Unreal Engine Under the Witch [v1.8] [NumericGazer]

[Reapergod36]

I get people are upset, but I'm going to be honest with you here. This project is NOT a simple project, and many of you have no idea what's required. I'll list out some simple facts, and provide some insight into these factors to help explain what's going on.

- The game that's being developed is open world.
What this means, is that maps need to be developed. Not one, plural, and they need to smoothly transition from one map to another. Every thing you see in a game requires a texture. From grass, to rocks, to trees and their leaves. 3D Models are needed, rocks, foliage (Trees grass and flowers), etc. Then, once you've created your basic map, you need to add Nav Meshes, lighting, paths, etc.

- 3D Assets. I'm not going to say much here, I'm just gonna point to this video and tell you to keep in mind this is from someone who's job is ONLY to produce 3d assets.

You must be registered to see the links

- UI - I'm not a pro, but I've spent days building up a menu system, then scrapped it and spent days again rebuilding it. Over and over, until it had the functionality I wanted. Nothing to do with art or style, never got that far. Just pure functionality.

- Sound Effects. Everything you hear? Either you've got a high quality microphone and you're spending days recording things for your sound effects, Then even more time clipping the tracks, modulating them, converting them, timing them to play with animations, etc. or you're dishing out cash to buy a license to use someone elses work, and you're still doing half the work.

- Programming Logic. From what happens when you click a button, to saving and loading variables that make things work, to the AI behavior of enemies, everything that happens has a back end to make it happen. These back ends are not easily developed, get built and rebuilt. Added something new? Go back through everything you've already built and make sure you didn't break anything (Which you did and will have to fix).

- Optimization. Got something built? Do a quick run through, and why the heck is the FPS at 15.00? Guess it's time to go back and edit what you've already done and do some optimization (Won't go into detail here as it gets pretty technical, but lets just say time consuming and hard).

All of these things take time and money to do, and AFAIK this isn't a big project with multiple people dedicating entire work days to it. This isn't RPGMaker or Renpy, UE is a complicated system.

My experience is on the 3D asset side of things but regardless of the game design process. He's sat on 1.4 for a very long time and people are paying him money. Almost a full year in-fact. I even know that he's switched from his original engine and that caused even further delays. At this point he's set a standard and now due to delays built up an expectation that's really massive. If we get 1.6 for example, people will just be pissed if it's not filled to the brim with new content.

 

[meeman]

For a while now, it seemed like UTW was heading in the same direction as TOT. However, at least he's uploading something monthly so.......
View attachment 972440

Not really. A long time between updates, sure. But after the first release giggidy then the polishing updates, (Chinese, English voice, gallery, etc.) He said it would probably be a long time, maybe a year or so until more is added. A little more than a year later, here we are.
TOT on the other hand. It'll be here Friday. I mean this weekend. Sat, Sun, Mon.... Tues: I ran into a delay with ..........
Wed, Thurs. Ok I've got it figured out, Should be ready by Friday.... Friday: It's a mess, this will take weeks to fix all of this....... Weeks later... On and on and on and a different minigame, and a different side-progject within the game, with goals and timeframes that keep changing and .................................

 

[olorex11]

I'm giving NG the benefit of the doubt since he LISTENED and asked us in a poll to release a playable demo to the patreon people when we got upset about the lack of content and his choice of not working on a planned video(s) of Dealer. So I give him that, if the demo/pre alpha is great and has enough content I will join his patreon again.

 

[BadMrFrostyy]

I'm giving NG the benefit of the doubt since he LISTENED and asked us in a poll to release a playable demo to the patreon people when we got upset about the lack of content and his choice of not working on a planned video(s) of Dealer. So I give him that, if the demo/pre alpha is great and has enough content I will join his patreon again.

I agree with this but a lot of people including myself have contacted him and replied to his posts asking about a new demo with no reply at all and just being ignored,he always seems to ignore questions about a new demo build. My fear is that he keeps doing polls and giving little animations and 'showing" a newer build, without actually releasing anything, thus turning it into a cash cow with no actual progress like ToT. Im also not saying NG is like them now,he has done heaps more in being active and showing SOMETHING and not nothing at all.

 

[FemdomLover1542]

What is ToT?

 

[first name]

What is ToT?

Tower of Trample, but i don't want it to be a full blown discussion since this page is all about UTW. So, back to UTW my friends.

 

[FemdomLover1542]

Tower of Trample, but i don't want it to be a full blown discussion since this page is all about UTW. So, back to UTW my friends.

Gotcha, definitely don't mean to derail anything. Thanks!

 

[Succubus Hunter]

Not really. A long time between updates, sure. But after the first release giggidy then the polishing updates, (Chinese, English voice, gallery, etc.) He said it would probably be a long time, maybe a year or so until more is added. A little more than a year later, here we are.
TOT on the other hand. It'll be here Friday. I mean this weekend. Sat, Sun, Mon.... Tues: I ran into a delay with ..........
Wed, Thurs. Ok I've got it figured out, Should be ready by Friday.... Friday: It's a mess, this will take weeks to fix all of this....... Weeks later... On and on and on and a different minigame, and a different side-progject within the game, with goals and timeframes that keep changing and .................................

That is Boda in a nutshell. I hope NG has taken a look at ToT's thread on here and learned what NOT to do as a game dev. I love how this game looks so far and I really want to see this game be completed.

As for an overworld, I think that could be fun. Perhaps something where the player can look for powerups while avoiding getting ravished by over leveled witches/ other monster girls.

 

[fanboi]

Not really. A long time between updates, sure. But after the first release giggidy then the polishing updates, (Chinese, English voice, gallery, etc.) He said it would probably be a long time, maybe a year or so until more is added. A little more than a year later, here we are.
TOT on the other hand. It'll be here Friday. I mean this weekend. Sat, Sun, Mon.... Tues: I ran into a delay with ..........
Wed, Thurs. Ok I've got it figured out, Should be ready by Friday.... Friday: It's a mess, this will take weeks to fix all of this....... Weeks later... On and on and on and a different minigame, and a different side-progject within the game, with goals and timeframes that keep changing and .................................

To be fair, there has been tons more produced by Bo/Koda this year for their patrons than NG. Obviously NG is producing things since we can see the results with those short videos, just wish that all his time & attention was on doing those (they are awesome) instead of an open-world game.

 

[neddyf]

I realised what bothers me about the main character's voice acting, he basically makes silly noises like weebl and bob

Would be a good option to have possibility to mute him and just read the text if needed.

 

[Deleted member 2766539]

I kind of think this is also part of the problem, sometimes independent devs bite off more than they can chew. Also, as stated above, it's good to remember the purpose of the game, if people want to play some deep open world game with dynamic environments and immersive atmosphere, there are studios out there making those games and its not ultimately what brings someone to a game like UTW. I think sticking with something really simple like battles and having to trigger certain mechanics to unlock content like the present release is probably a lot better of a concept imo. It means you can more narrowly put your focus on the things that matter like character models and endings.

In the end I just think these overly ambitious concepts leave you wasting a ton of time on things that aren't the primary draw to your product. Ultimately it's up to them, they can make whatever game they want to, but it seems like a poor allocation of resources to me.

To be fair, there has been tons more produced by Bo/Koda this year for their patrons than NG. Obviously NG is producing things since we can see the results with those short videos, just wish that all his time & attention was on doing those (they are awesome) instead of an open-world game.

Honestly, Open World isn't even the biggest problem. It's just one item on a list, and while it does add to the work flow, if done in an organized fashion (Not building the whole world at once), it shouldn't tag on THAT much more time. The fact is he's building back end stuff. Menu's, the ability to save and load, the ability to get and do quests, implementing triggers that control how things progress, minimaps, etc... All these gameplay features don't just come built in like they do on RPGMaker. Once one is built, and you make another, you need to edit both to make sure they interact with each other.

Let me give you an example of what the workflow is like. You build your parent NPC class, give it stats like hp, energy, attack power, etc. Then you build a function to interact with said NPC. Then you build the ability to fight said NPC, then you want it so if you lose say 10 times, the NPC does something. Then you build a reputation system so that new options open up with more reputation. THEN you need to go back to the stats, add those reputations in, add in the loss counter, etc. Then your NPC needs to be able to read that Data, so you need to rework the interaction functions so the data can get passed through, then add more logic on the NPC to parse those new stats, then make sure everything is working properly. THEN you need to test it, optimize it, etc. THEN you need to add those new stats to the save load functions, then you need to test that to make sure it didn't break anything there! Can a quest reward reputation? Another system to modify. and it goes on and on.

What you saw in the demo (1.4) was very basic functionality. Hell, the player couldn't even walk around. That fight? It wasn't triggered, it was scripted to load when the play button was pushed.

Now I know what most people will think when reading this, and most people will facepalm and say wtf don't work on this, focus on that or have some opinion or w/e. But there's also some good news that comes with this. These are core gameplay functionalities that are being built... and once they are done, he will be able to push out content like more npcs, more scenes, etc much more quickly. This production pace isn't the pace he's going to be pushing content at regularly... This is the grind to build the framework in which he can use to push out content.

 

[Krosos]

Would be a good option to have possibility to mute him and just read the text if needed.

She should just push a ball gag in his mouth or plaster it with a tape i think that's even what most wanted to see overall
She could even use her magic alone in a visible way to mute him out entirely and by his face reaction you would see it "distress".

I think we aren't far away from him getting Strapped and have to Strapped enjoy her sooner or later poor hero he is
And this Evil Dark Witch Bitch is enjoying every moment of her controlling his misery and the chosen voice actress plays this out not so bad

 

[simsalabim]

I agree with this but a lot of people including myself have contacted him and replied to his posts asking about a new demo with no reply at all and just being ignored,he always seems to ignore questions about a new demo build. My fear is that he keeps doing polls and giving little animations and 'showing" a newer build, without actually releasing anything, thus turning it into a cash cow with no actual progress like ToT. Im also not saying NG is like them now,he has done heaps more in being active and showing SOMETHING and not nothing at all.

If I were a solo game developer, I'd ignore it too (for the most part) and just post a small FAQ and leave it at that. Answering the same question over and over is demoralizing for some people, and making promises then not being able to keep them is usually worse. Fans being enthusiastic is cool though, but y'know.

 

[Krosos]

Hard todo this on Patreon though as people have certain expectations in your progress and what you showing you gonna lose if you doesn't provide something that makes sense.
You never the less doing commercial development you could do what you say without taking any money at first but not like this with commercial intent behind it.

 

[Succubus Hunter]

She should just push a ball gag in his mouth or plaster it with a tape i think that's even what most wanted to see overall
She could even use her magic alone in a visible way to mute him out entirely and by his face reaction you would see it "distress".

I think we aren't far away from him getting Strapped and have to Strapped enjoy her sooner or later poor hero he is
And this Evil Dark Witch Bitch is enjoying every moment of her controlling his misery and the chosen voice actress plays this out not so bad

This, this right here would be a great way to add a mute opton for our MC hero.

 

[toon667]

For game development, if you want constant monthly updates, somewhere along the line the game will suffer, if for example every single month you need a demo the developer will have to prepare a demo, potentially cutting into work that could be done elsewhere. If you look at something like Sea of thieves which uses a games as a service model, you'll notice that the content that has been added over time hasn't been mechanically substantial, instead focusing on chasing a cash flow to further develop the game which means more development time is focused on objects and items that don't add anything mechanically to the game - cosmetics.

Also from a creative development perspective, if you look at how numericgazer works on his project, he is in the pursuit of improving technique and working on his skills to provide a better experience, eventually he may be able to use these skills to develop other projects at a quicker pace and experiment. I'm sure if he was just doing things like making animation, publishing animation, making animation and then publishing animation he would probably lose interest in the project at hand, so it's in the best interest of the project to allow the artist to experiment creatively and for them to craft a more rewarding experience for the player.

 

[kraoro]

I'm not normally into femdom, but the combination of hot witch and fantastic animations is changing my mind. Now I'm desperate to see more of this. Has there really been no updated release in two years? Is this Alice game he's mentioning on his Patreon page a different game he's working on?

 

[shäe1337]

I'm not normally into femdom, but the combination of hot witch and fantastic animations is changing my mind. Now I'm desperate to see more of this. Has there really been no updated release in two years? Is this Alice game he's mentioning on his Patreon page a different game he's working on?

it's the same game a new update should be available soon

 

[pablowwq]

Well yeah I'm sorry for being skeptical about this whole project of his but at this rate this is ridiculous.
It seems like the developer actually forgot that he's working on a porn game and not a triple A game. Open world,free roam trainning system 90% of the things he's talking about all are useless.No one will play a femdom game to see architectures of houses and carefully built cities From what I've seen so far is that he completely trashed everything about the previous releases of the game and now he's building a whole new game, Which means the next release will again be an Alpha version but with different things built around the game. No improvement in the fighting system, no story line,no quests just open world with fighting and scenes and after losing a quick "GAME OVER" screen nice.

 

[kraoro]

I hadn't heard of the game until yesterday, and had no idea the dev switched gears entirely to make UtW into an open world game. I'm considerably less excited for more because I know how this story goes. The reason the animations were of such high quality is because that was the entire focus of development. Now I already know even without following the dev on social media that he's going to be spread too thin. It's either going to be a terrible open world game with great animations, a good open world game with mediocre porn, or it's going to be bland all around. He's trying to do the equivalent amount of work as a triple A game studio with a fraction of the budget and manpower, and it never goes well.