for those curious this came across my patreon feed, didnt even realize i still followed the dev....
TL;DR
I fucked up real bad. I deeply apologize for my mistakes. I have been working on remaking the game, and I have made some progress. Please look for the next post.
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Full Version :
To whom who may find this post, dear supporters, and people who are concerned with my well-being. I wanted to reach out and apologize for my long disappearance over the past few years, I want to take full responsibility for all the hurt and disappointment that I may have caused. Starting by and not least, spewing out the remains of all the haunting thoughts that I did not have the courage back then, to let out.
The main reasons that led to me to succumb to silence over informing everyone about the state of development was the gravity of the decisions that I was wrestling with, was the many 'hows' to get to the finish line with no clear line of sight, and the other, to start over from scratch. I chose the latter. For people who said the game is dead, they are not wrong.
For the main reasons behind the heart-wrenching decision.
Reason #1 (by far the most destructive and un-scalable)
Unique bone structure and rig for every different races. multiply that with gender, then multiply that with the total amount of animations and interactions in game and you end up with impossible amount of workloads. A truly disastrous technical oversight.
Reason #2 Beginnings without a plan.
We did not know what we were capable (in a poor way) of, nor knowing where we should go and more importantly how it should end. With no scope in sight, we simply tried out too many things and wasted many resources to make, for example (real), an overly large open-world style map without adventures or objectives that correlates to any economics in-game (which were none present), an apartment without customization, inventory system, barter, stats that barely matter at all, skill tree that was not progressive at all, the lists go on. probably the only thing I was content about was the dirty-talk system, otherwise everything were so poorly connected to each other.
Reason #3 Did not play to our strength.
Coming into the game development field from a computer graphical background, our specialization background mostly came from a field providing production values making 3d assets like 3d models, textures and animation assets to game development. Programming was my newfound toy, shades of elysium should have been a far simpler game, I was promising more than what I could chew.
I had to abandon my first creation, from its rubbles I tried to gather as many as mistakes that I could learn from. As an inexperienced individual as I was, I set out with ambitions without boundaries, eager to explore many ideas that came my way while also aimed to be as inclusive as possible, I was a rookie who probably made his first footprint and believed the journey was going be easy. I couldn't be more wrong.
Since the start of 2021 I have been working on a reboot, alone, stopping occasionally when I have to do some freelances to make ends meet, I was eye-ing for a completion and a redemption. First things I overhauled was the character rigs, I have modularized them to body parts and using the same skeletal structure for all different species to come, and automate bits like facial expressions so I only have to animate things once, automate dynamic bits like auto v*****l/a**l entrance that wrap perfectly around a male's junk or any objects to skip those resourceful intensive animation times. I also took a short c++ course in 2022 to better understanding the basics when I would be re-entering the game development part of the game anew thereafter with all the ideas boxed in. Looking back now those times felt like an eternity of new low.
But the time has come for me to finally push myself over an update about the progress, I was way past my internal deadline anyways. I will be posting a download link to my project prototype in a separate public post, everyone can try it out. Maybe it's not what you ask for, nor it is what I felt ready to be seen, I only hope some of you may find some fun in the little prototype that I have been cooking behind the scene. Pardon me the visual fidelity of the character creators for the time being as I am more focused with gameplay and functionality of things before returning to work on pretty characters.
Alas, big big gratitude for the people who still believe in me, especially those who never waivered their supports, all these years, you guys kept me here at every crossroads, I only hope I could return the endeavors within my lifetime and not after.
To all my discord dwellers, know that I truly appreciate all the kind words or angry criticism written, and that I have read every single one of them, It was really painful to not writing back.
I know I have a lot to make up for. I'm sorry and thank you guys for everything.