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Hello, everyone!
Quick warning: this post may be longer than 0.6. It also contains spoilers.
It's time for some post-update thoughts and we'd like to preface this post by saying that yes, it seems like we fucked up with 0.6 in several ways. The biggest issue is the size of the update, and specifically how short the playtime ended up being. Coming from the light indoor sets of 0.5 to the heavy outdoor sets of 0.6, the render counts are also vastly different.
This update was very
Mia heavy to begin with and the content is divided even further by branching on top of that. Don't like
Bree,
Sophie or
Mia? Well, now you're going to play through 0.6 as fast as someone holding down the skip button just to get to the sex scenes. Which brings us to the next topic...
The sex content—or lack thereof. The previous two updates both had full sex scenes, and 0.6 now sticks out like a sore thumb with its milder scenes. Understandably, the intimate scene with
Mia in the morning also felt quite repetitive after 0.5 ended with another
Mia scene. It almost feels like a moment from a game called Game Dev Tycoon... there, the game chastises you for releasing two similar games (or in this case, sex scenes) too close together. And we'd have to agree, it doesn't seem to go over very well.
That's on us. The day content wasn't planned to have much lewd or sexual content. The scenes in 0.6 weren't meant to escalate into something sexual, but rather to offer more depth to the characters and their backstories. But many people were expecting something more.
Your expectations regarding updates is something we wanted to learn through this update's feedback survey. We're quite shocked to say, but in the first 48 hours of the survey being up, we received over 500 survey responses. That's more responses than we had for the entire duration of the 0.5 feedback survey—and it's still growing.
That's a lot of responses. Thank you.
One thing we learned from this survey is that the audience is very split when it comes to expectations regarding content. We won't change our vision for the game but we will work on the pacing to get to the scenes that matter faster, and find that balance that works for most.
We'll go over a couple of the most common topics covered in your survey responses, but first we'd like to list some of the changes we're planning to implement in 0.7.
Planned changes
- Tighten the render count in less important scenes; focus on scenes that matter.
- Move time along. We've been quite fond of "stopping to smell the roses" while little time passes in-game, but we've also started skipping more. Going forward, we will also be passing more time off screen.
- Animations will be going back to 30fps.
- Give the main character a new haircut. We were already planning on doing this. Although it may be hard to tell, his current hair has both a wet and a dry version so he hasn't been walking around with wet hair, just messy.
- Give proper endings to the updates and don't end as abruptly as 0.6.
- Give better overviews of the updates to set proper expectations.
- If something goes wrong during development, talk about it. More transparency.
- Less polishing.
Now let's move on to a couple of the frequently mentioned topics...
Abandoning Summer Heat
There was a lot of concern in the survey that Summer Heat might be abandoned, especially following the critique of 0.6 and how it might affect our motivation to keep developing. We won't lie to you, it does hurt. It's never fun to let people down, as a creator or otherwise.
But we're far more concerned with how
you feel about the game and its updates. That's why we'd like to offer refunds to anyone who was disappointed by the update. Just shoot us a DM here on Patreon. We don't want you to feel disappointed and this is the best we can do in the short term.
Summer Heat will not be abandoned. And if there was ever a sign of it, we'd let you know.
The toaster
The attention the toaster has been receiving in the surveys is surprising. Two frames of doom. We didn't count it as an animation or even think much of it since it was just a little test, but it certainly left an impression on many. Good and bad. But the toaster has taught us a lot, and with these findings we fully intend to utilize this transition with characters to see what else we can do.
Status updates
How much do you want to know about upcoming updates? Do you want to know which girls the scenes are with, what the scenes are about, and how much playtime you can expect? How much info is too much info?
We are adjusting our approach to status updates in 0.7 and our focus will be on transparency. We'll be reporting render numbers and relevant information that can be easier to track than a simple overall percentage.
And to start off the status updates for 0.7, here's this week's rundown.
What we did this week:
- Bugfixing
- Plotting 0.7
- Scripting 0.7
- Bree outfit poll options
- Modernized scene creation rig
- Analyzing your feedback
Other news
The special render for August will feature
Eve and be posted this weekend. After the reception of 0.6 we are considering pausing the monthly specials for a while to put that time into making content for 0.7 instead.
Thank you for playing 0.6.
Cheers and have a great weekend,
Robison & Npx
