- Jan 18, 2022
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Hopefully Oceans descendants continue his work, else I see some flaws in that plan.
- Thread starter 7767
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God bless you. Κύριε, ἐλέησον.My dying wish will be that my children and grandchildren should play Summer's Gone every year, in honor to the developer for making this game and to me for introducing them to this game
- Jan 18, 2022
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We can only guess, and hope. I support Ocean anyway, because I like his work - very much so.
I believe I read on Discord that he's got quite a bit of the story written already, into the teens (in terms of chapters) so far.
- Jul 26, 2020
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Basically, more support will help.
But I think at a certain point new and better hardware alone will not be enough, then he just needs support from other people in coding or whatever.
No idea if he is working alone or if someone is already helping him.
The parallel work on two games is then also an issue, especially if you have such high quality demands on his work.
He's trying to find an artist of his level, but it's not easy (considering his level of quality). He's got help from some RenPy coders. He can't abandon WiAB because he loves both his games.
- Dec 5, 2020
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While I want to belive that a better hardware can help to increase productivity, I highly doubt it will. The problem is that a one dev does the amount of work that requires a team. Making an introduction and impressing everyone is one thing, but releasing episodes regularly on a schedule is quite another. Unfortunately, a development time is not only a matter of talent or equipment, but mostly it depends on the maximum amount of work that a single person is able to do per day. So, even the game whose name shall not be mentioned has a couple of updates a year while its developer is working on it full time and well equipped with a top hardware.
I really enjoyed living the edgelord life and wish I could push everyone away in this game (especially Bella whom I despise with a passion, but all of the others will come in for continuous rejection as well, ammirite, Nami?) If MC had been a nicer guy, I'd probably have gone down Victoria's path. But he isn't so I didn't. Really wish he wasn't forced to spend any time with Bella at all. (it definitely should be an option, but not an unavoidable situation).
It's a strange dichotomy: MC is such a strong, opinionated, stubborn character who is indeed very different from the usual happy-go-lucky college boy (who lost his parents and is fornicating with his landlady and lifelong best friend landlady's daughter), but he doesn't get anywhere near the agency he should have. What's the female version of blueballing? Blueovarie-ing? That's what he should be allowed to do throughout the game.
It's a strange dichotomy: MC is such a strong, opinionated, stubborn character who is indeed very different from the usual happy-go-lucky college boy (who lost his parents and is fornicating with his landlady and lifelong best friend landlady's daughter), but he doesn't get anywhere near the agency he should have. What's the female version of blueballing? Blueovarie-ing? That's what he should be allowed to do throughout the game.
- Jun 8, 2020
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I will say that, as I am trying to develop my own game, rendering time is an issue but the biggest time blackholes (for me) are setting up the scene ( posing, set dressing, lighting), writing the story (write a scene, figure out if it can be built and rendered, rewrite based on what can be built and posed, repeat repeat repeat) and coding the game (I haven't even got this far yet). Yes, having better hardware would help, or having two computers - but the time killers aren't hardware based in a lot of cases. Any solo project is going to be slow no matter what.
Just my input based on limited experience.
- Nov 28, 2017
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Jokes aside I believe Ocean reached the quality level he was aiming for and is finally content with it, thus the standardization of the chapter's quality. Somebody recently posted a discord screen of him saying he's aiming to complete ch4.5 by the end of october, that would mean publishing an update (half chapter) in 3 months that starts to become quite competitive for a game of this quality.
He also said in the latest dev log that he's starting to outpace his rendering machines, meaning he poses scenes faster then they can render them. He wants to upgrade them to professional GPUs but they're ridicolously expansive (like in the 50k each range).
Supporting this kind of projects works in diminishing returns. When the support is low every penny matter because they help to cover the losses (assets, electricity, etc.). When the support is high, well don't expect a 10 bucks monthly donation to really change anything speed/quality wise.
The real big bump will be the Steam release after chapter 5, as the Steam market is really big and we know from other games that recently published there that the revenues are very impactful.
- May 9, 2018
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I don't think so. For example, DPC had patreon goals like "more hardware = faster updates". In reality he just increased amount of content per update, which branching story obviously demands. And knowing Ocean, I assume, he will do the same or push the quality of renders even further, so it's gonna stay the same 1 or 2 updates per year.
You can technically outsorce parts of rendering work, like character design/clothing, environment setup, etc.
- Jul 25, 2020
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The losing of patreons weeks after a release is very common. There will be people who signed up just as chapter 4 was due to release and then unsubscribe after downloading the update. Usually it's people who want to support the dev but can't afford a monthly subscription, so they'll effectively make a single month payment in order to get the new chapter on release.
- Aug 16, 2021
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I'm not sure why he hasn't considered polishing up chapter 2 and then push for chapter 5 for the steam release at least to get the game out there first so there could be revenue and then go back to the alternating WiaB and SG plan. It just seems like a more financially profitable move. Alternating now greatly pushes back the steam release date, thus delaying revenue. Also gives time for other games to be released which by now, the market is already over saturated with these types of games.
- Sep 18, 2021
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its the start of a new month so thats a common sight so patreon numbers going down , quite a lot resub early or later
- Jan 18, 2022
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This type of games sure, but not this quality in this type of games. As of now I see no other game on F95 which comes even close to this render quality.
And those renders, combined with chosing good ingame shoots will have the people flock to it once it hits Steam.
Also the story & characters are also on the more interesting side of the fence, so that helps. It may not be perfectly flawless written, but very few games here make me smile and sad and really induldged into them. Summers gone is one of this rare pearls.
Imo and for me of course. But I doubt it will have problems with a bigger audience. I prognose most people trying SG will like or even love it once it goes live on Steam.
- Nov 28, 2017
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It's completely normal on patreon to lose a bunch of patrons at the start of every month, since that's when the new billing is processed. There are many reasons for that, the most common is trouble with the automatic payment.
You must be registered to see the links
you can see the patrons fluctuation day by day. You can see for instance he actually gained 50 patrons compared to the previous month (despite no release in that month) and he gained +27% patrons compared to the month before ch4 release.
- Oct 22, 2017
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Thats quite normal. You can't just use the plain numbers from patreon on a random day. Especially not, if there was the change to a new month.
Take a look at this:
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Here can you see the data for every day 'till six months back.
Hover you cursor on a day you like. I use for my example the 28th of the last three months.
June the 28th:
July the 28th:
August the 28th:
As you can see, in the last three months Ocean had a nice increase on patrons. And if we go back 6 months or longe the increase is more obvious.
Peace!
/e
Pffft OctavianusAugustus i put more effort in my post.
Kneel sucker!!
- Aug 16, 2021
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I agree with you that the quality of this game is superb in terms of story, characters and renders. Of course I wish this game the best once it hits steam, but I am talking in practicality since the average user might not even consider the game if games like this gets pumped out all the time, regardless of how nice the renders look. Obviously, I want to be proven wrong and see the sales sky rocket, but only time will tell.
Also, if you are comparing strictly render quality, there are competitors, if few. For example, give Acquainted a try. It is new so it's super short. But so far right now what it lacks in story the high quality renders make up for it.