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

[tankdick]

would be much better if everyone who liked Milky touch supported the studio on patreon etc...

Honestly you know what gets a studio support?

Consistent releases, transparent communication and not slapping a v1.0 released on game that's far from complete and jumping on to another project. Studio Kuma put out some serious quality work to be sure but there is definitely room for improvement on the project management side.

 

[MammaMea]

Honestly you know what gets a studio support?

Consistent releases, transparent communication and not slapping a v1.0 released on game that's far from complete and jumping on to another project. Studio Kuma put out some serious quality work to be sure but there is definitely room for improvement on the project management side.

cool bro, sit down.. i said those WHO LIKED MILKY TOUCH....

 

[Bouwen]

So, i wrote my first message on this forum and right after it the game is abaddoned thats.. just very sad.

Lets be honest, exept art and music this game was garbage. I hoped that they will restart this project or will return to Milkytouch this is very unexpected.

 

[aaderw]

I tried to contact Studio Kuma a few days ago using Patreon to ask if I could get the Art Pack for the Milky Touch. but got no response. It looks like there is no way to get in touch with Studio Kuma anymore.

 

[qazxsw80]

Consistent releases, transparent communication and not slapping a v1.0 released on game that's far from complete and jumping on to another project. Studio Kuma put out some serious quality work to be sure but there is definitely room for improvement on the project management side.

Yeah, the project management was a catastrophe. Basically, that Kuma guy simply destroyed his own studio. He had such amazing people working for him - the incredible artist (one of the best in the industry), the exceptional guy who created music for him, all those charming voice actresses... Only the script writer was quite bad.

His Patreon account made about 3800 dollars a month before he decided to abandon Milky Touch, and it was growing. Most developers cannot even dream about such a level of support.

Then suddenly he plays Cyberpunk 2077, enjoys it so much that he decides it would be nice to make his own game in a similar universe with blackjack and hookers. He abandons Milky Touch (yes, he abandoned it, it is the only way to call it). He abruptly finishes the game with 2 updates, the game that was very popular, had a lot of fans and wasn't even in the middle of the planned plot. He was told repeatedly that it was a huge mistake (including by me), but he didn't listen.

Then he started to make that stupid comic book out of his another game about Rome, that was in hiatus. No one wanted that comic. People wanted the game to be continued sooner or later. But still he paid a fortune to the artist to draw those 40 pages of pictures, more than enough to make quite a few updates.

And guess what? He wasted a year and a half to prepare for the release of Neon Touch. During that time people still paid him 1500-2000 dollars a month waiting for something great to happen. They paid him about 30 000 dollars. And what the guy does? He quickly abandons it after just two freaking updates that took him 3 months to release, because "it didn't satisfy his expectations with regard to the amount of support".

 

[qazxsw80]

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.

Are you the guy who made and chose the music for Milky Touch? If you are, you did an incredible job. If you have any new project planned, I would like to know about them.

 

[aaderw]

Does anyone have Milky Touch's 4k art pack or that picture of Riley doing yoga posted on pixiv?

 

[Bouwen]

Since official discord was shutted down. We decided to create new fan discord. So, feel free to join

You must be registered to see the links

 

[Mosspark Music]

Are you the guy who made and chose the music for Milky Touch? If you are, you did an incredible job. If you have any new project planned, I would like to know about them.

Thanks man. And yup, from latest to earliest:

Broken Promises by

You must be registered to see the links

:
3D. A haunted detective infiltrates a corrupt city to seek justice.

Sunwave Hotel by

You must be registered to see the links

:
2D. Sci-fi intergalactic mercenary duo crash-lands on an island, faces temptations, and completes their mission.

Guilty Pleasures by

You must be registered to see the links

:
3D. A party leads to unexpected feelings and guilty pleasures.

Broken Promises is just getting started, no tracks yet, maybe in the next update.

 

[FeralChild]

Now that I think of it. I wonder why they couldn't have continued as a comic. I feel like it would have at least been worth the try.

 

[qazxsw80]

Now that I think of it. I wonder why they couldn't have continued as a comic. I feel like it would have at least been worth the try.

Because people are not ready to pay a lot of money for a freaking comic. And the artist probably is very expensive. So this strategy is not viable.
The developer tried it with his another game about Rome and he lost more than half of the support. He was earning 3800 dollars a month when he was making Milky Touch, but it dropped to less than 1500 during the comic period. It would have dropped even more If people had known about the fate of Neon Touch, since some of the patrons were supporting the developer because they were waiting for it to be released, and couldn't care less about the comic.

 

[Allamante]

朋友们好，我想问NT为什么会有“弃”的牌子，听说制作组解散了，是真的吗？有人可以告诉我发生了什么吗？看到新闻我很难过

是的，他们没有钱了，就不能工作了呀。

But you can only speak English or French on this forum if you have questions next time.

 

[DearLegend37]

easy to say when its all over I guess but what I think they should have done instead of working on Neon Touch;
spend all their resources on MT, wrapping it up and finishing it properly, then releasing it on steam when game is completed.

I honestly feel like Milk Touch was the perfect game to be on steam, the high quality art with the overall quality of the game would easily catch attention.
I do feel some devs here are sleeping on steam...

well again easy to say without knowing what happened internally, but it all feels like such a blunder

 

[hu lover]

easy to say when its all over I guess but what I think they should have done instead of working on Neon Touch;
spend all their resources on MT, wrapping it up and finishing it properly, then releasing it on steam when game is completed.

I honestly feel like Milk Touch was the perfect game to be on steam, the high quality art with the overall quality of the game would easily catch attention.
I do feel some devs here are sleeping on steam...

well again easy to say without knowing what happened internally, but it all feels like such a blunder

Milk touch was a great game, Steam has been pretty reasonable releasing most of their games without any known delays. Some games don't get released on time, but they do a pretty good job throughout. Whereas, games like "Operation Lovecraft" remains a mystery and rarely gets updated at all. Sometimes I start to think that Lovecraft is just a way to leech money from patron contributors. The game was said to have come out and release December of this year, and still hasn't come out yet. I really think the devs for that game are fucking around, or just making money off a game that will never ensure and actual release date. I don't agree with Trump entirely, but when he stated "Fake News" it has merit and purpose. Some games nowadays, the developers promise you everything, and deliver nothing, 2 examples would be Lovecraft and Milfy City.

 

[Victarion000]

Does anyone have Milky Touch's 4k art pack or that picture of Riley doing yoga posted on pixiv?

This one?


Link (4k so very heavy):

You must be registered to see the links

 

[aaderw]

This one?
View attachment 2889358

Link (4k so very heavy):

Pixeldrain

Yes, thank you very much.

 

[peterj]

Milky Touch had a really slow start, just when things were getting interseting it ended..... it really was a waste of a great opportunity. Neo Touch just wasn't the same and not what people wanted. People want to see hot milf getting f not half robot half human. I really hope one day the studio will return and go back to what they were great at, sex game in a normal everyday setting. Maybe one day Milky Touch 2

 

[flashfire7]

Damn, I tried to go look for an update on NT, and saw Patreon dead, came here just now.

Seriously the deilverables were in the gutter - i tried supporting them consistently but the updates were far too little.

Like many said, the art, music, VA all were amazing - plot was amazing too including characters in MT but it felt so rushed - the ending. no routes were satisfied.

And as for NT, shame - i love VN based games, and as i saw NT with a map feature and ability to explore - i knew it would have been abandoned too.

 

[TanyaC]

Developer: Studio Kuma

Why did you stop?

 

[ShiShi!]

Yeah, the project management was a catastrophe. Basically, that Kuma guy simply destroyed his own studio. He had such amazing people working for him - the incredible artist (one of the best in the industry), the exceptional guy who created music for him, all those charming voice actresses... Only the script writer was quite bad.

His Patreon account made about 3800 dollars a month before he decided to abandon Milky Touch, and it was growing. Most developers cannot even dream about such a level of support.

Then suddenly he plays Cyberpunk 2077, enjoys it so much that he decides it would be nice to make his own game in a similar universe with blackjack and hookers. He abandons Milky Touch (yes, he abandoned it, it is the only way to call it). He abruptly finishes the game with 2 updates, the game that was very popular, had a lot of fans and wasn't even in the middle of the planned plot. He was told repeatedly that it was a huge mistake (including by me), but he didn't listen.

Then he started to make that stupid comic book out of his another game about Rome, that was in hiatus. No one wanted that comic. People wanted the game to be continued sooner or later. But still he paid a fortune to the artist to draw those 40 pages of pictures, more than enough to make quite a few updates.

And guess what? He wasted a year and a half to prepare for the release of Neon Touch. During that time people still paid him 1500-2000 dollars a month waiting for something great to happen. They paid him about 30 000 dollars. And what the guy does? He quickly abandons it after just two freaking updates that took him 3 months to release, because "it didn't satisfy his expectations with regard to the amount of support".

Cyberpunk was so bad for me because it didn't have the kind of non-linearity they were implying coming up to release, choosing your background had pretty minimal impact and choices don't matter as heavily as I'd hoped, plus the performance was horrid.

But if this chronological is true then it truly is a great wasted opportunity. I've seen Ren'Py games on Steam (not adult games) that becomes semi-successful with worse art but just by having RPG elements like choices and stuff like Heads Will Roll, a lot more adult RenPy games are starting to get on Steam's front page Upcoming Release tab as well and MT would have definitely been one of them with its art, voice, and multi-path elements.

Such a shame. It was 'finished' and I discovered it while I was in university, even so I'd have most likely supported it monetarily at least once every few months if I had knew about it then during the development process... which basically means if he hadn't abandoned it, it'd have still be in progress when I found it and I'd have supported his patreon. His patreon was still up when I found it but he was working on Neon Touch and already finished with MT so I didn't.

A true shame indeed.