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.

 

[grey_shadow]

long dev cycles are not good.

Just imagine how well Silksong would have done if it had only taken three years to come out rather than eight!

 

[EvilDave86]

Just imagine how well Silksong would have done if it had only taken three years to come out rather than eight!

Well Silksong wasn't in the "porn" stratosphere and if I recall didn't have a partial version created that was then thrust into the nether realm at one point I'm unsure what the point of that comparison was tbh. Indie games and VN's are not on the same spectrum. But tbf I did not specify porn games in that initial post so yes not all games obviously, but porn VN's or even story VN's do better with consistent updating that's all I'm trying to say.

 

[SToyS]

50% is tax and other stuff, then I guess ~1k or more for the flat, apparently 400€ for power… so yes, life is expensive in Germany

Don't forget that the average salary in Germany is 1200 euros.

 

[Crashbullet]

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

Good health to everyone in the new year, otherwise you won't see the release

 

[Ottoeight]

There's a bunch of possible reasons which I won't bore you with. I'll just focus on why I think Ocean would reject changes to his process: perfectionism.

Well yeah, practising prefectionism made him fully master the fine art of bullshitting. He's a real maestro now.

I'm only wondering why he didn't write about German taxation in his latest dev update. I guess he a had a little lapse.

 

[seniorboop]

*sigh*

If only he’d done the sensible thing and split this massive update into two parts, we could’ve had two updates every six months and most of his problems would’ve been mitigated. If he makes up for the lost two years and brings back both old and new players, he could live off Subscribestar. It’s pathetic that Patreon would nuke an artist who sacrificed the lewd content of his game to comply as much as possible, only for it to end like this anyway.

The perception the wider AVN community has of him would never allow SG to have the potential of being a runaway success at this point.

Even if the update turns out to be phenomenal, Ocean is still at the head of it and Ocean doing Ocean things will continue to keep people away.

It would not surprise me to see this go the way of AoA within the next 2-3 updates, assuming it can make it that far.

 

[Manuya]

Sir, you make very great points and this is a sensible strategy.

i knew i recognized you from somewhere from the name, good luck with your project and hopefully you see success and good fortune, ntr is my favorite genre and i'm not ashamed to admit it, will try your AVN at some point and if you ever found your way to steam you'll have my money also, but hopefully you follow MoonBox example (years with updates like clock work without missing a beat, that aspect i mean only his work ethics) and other consistent devs rather than this one and others like them

 

[Thriller]

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

Changed all those family relations (in both games) and Patreon still nuked his pages. They're not even reaching back and cooperating.

Hopefully Ocean goes back to original or at least make two versions if it does not take a whole lot of work, cause I'm still pissed off about that and I'll always be.

 

[Crashbullet]

perfectionism

Only when it comes to rendering, outside of this line, he is an anarchist.

 

[Dr.TSoni]

Hopefully Ocean goes back to original or at least make two versions if it does not take a whole lot of work, cause I'm still pissed off about that and I'll always be.

That ship has now sailed, for better or worse, all the distribution platforms are against it. And Ocean has been burned by it so it doesn't intend to risk it at all.
The funny part is that we're back to the original dilemma, when fans wanted SG to drop for WiaB

 

[Elduriel]

That ship has now sailed, for better or worse, all the distribution platforms are against it. And Ocean has been burned by it so it doesn't intend to risk it at all.
The funny part is that we're back to the original dilemma, when fans wanted SG to drop for WiaB View attachment 5575030

and instead we have two games, neither of which is going anywhere

 

[Karalhowski]

Oh he's from Germany? Poor guy now i understand him a little better.
I can help him with his next project. An AVN about Germany in the 30s

 

[Tremonia]

I can help him with his next project. An AVN about Germany in the 30s

You've a weird fetish.

 

[Dr.TSoni]

I can help him with his next project. An AVN about Germany in the 30s

You've a weird fetish.

 

[Azai99]

Fucking drop WIAB already. It's 10% of your fanbase and 50% of your effort, and caused you to lose Patreon platform access. Stop being stupid. Full effort on SG, get it on Steam ASAP to earn money. Sheesh.


Edit to add: No one gives a fuck about mafia stories. And dropping WIAB might give you a path to getting back on Patreon if you re-incorporate the game studio as a new legal entity that has the rights to SG but not WIAB.

Where you get 10% from? Most people who are supporting Ocean are supporting abd plsying both of his games, no way he's going to drop it