Why does development take so long?

[sexykadath]

Hello,

New peruser of the games here, etc.

I noticed that some of the active succesfull indie games here, in terms of amount of Patreon (or other sites) supporters, still take a long time between version releases. For exampe, Nemurimouto or Headmaster. (Cheers to the devs btw, not a criticism, just trying to understand). Any input on why that is? Is game dev just simply that complex / time consuming? Or is it because even if they are succesfull, it isn't enough to quit their day jobs?

I ask because because I am considering trying to start my own project, and just want to be realistic with myself about how much work / time it is.

Cheers,

SK

 

[Brosewood]

Because it's a lot harder than it looks.

I went into my project thinking it'd take 12 months and it ended up taking 20 months. There's a lot that goes into a project. I had to brainstorm, write, edit, playtest, balance, promote and bugfix my game. That's not even considering that I didn't have art or animations to worry about.

And for the love of God, if you're getting into game dev mainly to make a living, DON'T. Only the very top devs make a living out of this. Most of us would make more money working at McDonalds. I do this because I'm a sicko who loves storytelling and creating.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Any input on why that is? Is game dev just simply that complex / time consuming? Or is it because even if they are succesfull, it isn't enough to quit their day jobs?

It's all of this and more.

Since you consider starting your own project, I'll answer from that angle:

Make a game is really time and energy consuming. Especially if it's an adult game, because it will rely on the story way more than any other genre.

You need to come up with the situation. What will happen in that scene, why and how it will happen. Then then keep in mind (or write somewhere, what is better) what happened, because the MC discovering again every now and then that his system like strawberry ice cream is a bit ridiculous. And you also need to keep in mind/write what that scene imply for the rest of the story, because the MC being warmly welcomed to a house he'd been vigorously kicked out few time ago make no sense.

Then you need to write the scene. Therefore the dialog, but also a rough description of the different CGs that will illustrate it. Something that will need to be rewrote, then corrected, more than once, in order for everything to feel natural.

Then you'll need to works on the CGs. For this you need to find a location/background, as well as clothes that match the context. If it happen while MC is at works, you can't place the CGs in a bedroom, and the different people in it can't be dressed too casually, even less only partly dressed. You'll also need to ensure that the expressions and poses match the situation; someone angry can not wear its most beautiful smile by example.
Doing this you'll face some impossibilities, what will force you to rewrite once again the scene.

Next you'll have to code all this. If you limits to basic game mechanism, it will be easy, but if you want more complex ones it can imply weeks of works.

Then finally come the tests. You'll play the scene to see if it carry the expected feeling, going back to the writing or CGs each time it will be needed, what will of course imply a new test. And if it's not a purely kinetic novel, you'll also need to test for all the possible context.

All this, you'll be doing it on your free time, because unless you earn an indecent amount of money, you'll not be stupid and drop your job for something that will perhaps only last two or three years.
And, precisely, you'll do this for few years, what mean that you'll sometimes face a writer block, but also quickly enough want to spend time for yourself and/or with you family. This because, especially at first where the motivation is at its top, you'll do it during all your free time, thinking about your game every time you don't have to think about something else, what will include breaks at works. Something that is nervously exhausting.

So, yeah, making a game, and I mean here making it seriously, is something that take a lot of time.
Then, if you've the chance to be successful and to, more or less, secure a strong base fan, it will take more times. Not just because you works more to not deceive them, but also because you don't want to kill yourself doing it. So you'll decide to only works one day out of two, or to never works during the sunday, or whatever like this that will help you keep a bit of sanity.

 

[ciaqoo]

I ask because because I am considering trying to start my own project, and just want to be realistic with myself about how much work / time it is.

I'm not blaming content creators they are slow. I have one idea on my mind. I wouldn't say it would be my game - rather my mod not a game. I'm going to extract a lot of content from my fav VN RenPy games to create one multiworld fuck fest compilation full of kinks. I'm not going to create new original content except of compilation of original storylines which in its way is some kind of original input. So far I'm developing tool for content management: paths extractor , text nodes analyzer - counting original ( not reused nodes) and reused as well.
I started following and realizing my idea almost 2 years ago and still I'm not even in half a way to the end.
In meantime every months i see huge chunks of new content i would like to extract. I guess 2 GB memory limit in RenPy would be a real barrier, so i will need smart management what parts of content to keep in memory together.

 

[Living In A Lewd World]

Hello,

New peruser of the games here, etc.

I noticed that some of the active succesfull indie games here, in terms of amount of Patreon (or other sites) supporters, still take a long time between version releases. For exampe, Nemurimouto or Headmaster. (Cheers to the devs btw, not a criticism, just trying to understand). Any input on why that is? Is game dev just simply that complex / time consuming? Or is it because even if they are succesfull, it isn't enough to quit their day jobs?

I ask because because I am considering trying to start my own project, and just want to be realistic with myself about how much work / time it is.

Cheers,

SK

Adding to what is already said:

• when you start a Patreon-Project, you will probably have already invested a lot time into the project and have also some work done and ideas ready for the coming updates. So those updates will come around faster than future ones, which you will have to think through more thoroughly and for which you still have more work to do.
• when you get deeper into your story, your story gets more complex and with any step you do, you have to consider, that you don't contradict what you have done before.
• any storyline and step you do should have something unique and not just be a rip off from another else it gets boring. When you start you might have much to tell, but when you continue, you might see, that you start to repeat yourself and need to read/watch/experience a lot to get new ideas how to progress your story in new ways
• when you start your story, people might be satisfied with simpler images and less animations, but as you progress you want to make things better and more interesting to your audience to keep them, what also costs more time. As far as I see, such a rise in quality is quite visible in the game "The headmaster", that you mentioned and that I play myself.

 

[sexykadath]

I appreciate the input on this. I think something that has slowed me down when undertaking big projects in general has been thinking I could do it all alone, and it seems that a lot of games are built largely by one or two people with occasional outsourcing of specific tasks. I think that having a good team, or growing into a good team as money trickles in (or getting funding) might be a key to a faster dev process.

 

[Syr96]

Many valid points were made here, but one important aspect seems to have been overlooked. Working exclusively from home can gradually reduce productivity for many people. It’s easy to get distracted, start doing other things, and lose focus—something anyone who’s spent extended periods working from home can probably relate to. However, here, many developers are doing just that: working exclusively from home.

Another point to consider is that game development requires a broad mix of skills: programming, creating visual assets, writing, sound design, etc. This is the side of game development that people often think of first. However, there's also the crucial side of project management, including time management, planning, and coordination. In a typical company setting, specialists handle these areas, with a manager overseeing everything to keep things running smoothly. Here, however, that structure is often lacking. Some developers tend to get sidetracked, spending excessive time on unproductive tasks. In a traditional company, this would rarely be allowed to happen.

Additionally, the balance between work and personal life is a significant challenge. Especially at the start, many developers overlook the importance of taking breaks and avoiding overwork. This can lead to burnout, especially once financial support starts flowing in. Often, we see situations where a developer stops working for weeks due to personal issues—something that would be nearly impossible in almost any other profession, freelance or not. But with platforms like Patreon, financial support often continues regardless of productivity, enabling prolonged downtime (as seen in cases like Icstor).

 

[mattyboy05]

Download Daz3D and try doing 1 render. Picking outfits posing the character setting up the scene then you'll understand XD

 

[Insomnimaniac Games]

It really do be taking a long time. More than most players will ever know. This is over the span of one year and a handful of months. This is JUST RPGM, not including any of the other programs I use.

Spoiler: Usage time

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[woody554]

it's just a LOT more work than you imagine before actually doing it. we tend to vastly underestimate the number of everything when it's still just all in your head, but when you start writing them there's so many more things than you thought.

I've been making my sandbox for years, and I'm still far from filling the basic first day events. you know, stuff like mom doing dishes, taking shower, dinner, sleeping etc. Wanna guess how many events that makes so far? 94. almost hundred. all having 10-100 renders, ridiculous amounts of bad dialogue, logic for different routes depending on your stats, corruption etc.

and they're not even yet filling all the bare bone needs I have. hell, I still have some important locations to model which will have a whole bunch of new base events to make.

and you know what? it still feels small in my head when I think about them. I remember every scene, but in my head that 94 feels like 8 or so until you start counting. the brain simply refuses to see the vastness of work, you only see it in time spent and in numbers when you count things up.

so whatever you now feel the workload is, it's roughly 100x more and that's not an exaggeration.

to keep it manageable: avoid complex mechanics (they'll add almost nothing while tripping you a hundred million times), avoid big cast, avoid big number of locations, avoid long dialogue, cut all narration you don't need it.

or, embrace it like I do, but understand it's gonna bring a vast number of things to make. you really have to like making all of it.

 

[woody554]

or growing into a good team as money trickles in (or getting funding) might be a key to a faster dev process.

that's been proven false already in the 60s in famous project management studies. adding more people into a late project will only make it more late. (you often see it here as well. NONE of the games with added personnel or big code restructures "to make adding further scenes faster" ever make the progress faster. only slower.)

working with team in this space also has an incredibly high probability of people quitting, disappearing and flaking out. there's no money, it's not a real job, your team will periodically break up and the people will take essential parts of the game with them and you'll have trouble replacing it. the style of art and writing will vastly change with changing people.

there are very few people I'd trust enough to work with them. I just don't need any of that shit to deal with.

 

[♍VoidTraveler]

Tons of reasons, to name a few:

*No plan. To hell with plans let's just wing it, my mother always said that when building a house you start with the roof!
*No skill. Who needs skills when we can just learn shit as we go, this will surely result in a great game!
*No imagination/creativity. Who needs this shit? Let's just copy what the others are doing!
*No vision. Let's ask the forum what kind of game they want and make that why don't we?
*Greed. Why make a good game when you can make a perfectly profitable milk-farm, here i come my dollar-bath!
*No motivation. Bah i can always release that update next year.

 

[bluebullet]

maybe you can try make some model by illusions game.And reall model building is more complicate (Blender 3dmax.
2Dgame have more graphical work.
This is just a part of the work related to visualization

 

[coffeeaddicted]

Hello,

New peruser of the games here, etc.

I noticed that some of the active succesfull indie games here, in terms of amount of Patreon (or other sites) supporters, still take a long time between version releases. For exampe, Nemurimouto or Headmaster. (Cheers to the devs btw, not a criticism, just trying to understand). Any input on why that is? Is game dev just simply that complex / time consuming? Or is it because even if they are succesfull, it isn't enough to quit their day jobs?

I ask because because I am considering trying to start my own project, and just want to be realistic with myself about how much work / time it is.

Cheers,

SK

Probably hundreds have written that.
Well, i would humbly suggest to just, for example, trying out DAZ yourself. It will give you a better idea. Or, it looks like for you Unity and drawing.
In any case, doing that will give you a perspective and you can see if you get it.
Start off as just a bloody amateur and doing some homebrew kind of thing. Just creating a scene and posting it somewhere here will give you an idea if your talent will be good enough.
I only do DAZ so far but it took me a year to thoroughly get it. But i am older. If you younger, it can be quicker.

 

[ciaqoo]

*No imagination/creativity. Who needs this shit? Let's just copy what the others are doing!

I would agree with all your other points except this one.
Copying others work doesnt mean lack of creativity by definition.

We can show our creativity by connecting different part of contents from different games of different devs and still we can get something which can turn on our imagination.

Sure it is not easy task to do that without proper tools which would put right jumps or calls to right memories in right case.
But if we do that right way we can get way more multipath game that anyone else alone existing on the market.

Joining Jessica O'Neal strory with Anna Exaiting Affection, University of Problems, Couple of Duet, Myriam Project. and few titles more like Exciting Games would give us a lot of fuck fest animations and a lot more complicated and promising relations to think of.

We just dont need much more sexy new faces, more detailed animations to activate our imagination.
In existing games we can find a lot of content to create really perverted and unthinkable other way scenarios.

Of course I dont mean copy content to hurt creative devs - just to that for fun not for money.
If anyone else would like such compilation he/she could support the devs whos content was used in such unusual format.
And maybe some devs would like to create some extra content not canonical in their own games to catch even more attention and support and money as well. Who knows ?

 

[♍VoidTraveler]

Copying others work doesn't mean lack of creativity by definition.

So long as you have what it takes to re-imagine that work you copied into your own unique shit, then sure.

 

[Crimson Delight Games]

Is game dev just simply that complex / time consuming?

Yes. Even a small update to a game with prefabbed 3d assets takes time to design + write + implement + test + bugfix + deploy. When you start getting into bespoke assets and code the time investment goes up exponentially... even more so for custom 2d art that's not AI-generated.

I dare anyone complaining about slow releases to make their own game, it's a lot harder than it looks. Even "bad" games created with stock assets will take dozens of hours of labor to get to a stable 0.1 initial release, let alone anything past that. We're talking months of weekend work for a 30-min demo if the dev has to hold an IRL job to pay the bills.

Or is it because even if they are succesfull, it isn't enough to quit their day jobs?

There's also an element of that as well, you're right. Successful erogame devs sometimes get lazy and will milk their supporters while coasting on their past glories. Thing is, there's a lot more money to be made by finishing a game and selling it on Steam. So despite high Patreon earnings, such devs are still shooting themselves in the foot by delaying their game's completion and 1.0 release.

I ask because because I am considering trying to start my own project, and just want to be realistic with myself about how much work / time it is.

A lot. But that shouldn't stop you from building a game if you have the fortitude to push through the grind.

A word of advice tho (and I speak from personal experience here): your first project should be a relatively short visual novel you can complete within 4-6 months of casual weekend work. Something with about 3-5 hours of content, once completed. Avoid elaborate projects with branching narratives and RPG systems/combat/free-roam, the workload is crushing unless you're bankrolling a 10-man team like some of the big developers who field the most successful projects.

Good luck with your game, I hope to see it one day in the listings here on F95!

 

[ciaqoo]

So long as you have what it takes to re-imagine that work you copied into your own unique shit, then sure.

I wouldnt call it my own shit - I would call it rather our common shit. My own would be just tools which would generate set of scripts in RenPy. Players would just need to unpack and decompile set or subset -they actually downloaded - games and mod would join them together in predefined way based on all possible paths in every single game alone.
Creating such tools which would help us extract content like whole paths in easy way is some form of creativity - isnt it ?
Entries to paths are triggered by combination of choices or by some more sophisticated sets of conditions - stat levels , history of events etc - so writing such tool which would cover all these needs is really exciting challenge.
Satisfaction alone such tool would work right way is tempting not less than real money income.
Its radically new - nobody else did that so far to public his/her results here at least.
Perceiving games like hermetically and uncompatible entities is uncreative imho.

 

[Ass prefer]

Perhaps the people above are telling the truth that it is difficult, especially to do it alone, but there is also an opinion to get more money from a subscription that you have to pay either every week or month to stay subscribed to the developer's page.

So imagine how much money can come out in a year of waiting for a short update per year

 

[DuniX]

Too Many Fucking Rendered Scenes!!!

There is a fucking reason using Character Sprites and generic Background CG is a standard in Japanese Visual Novels that actually get released in a reasonable timeframe.

Just because you have Daz and you Can render everything doesn't mean you Should.

All that complaing that Game Development is Hard? BULLSHIT!

Bull Fucking Shit.

The value of a Visual Novel is in the fucking Writing, you are not a movie director, it does not need to be "cinematic", you just need some fucking character sprites, they have plenty of expressions and emotions, you don't need "unique" shitty camera angles.

And for fuck's sake Write the damn thing to Completion, a Visual Novel is still a Novel so there is no reason why you can't write it.
Scriptwriters can write an entire movie, Novel Authors can release dozens of volumes in a series, "Adult Game Developers" can barely write a week of in game days in Years.