- Aug 29, 2018
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Based on these comments, I think you might have a misunderstanding of how game development works.
Some games only take a a few months to make, like Rack 1 and my other finished games. But bigger and more complicated games take longer to make. Even professional studios with hundreds of employees sometimes take several years to make a game, and I'm working alone (which I'll discuss in a moment).
Rack 2 isn't in beta testing after 3 years of development because 3 years of development hasn't been enough time to get the game presentable enough for a beta testing stage. It's as simple as that. This project is bigger than my previous games, so it's going to take longer to finish than they did.
I know that the past five months, especially, have been very frustrating for people. I took a couple months to refresh my head by working on a side project (which, for the record, was another furry porn game [Pawstitution], because that's what my patrons pay me to do).
Then, after that side project, I came back and jumped straight into a massive, slow update (performance optimization overhaul) instead of pumping out something quick (like a few more placeholder interactions/toys), because there had been a lot of complaints that builds were becoming too sluggish and unstable, and I really wanted to get the game presentable enough that I can start releasing free/public builds.
In retrospect, I'm not sure if either of those things were the correct decision, but that's life, and that decision is almost in the past. Lesson learned. And I can say with absolute certainty that, in spite of the frustration it's caused for some of my supporters (which, in turn, frustrates me), the side project was tremendously helpful for clearing my head, and the performance optimization has been tremendously helpful for smoothing out the remainder of the game's development cycle.
So here's the thing.
You've already found my answer(s) to this: I prefer working alone, I don't think adding more programmers will actually make development go faster (it usually doesn't), and I don't want to risk adding drama/politics to the game's development (look at Breeding Season and Cathouse Tale, both of which were promising projects that eventually sank because of politics/drama). I might look into hiring an artist, at some point (as I've said elsewhere, but not here on F95), but I'm not going to do that until I reach the content development phase of this project.
This is all stuff that I have known from the start, and have made public from the start. From the very first day I set up a patreon account, I told people that no matter how much money they gave me, I would not be hiring anyone to help me on Rack 2. But people kept giving me money, anyway. That's really cool, and I appreciate it more than I could possibly express, but I'm also not going to change the way that I work because of it. I've made it this far by sticking to the plan, so I'm gonna stick to the plan.
I can promise that it's not a matter of not wanting to pay someone, and I can back up that promise with a fact: I'm already paying a programmer. I have been paying Draite, the programmer for Sexy Mad Science, for almost a year now - to work on his own games. Because I do think that all this extra money should be put to good use (in addition to a lot of charities), and that it should be used to fund more furry porn games that I think my supporters would enjoy. I just know that paying him (or any other programmer) to help me on Rack 2 is not going to actually make Rack 2 happen any faster, and I don't want to introduce potential drama where there doesn't need to be any.
If the implication is that I'm lying about the work that I'm doing, I'd encourage you to swing by Picarto some time! You can literally watch video evidence of me working on the stuff you see on the Trello board. It even saves recordings from the past couple of weeks.
I don't always stream when I work (for instance, I spent almost the entire day working offline yesterday), but when I do, you'll be able to see that I'm not just making stuff up for Trello. If you're feeling particularly studious/skeptical, you could actually compare the patch notes for the game to the Trello activity log and see that they line up almost 1:1.
But anyway, I don't blame you. I know that the furry community is filled with lies and broken promises, which is a really big part of why I got into it in the first place. I don't blame you for being skeptical, and I appreciate that you're remaining civil. <3
I think you'll be happy to know that the next update is very close to finished - probably a few days away. I'm working on the last project card for this update (
You must be registered to see the links
), and it's about 3/4 done. After this update launches, the next one will be focused on new content, which means it should come out at a normal pace.But anyway, sorry for the wall of text.
On a closing note, I really want to reiterate something: if you (or anyone else) is not happy with how the game is being developed, I encourage you to cancel your pledge and save your money. The game is going to be free when it's done, and you can always pirate the development builds. I'm making plenty more than I need. I'd rather my players were happy than have more money I don't need.
