stupid to realize it despite numerous harsh words from backers. If you're changing the direction, tell people you're making a different game and that they can either accept it or leave.
-Tacking on to the point above, figure out if your base still wants a porn game and either focus on it or don't. The change in direction made it feel like the porn was a secondary concern when it was the reason most people backed the game. If it's still going to be a porn game, then making good porn should be the focus, not an afterthought, and the game systems should lead into this.
-Use backer platform communication tools. Discord should not be your primary point of communication unless you're trying to skirt Patreon's content filters. Your backers are paying your bills. Polls and project updates should use those platforms. Some people can spend all day on Discord, but the backers usually have jobs and probably don't have the time to scroll through the hundreds of messages that pile up daily or even take part in those conversations.
-Cut down the scope. Looking at the current goals, the listed perks either need to be kept very simple or cut down. There is too much there for a small dev team. Figure out what features can be streamlined. For instance, 0.8 featured being able to move forward and backwards in the environment despite it still being mostly flat. This was unnecessary and required tons of additional animation and coding. It should have been cut. Probably too late to do anything about it now, but figure out time sinks like this and chop them out.

By some miracle this project still has over 2000 backers. It still has the potential to produce something decent, and I don't want some of the other team members to suffer due to incompetent leadership. I won't be coming back as a backer, I think 2D platformers make terrible porn games (I don't have the 3 arms required to play them) but apparently others do.

Great points! I'll try to talk to each for you.

For Vlad being the leader, he understands where his strengths and weaknesses are, and is moving for improvement across the board. Being a leader is very important, containing the overall vision, keeping people motivated, having the project goals and mission first and foremost. In a very short period of time, the amount of scope cut away from the game has, in fact, been very tremendous. Some examples:

- Full open world -> map based navigation
- Huge cities -> cities are maps with points of interest you can visit
- Many many screens -> reducing visual content to the more important facets
- 8-directional charger moment -> 4-directional character movement
- 8-directions characters can interact -> 1-direction characters can interact

I can certainly name more... but I think the important takeaway here is that this "unchanging vision" is actually not, and he is very interested in scope reduction to put out a viable mvp.

- Better communication: The patreon and other sites have all updated. There are plans to make this more frequent, but none really to open. Also remember that this change is not nearly seen as a change, its continuing to go down the path the game was originally supposed to take, but somewhere along the way got sidetracked into some specific branch that want the original intentions. The roadmap, plans, game mission statement are all public and visible.

- The porn and the story are of equal importance. With the new focus on delivery, you're going to get a ton more porn than you have for the last couple years. The porny side is not taking a nosedive, it's just being backed by a more standard rpg framework instead of a full on dedicated slut simulator. The people still backing the project are aware, and see the same updates you do deliver directly to their mailbox. There is no obfuscation of intentions.

- People can leave comments in posts on patreon. They can come here or discord or contact the developers directly. There is active interaction here as well. There is no hiding or message prevention, the team is using the tools they have to do what they can. There are plans to increase patreon posts and maybe improve the website for communication, hopefully in the next few months there can be focus there if it is deemed necessary.

- Content is being constantly scrutinized and reduced. This is part of the project rituals now. Examples are posted above as well. Further reductions will be made as necessary to result in a timely mvp delivery. The value of timely is still tbd, stay tuned for more!

While I support your reasoning for not backing the project, I still hope at some point you will enjoy the releases as they are made public. There well not be a lot of action based platforming though. So don't worry too much there. The 2.5D type movement doesn't go well with precision platforming mechanics. So it's mostly navigation and basic jumping and stuck in some areas, as currently planned.

 

[RedBun]

- Better communication: The patreon and other sites have all updated. There are plans to make this more frequent, but none really to open. Also remember that this change is not nearly seen as a change, its continuing to go down the path the game was originally supposed to take, but somewhere along the way got sidetracked into some specific branch that want the original intentions. The roadmap, plans, game mission statement are all public and visible.

- The porn and the story are of equal importance. With the new focus on delivery, you're going to get a ton more porn than you have for the last couple years. The porny side is not taking a nosedive, it's just being backed by a more standard rpg framework instead of a full on dedicated slut simulator. The people still backing the project are aware, and see the same updates you do deliver directly to their mailbox. There is no obfuscation of intentions.

While your post is mostly reassuring, I'm seeing some of the same problems I initially complained on Patreon about. There is an insistence that this was the original plan for the game. When this was first brought up when I was still a backer, I went back and checked through every old post on Patreon to try and find a shard of evidence that this was the case. There was none. The game was marketed as a recreation of the original LoK flash game, which was itself mostly a smut simulator. This is Vlad's idea and his alone (or maybe Kuja's too, I don't know) and he needs to be honest about that fact. It might have been his original intent joining the team, but it was never communicated to the initial audience of backers. This came across as him trying to gaslight backers rather than listen to their complaints or even hold a poll over the game's direction. I see this attitude hasn't changed.

I was completely understanding that the project was having problems and needed its core framework to be rebuilt, but even with the scope reduction there a lot of mechanics that add huge chunks of work beyond what the original required. RPG mechanics and platforming are big time sinks that didn't exist before. That's time taken away from smut. If you commit to including the same scope of smut, the game then takes 3 times as long for the same amount of the content that many of the original backers were looking for. When people say it took a nosedive, this is what they're referring to. It's great that the current backers understand and want this, but when the issue kept getting dismissed it's what made me question Vlad's capabilities as a game director. It seemed like the concept of how much time adding additional content takes just wasn't even factored in. If you have a flat budget then this is a personal decision, but for a subscription based model it's akin to demanding more money for a finished product with more features than your backers may want or need. At least it seems like the team has him on a leash, but it's kind of too little too late for everyone who pointed it out to his face years ago.

Hopefully that helps you understand a lot of the disappointment around the project, and why I don't have much faith or interest in it. The goodwill is gone, I warned about all the problems that are now coming to light repeatedly and my warnings were ignored. The game I spent months backing it no longer being developed, the focus shifted significantly.

Lastly I don't mean to discourage other backers, if this is something that looks good to you it seems like it's finally clear what the product is you're backing. This is me being butthurt, plain and simple.

 

[arimouse]

While your post is mostly reassuring, I'm seeing some of the same problems I initially complained on Patreon about. There is an insistence that this was the original plan for the game. When this was first brought up when I was still a backer, I went back and checked through every old post on Patreon to try and find a shard of evidence that this was the case. There was none. The game was marketed as a recreation of the original LoK flash game, which was itself mostly a smut simulator. This is Vlad's idea and his alone (or maybe Kuja's too, I don't know) and he needs to be honest about that fact. It might have been his original intent joining the team, but it was never communicated to the initial audience of backers. This came across as him trying to gaslight backers rather than listen to their complaints or even hold a poll over the game's direction. I see this attitude hasn't changed.

I was completely understanding that the project was having problems and needed its core framework to be rebuilt, but even with the scope reduction there a lot of mechanics that add huge chunks of work beyond what the original required. RPG mechanics and platforming are big time sinks that didn't exist before. That's time taken away from smut. If you commit to including the same scope of smut, the game then takes 3 times as long for the same amount of the content that many of the original backers were looking for. When people say it took a nosedive, this is what they're referring to. It's great that the current backers understand and want this, but when the issue kept getting dismissed it's what made me question Vlad's capabilities as a game director. It seemed like the concept of how much time adding additional content takes just wasn't even factored in. If you have a flat budget then this is a personal decision, but for a subscription based model it's akin to demanding more money for a finished product with more features than your backers may want or need. At least it seems like the team has him on a leash, but it's kind of too little too late for everyone who pointed it out to his face years ago.

Hopefully that helps you understand a lot of the disappointment around the project, and why I don't have much faith or interest in it. The goodwill is gone, I warned about all the problems that are now coming to light repeatedly and my warnings were ignored. The game I spent months backing it no longer being developed, the focus shifted significantly.

Lastly I don't mean to discourage other backers, if this is something that looks good to you it seems like it's finally clear what the product is you're backing. This is me being butthurt, plain and simple.

So I'm aiming to not address the past, but I'll try to respond to this as best I can because I understand what you are saying 100% and your frustrations.

First, the project itself was never really fully fleshed out. From the get go we had "ideas" but nobody pressed the ideas, they started to build a product. This is a super classical move that sometimes works but often does not. The game was supposed to be big, but back in the day none of the story for that "big" existed because nobody ever said "so what do you mean by that??"

Now, the team is getting clarification. The concept of "just do something and it will make sense later- maybe" is not an option. The team is doing tremendous work to ensure that these systems and ideas and stories are thought out in advance of the team randomly engaging with something.

For Vlad, or even anybody on that team (and most developers on this site in general), being a game director you support or believe in... I don't know? What you're asking for here is "why doesn't this team of amateurs who are making a porn game for next to nothing not treat the project like a AAA project and they don't have the same level of internal processes and controls that Microsoft or Bethesda or Valve has???"

So I spoke to this previously and I'll reiterate: the reason you're not seeing this level of professional behavior is because you're not dealing with a professional development studio.

You'll probably never get that level of service or confidence that the project will fulfill 100% of what it aims to do. It's impossible to promise that, and all that can be promised is the team will aim to consolidate and reduce scope as best it can in the hopes of delivering a complete and finished product.

This is the best you can hope for from really anybody, including major studios. Projects fail all the time. Like 99.9999% of the projects on this website, it's amateurs with a dream running the project behind the scenes. Nobody is doing this because they are cashing in for a second Ferrari.

The team is learning how to handle professional concepts and processes, and doing good at it. None of it in itself is difficult, but it definitely helps to make these future deliveries better and also improves the level of communication and messaging you're going to get. With improved project management techniques, we're able to have this conversation now. Due to improvements across the board, you have the information you need to make comparisons against older vague intentions and well documented focus and a roadmap.

rpg mechanics and platforming are negotiable. Is it more scope? Definitely. Is it going to be tuned to be the perfect system full of unique and new gameplay where untold hours were put into it and it challenges final fantasy for a battle system? Of course not. It's going to be stats, and random dice rolls based off of adding those stats together, and an HP bar will go down. Along in there will be some extra pieces to try to make it more tactical, but you'lore not being sold the next coming of rpg battle mechanics here.

The platforming will involve climbing a ladder probably, and jumping over obstacles. There is no intentions of becoming a precision platformer full of speed runner level tweaked mechanics. It's going to exist simply because it's a basic navigation piece and it's addition isn't going to tremendously increase scope or make building maps needlessly complex.

You're looking at an rpg game where porn is half the game, but you can shut off half of the game if you don't like porn. The non-porn side is not going to get bigger or smaller based off of that.

I hope this makes sense to you. This is the reality of the situation. Ultimately, if your expectation is that you demand a level of experience, excellence, and planning here that a AAA studio comprises of hundreds of professional developers who make close to or over a 6-figure incomes can do... you're never going to be happy with this project. It will never meet your needs or expectations.

On the other hand, if you want to support a tiny team of people who want to make a furry porn rpg that's not rpg maker and doesn't have the polish of final fantasy, and your expectations are more close to reality that you'll likely get something slightly janky but has a good story and good porn and events in it, then this may be something you'd like! And the team looks forward to interacting with you and collecting your ideas to help make the best furry porn rpg they can try to build!

 

[RedBun]

So I'm aiming to not address the past, but I'll try to respond to this as best I can because I understand what you are saying 100% and your frustrations.

First, the project itself was never really fully fleshed out. From the get go we had "ideas" but nobody pressed the ideas, they started to build a product. This is a super classical move that sometimes works but often does not. The game was supposed to be big, but back in the day none of the story for that "big" existed because nobody ever said "so what do you mean by that??"

Now, the team is getting clarification. The concept of "just do something and it will make sense later- maybe" is not an option. The team is doing tremendous work to ensure that these systems and ideas and stories are thought out in advance of the team randomly engaging with something.

For Vlad, or even anybody on that team (and most developers on this site in general), being a game director you support or believe in... I don't know? What you're asking for here is "why doesn't this team of amateurs who are making a porn game for next to nothing not treat the project like a AAA project and they don't have the same level of internal processes and controls that Microsoft or Bethesda or Valve has???"

So I spoke to this previously and I'll reiterate: the reason you're not seeing this level of professional behavior is because you're not dealing with a professional development studio.

You'll probably never get that level of service or confidence that the project will fulfill 100% of what it aims to do. It's impossible to promise that, and all that can be promised is the team will aim to consolidate and reduce scope as best it can in the hopes of delivering a complete and finished product.

This is the best you can hope for from really anybody, including major studios. Projects fail all the time. Like 99.9999% of the projects on this website, it's amateurs with a dream running the project behind the scenes. Nobody is doing this because they are cashing in for a second Ferrari.

The team is learning how to handle professional concepts and processes, and doing good at it. None of it in itself is difficult, but it definitely helps to make these future deliveries better and also improves the level of communication and messaging you're going to get. With improved project management techniques, we're able to have this conversation now. Due to improvements across the board, you have the information you need to make comparisons against older vague intentions and well documented focus and a roadmap.

rpg mechanics and platforming are negotiable. Is it more scope? Definitely. Is it going to be tuned to be the perfect system full of unique and new gameplay where untold hours were put into it and it challenges final fantasy for a battle system? Of course not. It's going to be stats, and random dice rolls based off of adding those stats together, and an HP bar will go down. Along in there will be some extra pieces to try to make it more tactical, but you'lore not being sold the next coming of rpg battle mechanics here.

The platforming will involve climbing a ladder probably, and jumping over obstacles. There is no intentions of becoming a precision platformer full of speed runner level tweaked mechanics. It's going to exist simply because it's a basic navigation piece and it's addition isn't going to tremendously increase scope or make building maps needlessly complex.

You're looking at an rpg game where porn is half the game, but you can shut off half of the game if you don't like porn. The non-porn side is not going to get bigger or smaller based off of that.

I hope this makes sense to you. This is the reality of the situation. Ultimately, if your expectation is that you demand a level of experience, excellence, and planning here that a AAA studio comprises of hundreds of professional developers who make close to or over a 6-figure incomes can do... you're never going to be happy with this project. It will never meet your needs or expectations.

On the other hand, if you want to support a tiny team of people who want to make a furry porn rpg that's not rpg maker and doesn't have the polish of final fantasy, and your expectations are more close to reality that you'll likely get something slightly janky but has a good story and good porn and events in it, then this may be something you'd like! And the team looks forward to interacting with you and collecting your ideas to help make the best furry porn rpg they can try to build!

The project never being fully fleshed out is sort of a nebulous statement. Abelius's version of the game had a clear direction, and the new version is very much a departure from that. Obviously changes happen over development regardless of the budget or experience of the team, but the reboot shifted the target dramatically.

I think you're misinterpreting the point I'm trying to make a bit. I don't really have issue with the way things are being run currently, most of my gripes are with the fact that the lessons that have since been learned were all being screamed in the face of Vlad the second the first reboot started, and not just by myself. It's not really a question of professionalism. I back a lot of games on Patreon but creators generally take an interest in their backer's wishes and at least take their comments into account before proceeding. None of that happened here, though it seems to now have changed.

As an aside, I do feel inclined to mention the number of times Vlad threw out the phrase 'triple A quality' during the start of the reboot, so having it now stated clearly that the team lacks that capability is satisfying irony.

In regards to the RPG/platform navigation making up half the game, that's still about twice the game that was the target before the first reboot. I think there's a similar scenario that illustrates my point pretty well. Take the big mess that happened with Breeding Season. The game was a mess and had an incompetent director so the talent axed the project and went on to make their own game, Cloud Meadow (for the record, I don't consider the drama comparable, Abelius is actually motivated and making his own game now). The original game needed to die, it was mired in problems, so even though I was a backer I was totally understanding of the decision. However, the new game being made by the artist, Cloud Meadow, was to feature some breeding mechanics but add all sorts of farming and RPG mechanics beyond the original. And they had the budget to meet this scope. The caveat was that all of this other stuff adds development time and takes up resources, and so the porn was scaled back so the game would someday actually release. Where as Breeding Season was about 80% porn with some economy management to fuel the gameplay, Cloud Meadow was about 70% standalone game with 30% porn thrown in for good measure. The game is still being developed and will likely be completed. But I am not backing Cloud Meadow because I don't really care about that 70% of the game that takes up most of the coding, art, and development time. The same situation is happening here. Before the reboot, this game had a similar ratio to Breeding Season, mostly light exploration and conversations with a few tiny mini games that all served to funnel into the pornographic elements of the game. After the reboot, it's now (and I'm going by your numbers for convenience, I haven't played the 0.8 demo) split equally between an RPG with platform elements and porn. Furthermore, the porn isn't even really the focus, the gameplay apparently is separate enough the porn can just be turned off. That's not the game that I originally backed, and not really the game I want. It's not a question of developer skill, it's a question of what kind of game you're looking to make and how you want to use your resources. I am no longer your target audience.

I'm not writing this to try and convince you to change the game, nor is this really targeted towards you, Ari, since unless I'm mistaken you joined the team after all this went down. Don't feel you need to appease me or somehow meet my demands. It would arguably be a mistake to try to at this point. This is entirely me griping that the reboot couldn't still be aimed towards producing the kind of game I had wanted to play, and that all my attempts to get a clear acknowledgement of this change in direction were met with obfuscation or just ignored. It's also a bit of me saying 'I told you so' regarding the scope, which while a bit childish I'm going to allow myself as payment for the few months I remained as a backer after the reboot. My initial comments didn't take into account how much the scope has been scaled back, there are still a lot of bullet points on the Patreon page. Hopefully for the sake of the rest of the team Vlad actually learned the lesson I tried to tell him years ago.

 

[D4n0w4r]

At this point I don't even care about the technicalities. I just want to see Krystal getting fucked.

 

[chopolander]

Unfortunately, we already knew that this would never happen.