- Aug 18, 2018
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- Oct 29, 2021
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Before I go into any details for my plans for the year, I would like to thank everyone who has supported me in any way since October last year. I had no expectations/ideas of how it would turn out when I made something completely new to me available to the public and the majority of the reactions have surprised me very positively. Thank you for that.
For everyone who supported me monetarily, let me tell you that as cliché as it sounds, I don't see the amount behind it, but the time of your life you spent earning it. To me it's like opening your window, throwing money out and hoping it will be caught by the right person. I really appreciate you entrusting this to me, a complete stranger on the internet and for some probably on the other side of the world.
Releases
A brief outlook on the year ahead. For anyone who hasn't read my slightly longer post on the games future, I'm planning 3 releases this year.
Chapter 2 - March/April
Chapter 3 - July/August
Chapter 4 - November/December
These are rough dates and may vary depending on the length of each chapter. A length of between 2-2.5 hours feels good, both when writing and playing. Therefore, you can also expect similar lengths for the upcoming chapters.
Each of the chapters will have a slight focus on one of the Li's, as I want to create a closer relationship with the characters in the next 3 chapters after the first encounters in chapter 1. This will involve going into more detail about the characters' life events so far. Don't worry, this won't result in the other 2 getting less content than seen in chapter 1, but rather that the focus character gets a bit more.
Game Improvements
In terms of the game itself, I've gathered some feedback after all the release phases of chapter 1 have been completed. All in all, most of it was positive, which was nice of course.
The one thing I'll take away in general and try to implement better is that the choices don't feel like choices and that the outcome of what I’d call positive choices is too positive. In terms of interaction and choices, I'll try to add more/more realistic ones based on the situation if I doesn't ruin the story by doing so. It's a bit more work but I can see how it can improve the experience.
In terms of meaningful choices, which to me translates to “create story branches”, I'm very careful about. Most of the games I've loved have destroyed themselves through excessive branching and that's “the” mistake I never want to make. If it pushes the game more towards kinetic novel, then so be it. Story is the focus for me, and I do everything I can to make it make sense.
Patreon Changes
As far as Patreon is concerned, I have no real desire to change anything. The number of tiers and the prices seem reasonable to me. The only thing I would like to add is another service for you. The game will get quite big and will exceed the download limits of any service, at least in the “original” version. As a result you will have to suffer through throttled download speeds. I don't want you to have to wait a long time for the download. Therefore I will split the links for the Patreon and Public Release so that I can activate bandwidth sharing for you subscribers. I will add an upper limit to that, understandably so that if someone shares the link with the public, the limits are not used up within minutes. This way you can always access the game data as quickly as possible, with the speeds the service I have chosen allows to. I will update the tier descriptions accordingly in the coming days. The change will be active for chapter 2 onwards and is for all tiers. Everyone who supports me should benefit from this.
Personal Goals
Personally, I want to be braver and better, especially in terms of image editing, lighting and camera angles. I've been a bit more cautious here in the past and have already built a bit more flexibility into chapter 2. It won't be huge leaps, as I don't want the game to look different with every release, but I will try to increase the quality step by step.
My big goal for this year is to be able to animate myself. I've already added some of my own animations to the scene in chapter 2 (3 of the 10 used are mine) to better link the purchased templates. By the end of the year, I want to be able to animate complete scenes myself so that I only have to call on help for complicated positions. This will allow me to make the scenes more interactive as I can quickly throw in my own animation if the scene needs it.
In terms of story and writing, I think this will simply improve with experience and practice. I notice with every script I write that I find it easier, and I just keep at it.
If you have anything you'd like me to look out for in 2025, just write me a message.
- Aug 9, 2020
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Very, very good start to a game I'll definitely be following. The Prologue was heart wrenching and the first chapter is starting to set up the story proper in a nice way. The LI's are attractive, with very different personalities.
I agree with whoever thought that starting to be interested in someone only a month after the death of your child is probably a bit too early. Mourning takes time, more so if it's your child. I also found the number of autoplay segments a few too many, but that's obviously a nit-pick.
I definitely appreciate a game with a focus on more serious topics than most games, and about actual adults.
All in all - very nice work. Worth subbing for a while.
I agree with whoever thought that starting to be interested in someone only a month after the death of your child is probably a bit too early. Mourning takes time, more so if it's your child. I also found the number of autoplay segments a few too many, but that's obviously a nit-pick.
I definitely appreciate a game with a focus on more serious topics than most games, and about actual adults.
All in all - very nice work. Worth subbing for a while.
That prologue hit hard. Having kids of my own i could only imagine how something like this would feel. Finished Chapter 1 today and i'm loving this story. This is the best VN i've read in years. I can't wait to see what else you do with this.
- Oct 29, 2021
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Let's start the new year with a confession. I may have lied a little when I said that I limited myself to 1 hour in the evening during my vacation. It was probably more like 2-3 hours. After writing the dialogues for chapter 2, I was in the flow and had fun continuing. So, sue me.
As you can see from the graphic, a bit more than 1/3 of the chapter is already rendered. What's also easy to notice, I think, is the label that contains the spicy parts of this chapter.
I will spread the sneak peek screenshots of the already finished labels over the next updates to not show everything in one go.
1 funny thing I discovered by accident and didn't realize how good it had become is AI interpolation. I currently render my animations in 30fps, which is perfectly adequate and standard as long as no particularly fast movements are included. However, I have discovered several tools and bought one of them, which increases the rate quite easily and quickly (a 4 second clip within 1 minute) to 60fps using artificially generated frames. The result is really amazing and looks much smoother. I'd love to share the before/after with you, but that would be a really big spoiler for chapter 2. I'll come back to it when the Patreon releases are through and your opinion on the differences would be really interesting for me to know then.
Regular weekly posts will start next week on Friday as usual again. Have a good start to the new year.
That's it for this update. See you next week.
- Jun 22, 2017
- 61
- 103
Well if your intention was to make a grown middle-aged man cry you sir succeeded.
Games like this prove you can develop mature renpy games that don't just focus on sex.
I rank your game with some of the top VN's in this site.
Games like this prove you can develop mature renpy games that don't just focus on sex.
I rank your game with some of the top VN's in this site.
- Jun 30, 2021
- 255
- 845
God that was really hurtful. Honestly it reminded me of Reign Over Me with Adam Sandler. I'm even surprised the protagonist didn't try to kill himself.
I don't know if there will be sex scenes in this game, but one thing I know for sure is that the passing and all those memories will be really painful. Nevertheless, I completed the first chapter with great interest and will definitely wait for the continuation
I don't know if there will be sex scenes in this game, but one thing I know for sure is that the passing and all those memories will be really painful. Nevertheless, I completed the first chapter with great interest and will definitely wait for the continuation
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Don't know what you mean. That's totally how legs work xd.
As a single father of a 4 year old girl, I absolutely hated this and I never want to see it again.
You're doing an amazing job, dev. Keep up the good work and tell your story.
You're doing an amazing job, dev. Keep up the good work and tell your story.
- Oct 29, 2021
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This week I finished label 5 and 6 and started with label 13. After this and the following one, number 14, are completed, I should be able to give the first rough estimates regarding the release.
13 is the setup and 14 is the actual first intimate scene of the main game. I want to put as much time into both as possible, as they are the starting point for the transition to be an AVN. It's also a big leap from a story perspective. I think I'll spend 2 weeks on these 2 labels alone to get their meaning across in a credible way. Animation renders for those will be around 2500, static renders between 300-400. As you can see, a lot of work is going into this one and the first scenes with the two other Li's will get the same amount of dedication.
Unfortunately, I can't share any renders of these labels, but it's good that I've worked in advance and can bridge the idle time until they are done.
That's it for this time. Until next week.
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- Oct 29, 2021
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This week I continued with the labels 13 and 14. 13 is basically finished. I'm still waiting for 1 asset that I'm missing to go into discount, as it's a bit too expensive now, then I can run the last missing renders. I think I'll be able to finish label 14 next week. The end is still missing for that one, after all the animations have been played. Also missing is 1 position with 2 animations and 6 camera angles.
All in all, I have to say that the scene was a lot of fun to work on. It's much easier to write and realize them when the characters have already spent a few moments together and have developed certain ways of interaction that you can play with.
I must apologize for one thing, and I really tried, believe me, but I'm not able to write dialogue that takes place during the animation, i.e. “during the action”. When I think of examples like, “oh yeah your dick stretches me so good, give it to me, give it to me”, I shrivel up in shame. There's a lot of dialogue before, between and after the animations but during them I just can't find the right words. And it doesn't really fit in my opinion, at least not for this scene.
What I am trying to add though are sound effects (no voices as I don't want to associate voices with the characters. I want to leave that to your imagination). I have bought sound packs like “Slurpy Effects” (I love the naming of such products) and will try to incorporate them. They will run on the audio channel of sound effects, so if you don't like them, you can just mute them without losing the music.
That's it for this time. Until next week.
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- Oct 29, 2021
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- Oct 29, 2021
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- Oct 29, 2021
- 4,674
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- Oct 29, 2021
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- Oct 29, 2021
- 4,674
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