Hi, Night Mirror. I'm one of your first supporters. I haven't been able to access this site for a long time due to a computer malfunction and my college exams.
Glad to see you back again! Your roommate popped in a while back to say you were having account troubles, so good that you got it sorted out. (and I certainly do remember you, you have scene credits in the game (under information > credits))
When I logged in, the first thing I did was download a new version of your game. And I have to say, you've done a great job.
Happy to hear that you enjoyed the update, I worked my butt off to get it turned around and flesh it out some (and ended up adding WAY more scenes than planned). I've reviewed it a couple times since to see if I might have added anything else/done something different and I'm mostly happy with the way it went (minus the number of bugs that still managed to slip past!).
After playing the game, I wanted to look at this thread, and I got angry when I saw that another dev called you lazy. I know it's over and it's been a while.
Yeah, have to say it didn't feel super great reading those posts. I do try to listen to all criticism I get (because it's very hard to tell if something I think is fine actually works for other people), and often players do have great suggestions to make the game better (like the scene requests you gave me). Of course, at the end of the day I have to make the game I want to play, so there are just some things I'm not gonna change, and I try to be as honest as I can when I don't think something will work.
I don't want to spend a lot of words going over it again, so I'll be brief. Being called "lazy" was/is pretty frustrating, when I've put more than 2000 hours into a passion project. But, I think the intent (if not the words) was "spend more time making things look pretty" like a custom UI or a better fitting story or different gameplay, rather than the insult they came across as.
I've already talked extensively about some of the unevenness of the story, so it is something I'm aware of (although, again, I don't agree with this posters particular examples). But I haven't really talked about the UI much. Again, I'll try and be as brief as I can (failed) but, I really like the base renpy UI. I like it's simplicity and ease of use. I like it's color (readability) and layout. And I sort of hate when games build elaborate custom main menus where I can't find the fucking buttons, or they move menu to menu. So the UI design is preference, I like the way it looks. And again, not everyone will, but I didn't make the game for everyone, I made it for me.
(also, also, it's the internet, I just sort expect people to hate on me by default and I'm more surprised when people like my stuff)
But I still want to tell you that you are not lazy and that you are a good dev who does his best to make the players happy. I mean, you didn't have to do everything you've done so far, but you did. That's mean you're too far from being lazy. And we, as players, have loved and continue to love what you have done from the very beginning. I mean, no dev has ever added extra scenes and dialogues to the game for me before. And this makes sense to me.
Thanks! That really means a lot of me (seriously, it does). It's always good to hear that people are enjoying the work I do. The support from this thread has been pretty awesome for the most part and certainly drives me to keep doing more.
Just know that you're my favorite dev.
Aww, now you're makin me blush!
Btw, I hope it's not ridiculous and weird that I'm writing this things. Because I'm a little drunk right now.
Nah, you're fine. Post like these are my favorite!
