I believe re-making old stuff is a waste of time. So no re-makes or remasters. The thing Human Device is working on is making UI look more aestetically pleasing, replacing the basic UI I did when fiddling with photoshop. It won't have any effect on the visuals, the story, nor will it increase the development time as I am only providing some basic inputs/suggestions and few easy to make pictures of models, that's all.
Are you talking about Coteries of NY and sequels? I only played Coteries and found it okay-ish. There is one major plot point idea that I picked up from Coteries but that's not yet in the game. Could you explain further if that's not too much to ask?
My dude, you need to lay off the cynicism, it's bad for your health. While I've seen devs become so self-centered, it was almost always an exception to the rule.
But anyway, I did make public releases every update, and this one shouldn't be any different. The reason why you might think otherwise is because making public announcements meant the game was pirated day0 so I stopped announcing when the public updates come.
The gameplay mechanic was already in the game. It's a standard mechanic you see in VN's that track NPC stats. The difference now is that instead of manually calculating how many stats players need to pass the threshold I just figure how difficult a check should be and leave it to Ren'Py to calculate the stuff. The implementation is not stellar, but it eases my workload and addresses potential bugs and inconsistencies.
Also, I am aware of a considerable bias on f95 for VN-style games, with any sort of deviation is considered unwanted, unnatural or sinful, but I do want to make something more than a "choose your own adventure" type of a game. I am aware that might not be ideal to some people, but that's just the way it is.
I... don't really get the logic here. Someone who doesn't get blank screens should tell me about how blank screens he doesn't see are bad?
But anyway, that someone could be you! And this goes for everyone else reading this as well. Like I always say, I'm always open to listening to any comment, criticism or complaint. To get in touch with me you can check my socials in the first post, or in my game. Now that I've written that down, I realized I didn't include itch.io contact in the game, so that's something I need to do for the next release.
Oh, and titles are named "stuff" because then I don't have to figure out a title every time I make a post.
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Now, there's something I'd like to address. I've already had a similar discussion with a patreon who took mostly opposite side of the argument than all the good people in this thread, so just like with him, I'd like to clarify why I'm neither angry or supportive on the whole issue of piracy.
Let's consider two distinct games. First one is some Ubisoft AAA title that made a profit but it didn't reach the board of directors expectations. The official reason is that the game was pirated almost as much as it was bought, and if only all those pirates bought the game instead of pirating it the company would've doubled their revenue.
The second one is an indie game made by one guy in his spare time who posted torrents to his product on all pirate platforms because he believes piracy is a net benefit for games.
So the question is: which of these views correct? And the answer is somewhere in between. Like I said to the patreon person who was somewhat frustrated by the pirates not respecting the developer to wait for public release (this was back in the day when I posted public updates about when the public releases are out), whether piracy is good or bad, or to use a topic closer to what's being said in this thread, whether it's smart to hide things behind paywall, depends on the strengths and weaknesses of the developer.
Ubisoft game from previous example spent tens of millions on advertisement, and had to rely on hype, convenience and DRM holding the gates to extract as much value from the potential customers. The DRM failed so Ubisoft got to scapegoat random people (most of whom never would've played the game if there was no pirated version available) for their title that didn't make 700% of the investment that they dreamed that it could.
On the other hand, the indie guy spent 0 in marketing, so he had to rely for the most part on word of mouth from his torrents to spread the awareness of his game and hope that enough good people would decide to throw some coins his way. So without piracy he would've sold a dozen copies, his game disappearing in the trash of steam, but with piracy - well he could sell 0 copies, but he also has a small chance to increase his revenue, maybe even have a very successful and beloved title with its own following.
I stand somewhere in between these cases. Without f95, I don't really have a reliable way to inform the broader public about my releases, so I can thank it and similar sites that host and promote these files for most of my success or failure. On the other hand pirating releases for clout, or worse for financial gain, hurts me as a developer as the convenience and hype factor (which are arguably two most important ones when a person decides to support a game) are gone and I have to rely on good will of the people, which is massive when taken at word, but much lesser when taken in actions.
But, I've been droning on for long enough. In the end it's an entitlement battle. Entitlement of pirates that they deserve a product of someone else's labor for free (or in my case at the same time as patreons, since I do provide free updates), and entitlement of developer who tries to get as many people to pay 5+ bucks a month for what is essentially 15 minutes of content a month. Which side is right? Well, I believe the answer is somewhere in between.
