Hello everyone!
I apologize well in advance for the length/rambling of this post. But it has been a long time coming, and I finally have broken out of my shell that my anxiety built long enough to articulate my thoughts and write them all out for you.
In this post I plan to explain what exactly is going on with Sylphine, my issues with the game that led to what is happening, and what I am doing to fix the issues I had with the game. I then want to take a moment to explain why exactly this has taken so long, why I have been so silent, and then outline my plans for future communications with you all so this prolonged period of silence does not occur again. And I apologize in advance about the ramblyness of this, I just finished writing it at 5am, after about 4 hours of determining how best to write it all out. It’s not perfect, but I hope it explains all it needs to.
Below this paragraph I am going to outline the sections or “chapters” of the post so you can briefly see what this post will touch on and can navigate to just the parts that you desire to read if you don’t wish to read the post in its entirety. Though I encourage you to do so and I hope it can give you a decent insight into what exactly has transpired the past year.
Sections of this Post
---What’s going on with Sylphine? ---
---Why exactly is it being revamped? ---
---Main Story Issues---
---Girl Story Issues---
---Visual Issues---
--- Game Mechanic Issues---
---Character Issues---
---Wrap-up of Main Issues---
---Okay… so why has this taken so long? And why are your communications so sparse?---
---Future Communication Plans---
---My Thanks---
---Social Media---
---What’s going on with Sylphine? ---
So, first is the big question I think most people have been wondering (at least those not in the Discord server, as I am fairly active there), what is going on with Sylphine? To keep it short and simple, the game, including its story, visuals, character designs, character personalities, code, environments, user interface, sounds, game mechanics, and quite literally everything else you could think of, is being revamped. Now, these are all being touched up to varying degrees, E.G the story is getting a larger revamp than the characters, but no stone is being left unturned in this revamp. So that is what is going on with Sylphine, a total game revamp. Or rehaul, redesign, you can really use any synonym of those to describe it.
---Why exactly is it being revamped? ---
I assume after reading the last section this was the next question in most people’s mind, why exactly is Sylphine being revamped? I hate to give a non-simple answer, but it’s really not a simple question. I am revamping Sylphine for quite literally 20 or 30 reasons, but to simplify it as much as I can, it is being revamped due to major issues with the
story, the
visuals, the
game mechanics, and the
characters. Below I’ll try to give a small explanation of my issues with each of these, and why I felt it was necessary to revamp the game to fix them. And then after that, I’ll give a short explanation of what I’m doing to fix them.
---Main Story Issues---
So first up are story issues, as this problem was the number one reason for the revamp it only makes sense that I try to explain it first. So, to lead this section off, in my opinion, the story in the current public version of Sylphine is, for lack of a more intelligent sentence, a complete hodge-podge of dog-shit and stinky garbage (excuse the cursing and add any other negative symptoms for bad that you can think of).
Basically, the story is just not good, and after a lot of thinking, I think I can explain why It’s both bad, and why it ended up that way. It pretty much comes down to three things, the pacing, the scope, and the direction.
To explain my issue with the
pacing, I basically just want to summarize the story (the main story that is, not the girls’ individual stories which I will explain my problems with later in the post) I think just the summary should probably be sufficient to show why the
pacing is an issue.
The story starts and you randomly enter the PoV of the main character in his bedroom, in the home that he’s lived in for 18 years, that he shares with 5 beautiful women. Already this is just trash, I mean, honestly, its bad story writing, it’s babies first porn plot. But then it somehow gets worse, you play a bit more, and are randomly thrown into weird fantasy dreams that talk about some crystal. It continues a little, and whoa, suddenly Alex is an angel, and all the girls are magical beings. Continue a few events more and now you’re suddenly in a whole new dimension being introduced to a whole cast of new characters and are out of nowhere informed of some conflict with some evil beings trying to destroy a magical tree… a tree that you literally just found out about.
I mean, really, this all happens in what would in real life amount to about two weeks. It would give you whiplash if any of that actually happened, I mean, I really don’t think your brain could physically process it. And on top of this lightning-fast pace of story progression, you have events interspersed throughout that just dump literally garbage truck loads of exposition on you making you sit there and read paragraphs upon paragraphs, before immediately sending you off on the next event with no time to process the information. The
pacing is just broken and can’t be fixed by just changing a few things.
My next problem with the story is the
scope of Sylphine. Honestly, it is just ridiculous, especially for a game developed by one person. I fell victim to what can be described as story feature creep, (for those that don’t know, feature creep is a term that happens when you just keep adding excess features to a product/software/etc., and you’re adding so much stuff the product never gets completed). The story of Sylphine fell victim to this very thing, as, in my starry new developer eyes, I got stuck in a loop of just trying to add more and more stuff, for no true purpose. I originally was just going to have a few characters in a small story, but then I added a few random plot points for no reason other than “oh, that might be cool”, then I added more characters, and more locations, and more plot points, rinse and repeat for a few cycles, and you have a massive world and story that’s wholly undeveloped instead of a smaller world and story that’s rich with detail and care. I added too many plot points to the story in an effort to make some grand open world game, and it ended up just being a flop where no particular plot point really mattered because you were being whisked off to the next plot point a few moments later.
My last issue with the story is the direction of Sylphine. Sylphine’s story as you know it, is quite literally nothing like I originally imagined it. I didn’t have plans for a magical dimension, I didn’t have plans for Orcs, Goblins, guilds, anything like that. All of this occurred due to me not having a solid plan, and just expanding and expanding (touching on scope again), until it just kind of happened. My original idea is nonexistent in the world as it exists, and I desire more than anything to fix that.
So, there are my 3 main story issues, pacing, scope, and direction. I hope the above explanations helped you understand my issues, but if they did not *please* comment on whatever forum you may be reading this on and I can try to explain more.
---Girl Story Issues---
Next is the girl’s individual stories. These are the stories you advance with the girl’s directly, not the main story. I wanted to explain my issue with the girls’ individual stories separately because while they also fall victim to the same stuff as the main story (pacing and direction mainly), they also have their own unique issue that I feel must be addressed directly, their
interconnectedness.
So first,
pacing of the girls’ stories. It is just too fast. You go from just platonic friends to sexual encounters with the girls in just a few days, it’s not great, and while it may make decent “fap” material, I mean, everyone likes boobs and stuff, it’s not what I want to write and want players to play. It all just in general advances too fast, and you don’t get to know the girls that much.
Next for the girls’ individual stories is their
direction. The girls’ stories are just sort of, like the main story, not exactly what I originally wanted. I, somewhere in the first few months of development, sort of just integrated a ton of random stuff into my original vision of the girls’ stories and corrupted them a bit. It sounds a tad overdramatic, but it’s kind of true. The stories just aren’t what I imagined for them.
Now last for the girl’s story issue I have, their
interconnectedness, and this one may be the easiest to understand as a player. The girl’s both in their story and ambient world events are just not connected to each other in any way. You would not think they all lived in the same house and are experiencing the same events that you are if you played just their storylines in a vacuum. They never reference each other, you rarely interact with more than one girl at a time, and it just destroys immersion in my opinion. I mean, wouldn’t it be more fun to have the girls actually hangout together? Maybe you could join Alex/Celeste at a club, or Lillian/Gracie at the pool, or hell, just have conversation with a girl that references another. It would just liven up the world so much, and it is 100% absent in the current version of the game. It’s honestly a travesty.
---Visual Issues---
My next issue that led to me revamping the entire game are visual issues. These include the actual in game renders, and the UI. Everything you see/interact with on screen.
It is, in my opinion, pretty much all the visuals are very ugly. The renders are grainy, have lots of splotches (thanks to the denoiser), and the lighting is not great. Then you have the UI which is like the first design of a game design student who also failed his game design class. It is not very intuitive and doesn’t visually look good. This is a short section, but I mean, the problems are easy to explain, it is just… ugly. My 3D and design skills have, in my opinion, skyrocketed since my early days developing Sylphine, (including my animations skills), and I would love to have you guys play the best-looking version of Sylphine possible.
--- Game Mechanic Issues---
This section, like the Visual Issues one above, will also be short. Many of the game mechanics in Sylphine are just wack. They are not intelligently implemented, should not have been implemented in the first place (cough cough, the stupid ass combat system), or are nonexistent.
For an example of a badly implemented system, the way you level up the the girl’s is just not great. It’s not interactive, and it’s not fun. You just spam the same few ambient events over and over to gain relationship, and you don’t even get a good reward for it.
For an example of one that shouldn’t exist, the combat system. It’s stupid, and honestly, it was hard as hell to design and wasn’t worth it in the slightest.
And for an example of one that is nonexistent are mechanics that allow you to influence conversation in any meaningful way. Visual Novel’s are nearly universally built on player choice. You decide what to say in conversations, steering the conversation and story, and sometimes even changing how characters see/interact with you. It’s engaging, and Sylphine has none of it. Sad, that’s all I can say. It’s sad. But I will chalk that up to me just being inexperienced, and not knowing what works and what doesn’t in a game.
---Character Issues---
The last major type of issue I have with the game that led to this revamp are character issues. These issues involve both their visual designs, and written designs. Meaning things like their dialogue, interests, etc.
The characters are just honestly very tropey. And of course, that’s not always a bad thing, people like tropes. But I went overboard. Alex is way too mommy-like, I mean, half of her vocabulary is “sweetie” or “dear” It’s sickening to be honest. And Gracie is way too airheaded, like, to the extent that you’d think she may be honestly brain damaged. These issues encompass all the main characters, but I don’t want to get into too much detail lest this post be even longer than it’s already going to be, but their personalities are not great. Some of them also have interests that just don’t make sense. Why does Celeste spent some afternoons painting in the backyard? I have no plans to elaborate on that. It’s just a dead end and needs to be fixed/replaced.
Aside from that sort of written stuff though, their visual design’s also aren’t the best. This sort of bleeds into the visual issues mentioned a few sections above, but their overall looks, textures, models, they’re just poor. And while they aren’t literally the worst, they could be SO much better, and I’ve gained so much skill in my time working with 3D programs that I know I can do (and have done) better with newer versions of them that leverage that new skill.
---Wrap-up of Main Issues---
So there you have it, the main issues I have with the game. The story is broken in pacing, scope, and direction. The game has many visual issues relating to its renders and UI that need to be fixed. The game has quite a lot of mechanical issues that need to be tended to, and finally, the character’s have a multitude of design issues both visual and written that need to be fixed. Any of these things individually may be able to be fixed in a simple update but because these issues together essentially are the entire base of the game, I felt it necessary to revamp it in its entirety. I hope these explanations have helped give you some insight into why exactly I made the choices I did. But now to get
---Okay… so why has this taken so long? And why are your communications so sparse?---
This question is the one I have dreaded to answer for quite a few months because the answer is something that I am truly embarrassed of. But before I answer I just want to give a little background about me, and let me stress that I am *not* asking for sympathy here or some sort of pass, I am just wanting to give a full explanation.
I have clinical anxiety and panic disorder. I have since I was 13 or 14. I get sent into horrible panic attacks from small things and more or less just shut down. This has also developed into clinical Hypochondria, where I get panic attacks triggered by small health issues. For example, something like a small bout of shortness of breath will convince my brain for some reason that I 100% have some deadly disease like lung cancer, and even though I know it’s all my brain and the odds of it being a real disease are basically 0, it just will not quit. I will sit there and dread my impending doom for hours a day, weeks on end, just staring at a wall. I am, thankfully, now getting help for these issues, and will soon be medicated though, and fingers crossed it will be the end of them, at least for the most part.
But now, with that background about me, I want to sort of explain why this has taken so long. Early last year I had a horrible bout of health issues, except this time they were not just in my head. I mean, they started that way, but when I saw the doctor, it turns out I actually had an issue. Fast forward a few months, and I’ve now been bounced between three doctors being told I have a thickened heart and am on the onset of congestive heart failure, another doctor saying I might have medullary thyroid cancer, and another doctor saying I might have a tumor on my adrenal glands. Needless to say, this was just not a fun time for me. Thank God, or Slaanesh, or whatever other deity or being you may believe in that in the end all these tests were negative. I do NOT have any form of cancer, and while I do have a slightly thickened heart muscle, it’s 100% genetic, and nothing to worry about as long as I stay relatively healthy.
Long story short though, these issues wreaked havoc in my life for months. I lost so much sleep that I ended up just downing 10mg of melatonin every night to just try and sleep, and the anxiety just grew and grew and grew. So, I, as much as it pains me to admit, just lost of a lot of my life there. Game development ended up falling to the wayside for a bit, and it took me months to recover from the spiral. I of course still worked on the game, but not as a priority. My priority was just trying to, honestly, not kill myself. As my brain in these hypochondrial episodes kept trying to convince me to do.
But I am good now. I have an amazing wife who helped pull me away from my negative thoughts, and as I said earlier, I am about to be medicated, which from what I’ve researched will be life changing. So as of like 3 months ago I am full speed on game development, not half speed.
So now the question, is, why is the post just happening now? Why not 3 months ago? The answer is that I was scared. I had been silent for *so* long, with just occasional updates on Discord that I feared the backlash of coming back fully, I feared the anger, the negative messages, I didn’t think I could manage it. So, I just kept telling myself tomorrow, I’ll post the update tomorrow, and then tomorrow never came.
But thanks again to my wife, and some amazing people in the community, I’ve broken out of that shell. And I’m back. I’m sorry it took so long, I truly am. And I promise to *never* disappear again, unless like, I don’t know, a meteor was to hit the Earth. But if that happens, I think we would have some other issues to worry about that are larger than a porn game. Or maybe not? Who knows where your priorities may lie.
---Future Communication Plans---
Continuing that part of not being silent anymore, I wanted to outline my plan for future communications. While I don’t plan to have a literally 100% set schedule of posts, since I can’t really predict the exact times I will have a block of development stuff to share, I plan to post at MINIMUM one post a week explaining the work I’ve finished and what I’m doing next on Patreon. These posts are available to Patron’s a week in advance and will go public to other forums after the week is up.
On top of this, I am also streaming my development some days at
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. This not only allows me to share the behind the scenes stuff live, but I can answer questions from players, and record the VoD’s so I don’t always have to make a lengthy text post of what I worked on.
I am also planning to just be more active in general, both in posting, and interacting with community members. Especially in the game discord server, which can be found here
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. We have a few thousand members, and I will be active there. I will also be posting to Patreon/F95/Steam/etc, but will be most active in the Discord as it allows for the easiest casual real time conversation with players. We have a great community there, so if you haven’t checked it out before, definitely do so!
---My Thanks---
If you’ve gotten this far, thank you. You’ve read about 3500 words of my rambling, and I honestly can’t thank you enough. Thank you for supporting the game, thank you for supporting me, and I hope you can continue to do so in the future. I look forward to communicating with you all in the near future.
I will link all social pages for the game at the end of the post so they are easily accessible. And thank you again for reading, sincerely. If you have ANY questions about anything that I didn’t touch on in this post, or didn’t explain well enough, please let me know. You can easily contact me on Discord or Twitter, both linked at the bottom of this post.
---Social Media---
Patreon -
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Twitter -
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Steam -
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Discord -
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Picarto -
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F95Zone -
https://f95zone.to/threads/sylphine-v-024-glacerose.57733/
