VN Ren'Py Abandoned Summer's Gone [S1 Steam + DLC] [Oceanlab]

[Manuya]

I sympathize but I beg to disagree

excellent read, and i can also sympathize with your way of thinking which you share in common with some level headed individuals i read before.
but just because of the perfectionism aspect doesn't mean all people should accept projects with no feasible end or realistic goals in their life times in sight for them, and when he had patreon to me it constituted a level of unjustifiable milking no matter how you see it imho. it's a double edge sword but we have so many other shining examples from this industry to know both can be done, be artistic and deliver at a reasonable pace

when i said work hard i'm not doubting his work ethics because i'm not there with him but come on let's be realistic here, it's been almost two years, give the people something to talk about anything, a small emblem of hope to know you're still around for people unlike your respectful self but normies like myself on steam
happy holidays to you.

 

[Beloria2766]

Hello,

I hope you all had some pleasant Holidays, and a good time in general!

I didn’t do any real work during the holidays, now that I don’t live in Berlin anymore, I’m a lot more (forced) involved in the whole Holiday prep.

#SG
I didn’t manage to finish the entire cinematic before Christmas, I assume it’s the environmental asset, but the test renders take about two hours (for 120 frames).

When you see the cinematic, you might also be able to guess why I needed a few more test-renders than usual to dial things in.

Oh, before I forget for the fifth time: I switched Sasha and Bella back to Gensis 8. I made a post a while back where I talked about porting the characters to G8.1.

And it has been a success for most, but I don’t like G8.1 Bella and Sasha. Something around the eyes looks different when I dial in the expressions… I thought I’d get used to it but no. I went with my gut and reverted the two to G8.

#WIAB
Development will start on January 14th. Slow at first, because I must get through the Steam/GOG release. More info in the next log.

The way forward
After Patreon unrightfully nuked both accounts, my plan was to bring at least SG back, which as I mentioned in a previous log, I wasn’t allowed to.

This was my plan to stabilize everything; however, it didn’t work out, and now I have to look for alternatives.

Starting 2026, you can earn 603€ a month tax free through mini-jobs in Germany, and that would cover my electricity bill.

In 2027, my leasing contract for the single A6000 ADA runs out. That alone is about 380€ a month.

I’ll get a mini-job in January and help support the games through that. It perfectly covers my electricity bill plus a few high protein snackies.

It’s about 40 hours per month, I will, of course, still work full-time on the games. Afterall, I only do the mini-job for the games. To bridge 2026 and the first leasing contract.

I know I have a steam release around the corner, which on paper can change everything, but after the last two years, I don’t feel like being optimistic about this side of the coin.

If after 2024s WiAB nuke I lost the feeling of security, you can imagine how it is now... and after a while it wrecks you.

I think this mini-job can stabilize more than just the finances. Get my head out of the office for once.

On the other side of the coin, I ported Zara to Blender and will soon do some stuff with her. I have something planned… But I want to finish the cinematic first, as it will require me to render a few Blender animations.

The cinematic I’m currently rendering for SG has something in it that makes me smile every time I see it… I’ll talk about it after the update.

It’s a small detail, but it makes my day.

• Ocean

Seriously man stop wasting time on WIAB give ur full time to SG u will earn enough money and mostly respect or u can release the SG first and then u can do whatever u want 90% of ur supporters are SG fans !

 

[Supreme Breeder]

Short Summary of all dev logs in 2025 and future dev logs is basically
How the entire world is fucking with the game's development one way or the other.

Just to think if this steam release doesn't really work the way Ocean wants he for sure will end up going to a therapist.

 

[EvilDave86]

i vowed a long time ago to never comment or visit this page ever again after i saw the writings on the wall and the state of this thread and how it's mostly was filled ( i don't know if it's still is) with yes men that make any constructive criticism talk futile,
but after just finding out about what happened to his patreon page since i stopped following his projects a long time ago (since before the release of WIAB chapter 3 from the long wait) and the straw that broke the camel back of me getting on steam "You have been permanently banned from the Summer's Gone - Season 1 Hub, You were banned by a Summer's Gone - Season 1 developer"
because of my negative review on summer's gone and one innocent sarcastic comment about the long development process

so i didn't came here today to rub any salt on any wounds, or to gloat but to offer words from the heart:

it's criminal what this dev has done to himself in my opinion, he took what he had for granted, but now that reality hit and talk of himself losing 70% of his revenue why not stop wallowing in self pity and put your head down and get back to work like he never did before when he had it all

i mean he semi killed his projects on steam from the lack of communications and a clear road-map, fuck patreon and fuck subscribstar, i'm sure it's nice for devs to have that security blanket but what's done is done
he has access to the largest and best gaming platform on the planet, why not take advantage and build from there, Oppaiman made triple A studio type of money with the release of part two of his project, and for the longest time DIK is one of the most if not the most successful adult novel on the platform and it's money well that never goes dry

from viewing only the first two remake chapters from WIAB this guy's work was better than both in terms of renders quality (i'm not talking about anything else) if he had the same work ethics as these two even though before oppaiman put his head down instead of trying to shove his "store" down our throats on steam and left steam communication to a more hands on lead dev on FW for a time i considered him a milker like this one, but last year he learned his lesson from the backlash he was getting on steam from me and others and deservedly though but after working on that aspect throughout last year on steam look at the heights he reached!
why does this dev don't do the same is baffling to me!!!!!!!

i hope he finally see his shortcomings and put his head down and focus on the work grind and on steam and releasing something, anything and everything else will follow, his subscribstar page will see a decent bump from building a stronger relationship with his customers on steam and will later reap the benefits

until he does that i don't think his fortune will change, look at the best example from this whole damn industry Moonbox
with a run of the mill nothing special harem game, just because of his work ethics and the fastest in the history at releasing updates albeit not like the mentioned above and their qualities/sound, but you get the gist

that's it for me, back to a life away from this dev and anything related to him.
best regards.

This is probably one of the most direct answers to what is a huge problem, development cycles that take a long time will crush a game no matter it's quality as anybody who feels snubbed just will not come back. Life of a VN creator you are either uploading content or fading into obscurity we are already in a very niche category of content, but with all the stuff barreling down and cracking down on any kind of porn content something has to be delivered before it all gets shut down which ffs who the hell knows what the internet overlords are planning next....taking to long just ain't it with the demographics. No offense to Ocean love his work don't twist what I'm saying but long dev cycles are not good.