VN Ren'Py Abandoned Midlife Crisis [v0.34 - v0.1 Dark] [Nefastus Games]

[Duke Leo]

While wifey was not the prettiest, the story/character development for her were absolutely brilliant. Her actually encouraging you to breed others.

I actually liked that the wife wasn't drop-dead gorgeous. Because neither was MC. It made the game more believable, it also made it obvious that they really liked each other, which was part of the charm of the game.

Man, I'm going to miss this game.

 

[The Wicked One]

Unfortunately.
But I would like to see at least someone try, maybe a group team to have a better collection of ideas and such.

But I think it's extremely rare for this to happen
Are there any good examples of this?

I can't think of a single example where someone "took over" a game's production and it did well... I know there are a lot of "fan-games" based on popular games (hell I think there are 3 just for Big-Brother), but I wouldn't say they are great.
Personally, I don't want to see any continuation of Midlife Crisis, unless done by Nefastus himself. Nefastus' brand of humor, and storytelling was unique.
If anything, I am sure someone will make a "spiritual successor", but continuing what Nefastus left behind would be an impossibility on so many levels.

 

[fotogaik]

Palmer/Love Joint. After Palmer passed away, his legacy lived on and the games that were released are still high quality and improving.
So yes, it's possible.

 

[HentaiKami]

Palmer/Love Joint. After Palmer passed away, his legacy lived on and the games that were released are still high quality and improving.
So yes, it's possible.

Well in this case they were already working together for a while, so it's a bit different scenario.

 

[fotogaik]

Fair enough, but it still happened suddenly, with no preparation and with immediate loss of the patreon account (ignoring the financials, patreon should have, at the very least, let them communicate the change, not just abruptly delete Palmer's account).

But indeed, it would be very difficult for anyone to pick up after Nef. I'm not saying impossible, but even if all the logistics were taken care of, the new person/team might even be more talented, but have a completely different tone.

 

[c3p0]

Seems all the prayers are answered, someone made a sequel to Midlife Crisis:
https://f95zone.to/threads/early-life-crisis-v0-4-noegrets.228386/

 

[Lysergic]

Seems all the prayers are answered, someone made a sequel to Midlife Crisis:
https://f95zone.to/threads/early-life-crisis-v0-4-noegrets.228386/

Looks more like a cheap knock-off.

As much of a disappointment when a developer pulls a disappearing act like this the worst part to me is that their Patreon/Subscribestar stay active. Between their two accounts they're still pulling in like $600/mo minimum.

 

[shiqz]

Looks more like a cheap knock-off.

As much of a disappointment when a developer pulls a disappearing act like this the worst part to me is that their Patreon/Subscribestar stay active. Between their two accounts they're still pulling in like $600/mo minimum.

It ain't the same Dev and obviously Fan-made if you would just take 5 seconds to read that short Description.

 

[Noid42]

oof, just saw the spinoff and checked the thread since its been a while.
It's a real shame this one got abandoned, its not often you find a decently written incest VNs, but I guess that's how it usually goes.
Hopefully the dev is okay.

 

[Walter Victor]

Seems all the prayers are answered, someone made a sequel to Midlife Crisis:
https://f95zone.to/threads/early-life-crisis-v0-4-noegrets.228386/

I'll at least look at it if this developer is creating his own renders, but if it's just old renders being used in a new game, I don't see any use for it - it can't go past where we were left off, if that is the case.

 

[Bmagada]

Might be difficult to do for the dev, seeing as communication here ended abruptly nearly 15 months ago, no activity in over a year, and the dev has not been seen online anywhere since January.

If you read between the lines, you may see why your suggestion may never come to fruition.

It was the same for the AoA academy dev......then someone else tried to steal their game and push it on steam. Like a phantom they warned people it wasnt them, then immediately ghosted again.

 

[Yemith]

Shame about abandonment, This was my number 1 favorite game. Although, I think he was expanding in to many characters the story cohesion was going to suffer. Just like Big Brother, another great has been abandoned. Since, he just disappeared I hope the dev is okay and just temporarily burnt out.

 

[animekid99]

pretty bummed this got abandoned i really emjoyed this game

 

[Tyr Unchained]

I can't think of a single example where someone "took over" a game's production and it did well... I know there are a lot of "fan-games" based on popular games (hell I think there are 3 just for Big-Brother), but I wouldn't say they are great.
Personally, I don't want to see any continuation of Midlife Crisis, unless done by Nefastus himself. Nefastus' brand of humor, and storytelling was unique.
If anything, I am sure someone will make a "spiritual successor", but continuing what Nefastus left behind would be an impossibility on so many levels.

It's been done and you can find a few examples if you look back far enough. The OG Harem started by ker in 22011 (funny to look back to 2011 /hgg times when "Harem" was a good enough name that wouldn't get confused with 15 other games) it had 8 years of constant updates then got abandoned in 2019. Afterwards it had several fan remakes that also got abandoned, surprisingly had ker return after a 3 year hiatus, admit that after all he went through he didn't want to start remaking Harem solo with an 11-year old engine and finally resulted in ker teaming up with Fylokon Games to give us the game we have today which is made in a new version of RPGMaker and Koikatsu and is getting regular updates which you can play here: https://f95zone.to/threads/harem-rpg-remastered-4m1-1-fylokon-games.158499/

So yes it happens, but it's rare and comes with many downsides. Like the fact that in current oversaturated market a 13yo story feels generic and the fantasy wish-fullfilment harem game's been done to death in the meantime with much smoother gameplay and much higher-rez graphics. I still enjoy it but I admit a big part of why is the nostalgia.

 

[Lysergic]

It ain't the same Dev and obviously Fan-made if you would just take 5 seconds to read that short Description.

Where did I imply that it was the same developer?

 

[amiable34]

pity the dark version wasn,t carried on

 

[artofwar]

It's been done and you can find a few examples if you look back far enough. The OG Harem started by ker in 22011 (funny to look back to 2011 /hgg times when "Harem" was a good enough name that wouldn't get confused with 15 other games) it had 8 years of constant updates then got abandoned in 2019. Afterwards it had several fan remakes that also got abandoned, surprisingly had ker return after a 3 year hiatus, admit that after all he went through he didn't want to start remaking Harem solo with an 11-year old engine and finally resulted in ker teaming up with Fylokon Games to give us the game we have today which is made in a new version of RPGMaker and Koikatsu and is getting regular updates which you can play here: https://f95zone.to/threads/harem-rpg-remastered-4m1-1-fylokon-games.158499/

So yes it happens, but it's rare and comes with many downsides. Like the fact that in current oversaturated market a 13yo story feels generic and the fantasy wish-fullfilment harem game's been done to death in the meantime with much smoother gameplay and much higher-rez graphics. I still enjoy it but I admit a big part of why is the nostalgia.

1) Not a VN
2) Doesn't look all that successful, though it's definitely not an outright failure.
3) Your example of a fan made continuation going on to be successful is.. a remake by the original dev in partnership with another? -_-

The rule with fan remakes when it comes to VN's (especially abandoned VN's) is that they're garbage, and will last the initial release plus an update or two at the most. I can't think of a single exception, but I'm sure they're out there. That said, I don't think you did your point any favors by choosing the one you did.

I wish that weren't the case because there's a ton of games that had amazing starts only for the original devs to just disappear, or start off down the milking rabbit hole. Still, it makes sense - competent writers tend to want to write their own stories, and people who can do decent renders find out pretty fast that writing is a bit more challenging than it might seem.

 

[Chucke1992]

I wish that weren't the case because there's a ton of games that had amazing starts only for the original devs to just disappear, or start off down the milking rabbit hole.

Reminds me a bit of Waifu Academy with dev milking it but still getting money that allows to finance a couple of mortages. But I cannot deny the renders there are top noch for HS engine (I think it is HS). One of the hottest around.

And also reminds me of Ecchi Sensei where dev disappeared and it had a great story albeit with slightly weak renders.

Shame that midlife crisis ended relatively close to ending potentially.

 

[Talmadge]

So the other site I follow to know when to go on here and DL a game says that a new update of this game came out. Version 0.4.
Am I understanding y'all that it is not from the original Dev? Because I'm not following what y'all are saying too well for some reason. I just want to know for sure before I DL it from that other site since it hasn't been updated here. Thanks!

 

[OhGodNotAgain]

So the other site I follow to know when to go on here and DL a game says that a new update of this game came out. Version 0.4.
Am I understanding y'all that it is not from the original Dev? Because I'm not following what y'all are saying too well for some reason. I just want to know for sure before I DL it from that other site since it hasn't been updated here. Thanks!

...Its on the latest updates page. It a fan made game.