Ren'Py Summertime Saga [v21.0.0 wip.5605] [Kompas Productions]

[dirgetka]

I don't think it's that DC is incompetent, it's just that he doesn't care enough about finishing the game to crack the whip and micromanage his team (i.e. improve productivity), something he's never liked doing. From his POV, why should he rush? He used to contract as a supervisor in video game animation AFAIK, and whenever he talked about it he gave the impression he hated everything about it. Then a goofy side project he worked on blows up and sets him/his family up for life, a "job" where he can just draw assets, set a general development strategy then delegate the rest to a team. He's even had multiple kids since the game started making a load of money. I get the feeling he doesn't view it as a job he needs to get 100% productivity out of to hit milestones/goals, he views it as early retirement and a merciful escape from management/crunch hell working a wagie job.
you should probably set your expectations accordingly

 

[styggtuff12]

Judith update is still maybe 2 years away(maybe 3), Jenny and ladlady are complete for now with a lot of scenes(especially Jenny )

2-3 years is really generous with the pace DC is taking, i'd say at least 4-6 if it even comes out at all, this feels like severe burnout and a project on the cusp of being abandoned.

 

[bruno6845]

when the next update

 

[PatreonTed]

No update in months, but subscriber count has been going up the last couple months. Did DC do another interview with someone, or is this strictly because of these monthly update(s)?

Edit: interview*

 

[Xupuzulla]

No update in months, but subscriber count has been going up the last couple months. Did DC do another interniew with someone, or is this strictly because of these monthly update(s)?

Seems like DC has a tons of tsundere fans who unsuscribe and suscribe depending their mood or something idk.

 

[Lucky Guerrilla]

No update in months, but subscriber count has been going up the last couple months. Did DC do another interniew with someone, or is this strictly because of these monthly update(s)?

Update. Singular. Dated 30 May. And that promise is broken unless he updates soon.

Oh...who wants to take that bet?

 

[rayminator]

this is from may 29th there is not post on may 30th

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Monthly status updates:
We know a lot of you are anxious about the release of the Tech Update and have voiced concerned with the the speed of development. The progress bar is not currently displaying an accurate progression of the work being done due to the nature of the Tech Update requiring a heavy amount of back and forth with content implementation (and testing). It makes it hard to "close" tasks until the update is stable and ready to ship. It also explains why art tasks were faster and simpler to close, while Posing and Code seem to trail behind. The majority of the art meant for the Tech Update is completed, yes. However I'm still improving and adding content while the remaining Code/Posing work gets wrapped up. The progress bar will be more reliable once we get back to the regular development cycle for stories and gameplay.

To better help fans understand the ongoing development, monthly status updates will be posted here on Patreon (at the end of each month) with a listed summary of all the work that's been done for each department. It won't list every single small change, but at the very least show the broad strokes of what's currently being done. This will paint a clearer picture of the development progress and perhaps get a feeling of how close we are getting to a release each month. Hopefully this will make some of you feel at ease with some of the questions you've had.

That being said, here's the first status update for this past month!

Art:

• Assisted the Code/Posing devs with optimizing art and fixing inconsistencies. Such as unused art assets , missing shadows, missing character button variants and so on.
• Scenes on day one meeting Erik and Mia have been improved with new character assets, backgrounds, dynamic shots, buttons, etc.
• The new "Biker Bar" location now has an interior and Doris will be working as the bartender (non-interactive for the moment).
• Doris now has a secondary outfit for the bar.
• Old Debbie cutscenes and dynamic shots got a facelift (see samples attached to this post at the top ^).
• Added new dynamic shot to Diane's story (garden).
• All of Anna's (now named Abby) old art has been reworked and converted to new art assets + rig.
• Further improvements to the new Mia character art.
• Multiple assets renames to function with new codebase.
• Some character art assets needed splitting into multiple rig parts along with their meta data (Odette and Eve).
• Old Anon assets laying on beds needed legs extended/fixed to fit in widescreen.
• Daily live streams for art are still active (week days) starting around 2:00PM Eastern Time (ET) where you can watch me work and ask questions.

Code:

• Resolved minor bugs in reposing tool used by posers.
• Fixed some flow issues indentified in Debbie's route.
• Added sleep-awareness to some character buttons.
• Upgraded to Ren'Py 8.1.0, and dealt with ensuing compatibility issues.
• Improved automatic transitions.
• Built a tutorial for the navigation interface.
• Improved ease with which cutscenes can be posed.
• Added base NPC behaviour for Ivy and Jane.
• Built out roughly half of Jenny's narrative route flow.
• Added a new interface mode for complex interactive props.
• Implemented Anon's phone, minus the hint system.
• Constructed Jenny's diary, and wired it into Jenny's route.
• Ensured that diary contents and text messages will be translatable.

Posing:

• Linked reposed scenes for the Main story and Debbie up to the game logic code.
• Revisions based on feedback about above scenes, and reported logic oversights.
• Reposed the Debbie scenes we didn't have art for when we did the first pass (late game/lewd content).
• Posing work on buttons particularly for Ivy, Kassy, Lily, and Veronica.
• Finished posing pass on Roxxy.
• Early Mia flow posing ongoing.
• Finished reposing the beginning and end of Eve's route.
• Cleaning up the posing for Jenny's route. (Jenny is the next priority for linking/playtesting this coming month)
• Revisited posing from the start of Diane's route fixing asset names and logic state tests that were not previously available.

Writing:

• Dialogue for new Becca scenes not yet implemented into the game but animations are done (likely releasing after the tech update).
• New Grace, Odette, and Eve scene dialogues.
• Assisted code with wiring up Debbie and Jenny's quest flow.
• Currently assisting on the hint system for Jenny.
• Button schedule logic for Debbie and Jenny.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
We hope this clears up some of fog surrounding the Tech Update and thank you for all the support.
Keep you posted!
-DC

 

[MagicFox]

It is not a surprise that we see this pattern of cycle,
1. A new fancy game developer appears and does a good job in game quality and performance of progress
2. They get a lot of supporters and get famous and reputation in the area
3. The game becomes bigger and the team invests money in the wrong places like higher resolution, re-touching what they already created and hesitating to create new one.
4. The progress gets slower or even stopped. Peoples complains. Team excuses.
5. Eventually the team loses the reason why they were successful, why the peoples liked their game
6. Attention lost and peoples leave. They find new game which can fulfill their needs.
7. Repeat from #1

I see this game is somewhere between #4 and #5

 

[tankdick]

2-3 years is really generous with the pace DC is taking, i'd say at least 4-6 if it even comes out at all, this feels like severe burnout and a project on the cusp of being abandoned.

It won't be abandoned. DC has hit the absolute (minimum effort/maximum return) sweet spot. He can go at this pace and effort level till he dies.

 

[Daemontan]

I once read about a guy. He worked on a game for 2 years and when it was released, 5000 people downloaded it and 15 paid for it. Well, that's pretty shitty. Now I deal with the fact that if I have a little extra money, I buy the games that I couldn't buy when I was a kid, I only played pirated games. I'm already thinking about patreon. Here on the F95 page, I will try the games and decide. I think that sometimes you need to support it so that the developer can continue to work and see if he will release a good game. But this is just my opinion. Piracy is good because I have also played pirated games and now support their developers on Steam. But piracy can also cause trouble, I've seen little people ruined by it.

 

[Rakssu]

I once read about a guy. He worked on a game for 2 years and when it was released, 5000 people downloaded it and 15 paid for it. Well, that's pretty shitty. Now I deal with the fact that if I have a little extra money, I buy the games that I couldn't buy when I was a kid, I only played pirated games. I'm already thinking about patreon. Here on the F95 page, I will try the games and decide. I think that sometimes you need to support it so that the developer can continue to work and see if he will release a good game. But this is just my opinion. Piracy is good because I have also played pirated games and now support their developers on Steam. But piracy can also cause trouble, I've seen little people ruined by it.

Who are you??? WTF are you talking about? You have any idea of what you saying? Did a little research perhaps?
Talking ab this game specifically, ss is so successful that f95 affected nothing to little to his creator incomes. He is making more than 60k per month on patreon, he already won the life game.

 

[Count Morado]

Talking ab this game specifically, ss is so successful that f95 affected nothing to little to his creator incomes.

F95 affected the rise of Summertime Saga. To deny that is to deny facts and evidence.

It was the 2434th post on this site, 25 August 2016 - just 21 days after F95 went live. It was one of the first 100 games posted on this site. That was only 9 days after DarkCookie created his Patreon account. DC got his first Patreon subscriber on 18 August 2016 and had just 24 subscribers the day before F95 listed the game. One month later, he had 250 subscribers and by the end of 2016, just 4 months after starting his Patreon account and 4 months of being listed on F95 - he had 1,667 subscribers with over $4,000 USD per month of contributions. Also, DC was #870-ish of adult game creators on Patreon when he started, broke the top 10 in January 2017 and became the top adult game creator on Patreon (by number of subscribers) in October 2017 with over 6,000 subscribers and about $20,000 USD per month - just about a year after being on Patreon and listed on F95. And has never relinquished that number 1 status since.

The case can easily be made that without F95 (and, perhaps similar sites in 2016 and 2017), Summertime Saga would have struggled to gain awareness, and thus, popularity, and thus, financial success to be where it is today. That said, it has grown so large since those initial couple of years - with over 24 million results on a Google search for "Summertime Saga" (over 2 million, alone, for video results) - that F95's influence on his financial success today is much less dramatic than it was in the past.

 

[Lordroedor]

F95 affected the rise of Summertime Saga. To deny that is to deny facts and evidence.

It was the 2434th post on this site, 25 August 2016 - just 21 days after F95 went live. It was one of the first 100 games posted on this site. That was only 9 days after DarkCookie created his Patreon account. DC got his first Patreon subscriber on 18 August 2016 and had just 24 subscribers the day before F95 listed the game. One month later, he had 250 subscribers and by the end of 2016, just 4 months after starting his Patreon account and 4 months of being listed on F95 - he had 1,667 subscribers with over $4,000 USD per month of contributions. Also, DC was #870-ish of adult game creators on Patreon when he started, broke the top 10 in January 2017 and became the top adult game creator on Patreon (by number of subscribers) in October 2017 with over 6,000 subscribers and about $20,000 USD per month - just about a year after being on Patreon and listed on F95. And has never relinquished that number 1 status since.

The case can easily be made that without F95 (and, perhaps similar sites in 2016 and 2017), Summertime Saga would have struggled to gain awareness, and thus, popularity, and thus, financial success to be where it is today. That said, it has grown so large since those initial couple of years - with over 24 million results on a Google search for "Summertime Saga" (over 2 million, alone, for video results) - that F95's influence on his financial success today is much less dramatic than it was in the past.

There are other variables influencing your data. Like time. Games are more populer close to their release date. Even if the game is not finished, it still applies. Back in the day this game was new and shocking. Those two characteristics have disappeared, and competition has raised in part thanks to Steam accepting hentai games.

And I am not sure if the model this game uses to develop is still so effective as it was so long ago. In gaming, 5 or 6 years is a huge difference. The world has changed.

 

[Count Morado]

There are other variables influencing your data. Like time. Games are more populer close to their release date. Even if the game is not finished, it still applies. Back in the day this game was new and shocking. Those two characteristics have disappeared, and competition has raised in part thanks to Steam accepting hentai games.

And I am not sure if the model this game uses to develop is still so effective as it was so long ago. In gaming, 5 or 6 years is a huge difference. The world has changed.

True, and I do not - and did not in my post - deny that. In fact, I implied that in the first sentence of my second paragraph. But the conversation is about overall impact of F95 throughout the life of the product, not the variability involved with short term events such as individual update releases.

You are explicitly stating. Also, your final sentence and mine are also connected in spirit, meaning, and deliberation. That is, unless you are stating that F95 still holds a great influence over DC's income.

EDIT: And if we are in disagreement and you wish to continue, please start an off-topic thread and @ me.

 

[Vakul]

this is from may 29th there is not post on may 30th...

What the f...ish is that? It Appesrs as 50% of it was taken from typical defective managers bullsh*t.
Nice.

• Scenes on day one meeting Erik and Mia have been improved with new character assets, backgrounds, dynamic shots, buttons, etc.
• Old Debbie cutscenes and dynamic shots got a facelift (see samples attached to this post at the top ^).
• All of Anna's (now named Abby) old art has been reworked and converted to new art assets + rig.
• Further improvements to the new Mia character art.

Why, Save and Load, why? Is there no more importans things than an n-th redraw?

• Built out roughly half of Jenny's narrative route flow.
• Added a new interface mode for complex interactive props.

Yup, who cares about new, lets redo rework and redraw!

• Implemented Anon's phone, minus the hint system.
• Constructed Jenny's diary, and wired it into Jenny's route.
• Ensured that diary contents and text messages will be translatable.

WUT?! Since when they were broken? And how?

• Linked reposed scenes for the Main story and Debbie up to the game logic code.
• Revisions based on feedback about above scenes, and reported logic oversights.
• Reposed the Debbie scenes we didn't have art for when we did the first pass (late game/lewd content).
• Posing work on buttons particularly for Ivy, Kassy, Lily, and Veronica.
• Finished posing pass on Roxxy.
• Early Mia flow posing ongoing.
• Finished reposing the beginning and end of Eve's route.
• Cleaning up the posing for Jenny's route. (Jenny is the next priority for linking/playtesting this coming month)
• Revisited posing from the start of Diane's route fixing asset names and logic state tests that were not previously available.

Well, facepalm, part two. Redoing the reworked and remaking whats redone. Nice.
This is literally what purple started when money begin to flow. Ans sadcrabs. And many other.

That post had just confirmed my earlier conclusion. Milking path - unlocked. It seems, we have another 2-3 years for playing something else. At minimum.

 

[Username7]

Spoiler: Long post

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Against my better judgment I'm going to reply to this just to point out a few things with your conclusions.

"Why, Save and Load, why? Is there no more importans things than an n-th redraw?"

Almost all of those buttons and character are old art from the first year or so of the game it has long been stated way before this rebuild (Because lets call a duck a duck.) that they were going to be updated and replaced at some point in time and right now is as good a time as ever to do it seeing as DC has very little to draw right now.

"Yup, who cares about new, lets redo rework and redraw!"

As part of the rebuild the entire game has to be reposed not only for the widescreen conversion but also the new rig that allows for more efficient posing. This has been said at least once every three pages for the last year.

"WUT?! Since when they were broken? And how?"

They were not broken, they have simply been reposed and recoded into an early build for QA testing.

"Well, facepalm, part two. Redoing the reworked and remaking whats redone. Nice.
This is literally what purple started when money begin to flow. Ans sadcrabs. And many other."

Again reposing and fixes on errors found in QA testing from the first rounds of reposing.

 

[SonofOrion]

Will the "Mod" be updated for the tech update?

 

[Hero1]

Spoiler: Status update (June)!

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[XCelesX]

oh boy. Guess the waiting game isn't over yet

 

[Count Morado]

With DC's new patreon monthly report copied into this thread by Hero1, here's my updated FAQ - 88th since Feb 2022.

Spoiler: The Count's FAQ for Summertime Saga (88)

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Will the "Mod" be updated for the tech update?

There are several mods for this game that are linked in OP. You should go to the thread for the mod you are wondering about and ask the maker there. If you are asking about the patch - it is fan made... so maybe, maybe not.

oh boy. Guess the waiting game isn't over yet

And it won't be for quite awhile.