VN Ren'Py Summer Heat [v0.6.1] [Naughty Fox Games]

[Aristos]

From what I understand, the first three chapters took 2 to 3 months to make and then the 4th chapter was twice their size and took a little over 4 months to make. So it makes sense that if the 5th chapter is twice the size of chapter 4 then it should take 8 months to finish. So I think this time frame does match up if chapter 5 is truly twice the size of chapter four.

There have only been 3 updates after the initial release (0.1). Those first two updates (v.0.2 and 0.3) took 2 months each.
V.0.3 was released on the 10th June 2022. The current latest version, 0.4, was released on the 11th of November. 5 months and 1 day later.

The Patreon still doesn't seem to generate enough money for one of the two devs to quit their day jobs and plus afford buying new rigs and assets and stuff to speed up rendering etc.
So hopefully chapter 5 is as good as it sounds like it can be and they get a really big Patreon boost from it. I think they might need 1000+ patrons for one of them to go full time like they want to do without any problems.

Hey, those were their words, not mine. They assured they were going to be working full-time on the game, and later they clarified that it was only one of them who would leave his job later in 2023.
The quality of this game is something I'd never doubt of.

 

[Spider-Gwen's Hot]

There have only been 3 updates after the initial release (0.1). Those first two updates (v.0.2 and 0.3) took 2 months each.
V.0.3 was released on the 10th June 2022. The current latest version, 0.4, was released on the 11th of November. 5 months and 1 day later.

I just started following before the last update so the first couple are fuzzy for me. Thanks for clarifying them.

This next update is supposed to be twice the size of the last update, version 0.4, so if it took them 5 months to make version 0.4 then this next one, version 0.5 should actually take 10 months to finish if everything else is the same.

We're only at 7 months now. I hope they can get it out in 8.

Hey, those were their words, not mine. They assured they were going to be working full-time on the game, and later they clarified that it was only one of them who would leave his job later in 2023.
The quality of this game is something I'd never doubt of.

I wasn't trying to make it sound like those were your words. Sorry if it seemed like that.

I'm going off what I've heard from the Devs and other player sources the last 8 months or so.

 

[Spider-Gwen's Hot]

The quality of this game is something I'd never doubt of.

Yeah, you're right. Summer Heat is a really great game! I've been reading the Summer Heat Patreon and this thread for around 8 months so even though my account is new I'm not a total newb.

I didn't know these VN games existed until I saw College Kings and Lust Academy on Steam and I bought them. I wanted to find more info about CK & LA which is how I found this forum.

Then one day I clicked on the Big Tits button to see what other big tits games there were and I found Summer Heat. I'm glad I did! It would have been easy to miss it with all the millions of games on here.

 

[drisarter]

Hey, those were their words, not mine. They assured they were going to be working full-time on the game, and later they clarified that it was only one of them who would leave his job later in 2023.
The quality of this game is something I'd never doubt of.

I could be wrong but I always thought what the developers said was that one (or both?) of them would be able to work full time on the game over summer? Not that they were going full-time on the game permanently? I might have misinterpreted or missed more recent communication saying something different, though. I'll try to find the weekly update where I saw that.

Edit: it was a few different updates. See here (and BTW Paynne thank you so much for sharing all these updates):

Over the next few months we have the chance to work full-time on Summer Heat. Our development speed suffered during the summer, and our goal is to speed it up and see where we can improve, both in regards to time management and content. Naturally we'll be starting with a full rework of the early game and... just kidding! There won't be any reworking. Our focus will be on getting new content out there faster so you can play it.

More time for development

In an October status update, we informed you that we'll be able to work on Summer Heat full-time for the next few months. We're happy to announce that this will be continuing and hopefully even become permanent next year.

Finally being able to work on Summer Heat full time will also be a massive help, of course. Our plan is to transition completely to full time during this summer.

First of all - these updates all refer to plans for different periods (eg the first one is from october 2022). The first couple definitely suggest the developers' excitement at being able to work on summer heat full time over a period of time, not that they're working on the game full time permanently / indefinitely. The final one might suggest a plan (or hope?) to be able to work full time full time on the game from this coming summer? But not (IMO) that it will definitely be possible, and I also think there's some ambiguity in the language about what is meant. Aristos I'm very happy to be wrong or to bow to your understanding if you've received other information / more direct confirmation of what exactly is happening.

And FINALLY, want to be clear that I'm not writing any of this with a mind to critiquing the developers. Just trying to figure out what had been said / whether I'd recalled things correctly. FWIW I think the devs have been great at communicating (here and elsewhere), and are pretty clearly working hard on the game. So I'm just excited to play the update when it comes!

 

[Kellermann]

The Patreon still doesn't seem to generate enough money for one of the two devs to quit their day jobs and plus afford buying new rigs and assets and stuff to speed up rendering etc

And this is one more reason I think a game like SH needed to stay with shorter dev cycle. It was much too early in the game life for the devs to be switching from 2-4 months to 8+ months or whatever it ends up being. Longer time between updates means fewer new eyes on your game and thus fewer patreon pledges.

I notice that whenever a poll asking for patreons to choose either shorter dev cycle or longer with more content, they invariably choose long/more content it seems. As others have stated in this thread, I believe a developer needs to maintain a consistent, shorter production interval in the early days (at least until 1 year mark) before extending it into the 8-10 months range that we see so often with established games these days. A new AVN (even one as good as SH) needs to build up a strong fan(atic) base throughout the first year..and word of mouth only goes so far. The best way to do it is to have your game regularly hitting the latest updates section with good quality.

Once you get past 1.0/1.5 year mark, then you should have enough solid support to begin extending the production time and increasing the amount of content per update if you absolutely must.

I wouldn't leave important production decisions like that up to a fan vote. Save the voting for things like character outfits, special renders, and the like.

 

[MagLev]

The Patreon still doesn't seem to generate enough money for one of the two devs to quit their day jobs and plus afford buying new rigs and assets and stuff to speed up rendering etc.

So hopefully chapter 5 is as good as it sounds like it can be and they get a really big Patreon boost from it. I think they might need 1000+ patrons for one of them to go full time like they want to do without any problems.

Yeah, chapter 5 is really important especially as they've stated their intent to go full time this summer (the wording implied both of them, but maybe it's just one). I assume they have a bit of a nest egg built up to last them some time after they drop their current job, but they'll be needing an increase in Patreon revenue to make this sustainable longer term.

I think their aim/hope is for chapter 5 to increase the Patreon numbers enough so that their nest egg + new patreon income is enough to last them until they release chapter 6 (which should have a shorter dev cycle) and hopefully get another push into "break even" territory or better.

On paper that strategy seems like it has a good chance of working out, but it all depends on how good chapter 5 is, and how fast they can pump out the 6th chapter afterwards (without making it an anemic release).

 

[NeroZee]

I'd much rather they make three 600 render updates we get every 2 months then one 1800 render update we get once every 6 months. I don't mind it stopping abruptly at the end of the 1st two updates.

They could call each update Chapter 6 1/3 & Chapter 6 2/3 & Chapter 6 3/3.

That works great for me & people who want to wait until they are all out to start them can do that.

Yea I agree, what they need to realize is they are NEVER gonna please everyone, someone will always complain about something and when you try to chase that dream of pleasing everyone you end up pleasing no one.

I am someone who is very much opposed to 6+ months updates, a shit ton happens in 6 months that can not only additionally delay the updates, it also makes the player feel more and more apathy for the game as the time goes. There are legit some games even big ones on this site that i used to LOVE that i completely fell out of because of this reason(looking at you Halfway House). It's a good thing i LOVE this game so much i replayed it several times since the last update, but that's not always gonna be the case. For me if an update takes longer than 3-4 months something is wrong and if you take making a game as seriously as you would a real job you can actually cram in quite a lot in those 3-4 months.

This obviously isn't the end of the world here, its the first time it's happened to the devs and for a justifiable reason at least, not just someone being lazy or scamming people or something else, if the update is twice as big as chapter 4 that's ok, but that shouldn't also become a trend.

Now i am gonna bring something up that i wonder if other people would agree with me. Huge updates aren't really as good as some people make them out to be, not only for the obvious time they take to develop but also and lets not beat around the bush here, these games are fap material, we play them for the same reason we watch porn. This is why i am not that big of a fan of Being a DIK, when you release an update that has 10+ sex scenes, what do you expect me to do with that? 99% of us play the update in one sitting, i ain't about to rub one out 10 times in 45-90 minutes... i can't even if i wanted to lol. Now you may argue well you can always replay it at a later time, yea but lets be real the "magic" is gone, the best a scene is at always is when you play it the first time, we quickly get bored of something and want something new otherwise we wouldn't crave for new updates so much every time. Imagine a potential future scenario where the devs take like 10 months and release 5 sex scenes with Sophie, Bree, Eve, Ms Hill, Cassie.... all the girls i really like... I'd die... Literally I would have to die to play through that entire episode the way i wanted to. This would literally be me throughout that entire update

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Btw i don't think the next update is gonna be like this, given that we are still in the early stages of knowing the girls and most of them aren't sluts or just casually approaching sex like Cassie for instance, even with how big the episode was we wont be getting much more than like a handjob and a blowjob from 1 or 2 of them and that's about it, instead most of it will be sexy moments that we had like the photoshoot with Bree or something like that. Anyway just wanted to add one more perspective that i dont see being talked about and that's just how "frustrating" sometimes big updates can feel not just because of how long they take, but because you get 7 sex scenes, you enjoy yourself on the 3rd one only to play 15 more minutes and realize the 6th one is your favorite, but at that point you feel like this meme

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[Ragnar]

And this is one more reason I think a game like SH needed to stay with shorter dev cycle. It was much too early in the game life for the devs to be switching from 2-4 months to 8+ months or whatever it ends up being. Longer time between updates means fewer new eyes on your game and thus fewer patreon pledges.

I notice that whenever a poll asking for patreons to choose either shorter dev cycle or longer with more content, they invariably choose long/more content it seems. As others have stated in this thread, I believe a developer needs to maintain a consistent, shorter production interval in the early days (at least until 1 year mark) before extending it into the 8-10 months range that we see so often with established games these days. A new AVN (even one as good as SH) needs to build up a strong fan(atic) base throughout the first year..and word of mouth only goes so far. The best way to do it is to have your game regularly hitting the latest updates section with good quality.

Once you get past 1.0/1.5 year mark, then you should have enough solid support to begin extending the production time and increasing the amount of content per update if you absolutely must.

I wouldn't leave important production decisions like that up to a fan vote. Save the voting for things like character outfits, special renders, and the like.

Nah, it's a matter of numbers. They hide their patreon revenue but they have 578 patrons and their lowest tier is 3$. That would be 1734$ every month if everyone were a low tier patron. You don't have early access to the game with a 3$ tier, you have to be a 6$ tier at least to get game updates earlier.
Some games have been in development for years and they barely make half of that. If you don't make much you need monthly updates to attract patrons but you can surpass your desired treshold faster and take your time with the updates because you already have a paying player base.

 

[Abhai]

As it has been mentioned few times around here - with the next update and the one after that, we shall see if the devs are serious and could completed game be expected at some point, or this will become just another promising aboned project.
There are quite a few of those, some being abandoned already, some waiting in the line and usually refusing to acknowledge their fate.
At the end, it isnt an actual end (translated - finished game) that matters, it is the journey towards it (translated - regardlles if that stage is reached, ever)

 

[Don Flamingo]

Other news
This months's special render poll has ended and the winner is Mia.

Cheers,
Robison & Npx

I'm happy Mia has won latest special render.

She has not won as much as most other girls and I'd love to see more of beautiful Mia!

You had me at BREAST TEXTURES

Hey KHN, I'm pretty sure working on breast textures means devs are getting real close to finish line and of course more topless girls/nude breasts for us to play with! I can see devs now, working arduously night after night to bring us as many of the most perfect bare boobs as possible!

 

[KissHerNipples]

A year of "hand celibacy" to cum in the blink of an eye because of Eve in a swimsuit

Celibacy or not, Eve in a swimsuit is no joke. Just look at her with her clothes on...












I think the Devs are going to release a preview render with Eve soon. I would love to see Eve in a bikini but I don't think the Devs will have her in a swimsuit yet.

I'm happy Mia has won latest special render.

She has not won as much as most other girls and I'd love to see more of beautiful Mia!

I can't wait to see Mia's new special render. I wonder if it will come out before Eve's new preview render?

Hey KHN, I'm pretty sure working on breast textures means devs are getting real close to finish line and of course more topless girls/nude breasts for us to play with! I can see devs now, working arduously night after night to bring us as many of the most perfect bare boobs as possible!

W00t! More Naked Boobies!

 

[bigpenniser]

Any ETA on the update?

 

[Spider-Gwen's Hot]

I could be wrong but I always thought what the developers said was that one (or both?) of them would be able to work full time on the game over summer? Not that they were going full-time on the game permanently?

I think you're right. It sounds like the Devs have a few weeks or months here and there where they may get a chance to work on SH on a more full time esk schedule but it doesn't last long before their day job/school gets in the way again.

And this is one more reason I think a game like SH needed to stay with shorter dev cycle. It was much too early in the game life for the devs to be switching from 2-4 months to 8+ months or whatever it ends up being. Longer time between updates means fewer new eyes on your game and thus fewer patreon pledges.

I notice that whenever a poll asking for patreons to choose either shorter dev cycle or longer with more content, they invariably choose long/more content it seems. As others have stated in this thread, I believe a developer needs to maintain a consistent, shorter production interval in the early days (at least until 1 year mark) before extending it into the 8-10 months range that we see so often with established games these days. A new AVN (even one as good as SH) needs to build up a strong fan(atic) base throughout the first year..and word of mouth only goes so far. The best way to do it is to have your game regularly hitting the latest updates section with good quality.

Once you get past 1.0/1.5 year mark, then you should have enough solid support to begin extending the production time and increasing the amount of content per update if you absolutely must.

I wouldn't leave important production decisions like that up to a fan vote. Save the voting for things like character outfits, special renders, and the like.

You're totally right. I don't think new devs should start taking 6+ month update times for the first two years. No new updates causing the lack of new eyes on your game is huge but after 6 months of nothing you start getting a bunch of randos coming in the thread telling everyone the game's been abandoned and that really confuses the few new people you actually get in your game's thread.

Every update can give a huge boost to the number of new players and patreons to the game.

Any ETA on the update?

No ETA ATM but we're hoping it could be out sometime in July or September at the latest.

I'm happy Mia has won latest special render.

She has not won as much as most other girls and I'd love to see more of beautiful Mia!



Hey KHN, I'm pretty sure working on breast textures means devs are getting real close to finish line and of course more topless girls/nude breasts for us to play with! I can see devs now, working arduously night after night to bring us as many of the most perfect bare boobs as possible!

Did you have a bit too much to drink last night, Don?

What did ya have? Beer, vodka, boobs?

Celibacy or not, Eve in a swimsuit is no joke. Just look at her with her clothes on...

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I think the Devs are going to release a preview render with Eve soon. I would love to see Eve in a bikini but I don't think the Devs will have her in a swimsuit yet.






I can't wait to see Mia's new special render. I wonder if it will come out before Eve's new preview render?





W00t! More Naked Boobies!

Wow! Eve's butt! Wow!

 

[bigpenniser]

I think you're right. It sounds like the Devs have a few weeks or months here and there where they may get a chance to work on SH on a more full time esk schedule but it doesn't last long before their day job/school gets in the way again.



You're totally right. I don't think new devs should start taking 6+ month update times for the first two years. No new updates causing the lack of new eyes on your game is huge but after 6 months of nothing you start getting a bunch of randos coming in the thread telling everyone the game's been abandoned and that really confuses the few new people you actually get in your game's thread.

Every update can give a huge boost to the number of new players and patreons to the game.




No ETA ATM but we're hoping it could be out sometime in July or September at the latest.



Did you have a bit too much to drink last night, Don?

What did ya have? Beer, vodka, boobs?




Wow! Eve's butt! Wow!

Thanks, lets hope its at least corresponds with the time its taking

 

[Spider-Gwen's Hot]

(although Bree = happiness = no reason to leave?)

Bree = Happiness
Sophie = Sweetness
Miss Hill = Motherlyness
Miller = Hungriness
Cassandra = Sluttiness
Helen = Craziness
Mike = Funniness
Lainey = Sneakiness
Jogger = Bitchiness
Nina = Sultriness
Wendigos = Scariness
Train Lady = Chubbiness
Sex Toy = Dreaminess
Jenni = Friendliness
Becca = Hotness
Lynnx = Bustiness
Eve = Sexiness
MC = Cluelessness
Mia = You Better Pick Mia or Elseness!! XOXO <3

 

[Brainfurt]

Bree = Happiness
Sophie = Sweetness
Miss Hill = Motherlyness
Miller = Hungriness
Cassandra = Sluttiness
Helen = Craziness
Mike = Funniness
Lainey = Sneakiness
Jogger = Bitchiness
Nina = Sultriness
Wendigos = Scariness
Train Lady = Chubbiness
Sex Toy = Dreaminess
Jenni = Friendliness
Becca = Hotness
Lynnx = Bustiness
Eve = Sexiness
MC = Cluelessness
Mia = You Better Pick Mia or Elseness!! XOXO <3

Bree = Happiness; Sweetness; Motherlyness (post-breeding); Hungriness (post-breeding); Funniness; Sultriness (see monkey bars scene); Scariness (post-breeding/wife); Dreaminess; Friendliness; Hotness; Bustiness (post-breeding? A man can dream); Sexiness; etc. -ness!

 

[Joshy92]

The other girls are nice but when compared to Eve?
Well it's not even a fair contest

 

[Spider-Gwen's Hot]

The other girls are nice but when compared to Eve?
Well it's not even a fair contest

Ah, Dark Vampire Princess Eve. You're a man of good taste.

Her night raven hair, her cool porcelain skin, her deep crystal blue eyes, her big, soft, squishy, jiggly, incredibley tastie, luscious, pink tipped BOOBS!

*Cough cough*

Yes, Dark Princess Eve has many, many followers. Or at least she would have if they didn't keep disappearing...

 

[Chicha]

Looks like I get to do the honours this week... Sorry, Paynne .

---------

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CH05 Status Update #31

Hello, everyone!
This week we've been working on coding, minor sets, scripting, assets and breast textures. Much of this week's work was spent on the technical side, or "under the hood", so to speak. Many renders also finished this week as the scenes were simpler and lighter, and thus faster to render. The remaining scenes are also light, and as far as the rendering department is concerned, it should be smooth sailing.
Ms. Hill's scene is now under work. After that, there are still scenes with Eve, Bree and Mia. We've worked on these scenes a bit before, but there's still some work remaining before they'll be considered complete.
We'd also like to address some topics that have been cropping up over the last couple of weeks.

Ember
We noticed a small concern regarding Ember—specifically, concerns that it may take away from the normal game development. This is not a cause to worry. The content on Ember is very straightforward and relies mostly on scripting and coding, which is not done by the rendering department.
Renders are what takes time to create, so Ember content is relatively quick because it is mostly text. That was the goal of the app from the beginning: fun and easy extra content to go along with the main game.

Development time of CH05
It's been an eternity since the last update, does this mean Summer Heat is dead?
The answer is a firm no. We've mentioned in previous status updates that CH05 is a bigger update. It's double the renders and content of CH04, and bigger than the first three chapters of Summer Heat combined. This isn't a pattern we intend to keep doing, but something we wanted to do for this update specifically.
In an alternate universe, there could've been three 600-render updates since the release of CH04. Frequent updates like the first three chapters may sound great on paper, but many players weren't happy with the short playtimes. We will continue searching for that perfect wait-to-playtime ratio, and there's clearly a lot to improve on.
In conclusion: the development time for this update has been longer, but there is also a significantly larger amount of content to go with it. We hope you'll let us know how you feel about it after it's all said and done, we always appreciate your feedback. Until then, please leave the worrying to us!

Other news
This months's special render poll has ended and the winner is Mia.

Cheers,
Robison & Npx

They still don’t mention when it’ll be released though.

 

[interested_guy]

is it normal ... more than 7 months for the update ???