HTML Unholy Arts [v0.4.6] [Deep Interactivity]

[Wyrtyn]

this sucks because the game had great potential
i never understood why the dev kept spending energy working on secondary features like the animations instead of just progressing with the story
at the end of the day, the sandbox days and especially the mini events at the beginning of the days are still the coolest part of the game

Animations i suspect had a couple of reasons. One it was done by a subcontracted dev and thus as the dev lost the ability to grind out hours into the project, it was a way to keep production up. For two some people complained that the game is too much jerking it to maths and thus some broader appeal net west cast.

Personally to me the animations and the various changes of that era were basically there to finish setting up the skeleton of the game, the balance, the visuals etc after which you could bat out story as it comes.

But that's my outside looking in estimate.

 

[Wyrtyn]

After the first adventure ("slime village") there is a second sandbox period with some new events (not quite as event-dense as the first ingame month, but still a lot of good stuff in there) and then there is the full intro to the second adventure (Nash's village), the second adventure has most of its sandbox elements already implemented but only a couple of events done before development was terminated.

I respect a lot that the dev didn't want to string the supporters along or get paid without being able to get work on the game done, but it is very sad that it came to needing to decisively end the game's development. This game was very special both in terms of its gameplay systems and story writing. I don't even think the pace of the game's development had been bad outside of the last few months either, a bad faith actor might say this was just a twine text-based game and it shouldn't take over a decade to be finished, but the vast majority of good indie adult games take at least that long even when having many rudimentary elements or also using "simpler" engines (The Last Sovereign and MGQ Paradox come to mind), and to me Unholy Arts was definitely up there as one of the good indie adult games.

I swear if I (metaphorically) ever win the lottery I'm going to open a publishing studio centered entirely around restoring dead indie adult games, there's a lot of incredible game design ideas and stories I have just never seen done anywhere else that unfortunely never got completed.

It's a bloody graveyard of good ideas but tbf that's an indie endeavour, not just adult games. You gotta celebrate the flames while they're around and scatter the ashes with your head high i guess.

 

[Wyrtyn]

Anyway ramblings aside i am glad this game was a part of my life, it's going to the special chest of games that clicked with me at a deeper level, there's only a couple dozen games there and this is the one adult one. Kudos to the dev for everything you did for us.

 

[tacosnap123]

are we going to get that final update here or is what poted here all were getting

 

[manscout]

are we going to get that final update here or is what poted here all were getting

Final update is on the Itch.io page. Content wise that's the final build of the game, might have more bug fixes in the future but that's it. Dev is still planning to write some posts detailing what they had penned for the rest of the story in the upcoming weeks.

 

[manscout]

Apparently dev started posting on

You must be registered to see the links

about their shelved plans. Only about the rest of what was planned for Nash's adventure so far, but an interesting read nonetheless, the boss battle at the end of it seemed like it would be a real damn menace.

 

[Crimson Tide]

I played this game several months ago, and was super into it. I stopped once I got a new laptop since my save files wouldn't have carried through, and recently came back to get back into it and see what was new. Coming back to find the game canceled was hard. This game, quite genuinely, made me feel things that few other adult games have. The excitement I had as I saw the story unfold, the fascination with each of the characters and the worldbuilding, the Gleaming Caverns- fuck, the Gleaming Caverns. It's been a long time since a character has made me as angry and disgusted as Nersmias. The entire sequence was done excellently. I'm going to miss this game a hell of a lot.

Does anyone have the reason why development was terminated? The link to the Patreon post is gone because the Patreon account was shut down, and the archive linked in the itch.io post is down as well.

 

[Wyrtyn]

I played this game several months ago, and was super into it. I stopped once I got a new laptop since my save files wouldn't have carried through, and recently came back to get back into it and see what was new. Coming back to find the game canceled was hard. This game, quite genuinely, made me feel things that few other adult games have. The excitement I had as I saw the story unfold, the fascination with each of the characters and the worldbuilding, the Gleaming Caverns- fuck, the Gleaming Caverns. It's been a long time since a character has made me as angry and disgusted as Nersmias. The entire sequence was done excellently. I'm going to miss this game a hell of a lot.

Does anyone have the reason why development was terminated? The link to the Patreon post is gone because the Patreon account was shut down, and the archive linked in the itch.io post is down as well.

Dev planned for it to be a 1-year short project, it crept up to 5 years and would last *at least* 5 more. Health got worse, life gave bumps and the dev found to have done very little progress in months throughout 2024. Being fundamentally a good person who wasn't going to milk a patreon for months/years like many people in this scene would , the dev compensated by hiring the artist for more and more hours to work on the animations portraits etc. And while this did keep some progress up, it also means less financially viable for the dev as a project and also clearly the drive to do this was tapped out. So the dev recognized that they do not wish to continue developing and closed it down with grace.

 

[Qix4]

unfortunate, this was one of my most favorite games out there

 

[deptraivkl]

For a text-based game with repetitive sex scenes this is one hell of an immersive experience. Its like reading a good book, one that is Deep-ly Interactive (lmao)

Already knew the sad news on Patreon so I just wanted to pay homage to the dev one more if he still around: Thanks for your works and Wishing you good health!

 

[WitheredTulip]

I played this game several months ago, and was super into it. I stopped once I got a new laptop since my save files wouldn't have carried through, and recently came back to get back into it and see what was new. Coming back to find the game canceled was hard. This game, quite genuinely, made me feel things that few other adult games have. The excitement I had as I saw the story unfold, the fascination with each of the characters and the worldbuilding, the Gleaming Caverns- fuck, the Gleaming Caverns. It's been a long time since a character has made me as angry and disgusted as Nersmias. The entire sequence was done excellently. I'm going to miss this game a hell of a lot.

Does anyone have the reason why development was terminated? The link to the Patreon post is gone because the Patreon account was shut down, and the archive linked in the itch.io post is down as well.

Nersmais, that son of a bitch....

 

[Sickfire212]

Damn, I'm a bit of a lurker on these sites, but when I left this game I thought I would come back to it in full bloom since I really do think everything in it has potential. I was even a bit excited when I saw the new animations. But I completely understand, the reasoning for quitting, and I just hope that everything goes well for you from now on. If you and Chili Cherry were able to make something like this, I'm sure you have a promising future ahead of you. Good luck!

 

[KaraSilver]

Thanks for the good game, even unfinished, wish you the best : )

 

[M4risa]

The Slime Village story and what happened next made me feel really emotional i stayed awake till 5 am i was so invested, it's a shame the game was canceled.

 

[YouShallNotLol]

This one was so good. Rip.