acewinz

Developer of "The Call of Darkness"
Game Developer
Oct 15, 2018
2,588
7,607
Come on guys. Whatever your views we are all entitled to it. To address concerns and things though if you didn't see the patreon posts that find their way here. To summarize, we had setbacks, and the current state of the world isn't doing anyone any favors, but we are up to a solid 4 man team now. Cheeky in the lead as always, Red and Cell handling art for us and doing great considering they had to hit the ground running, and me helping with writing and support stuff. Phalzyr still helps us out with coding and other things, but has taken a step back as a full time member for real life reasons.

As for the dev cycle question. I am not sure what Cheeky used to keep to before I joined last year, but we have tried to maintain a 6 week cycle for updates, but considering his first update was something along the lines of 700 lines vs the standard 6,000 lines lately per update (who knew branching got complicated? :D) sometimes we didn't hit that mark and did a beta (like the photoshoot EP15). Current delay though we hope will be a total exception to that standard. That is why we felt it was only right to offer patreons who needed to drop now the full ep 17 version when it is ready regardless.
 

botc76

The Crawling Chaos, Bringer of Strange Joy
Donor
Oct 23, 2016
4,480
13,386
Game used to have weekly updates?¿?
Right at the start, but only a few of them and they were really tiny compared to how the once a month became.

Come on guys. Whatever your views we are all entitled to it. To address concerns and things though if you didn't see the patreon posts that find their way here. To summarize, we had setbacks, and the current state of the world isn't doing anyone any favors, but we are up to a solid 4 man team now. Cheeky in the lead as always, Red and Cell handling art for us and doing great considering they had to hit the ground running, and me helping with writing and support stuff. Phalzyr still helps us out with coding and other things, but has taken a step back as a full time member for real life reasons.

As for the dev cycle question. I am not sure what Cheeky used to keep to before I joined last year, but we have tried to maintain a 6 week cycle for updates, but considering his first update was something along the lines of 700 lines vs the standard 6,000 lines lately per update (who knew branching got complicated? :D) sometimes we didn't hit that mark and did a beta (like the photoshoot EP15). Current delay though we hope will be a total exception to that standard. That is why we felt it was only right to offer patreons who needed to drop now the full ep 17 version when it is ready regardless.
Well, the six weeks rule, has that really worked? Maybe once, the other times there were delays for valid reasons AND the episodes continued to grow bigger and bigger.
I guess if you only look at the frequency of the updates, you could think that things are becoming worse, but as someone who has followed this game from the first update until now, I actually consider this last update the first that was really troubled.
And lets be honest here, 16 updates (with the last few being really large by the usual standards on this site) and a game that becomes more complex each time, with a level of writing and story among the best on F95, with awesome renders and a line-up of characters, where even my least favourite ones are still fucking hot, meansCheeky and his team are doing a great job (including you of course).
 

acewinz

Developer of "The Call of Darkness"
Game Developer
Oct 15, 2018
2,588
7,607
Right at the start, but only a few of them and they were really tiny compared to how the once a month became.



Well, the six weeks rule, has that really worked? Maybe once, the other times there were delays for valid reasons AND the episodes continued to grow bigger and bigger.
I guess if you only look at the frequency of the updates, you could think that things are becoming worse, but as someone who has followed this game from the first update until now, I actually consider this last update the first that was really troubled.
And lets be honest here, 16 updates (with the last few being really large by the usual standards on this site) and a game that becomes more complex each time, with a level of writing and story among the best on F95, with awesome renders and a line-up of characters, where even my least favourite ones are still fucking hot, meansCheeky and his team are doing a great job (including you of course).
Haha. Ya, the complexity with the branching does introduce something of an exponential factor that I think even Cheeky underestimated early on, but that usually puts more strain on the writing/coding. Which we are managing alright, but the delay in casting and catching up artists has put the renders behind the writing when we usually try to progress in lock step. We also got ambitious enough to raise the bar a little with our quality given the new talent we have at our disposal, that I hope when you see it will make up for the delay. (I personally am incredibly hyped about it.)
 

blaackstarr

Member
Dec 24, 2018
159
174
Haha. Ya, the complexity with the branching does introduce something of an exponential factor that I think even Cheeky underestimated early on, but that usually puts more strain on the writing/coding. Which we are managing alright, but the delay in casting and catching up artists has put the renders behind the writing when we usually try to progress in lock step. We also got ambitious enough to raise the bar a little with our quality given the new talent we have at our disposal, that I hope when you see it will make up for the delay. (I personally am incredibly hyped about it.)
That preview of Monica, she looks the best she has ever looked. And I already liked how she looked, lol.
 

blahblah25

Well-Known Member
Respected User
Apr 19, 2018
1,171
1,071
I’m just happy that we at least have communication with what’s going on with the game and extremely happy that it’s going to be a longer update compared to the last so I’m good with waiting for the ladies :love:
 
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P4cc3r5

Active Member
Feb 4, 2019
845
982
Is the dev following the footsteps of L&P and DrPinkcake on 3-4 month cycle?
As mentioned previously (* if you back track)- complications this time around as the team lost a member, the substitute bailed without notice & they ended up with a whole new art team. So just an unavoidable spanner in the otherwise smoothly running gears this time around.

* post #11,944 on page 598
 
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Boracle

Member
Jun 3, 2017
229
468
Guys, chill a bit.


Opinions are good and all, but they are like dicks - it's OK to have one; it's OK to be proud of it, but it's not OK to force it on other people. I also don't like waiting but hey, that's the world we live in - good things take time. And yeah - we can't make all people read everything; our brains evolved to extrapolate information with as least details as possible. I prefer 1 release every 6 or so weeks with a lot of material, than a droplet sizes every week, but this is entirely up to personal preferences just like the ladies. Just hope there will be some good action and fun with Katie :D
 

imunisasi

Member
Dec 4, 2017
249
210
Guys, chill a bit.


Opinions are good and all, but they are like dicks - it's OK to have one; it's OK to be proud of it, but it's not OK to force it on other people. I also don't like waiting but hey, that's the world we live in - good things take time. And yeah - we can't make all people read everything; our brains evolved to extrapolate information with as least details as possible. I prefer 1 release every 6 or so weeks with a lot of material, than a droplet sizes every week, but this is entirely up to personal preferences just like the ladies. Just hope there will be some good action and fun with Katie :D
i enjoy wthi story from begining, lol it looklike reading novel with image and moving image plus another image
so please wait dev working on it
 
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JIT

Newbie
Oct 25, 2017
38
65
Guess folks are getting irritable with the Covid-19 pandemic - all need to take a chill pill every so often, stay safe & wash hands :D

You are right. And on the plus side, the pandemic brings lockdowns! Game developers will have to stay at home and we should get a lot of updates in the upcoming weeks :D
 

Avaron1974

Resident Lesbian
Aug 22, 2018
25,785
88,815
You are right. And on the plus side, the pandemic brings lockdowns! Game developers will have to stay at home and we should get a lot of updates in the upcoming weeks :D
As I said in another thread. They are home but so are their families.

Some devs will probably get less work down on their games.
 

acewinz

Developer of "The Call of Darkness"
Game Developer
Oct 15, 2018
2,588
7,607
You are right. And on the plus side, the pandemic brings lockdowns! Game developers will have to stay at home and we should get a lot of updates in the upcoming weeks :D
Not everyone gets off unfortunately. Cheeky was swamped with his work helping businesses come up with action plans to deal with "the virus".
 

Uriel ☁

Well-Known Member
Nov 28, 2017
1,539
9,512
What follows is the worst effect of Coronavirus lockdown, extreme boredom.
Also someone was wrong on the internet, damn it.

So, I scavanged both Patreon and the game to gather all the data (dates are dd/mm/yyyy):

Episode #Release dateProduction daysRenders countAnimations countLines count
7​
01/10/2018​
-​
170​
0​
2237​
8​
07/11/2018​
37​
205​
1​
2945​
9​
11/01/2019​
65​
179​
3​
2618​
10​
24/02/2019​
44​
208​
8​
3816​
11​
31/03/2019​
34​
189​
6​
3395​
12​
16/05/2019​
46​
359​
14​
4444​
13​
11/07/2019​
56​
296​
12​
4428​
14​
26/08/2019​
46​
279​
15​
4635​
15​
01/11/2019​
67​
362​
16​
6706​
16​
30/12/2019​
59​
294​
9​
7132​
Today​
19/03/2019​
79​

Conclusions:
The game is generally stable in its 45-60 days per update production cycle, with a few outliers here and there (mean value 50,7 days). Meanwhile both the grapichs and the writing more than tripled.

I hereby absolve the accused Cheeky and the team from charges of milking.
 
4.40 star(s) 332 Votes