- Thread starter TakMycket
- Start date
PHANTOM44
Member
- Sep 6, 2018
- 181
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I used to support developers on patreon , but became disillusioned with projects being abandoned.
I accept that developers need to earn a living - but its still disapointing when promising projects are left unfinished.
I accept that developers need to earn a living - but its still disapointing when promising projects are left unfinished.
Midgetking101
Newbie
- Aug 20, 2025
- 21
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I feel you. I'm a bit biased towards the dev cuz their a uni student just like me and its bad 4 me 2 spend 2 much time on vns rather than on uni.
NeonNinja90
Active Member
- Sep 20, 2017
- 593
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Dimitry710
Member
- Aug 13, 2021
- 227
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This was on my play list, guess i can delete it since it won't ever be completed. A shame this happened, but seems that many devs think doing vn is easy money, but for me to really even consider fully supporting a dev, i would need at least 1 fully completed game under their belt as majority of vns end up abadoned due to not enough funds or lost interest. meanwhile you have devs that creates a decent vn that really hits that fetish and it blows up, but those devs take a year to make 10 minutes of content.
JustPeekin
Active Member
- Mar 21, 2020
- 538
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Director's Journal 1:5
Yesterday
This Director's Journal will be open to the public. For those who are unaware, I release weekly updates to all my paid supporters and once every month, I'll release one of those weekly updates for free so all my free members can keep up with development.
Progress:
Fortunately, all that is behind me now. I'll be aiming to do at least 40 renders every day from here on out.
Promise, Progress and Payoff:
Those of you who've watched Brandon Sanderson's Writing Fantasy and Fiction lectures on YouTube will be familiar with these concepts. Yes, I'm not writing a Fantasy anymore and I'm also not writing a novel, but the same concepts do apply. Promise, Progress and Payoff are the 3 pillars of what makes a captivating story.
Promises are all about telling the audience what's going to happen in the future. For example, the peasant farm boy is going to learn how to fight and then defeat the evil king enslaving his people - that's a promise. At the start of every story, the author (or in this case, developer), makes a promise as to what's going to happen later down the track.
While planning out Ch. 1, I've kept these promises at the forefront of my mind. The story promises in Tides of Becoming all relate to character arcs and character development. I've made sure I have a promise for every major character in Ch. 1. For example, throughout Ch. 1, as you get to know Bethany, you'll discover she really wants a family and a loving husband. The audience is hence promised that if they pursue Bethany, they'll be able to be that loving husband Bethany desires.
There's also your genre and tonal promises as well. The genre AVN promises in the AVN space tend to revolve around romance and sex. In a harem AVN, you're promised that the MC will be able to have intimate with many female characters at once. In a pathing AVN, the promise is the MC will be able to be intimate with the Love Interest or sometimes Love Interests of the player's choice. Tides of Becoming is no different to any other AVN in that regard.
The other key promise involves the theme of the AVN which is purpose. While not explicitly stated (but the reader should pick up on it fairly quickly), the MC starts off his journey purposeless. The promise I'll make to you as the player is by the end of the game, the MC will have found his purpose.
Progress relates to the steps the story takes to deliver on these promises. Upon reflection, this is what I did poorly in Tides of Succession. I reckon I did a great job of setting up the promises, but I failed at delivering significant progress in Chapters 2 and 3 for the plot-specific promises. It felt like the story was going nowhere in terms of the plot because it was all focused on the romance progress. If I had my time again, I'd balance the romance and plot a bit better.
As such, throughout the planning stage, I've been doing a lot of thinking about what Brandon Sanderson refers to as the little p plot. The little p plot is the plot which happens in each chapter, or in our case, the plot that happen within a few scenes. In Tides of Becoming, there's always going to be something driving the plot forward. As it will be a slice of life, character driven story, these plot points are going to be rather "small", yet they play a vital role in the pacing. You can think of it as the glue which holds everything together.
Bethany trying to convince Kassia to join the GIU Hall Alliance
Payoff is the final aspect and it refers to how well the author (developer) delivers on their promises. In this case, there are really 3 main payoffs - the character arcs, the romantic relationships and the lewd scenes. Brandon Sanderson is known for promising his readers certain things, and then giving them what they want and way more. I plan to take a leaf out of his book.
However, payoffs are a fine balancing act. If the payoff is too big, it can feel unearned and it subtracts from the overall story in a big way. What I'll be trying to do is make the payoff as large as possible while also simultaneously ensuring it feels earned.
Anyway, this is the philosophy I'm taking with my approach to planning. I'm aware the whole concept of university slice of life is a whole lot less exciting than pirates and succession wars, but I truly believe I'll be able to develop a compelling narrative with these concepts in mind.
Plans for the next month:
For those who are unaware, I'm going overseas for a month during latter third of November and the first two thirds of December. As such, there won't be a release this year. However, I am striving for a January release next year.
Before I go overseas, I'll be doing at the bare minimum 40 renders every day. I hope to get a small beta version containing the first 2 days of in-game content to a select crowd before I fly out.
Just before I go, I'll release a public Director's Journal to update the public on the progress I've made over the next three and a bit weeks.
Preview Render:
I should have a lot more by the next public Director's Journal... but here's Hyeon tired for now.
You must be registered to see the links
Yesterday
This Director's Journal will be open to the public. For those who are unaware, I release weekly updates to all my paid supporters and once every month, I'll release one of those weekly updates for free so all my free members can keep up with development.
Progress:
- 285 renders
- 0 animations
Fortunately, all that is behind me now. I'll be aiming to do at least 40 renders every day from here on out.
Promise, Progress and Payoff:
Those of you who've watched Brandon Sanderson's Writing Fantasy and Fiction lectures on YouTube will be familiar with these concepts. Yes, I'm not writing a Fantasy anymore and I'm also not writing a novel, but the same concepts do apply. Promise, Progress and Payoff are the 3 pillars of what makes a captivating story.
Promises are all about telling the audience what's going to happen in the future. For example, the peasant farm boy is going to learn how to fight and then defeat the evil king enslaving his people - that's a promise. At the start of every story, the author (or in this case, developer), makes a promise as to what's going to happen later down the track.
While planning out Ch. 1, I've kept these promises at the forefront of my mind. The story promises in Tides of Becoming all relate to character arcs and character development. I've made sure I have a promise for every major character in Ch. 1. For example, throughout Ch. 1, as you get to know Bethany, you'll discover she really wants a family and a loving husband. The audience is hence promised that if they pursue Bethany, they'll be able to be that loving husband Bethany desires.
There's also your genre and tonal promises as well. The genre AVN promises in the AVN space tend to revolve around romance and sex. In a harem AVN, you're promised that the MC will be able to have intimate with many female characters at once. In a pathing AVN, the promise is the MC will be able to be intimate with the Love Interest or sometimes Love Interests of the player's choice. Tides of Becoming is no different to any other AVN in that regard.
The other key promise involves the theme of the AVN which is purpose. While not explicitly stated (but the reader should pick up on it fairly quickly), the MC starts off his journey purposeless. The promise I'll make to you as the player is by the end of the game, the MC will have found his purpose.
Progress relates to the steps the story takes to deliver on these promises. Upon reflection, this is what I did poorly in Tides of Succession. I reckon I did a great job of setting up the promises, but I failed at delivering significant progress in Chapters 2 and 3 for the plot-specific promises. It felt like the story was going nowhere in terms of the plot because it was all focused on the romance progress. If I had my time again, I'd balance the romance and plot a bit better.
As such, throughout the planning stage, I've been doing a lot of thinking about what Brandon Sanderson refers to as the little p plot. The little p plot is the plot which happens in each chapter, or in our case, the plot that happen within a few scenes. In Tides of Becoming, there's always going to be something driving the plot forward. As it will be a slice of life, character driven story, these plot points are going to be rather "small", yet they play a vital role in the pacing. You can think of it as the glue which holds everything together.
Bethany trying to convince Kassia to join the GIU Hall Alliance
Payoff is the final aspect and it refers to how well the author (developer) delivers on their promises. In this case, there are really 3 main payoffs - the character arcs, the romantic relationships and the lewd scenes. Brandon Sanderson is known for promising his readers certain things, and then giving them what they want and way more. I plan to take a leaf out of his book.
However, payoffs are a fine balancing act. If the payoff is too big, it can feel unearned and it subtracts from the overall story in a big way. What I'll be trying to do is make the payoff as large as possible while also simultaneously ensuring it feels earned.
Anyway, this is the philosophy I'm taking with my approach to planning. I'm aware the whole concept of university slice of life is a whole lot less exciting than pirates and succession wars, but I truly believe I'll be able to develop a compelling narrative with these concepts in mind.
Plans for the next month:
For those who are unaware, I'm going overseas for a month during latter third of November and the first two thirds of December. As such, there won't be a release this year. However, I am striving for a January release next year.
Before I go overseas, I'll be doing at the bare minimum 40 renders every day. I hope to get a small beta version containing the first 2 days of in-game content to a select crowd before I fly out.
Just before I go, I'll release a public Director's Journal to update the public on the progress I've made over the next three and a bit weeks.
Preview Render:
I should have a lot more by the next public Director's Journal... but here's Hyeon tired for now.
Some may find this lame, but I hope the dev chooses to reuse the main ToS character Daz3D models for his new AVN. That will lessen the pain of abandonment a little.