VN Ren'Py Completed Milky Touch [Final] [Studio Kuma]

[Furabia]

Anyone can sit here from on high, without seeing their actual costs, and say it was more game mismanagement than it was the lack of support gained from 'free marketing.'

I won't even touch on the piracy vs exposure discussion; I vehemently disagree with you on that front as well, but I won't go there in this comment. My main point is that the mismanagement is indeed very clear regardless of support amount, meaning: they overshoot in terms of scope of their game and they overestimated the quality of what was already there, which directly resulted in their costs being too high compared to the lower $ support.

How can I know this as an outside observer? If you understand the basic economics concept of project costs, which applies to any kind of project, business or industry, not just games, then I think anyone can clear see it as well.

Every business has costs, and to keep a long story short and oversimplify things: you either have an initial investment that will keep you running for a certain X projected amount of time, OR you stay realistic about your current business cash-flow and reduce/adjust costs to match the fluctuating intake of $. In the case of MT, it's the latter case with the cash-flow obviously being the supporters on patreon.

Now imagine you own a restaurant: you expected to make $20000 a month to have a decent margin, but instead you're barely making half of that (which is lower than the cost of running it)... so what do you do? Do you go ahead and upgrade your industrial ovens just because? Do you replace all tables with fancier wood and seating? Do you renovate the inside with fancy decor? Of course not, you shouldn't do any of those things because that would be dumb business management. What you do is to get realistic: you cut costs wherever possible and tone down the scope of your business to keep it running.

Now think: why aren't you getting the amount of customers that you think you should be? Maybe your restaurant is in a shitty part of town or is hard to access? Maybe the main attraction, your food, is not that good actually? Or maybe the food is decent enough but you don't have a good variety of dishes? Maybe your staff is not that attentive or maybe even rude? Perhaps the front of your establishment is uninviting? Perhaps you didn't advertise enough so people don't even know about your place? Or if you did advertise it enough, maybe it was bad advertising and it didn't catch peoples attention or put them off? etc...

Those consideration are things that, as the owner and manager, you HAVE to be constantly aware of to be successful.

Because instead, imagine the owner of such establishment saying: "Well, we're not earning what we should because it's the fault of the hypothetical customers who aren't coming to my restaurant. If only they were coming to my most prestigious establishment, my costs would be covered, therefore it's not my fault, it's all the customers fault for not coming." As an owner, you just don't place the managerial burden towards the customers waiting for them to match your out of hand costs. No, you start small and increase your costs to make your business grow, as long as there is the projected DEMAND to match.

You don't need to be an insider to realize this; it's the logical conclusion from observation of the facts that we do know about and how they are presented. Facts: the developers themselves said that the reason was costs and "low" support; people agree that voice acting was a luxury; many 2-3 stars reviews denoting the game's weaknesses, including the writing and some characters.

I hope I explained the point clearly enough, but to summarize it: The Milky Touch dev's sustained an unrealistic cost expecting to quickly reach a certain $ support on patreon, but it never came. They could have reduced the scope of their game (thus cutting costs) or increase the overall quality of the game to attract more support (by listening to the feedback on the game's issues), instead they choose to cut the project way too short, more or less spitting in the face of the people who like the game while simultaneously shifting the blame towards hypothetical people that never supported them in the first place... which doesn't sit well with me at all. At the very least, they should admit to the mismanagement so that I can have hope that they won't repeat it on their next project.

 

[Arnav Dasari]

... they choose to cut the project way too short, more or less spitting in the face of the people who like the game while simultaneously shifting the blame towards hypothetical people that never supported them in the first place...

Your example with a restaurant sure makes sense, but:

A) Personally I find their decision to finish the game with two more updates - despite the lack of funds and the lead dev covering the losses out of his own pocket - to be the opposite of spitting in the face. It's a farewell gift and a deed of integrity.

B) I don't remember any of the devs blaming players for not supporting them enough.

 

[Arnav Dasari]

This is hilarious and i cannot tell if you are serious or sarcastic.

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[loverdoc]

how can i open the last scene
i used kuma!!! cheat code and it didnot work on it

 

[Arnav Dasari]

how can i open the last scene
i used kuma!!! cheat code and it didnot work on it

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[jetama]

Hope the new update will have some Karen content, we're long overdue

 

[Vuljin]

the game will be over in the next 2 updates?!??! This game just started....whyyyyyyyyyyyy......damn shame

 

[JJJ84]

Your example with a restaurant sure makes sense, but:

A) Personally I find their decision to finish the game with two more updates - despite the lack of funds and the lead dev covering the losses out of his own pocket - to be the opposite of spitting in the face. It's a farewell gift and a deed of integrity.

B) I don't remember any of the devs blaming players for not supporting them enough.

I think I agree partly with your point A.
Partly because while yes, on one hand doing 2 more updates (despite lack of funds) can be seen as doing it for the supporters who's played the game till now, on the other hand it is because it is in the Dev's own best interest to complete the game (even though it's extremely rushed).
Of course, Dev could have just abandoned it and moved straight onto Neon Touch, but I'd imagine that would have been suicidal in terms of Patreon support especially given he's been building up their goodwill and supporters with Milky Touch, and that is something he just wouldn't want to do.
So this final 2 updates could very well be the Dev "biting the bullet" in order to not upset the supporters and for their long term support towards him.

Is this a very pessimistic view? Yeah, it is. But I like to keep it real, and my honest take of the "2 remaining MT updates" is that it is as much for Dev's self interest as it is for the fans, perhaps even more.
So it's not like I feel any gratitude towards this act(and personally for me, I feel "farewell gift" is an exaggeration regarding what he's doing).


Point B, I guess would be subject to interpretation.
Dev's exact post on Patreon said "......financially speaking, I cannot continue MT going for much longer."
This can be interpreted one of 3 ways:

1) There wasn't enough patreon support and MT is getting cut short
2) Devs have been spending too much (mismanagement)
3) Not enough patreon support + Devs spending too much

Do I think Dev is blaming the players for not supporting them? Perhaps. Or perhaps not. Patreon post about it pretty vague only saying it's for financial reasons.

But having said that, it is pretty clear they've not been managing their costs properly.
As I said before, and Furabia re-iterated, voice work was not needed at all and should not have been considered until perhaps the game itself was fully completed (Since it was just extra), and if it was me I might have done away with the music too if the $ is tight (some people might say blasphemy regarding that but there are some decent games out there that don't use any music).
Also would have cut down the number of LIs, cause the Dev clearly couldn't balance all the girls roster with MT.

And as considering their patreon earnings per month is around $2.5k per month (well $3k per month now it seems), that level of earnings some devs would love to get but just can't get there.

So yes the dev didn't explitly say "We didn't have enough support" in their patreon post.
But considering all the factors above, for me (purely my subjective opinion, you and others may feel differently about it), in a way it's hard to fault anyone for thinking Dev is (at least to some degree) blaming there not being enough support for the game, albeit implicitly.

 

[Arnav Dasari]

I think I agree partly with your point A.
Partly because while yes, on one hand doing 2 more updates (despite lack of funds) can be seen as doing it for the supporters who's played the game till now, on the other hand it is because it is in the Dev's own best interest to complete the game (even though it's extremely rushed).
Of course, Dev could have just abandoned it and moved straight onto Neon Touch, but I'd imagine that would have been suicidal in terms of Patreon support especially given he's been building up their goodwill and supporters with Milky Touch, and that is something he just wouldn't want to do.
So this final 2 updates could very well be the Dev "biting the bullet" in order to not upset the supporters and for their long term support towards him.

Is this a very pessimistic view? Yeah, it is. But I like to keep it real, and my honest take of the "2 remaining MT updates" is that it is as much for Dev's self interest as it is for the fans, perhaps even more.

I can offer even a more pessimistic point. I fear that despite devs providing two more updates, after MT's end a lot of Patreon supporters would cancel their subscriptions. Just because the devs would be busy with the early stages of NT development - it's not going to be a sabbatical for the devs, but there would be nothing to play, nothing to show, nothing to hold peoples attention. May be a concept art once in a while. And it's going to be like that for half a year. Hell, Kuma's patreon suffers income decline every beginning of a month, because - I assume - a lot of people just forget to prolong their subscriptions. What's going to happen when there'll be nothing to play for six months?

Point B, I guess would be subject to interpretation.
Dev's exact post on Patreon said "......financially speaking, I cannot continue MT going for much longer."
...

I just see him stating a fact. The fact that wouldn't change if he didn't state it aloud. The fact is that not that much people have chosen to support the game to make it profitable. There can be a lot of speculation and subjective opinions on whether it deserved it or didn't deserve it, a lot of musings on why it didn't; why there are MT's walkthroughs on YouTube with thousands and tens of thousands of views and yet the game have only 500 supporters etc etc.

But nothing would change the fact.

As I said before, and Furabia re-iterated, voice work was not needed at all and should not have been considered until perhaps the game itself was fully completed (Since it was just extra), and if it was me I might have done away with the music too if the $ is tight (some people might say blasphemy regarding that but there are some decent games out there that don't use any music).
Also would have cut down the number of LIs, cause the Dev clearly couldn't balance all the girls roster with MT.

It's not like I disagree with you or Furabia on this. I think that for NT devs should aim for 3000-3500$ range of monthly income. Instead of full voiceovers the new game can make do with just moans in sex scenes. Instead of a unique music track for each new sex scene and locale it can have music themes - two themes per LI - one for ambient and one for sex scenes. Instead of 9 LIs it can have 3-5 LIs, but each LI being more distinct in appearance - because lets face it, a lot of people probably saw the principal art and thought "hey, they all look the same", because of the artstyle.

I just believe treating devs miscalculation as a misdeed is unjust.

 

[JJJ84]

I think that for NT devs should aim for 3000-3500$ range of monthly income.

I don't know how much MT usually has been earning per month, but I'd say set the aim at MT level first and test the waters first. Better to set aim lower in the beginning and adjust higher perhaps little by little, than having an aim too high and realize it's coming short.

Instead of full voiceovers the new game can make do with just moans in sex scenes. Instead of a unique music track for each new sex scene and locale it can have music themes - two themes per LI - one for ambient and one for sex scenes. Instead of 9 LIs it can have 3-5 LIs, but each LI being more distinct in appearance - because lets face it, a lot of people probably saw the principal art and thought "hey, they all look the same", because of the artstyle.

For me, I would be fine with zero voiceovers lol (plenty of games out there in this site with nothing at all in terms of voiceovers and they do fine without it).
And considering Devs are saying they're not doing well financially due to the lack of patreon support, I'd even consider 2 themes per LI a luxury as well.

Take the dev "LikesBlondes" who is doing vampire AVN "Rebirth" for example.
That dude has only around half the number of patreons Kuma has as well as half the monthly income.

Yet, the game is ongoing and continues to release like clockwork every month.
There's no voicework whatsoever, and the whole game just has only around 3 themes in total, one for the main menu and two for the main game.
While a lot of people say that the soundtrack scores could use some variety, the game is still accepted as great (with the writing, characters etc) and some (who want more variety in music) even created their own music mod for the game.

That I think should be the benchmark Kuma should be aiming for (although there's a difference with Rebirth being a Ren'py game) in terms of being frugal with costs.
There's already outgoing costs to pay his artist for the whole drawn style. That is unavoidable cost (unless Kuma decides to use Ren'py/Unity/Honey Select like a lot of Devs on this site), but I think everything else really should be cut down as much as possible.

I just believe treating devs miscalculation as a misdeed is unjust.

It is, but I think the biggest issue Furabia pointed out was that the Dev was not admitting to the miscalculation in the patreon post, and instead skirted around ambiguously stating it's the money problem (implicitly saying not enough Patreon support).

This is what Furabia said:

So at least the devs should be upfront and say: "hey, we fucked up the game's management and spent a lot, and also we overestimated our game quality and the support that it would get (even tough we already get a considerable support...), so we're scrapping it up to try again with a new one". It's a huge red flag how they're blame shifting, and who guarantees that they won't mess up in the same way again?

I mean, I don't know about you, but I'm finding it hard to argue with her point here.
Sure, it won't be a good look for the dev to admit that they messed up & I'm sure he would wish to save face, but I think it also takes a lot of character for someone to admit their mistakes and how they have messed up (since "mismanagement" is very much likely part of reason why MT is getting cut short).

People appreciate candour, and with promise to do better in the future, sure, they might be disappointed with what happened with MT, yet they also wouldn't be as critical towards Kuma with the complete honesty and all.
But that's not what really happened, so........

 

[Arnav Dasari]

I don't know how much MT usually has been earning per month, but I'd say set the aim at MT level first and test the waters first. Better to set aim lower in the beginning and adjust higher perhaps little by little, than having an aim too high and realize it's coming short.

That's how much they have been making a month for at least about half a year, I believe. I know that the last year they struggled to get over 2500$ mark.

For me, I would be fine with zero voiceovers lol (plenty of games out there in this site with nothing at all in terms of voiceovers and they do fine without it).
And considering Devs are saying they're not doing well financially due to the lack of patreon support, I'd even consider 2 themes per LI a luxury as well.

But if there's zero voicework and close to zero music what selling points would the game have? Just the art and the writing? Not the minigames, for sure. I think some level of production value, some "luxury" is required to make NT feel really complete and polished. (BTW MT did somewhat struggle in this regard - despite having all the voicework and the music etc it still had these off-putting black silhouettes for the majority of characters. A strange visual decision that I always perceived as a temporary stand-in.) Especially if you're making a game about high stakes political games or about endless cityscapes, the dazzling tech, the neon lights.

2 themes per LI would require just 10 music tracks - if there going to be 5 LIs, that is. Currently MT has 140 tracks. I do appreciate it, just like I appreciate the work of all three actresses, but a half or even a third of this number should suffice for the sake of thriftiness.

It is, but I think the biggest issue Furabia pointed out was that the Dev was not admitting to the miscalculation in the patreon post, and instead skirted around ambiguously stating it's the money problem (implicitly saying not enough Patreon support).
...
I mean, I don't know about you, but I'm finding it hard to argue with her point here.
Sure, it won't be a good look for the dev to admit that they messed up & I'm sure he would wish to save face, but I think it also takes a lot of character for someone to admit their mistakes and how they have messed up (since "mismanagement" is very much likely part of reason why MT is getting cut short).

People appreciate candour, and with promise to do better in the future, sure, they might be disappointed with what happened with MT, yet they also wouldn't be as critical towards Kuma with the complete honesty and all.
But that's not what really happened, so........

Well, now it just talk about feelings, and feelings are just like opinions - everyone has their own. You and other guys feel that devs should repent for their sins and beg for forgiveness. I elect to feel different about the whole affair. I'm not going to be upset because it's over, I'm going to fap to what is there. Here's what the devs said:

Even though Milky Touch is not a perfect game, we tried our best to make it something special.

And in my eyes, they have succeeded. I know I'm not going to delete MT from my HDD for a long time. And I'm not going to keep it just for masturbation purposes - but because I'm a sentimental motherfucker, and this game have left me with some genuine feelings, and these feelings aren't regret and disappointment.

 

[JJJ84]

But if there's zero voicework and close to zero music what selling points would the game have? Just the art and the writing? Not the minigames, for sure. I think some level of production value, some "luxury" is required to make NT feel really complete and polished.

Artwork and writing should be enough selling points for the game, if they are good enough (and if that means no minigames, fine).

For example, there's games like "Midlife Crisis" (by Nefastus Games) & "Sorcerer" (by Talothral). Both games have zero voicework and no music at all. Yet they're are good, and have fair share of popularity and number of Patreon supporters (even though it's less than MT).

So for me, the level of production value/luxury to justify keeping music and voiceovers (regardless of their degree) makes for far less compelling argument, especially since Kuma is implying $ is the issue.
There are devs out there who settle for far less (in terms of what they put in the game in terms of value), and still manage to crank out their games (which are appreciated), so in no way should that be the reasoning to keep those around.

Only justification I would find in keeping them would be if for some reason his monthly patreon income skyrocketed to oblivion (but in this case, I'm trying to temper such expectations)

In fact, if Kuma gets to save the all the luxury costs through doing so, I'd prefer him to do NT with no music and zero voicework (as well as big reduction in LI numbers) rather than have music and voicework and thus flirt with the whole risk of "mismanagement" once again.
Doesn't matter if he somehow reduced some of the costs by reducing voicework and included some music, if he somehow states "can't continue NT because of the $" well.......we would know he didn't do everything he could to cut down on all possible costs now......so deja vu again lol.

Well, now it just talk about feelings, and feelings are just like opinions - everyone has their own. You and other guys feel that devs should repent for their sins and beg for forgiveness. I elect to feel different about the whole affair. I'm not going to be upset because it's over, I'm going to fap to what is there. Here's what the devs said:

lol never said I was upset (my honest feeling about it is a just a bit of disappointment regarding Kuma, but nothing more other than that).
And you're being over-dramatic with the whole "people are saying Dev should beg for forgiveness."

All I'm saying is, if he had been honest about the whole mismanagement (I mean, I've seen some Devs being honest about their faults/mistakes for worse things), people would have been less annoyed/upset about the whole deal and likely more understanding, and in a way I understand those people's sentiment.
If you feel differently about it, well.... you do you.

 

[Arnav Dasari]

So for me, the level of production value/luxury to justify keeping music and voiceovers (regardless of their degree) makes for far less compelling argument, especially since Kuma is implying $ is the issue.
...
Only justification I would find in keeping them would be if for some reason his monthly patreon income skyrocketed to oblivion (but in this case, I'm trying to temper such expectations)

In fact, if Kuma gets to save the all the luxury costs through doing so, I'd prefer him to do NT with no music and zero voicework (as well as big reduction in LI numbers) rather than have music and voicework and thus flirt with the whole risk of "mismanagement" once again.
...

Well, I'm going to state the obvious - since we don't really know their spending structure all we can do is speculate. If the costs for the "no words voicework" (i.e. moans) plus the music cost would exceed 500$ a month - then sure, I believe it would be wise to cut these expenses. But if they would fall into the 3000$ devs are already getting monthly, then I would keep them in hopes of retenting some of MT supporters (since NT then would have at least a resemblance of MT's features) as well as attracting some new supporters by providing features not every game possesses.

lol never said I was upset (my honest feeling about it is a just a bit of disappointment regarding Kuma, but nothing more other than that).
And you're being over-dramatic with the whole "people are saying Dev should beg for forgiveness."

I was having my tongue in my cheek while writing that. Probably should've include something about pitchforks as well.

my honest feeling about it is a just a bit of disappointment regarding Kuma, but nothing more other than that
...
If you feel differently about it, well.... you do you.

At first I wanted to write "well, lets agree to disagree." But you know, I just realized that it would be insincere. I am not going to pretend that I like their decision to end MT, after all here's what I wrote on their patreon when they announced it:

Not going to lie, my feelings are pretty mixed on this one.

Milky Touch was such a slow burner, it teased us for so long - to see it end so abruptly, moreover right at this point, where things have finally started to unravel plot- and romancewise - that's like being punched in the gut. I get it that things could've been much worse - with the studio closing and MT not getting any conclusion at all. There was a lot of potential in MT; and to properly unfold and conclude all the routes of at least three main heroines - as well as the political subplot of Catelyn vs Karen (the most interesting and promising part of the plot btw) - it would've taken at least three of four updates, not the meager two.

But I guess, as Japanese say - shikata ga nai - it cannot be helped. I understand that the team would've liked to see MT properly finished as no one else - but, alas, there's simply not enough money for that. So, I guess, in the new game we shouldn't expect voice overs or a lot of unique background music. That's all right. They were a great boon for the MT but its two main strength were the art (it's style and quality) and the writing. The art, evidently, isn't going anywhere; as for writing... To be honest, the premise of the Milky Touch - a college boy "conquering" all the females in vicinity - never felt very original or captivating. But. Due to team's talents this trodden path got filled with original and captivating situations and memorable characters. No, wait. The characters were much more than just memorable - I outright cared about them. Even regular video games/movies very seldom get such reaction from me - to say nothing of porn games.

But - I do like their work, I do sympathize with their difficulties and I am thankful that they're going to make two more concluding updates instead of shutting down completely. Because let's be realists - the choice here isn't about getting 2 updates or 10 updates, the choice is about 2 updates or 0 updates. For me, something is better than nothing. And I am thankful to them that we are going to get at least some conclusion to the story. And I don't want to demand some apologies from them because I'm pretty sure they're already feeling upset about the MT shutdown more than anyone else.

 

[Jhon99x]

Upadated apk link?If anyone have plz share..

 

[skyblazer]

I would say that is a big loss for me if they stop their project of the MT. I really don't care about their new game project, all reason I support them is MT and Claudia, if they stop this story and I will stop my support. Sorry about my poor language, I just want to explain how I was feeling when I know this news.

 

[Deleted member 3581761]

any other games like this one, with slow progression and impeccable art

 

[clamp360]

any other games like this one, with slow progression and impeccable art

Not really the right place to ask, but whatever. What A Legend is really the only other one I can think of with absolute 10/10 drawn 2d art and fantastic animations.

 

[Victarion000]

There's a chapter 21 spoiler on the patreon page. Has anyone read it?

 

[Arnav Dasari]

I would say that is a big loss for me if they stop their project of the MT. I really don't care about their new game project, all reason I support them is MT and Claudia, if they stop this story and I will stop my support. Sorry about my poor language, I just want to explain how I was feeling when I know this news.

What if the new game would have someone as lovely as Claudia?

There's a chapter 21 spoiler on the patreon page. Has anyone read it?

Well, I can tell to you that the spoiler contains black stockings and garter belt. Not much else.

 

[JJJ84]

What if the new game would have someone as lovely as Claudia?

It's gonna depend on the person's taste in the Cyberpunk genre too.
I consider myself as sort of casual cyberpunk genre fan, so it's one of the genres I try out with games on this site (for instance, "Eternum" by Caribdis is shaping up to be great) but I'm also aware that there's others who are just not into the setting.