Private Dick [Development Thread]

[cisco_donovan]

Even as some big things happening over the next couple of weeks, my confidence in the project is rocking up and down.

I'm currently staring at some marketing copy and hating every single thing about the game. So that's not great.

But look, here's the good news

• I've partnered with an indie publisher who I really think can help my Kickstarter campaign
• The Kickstarter demo is done and waiting to go live (hopefully tomorrow?)
• The Kickstarter campaign has been greenlit and should launch next week
• I've got a kick-ass trailer ready to help promote the launch
• I'm setup with Steam and, thanks to the publisher, reasonably confident of good sales there

But this is such a strange time. I want to spend all my effort on gamedev. But I can't afford to spend money on assets and most of my energy is dedicated to marketing and promotion. So while theoretically I could sit down and write out a whole bunch of script - I don't have the headspace for it.

Over the weekend I lay awake for most of a night wondering whether one of my storylines felt too much like it might be about Heard Vs Depp, and what it might look like to someone who noticed the similarity. I didn't like those thoughts. Still don't. Not really prepared to change the story at this stage though so I'll have to sit on it a little more.

Oh, and one more thing to report! I've settled on a name for the Kickstarter. Private Dick: Lipstick & Lies.

 

[cisco_donovan]

I'm absolutely bricking it, lads.

The Kickstarter is due to go live tomorrow.

I'm waiting for a couple of extra assets to drop into the demo - I hoped they'd arrive overnight, but hopefully I'll have them this afternoon and can plug them in and play test. I can launch the KS with the current demo, but I'd obviously prefer to have the strongest demo possible for launch day.

I've decided to upload the kickstarter demo here as a v0.0.13. I wasn't going to, mostly because the versioning is complicated (I've called the ks demo a 1.0 because it's the finished kickstarter demo). But it's an extra boost to promotion and the changes I've added make the demo better, so why not? That'll go live here maybe on Thursday.

The KS demo has done really well on itch.io - it smashed the views, downloads and collections that the original demo had. In a week it's had 6.5k views, nearly 3k browsers plays, 400 downloads, all organic itch traffic. It's been slowing down rapidly over the last couple of days.

I'm pleased with this, and I put the difference mostly down to a much better cover picture, a tighter game page, a fixed web demo and just a better game all around. Lots of improvements in lots of places - although I suspect the cover picture is the one that means the most.

BUT but but although the demo links directly to my KS page, all this traffic has only translated to a couple of followers on the KS pre sign-up page. If I need 2,000 views to get one follow, how many do I need to get a backer?! 10k? Which means over the next month I need to increase traffic to my game by like a factor of 10, at least.

Not gonna lie, I was hoping to get a couple of hundred people pre-signing up before the KS launched. I wanted a couple of thousand followers on Twitter (I'm battling to hit 300). I wanted a busier main thread here (you can hear the tumbleweed).

Well, we'll see which way the cookie crumbles.

 

[cisco_donovan]

So the kickstarter is

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!

Frustratingly, after months of buildup, 29k views and 2k downloads on itch.io, almost all the backers so far have come directly through Kickstarter itself. And that's not many backers, by the way.

Maybe some of those saw the demo on itch and then clicked when they saw it in Kickstarter. There's no way of knowing. But certainly I was hoping to have generated far more early backers from my main support base on twitter and itch.

That's life, I guess! I've got a month to try and pull some of those 29k viewers back into the Kickstarter.

In the meantime I'm in a tight spot. Historically, I've generated views and support by updating the game on a weekly basis. New assets, new content, new features, trickling into the game over a three month period. Every little release gives me a spike in traffic, and every view is a potential sale (I don't know but maybe I expect like 5-10k views to convert a single sale).

But every update costs money, because I need to commission artwork to put in it. I suppose I could put out content with just text but I don't think that's a very good deal for players - I'm trying to release reasonably complete content, not obviously-work-in-progress stuff.

And right now I'm not really in a position to commission more stuff to justify further updates. No more updates means no more views. No more views means no more backers.

The maths are problematic.

 

[cisco_donovan]

So the kickstarter is running. And people are backing it! But there's a long, long way to go.

I've been wrestling with the update problem. How do I put out a release without spending lots of money? Any new scene at this point will cost me a fair bit of money. And I don't think the demo has any need, or right, to be longer than it is right now. So I'd be rushing production on new character design and new content in order to crowbar a random scene into the demo.

It's not likely to add to the overall quality of the project, and for me quality is everything.

But I think I have worked something out.

What I can do cheaply is write and code.

So I've made a notebook, which acts as a quest log and character bio tracker thingy.

Here is an advanced WIP:


I'm gonna spend a little bit of money on nice character sketches, a little bit of time writing out the case log and dynamically updating the journal, then hopefully put this out mid-late next week.

This isn't the most exciting update for existing players - there's no new porn in it. But it's a major update which I can promote here and on itch. It will make the demo easier to follow and understand, and it's as system that I can build on in the fully game, so not a penny is wasted.

I think it's a pretty good compromise.

 

[cisco_donovan]

Got a bit of artwork done - I'm absolutely loving this

 

[cisco_donovan]

Hi, just wanted to very quickly share some concept art that's come through

 

[cisco_donovan]

Hi, I think this is quite fun.

I wrote little sort of short story, like a series of diary entries, to support the kickstarter. I think it's short and funny and pithy, I don't know, that's up to you lot.

Best place to read it is on the

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, as you get nice formatting and pictures.

But I'll duplicate the text in a spoiler here too.

Spoiler

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[cisco_donovan]

Hi,

Not a lot to report right now. I am 100% marketing, working Twitter, reddit and Discord pretty hard, while also trying to find websites and journalists who might help give the game a boost. It's exhausting and often dispiriting work - hours drift by with nothing really happening.

Oh well. Here's some porn!

 

[cisco_donovan]

Just a couple of days to go on the Kickstarter.

I feel like there's a bit of a trust issue with Kickstarter, so I wrote some notes in the main thread about why I think that platform is the best fit for me: https://f95zone.to/threads/private-dick-v0-0-14-cisco-donovan.112947/post-8507860

I am livestreaming development and playthroughs quite a lot this week, trying to drum up a bit more support. I'm talking through stuff, narrating, and have my webcam on. It's actually been really good so far so drop a follow and join a stream sometime! I'll be online every day this week from 5pm BST (that's 12 noon CDT), with a few ad-hoc streams thrown in too.

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[cisco_donovan]

So the Kickstarter failed, managing to achieve only 50% of its target.

This was pretty amazing, but in the end it's not enough for me to finance the game full-time.

In the end, it's no surprise and I've been fully expecting this for two weeks. That's not to say I haven't tried - I've worked every hour I can find to try and push the campaign. But from a very slow start and with a dead week in the middle, although things picked up it just wasn't nearly enough.

I'm proud of the campaign, the way I ran it, and how far we came. But all I can do now is look forward.

There are many reasons I failed, and different people will tell you different things. The art, Kickstarter itself, the content, the old MC, the lack of rule 34 or monster girls.

Those are all factors which put off some people. But for me, the biggest thing was that when launching the campaign, I hadn't build a large enough platform of followers and fans. I needed 200 people following the campaign before it even launched (as it goes, I launched with 2 followers).

I will continue to develop Private Dick, but I will not be working on it full-time. I don't know yet how I'm going to finance myself but I'll find a way.

I am now targeting a Steam release for my chance to make my money back. I am confident this will happen eventually but it may of course take some time.

In the meantime, I will be slowly putting out updates and continuing to develop the demo. I need to ensure the steam release has premium content, so I'll probably won't take the demo content any further forward, but I will continue to add new and improved art, music, better UIs, and maybe some little snacks in the social media and notebooks. So it's a focus on improving the quality of the demo over monthly updates, while preparing a premium build over time.

So the plan is: continue to find and build my audience, to find a way to finance the game, and to continue to expand the story ready for a steam release.

 

[cisco_donovan]

So it's been a couple of weeks since the last update! I don't have a lot to say but let's talk about what's been going on.

First off, I've consolidated some stuff into a new 0.1.0 version (available in the main thread or on

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).

Secondly, I've secured a contract development role which will pay my bills and fund ongoing development - at least for a little while. So I've been writing briefs for my art team and getting them to work on the new content.

Thirdly, I've been writing. While a lot of the game is drafted, there are some big missing pieces. I've also been tweaking the story a little. You may remember that Private Dick was originally going to be a lot bigger and I've chopped up the scope for the Lipstick & Lies build: that's resulted in a few structural changes. For example, Lipstick & Lies includes one of two of June's storylines. In the "full" version the stories bleed into each other and there's no sex CG at the end of the first one. In the standalone build, though, that first story is the climax of the whole game. So it needs a really strong sex scene to go with it. That means tweaking and extending the story (not to mention planning an extra scene).

I am worried that June's storyline is a bit too long at the moment. I feel like every piece is needed and adds either story value or sex value. But looking at the whole of it I think it's just too much. My ideal solution would be to add more side content around it, so I've been chewing that other (from a budget and story point of view).

As a final note, I've been considering adding more assets so that each character has a "facing the camera" view (typically used by side images or when only that character is on-screen), which is what is in-game on; plus a "side view", rotated about 30 degrees and looking across the screen. Like wot Akabur does. These side views will make conversations feel a lot more natural

Well, I could write a whole devlog about this - and maybe soon I will. Working out this design has nearly given me a panic attack today. The short version is that the side views don't really work for a number of use-cases. What if there are two people standing on the right, talking to each other? Should the side portraits also be rotated? What about CGs? What about if I want to put a character on the left of the screen, instead of the right? Or the center, as I do at the moment?

On top of all those design nuances, there's the cost. I am keen to add variety to Private Dick, so that instead of just seeing the same sprite all the time, you see them sitting or posing or in different outfits. For example I plan on adding variants for characters in the bar, leaning on surfaces a bit like Bobbi does right now. Having to implement front and side views, for all those pose variants, is a huge cost - one I simply can't afford. Ok so I don't need to duplicate EVERY pose, but I think I need quite a few.

So while the full frontal approach does look a little bit strange, I think a) you get used to it very quickly, b) not many people have complained, and c) it always sort of works in any scenario I can envisage, so it's very cost-effective. I am considering taking Steele out of more scenes and seeing the world "through his eyes" more, which makes the full frontal views make a lot more sense. But then you also lose Steele's presence, so I'm not quite sure. It's something I'll experiment with.

Anyhow that's all for now. I'll probably be quiet for few weeks but I hope to post some assets here and on Twitter soon (although I also don't want to spoil anything, so there's a tension here).

Thanks!

 

[cisco_donovan]

Hi - just thought I'd drop a bunch of assets from development over the last couple of weeks!

I have been working almost full-time, so I personally am not getting much done. But my art team is hard at work and are producing some beautiful stuff!

 

[cisco_donovan]

Suddenly I keep getting errors when trying to upload here, so if you want something juicier you should quickly checkout

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and

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.

 

[cisco_donovan]

Hi!

Almost a month since my last update. Time sure do shift.

I don't have a lot to say today, I just wanted to check in. Mostly I've been working on some contracts to fund the game. My art team is busy cranking away new material. I intend to keep this up for a couple of months, then sit down for an intense few weeks and cram all the assets into the game.

I've been thinking a lot about the build up to the sexy scenes. The demo has always been on an accelerated timescale to make a playable, functioning demo. But I'm also aware that some of the scenes just appear out of nowhere - and I've been thinking about ways of fixing that. I will be doing a phase of work at some stage to address this for the opening third of the game. But probably I'll get the rest of the content hooked in first.

As a last note, the game is now available to

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! Wishlisting really helps spread awareness of the game - so if you're interested, head to the

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and click the button. Thanks!

 

[cisco_donovan]

And like that, another month flows by!

A super quick dev post here just to show life (and believe me, there is PLENTY of life here)

Development continues slowly. I've got a lovely pile of assets building up and I'm slowly integrating them into the game.

I've been thinking about a new intro sequence (a cute scene where we see how Bree and Steele meet - this will almost definitely end up in some version of the game, whether it works for the intro I'm not sure yet!); as well as thinking about a whole new demo. I'm sure I've discussed this before - but it's hard to make new content and then not be able to share it. I need to ensure the premium build of the game has stuff that isn't publicly and freely available. I also want to ensure it has a few surprises. So I can't just keep pushing free stuff into the demo. One solution would be to create a whole new demo - more focused and with a complete story arc - showing brand new content. I am keen on this idea and may adjust priorities for this soon (the content that goes in that demo is currently at the bottom of my todo list).

I've also been looking at re-doing and improving the social media artwork - moving away from the cartoon style and into something like this:

What do you think?

 

[cisco_donovan]

Hi,

Super quick update today.

I am planning to do some kind of large, spoiler free (if that's even possible?) blog update soon and put it out across all the platforms. It makes me really unhappy that all my channels are so quiet right now.

The key point is that things are moving forward. The new scenes are electric. Artists continue to produce great stuff. My time is still very limited,just 1-2 days a week (and that split between Private Dick and a secret project, which I'll reveal soon).

I'd like to put out a paid Early Access release in January 2023 (which really isn't very far away). My biggest hesitation is that I want to be able to update that regularly, not let it sit for months between updates. So I'm only prepared to do that if I can afford to put more days aside for the game. Of course a good EA launch would help with that - but finances aren't the only question in play. So we'll see.

I am trying to push for stronger colours in the general art direction - here's Minty (a character who you sadly don't know yet, although she's teased in social media) enjoying some pizza.

 

[cisco_donovan]

Two devlogs in a month? Unbelievable.

I've posted a public blog to Lewd Pixels with a more detailed update and some details about what's going on. Post includes lewdity.

Read all about it here:

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tl;dr things are still moving forward and I'm hoping for some kind of release at the end of January.

 

[cisco_donovan]

I've been cranking through CGs this month. Minty's and June's are sort of done - it's all in and working, I just need to go through and add some polish.

I've got a lot of content now which is done and just needs tying into the game. New sprites, new backgrounds, new CGs, new social media stuff. I'm not sure how much time I'll get over Christmas but I'd really like to get it all integrated into one timeline so that it can all be played. This would about double the size of the public demo.

Most of it is scripted, most of it is roughed in, it all just needs bringing into line. Perhaps the biggest missing piece

Once I'm there, I can start thinking about the finale - the last couple of CGs which round out the story to Lipstick & Lies. The last one is a still a bit of a mystery - I know who and where (it'll be a full sex scene), I'm just not quite sure how. Oh, and there's Olivia's side story which needs plugging in as well.

It's late here, I'm hungover, it's been a difficult few weeks domestically. So I'm rambling a bit.

Here's some screenshots of stuff I've been working on lately!

 

[cisco_donovan]

Just a couple of things I wanted to share today.

 

[cisco_donovan]

Hot off the press, some new social media stuff from Hygienic Cat



The social media stories are gonna be a slow burner. I'm not actually quite sure WHEN I'm gonna drop the big plot twist. It's gotta be deep enough in the story to have earned it, but if it's too late then most players won't get to one of the game's key ideas. I think it goes 50-60% through the overall story.

Which means I'm not sure if it's even going to make it into the Steam build - it might be a Part 2 thing. The social media will still be enjoyable in its own right.

This is the kind of shit that happens when you chop your game into three parts. Big story arcs stop making sense.

In other news things are moving forward. I was hoping for a productive Christmas break but I fucked that up. Hardly got anything done. In February I am mostly away, as I'm contracting off-site in a different country. So that's gonna be tough.

I'm looking at March for Early Access but I just don't know. So much depends on the next couple of weeks.

I've restarted the soundtrack after losing my way with it last year. It's sounding great - really hoping to post something soon.

And I've finally started writing Olivia's scenes. These have been in my head since the before Kickstarter campaign (last Summer) and only now am I properly scripting it out. It's looking hot. Really excited to share these scenes.

That's all from me - just a ramble. I'll try and post again before I leave in February, otherwise it'll be a long wait between updates!