TK 8000 posted
A long post while waiting for the Solvalley upload
Hello!
I'm uploading the new version of Solvalley and this will take a while. I'll take the time to write something here for anyone who is interested.
Plans for Solvalley
Although Solvalley is my favorite game and I love working on it, I recognize that the game is too big. I'm not sure, but I believe that if someone tries to play the game by reading all the texts and seeing all the animations, it will probably take more than 15 hours to finish it.
That's why the next updates will focus on finish all the storylines still open. In version 0.14, I arrived at the end of Sarah's storyline and in future versions I'm just going to add two more options to her sex scene and probably do her ending scene.
In the next version I want to finish the story of Ruzena and Shibuya.
Although I want to finish Sovalley soon, I still need to make some improvements in some old scenes. The old animations look like shit and I'm going to redo a lot of them. Many events still have images made in the old version of Honey Select and they are too ugly. But I will give preference to new content before improving these aspects.
Another detail is that in future versions there will be more events where different girls interact.
Why am I taking too long to make updates?
I think my older patrons have realized that I'm taking longer to do the updates today than I did before. There are some reasons for this. First, I wanted to make it clear that I was not infected by Patreon's disease. This curious illness makes the frequency of updatess to be inversely proportional to the amount of money the author receives. It's a real mystery!
It took me a long time to understand why I was able to do more content before, even though I now have more time to work. Well, I think this old image explains one of the reasons:
Seriously, look at this shit! This was a render used in early versions of Solvalley.
Let's look at the image above:
1. the image is all grainy and looks like shit
2. Alex is sitting in the air
3. Anna is cross-eyed and her appearance is atrocious
4. Laura's arm is going through her purse
5. Laura's right hand rests in the air
6. Alex's right hand is bent in a bizarre way
7. there's a fucking Honey Select UI element in the bottom right corner!
When I started doing Solvalley there were not many games made with Honey Select art. If I'm not mistaken, there was only "Research into Corruption" and "Max 'Life", so most people didn't know Honey Select and so they had a much higher tolerance. Today there are hundreds of games made with Honey Select and some have incredible quality! It's no longer possible to create a game without a minimum of quality concern.
The above image demonstrates that I didn't care much about quality in the early versions. That's why I could do dozens of images quickly. In the old days I could make an entire scene in just 1 day, including: idea, images, animations and text. Today it takes at least 3 days (2 days for shorter scenes).
I still think quantity is more important than quality. I personally prefer a slightly ugly game, but with a lot of different characters and situations, than a pretty but ten-minute game. But there is a limit to ugliness!
The quality of Solvalley images today is much higher than it used to be, but I still try to do things in the simplest way possible. The image above is a good example, I didn't spend time with background and lighting, but the result is totally acceptable.
Plans for House Arrest
I intended to get some rest before continuing to work, especially because one sad thing happened to one of my cousins. However, I have already done everything I needed in this matter and life goes on. That's why I'm going to continue working on House Arrest today.
The latest version of House Arrest will be short, with only three scenes. I already did 100% of Alanna's ending. The other two scenes are already with almost all images and animations done, so all I have to do is write the text. The final HA update will be available here at Patreon soon.
Alanna washing a dish...
Plans for HS Tutor
I created a poll recently asking what patrons preferred: focus on Zoe and Mila or a more balanced update. The result was practically a draw, so I'll try to give Zoe and Mila some focus, but also to advance a bit in the storyline of other girls.
Recently a new tool based on Koikatu (game that I used to create the characters and scenes of the HS Tutor) was released. This tool has a very interesting feature, which is a powerful animation editor. As soon as I finish the House Arrest update, and before returning fully to HS Tutor, I'll see if it will be possible to use this tool to create more interesting animations for the future interactions of the protagonist with Zoe, Mila and friends.
Note: HS Tutor was a temporary name for the game, but I probably will not change it anymore.
Well, uploading the new Solvalley will still take about 1 hour. When it's ready, I'll make the downloads available in a new topic.