Ren'Py Abandoned Neon Touch [Ch. 1] [Studio Kuma]

[WShatn]

Kuma... — Today at 22:33

Hey friends,

**Due to financial reasons, we are shutting down this Studio.**

**I can't express how sad I am to announce this grave news, but it's time.**

Despite the financial side of the story, real-life factors also kicked in, so I'll need to make myself fully available for my family, and everything else in life.

I want to take time and say THANK YOU, as always, for all the love, support, and everything you have offered us. We are very sorry that we could not continue to deliver more content for all of you, who deserve the best.


**THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU.**


The team and I wish you the best in the days to come, and we will never forget you all. You guys will always occupy a great piece of land in our hearts and in our memories.

As many of you may know, it costs a lot to operate this studio (Especially our artist, for apparent reason XD).

We didn't really break even in the past four years, so I've been funding it like a personal hobby of mine.

But now, for me, and for our team, it's time to turn the page and say farewell.

Thank you, once again, we can't say that enough to let you all know how thankful and grateful we are for knowing of all of you, and receiving love n support from all of you.


We wish you all the best,

Team Kuma.

 

[ljabc]

what shall we say

 

[hu lover]

what shall we say

There is not much too say, the game is abandoned.

 

[Arnav Dasari]

Well snap. They said back then - "we're either going big or we're going home". And the new game just couldn't go big from the get go. Not a surprising outcome but still a sad one.

I guess there'll be a lot of schadenfreude from the guys dissapointed by the Milky Touch rushed ending, or by the "everything-is-NTR" dudes, but still the game had a lot of potential. But to be completely honest what I saw just didn't utilize that potential to the maximum. (Perhaps I'd even write later here or at Discord what disliked in NT and what and how I'd change.)

With Milky Touch I was captivated from the start by its characters - by Claudia and Octavia, and even Karen and Katelyn to an extent. Neon Touch? Not that much. Lauren is an interesting character enough, with an interesting backstory and motivation and all - but IMO she lacks something Claudia had. May be just the novelty. And there was no one, no one in the characters list like Octavia.

But hey - as they say, "don't be sad Neon Touch didn't make it, smile because Milky Touch has happened." I'll always remain thankful to the devs for gifting us with Milky Touch.

PS: Can help but think that I did have an almost guaranteed solution to make everyone happy and bring back some patrons to the studio while reducing the studio's expanses and I even suggested that to the devs - that is, to give proper endings to MT in the form of comics. Not even CYOA stuff, just 3 or 4 regular comics, one per route, each 10-15 pages long. I guess it was just too late for that and they were too far gone into developing NT to make another set of comics after finishing NMGD.

 

[mentosa]

This is professionalism - stuff happened, the studio closed, we all know what is happening.

There are artists / studios that just disappear, leave their patreon active, no one knows what is happening.

Thank you, Studio Kuma.

 

[hu lover]

Well snap. They said back then - "we're either going big or we're going home". And the new game just couldn't go big from the get go. Not a surprising outcome but still a sad one.

I guess there'll be a lot of schadenfreude from the guys dissapointed by the Milky Touch rushed ending, or by the "everything-is-NTR" dudes, but still the game had a lot of potential. But to be completely honest what I saw just didn't utilize that potential to the maximum. (Perhaps I'd even write later here or at Discord what disliked in NT and what and how I'd change.)

With Milky Touch I was captivated from the start by its characters - by Claudia and Octavia, and even Karen and Katelyn to an extent. Neon Touch? Not that much. Lauren is an interesting character enough, with an interesting backstory and motivation and all - but IMO she lacks something Claudia had. May be just the novelty. And there was no one, no one in the characters list like Octavia.

But hey - as they say, "don't be sad Neon Touch didn't make it, smile because Milky Touch has happened." I'll always remain thankful to the devs for gifting us with Milky Touch.

PS: Can help but think that I did have an almost guaranteed solution to make everyone happy and bring back some patrons to the studio while reducing the studio's expanses and I even suggested that to the devs - that is, to give proper endings to MT in the form of comics. Not even CYOA stuff, just 3 or 4 regular comics, one per route, each 10-15 pages long. I guess it was just too late for that and they were too far gone into developing NT to make another set of comics after finishing NMGD.

Everything is meant to last, until it doesn't. "Fallout 4 daisy quote."

 

[Arnav Dasari]

You know guys, when I first started playing Milky Touch, I couldn't believe my eyes. No way, I said to myself, there has to be some catch! But there was no catch. It was just that great. And for that I will always be grateful to the devteam.

 

[ljabc]

yeah，milky touch is a treasure game

 

[Mosspark Music]

Can't believe I've been working with Kuma for 4 years. Right now it feels like the vanilla Octavia ending in MT. Thanks to the studio, messaging Kuma was one of the best decisions I made in 2019; it started my VN life in dev mode. I'm glad to be involved in MT and NT. I was doing something I love for something I love, instead of pimping my passion and skill on something I don't care about. It provided a good distraction from my mundane SFW works.

The studio's shutdown is mostly because of financial reasons. I hope that someday, when graphical A.I. advances past its current chaotic phase, it will become a local A.I. that adapts to its owner's style and makes progress faster and cheaper. The cold fact is that the future is not A.I. vs Human but Human with A.I. vs Human without A.I.

I indeed hope Kuma is doing well with his family. He is welcome to bring the back the golden days when he's ready because when every asset doesn't take too long or cost too much to create, commitment will become one of the main factors for a studio to stay afloat. Seeing that Kuma kept the studio running without even breaking even for science knows how long, I think he did his best in terms of commitment.

 

[Joshy92]

I respect the dev for announcing they are stopping development.
Too many devs just disappear without a word

But this dev didn't I have a lot of respect for him because of that.

 

[Arnav Dasari]

... Seeing that Kuma kept the studio running without even breaking even for science knows how long, I think he did his best in terms of commitment.

Yeah. Don't even want to calculate how much money he did pay out of his pocket to keep the studio afloat.

As for you my man, well, you know how I feel about your music. NT did have some stuff that didn't sit quite right with me, but your music was ideal.

 

[Mosspark Music]

Yeah. Don't even want to calculate how much money he did pay out of his pocket to keep the studio afloat.

As for you my man, well, you know how I feel about your music. NT did have some stuff that didn't sit quite right with me, but your music was ideal.

Thank you. Let's have a moment of "Heart Interface".

 

[ljabc]

will kuma upload Claudia's voice(ch22 scenes and ch21 plane sex) on Patreon ,some guys(include me) will happy to pay for it

 

[RedPillBlues]

Can't say its surprising with the lackluster launch this had. Going from MT to this was almost never going to work. MT will still go down as one of the best games made though. Hopefully everything turns out good for his family.

 

[hyoeun]

I feel very sad,
how he deletes everything,
he can just be like other developers,
putting on the support page and make more money with nothing new,
'milk' more money,
but he did not,
now not even a page or social,
I feel sad for him but I am proud too.

 

[Bobhanw]

Shame really liked the 2d art

 

[haha mm]

Damn. Was looking forward to this one.

 

[zeph19]

Immense respect to Team Kuma for shutting their studio down in the fashion they did. No milking, no false promises, no stalling. They delivered the info people needed and closed this chapter admirably.

I'm sure that a lot of lessons were learned here. A very talented artist alone simply isn't enough to carry a project of this size.

I don't know how many people worked on this game, but considering the problems and general output MT had, I'd say that there were too many to make the business profitable. If the artist, who I hope will continue working in this field because he/she's insane, was an external then that makes it even worse.

This project / studio will forever be a "What if..?" in my book. I wish everybody involved well.

 

[FeralChild]

Very unfortunate. Not may games out there has the amount of talent behind it like Studio Kuma did.

 

[Miner_CS]

Can anyone upload the July update? I was waiting for the August update, but the patreon page was suddenly shut down.