Hey,
MrSilverLust, you just made me very happy. Want you to know that!
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Hi everyone. Long time no see.
It's hard to believe that it's been almost 11 months since the last post, when I paused the monthly billing. Since then, things haven't exactly gone according to the plan: I spent much less time working on game development than I used to do before the pause. I guess it's easier to keep a consistent working schedule when there are people supporting you monthly and you don't want to disappoint them or waste their money.
During those 11 months, there were periods when I worked a bit more consistently and considered writing a post to tell you about the progress, but it always felt bad to not being able to say anything concrete, or give a release date for the next update. It would just be a "still working on it, slowly" kind of post. So, I'd just tell myself, "work more next month and you can then tell them the update is almost finished and ready to be released. That will be so much better". Well, the following month would come and go, and I'd still be in the same position.
Next month it is, then. And then the next. And one day you wake up and it's been almost a year. I'm sorry for taking so long.
Well, this is the waited time, at last.
Chapter 8 will, most likely, be ready some time in November. It'll be the last big chapter. After that, there will still be another update to act as an epilogue and wrap things up, although I'm not yet sure what format it will have or how big it will be.
Endings are hard to do. Even multi-millionaire productions can screw them up. You can imagine how hard it is to pull off a good ending when for a story when you have been writing it for years and can't even change what is already out. To complicate things, NiF is kind of a soap opera. There are no overarching plot points, no big bad guy to defeat, no ring to destroy. It's just a few people living their lives. The story could keep going on and on. But, nothing is forever (lol). You have to end it at some point, call the "and they lived happily ever after" screen, and let the credits roll.
The hard part is making all the paths end in a satisfactory way at the same time. Some paths might already feel boring and I don't know how to keep them going properly. Others might feel a bit rushed. Others could still go on for longer and might end a bit too soon. It's just not easy to give a good send off to all paths.
Some of the problems already come from previous chapters: some scenes should have happened earlier, so that there would be a better pacing between events and it wouldn't need to be somewhat rushed now at the end. But, when every release is always running late, it was always easier to just finish the chapter as is, and push some scenes to the next update and make it work somehow. And I think it worked/will work in most cases. Perhaps not with Bri, where I completely butchered what I wanted to do with her story and the pacing of her relationship. I think that's definitely the worst offender. But I don't think the other ones will be as bad, although some will probably work better than others.
It's just too difficult to keep so many paths going. Development is hard. Every individual player just sees a little bit of the whole chapter and complains the update is too short. This truly is the best place to finish the story. I know there will always be someone wanting more of a certain LI, or being disappointed that kink/scene X didn't happen the way they imagined it would (or at all), but this is the best solution in the end.
I really hope people end up liking this update and not feel disappointed. It's already bad enough that this release cycle turned out to be so cursed, I'd hope the update itself is also not bad.
But let's see in a month or two. Second half of November or so.
PS: With the release of a new update for "Decked in Love" and the release of the next update of "Nothing is Forever" approaching, I'll let the Patreon billing restart in October. If you want to cancel your membership, please do it before it restarts. Also, please remember that, if you already contributed with €15, you have/will have a game key and will get the next NiF update even if you're not a Patreon supporter. Thank you.