I was REALLY intrigued by this game. Interesting characters and a multitude of possible storylines. I thought; "wow, this game has potential to branch out in some really interesting ways". But then it turned into (yet another) point and click NIGHTMARE, where you are desperately clicking around searching for scenes. I just dont get it. Why do developers do this? Is it just to boost the playing time? Cos to me, it just feels like an aggresive waste of time. Give the player choices instead of an endless scavenger hunt for scenes. So sorry for my mood-killer. The only reason I am so disappointed, is because I saw such potential. But I just cant be bothered to spend hours doing this point and click business. All I really want is a good story told well, with interesting characters and player choices.
I agree with you my friend, and I'm sorry to inform you that it's going to get much much worse. It's going full on Sandbox with time, travel, energy, money, shopping, jobs, and business management. Oh and lame ass stat grinding. I was a supporter and just cancelled my pledge after learning this nightmarish plan. I'll try to tolerate some free roam if the content is good enough, but I will never do any monotonous stat grinding and management. That shit is reserved for people suffering from a sever case of OCD. It's also a story killer, I mean who can even remember the previous story scene a 1000 clicks before the next one. I had High hopes for this game, but I just wasted my money on something that I'll never play.
Here I'll just share the patreon post
You must be registered to see the links
Unlocked
You must be registered to see the links
Many things I already mentioned at some place or another. Other things you will hear today for the first time.
Vision - Gameplay features
The game takes quite much everything from us at the start. MC has definitely inherited my luck from real life.
The idea is that you get the chance to build things up, but that needs to start very low. As people on the ground always start at the bottom.
Those are gameplay features planned. We will have to test them out to see how they work and if they are enough fun.
Things are subject to change!
Activity/work
For one you will be able to do activities for money. Like baking cookies, work as a bartender and more. Your stats influence the time an activity takes, the money you get and how many times you can repeat an event until you are tired.
In those events you will get some extra renders sometimes, that will give you extra content, but also tell you the current state of the world.
As example you will be able to meet Ted, either alone or with company, when working at a bar. That way you will be kept up to date what is happening around you. And it's not just grinding, but an integral part of the game and experience. Doing activities will give not just money, but also stats.
Doing an activity levels it up, you will gain experience doing said activity and more money in return.
Business
At some point you will be able to buy a business. And enhance it with items, as well as leveling it. That way you will get weekly revenue.
Money you can use to pay the bills at home, but for so much more.
Shops
Buy cloths for girls, or things you might need to advance a questline.
There is an onlineshop planned where you can unlock things.
Pills
Those are our gateway to make things more interesting. You already saw one in chapter 0, you will see more in the future. I will not spoiler too much, but you can buy them as you are exploring the world.
Traveling & Exploring
At the beginning you are traveling on foot. Each time you travel it will cost you energy, money and time. A car takes much less energy and time than by foot, but costs more.
Since Energy is limited a day, you might want to try to get a Vehicle early in game, so a you won't have to wait to see the MC walking over the map, while time passes and b, so that he has energy left for whatever actual activity you want to do. However, depending on your luck, your vehicle might get stolen, or breaks down.
Public transport is different, it costs energy to be around others, but is rather cheap and it can't be stolen. But you have to build it up first, so you might consider investing in the public transport at some point in the game.
Lastly exploring. The whole Vehicles are not just for traveling over the map of Terror, but also traveling through the world. There you have additional events that can happen, you can unlock things, train stats and bring home gifts and stuff.
The further you go, the better the rewards get. We will split exploring into zones, depending on the zone you have reached, the rewards get better. Those include pills (Fasten work time), special pills (Ape events etc), Items to make your shops more efficient, unlock cars, cloths, etc.
Why you need it - Dark Side
If you think a broke loser is the bottom of existence you are thinking wrong. You lost someone to someone else. The bottom is not having no money, the bottom is paying for her new onlyfans the guy talked her into.
After you have lost all integrity, who will pay for their vacation, when she tells you to get the wallet ready?
You will miss out, if you can't
get the money ready.
Releases
HS and similar games "engines" have one big benefit. It's possible to make a hundred renders in a day. Daz on the quality level we need, takes much longer.
If we get 10 renders a day per person, that is already absolute top and unlikely to be the average of the week. Quite frankly, 2-3 renders would probably maxed out quality. But some speed is needed as well, so we try to comprise just a little and land around 10.
Of course you will hear some telling you 30 is possible. Then we are talking about the broken renders with grainy picture quality etc.
Anyway, my point is that content takes time. It needs to be written first, rendered, edited, implemented, fitting sound chosen, released. And if there are animations there, it just gets bigger.
Nevertheless, we want to release more frequently coming year, monthly. That isn't a promise, but a goal for us.
However to be able to achieve that we need to change our release pattern.
Minor and Major releases. 0.0.X are minor releases, while 0.X.0 are major releases.
Everything within minor releases is still subject to change. For full stability you might want to stick to the major releases.
Production & Money
Now the worst topic I ever had to talk about. But one I have to talk about none the less.
We have released Karma and have released the initial steps of Terror. We are higher then we ever were and we are still growing. In the last 3 months since our release of Terror, we actually grew slightly in revenue, I appreciate that!
However, as you all know I have hired several people to work with me and did it right, lawyers, contracts and working stations. I have educated those people (Well at least the first ones), trained them until they were ready to work with us. During that training time they were already paid. What I show you know is our internal clocking time, without my time (I do not clock, I work when I can. As my main job is another one.)
That is the time worked on project since May. As before we had another system where we couldn't allocate time that easily.
This includes people that started, but I felt it didn't work out at some point.
I had initially saved money to help me in this venture, plus I have had quite the career, so my monthly earnings exceed what most consider decent.
However, the savings I have, the reserves, are limited. And if we can't manage to increase our revenue, we will ultimately have a problem this coming year.
That is why I will also talk with you about monetization openly. There are steps I will have to do, which are some I would rather not do or in a different way. For me someone from a rather poor country who gather together 5 usd, is
incredible precious, heartwarming. I do not want to see a person like this not get as much as I can give. But the alternative is that eventually we wouldn't exist anymore. So I am deeply sorry for anyone who has been supporting me and feels left out when I introduce better benefits for higher tiers.
But I guarantee that you will get a better game for it. Every single cent I have gotten I have reinvested, everything I have extra myself, I have reinvested, not just money, but also time, love and dedication.
Everything I get will be put back into the game(s). My first and foremost goal is not to get rich, but to create something amazing and continue to create even better things.
One thing I realize, we are too many people for our current output, there are some things that are lacking and I will give my best to improve our efficiency. I am not talking about hard work, I can guarantee that the whole team works hard. Some scenes are not landing in the game and even worse, currently we can't test out the game properly, because the event system is still broken.
But here some good news, another dev in the community offered to help me for a time, a small shout out to Wyldspace:
You must be registered to see the links
He basically offered to help for less than half his usually salary.
I found another solution I can afford better at this point (still fucking expensive). We currently have full time help from someone who has almost 5 years experience in godot. The coder that has been working for me in the last 3 months, sadly has not been working out. He had a personal tragedy a few weeks back and tried his best for this release. But eventually he decided that he needs time, considering the circumstances I understand him well and wish him the best.
So I will try to go about it from several sides. Increase revenue, increase efficiency and try to save costs. But that also means that I might not be able to afford a contract, if the demand for an increase is too much and I can't guarantee a speed of content. Things are really just easier and better if you have enough money.
Monetization
Up until now Tiers still didn't mean that much. I announced some stuff with discord, voting right increased, but that was about it. Yet some of you still decided to support me with Tier 3 and even Tier 4!
Where are things added:
Tier 1:
-Patron posts
-Thank you
Tier 2:
+ The game
+ Comics (Your side)
Tier 3:
+ Voting Rights
+ Comics (Both sides)
+ Soft boosters (Like faster travel through the map)
Tier 4:
+ Boosters (More income for a week on certain activities etc.)
+ Higher voting power
Plus all tiers will get a corresponding discord boost, as soon as the bots are fully back. There you can get extra renders, boosts etc. I am thinking about guaranteeing a monthly release for Tier 4, no matter how broken it would be.
Things are not set in stone yet. But I need to find a way where we land somehow in the black. I don't mind working for free in the near and mid term future, but as you can guess, I am the only one thinking like that.
Publicity
We have already started with our first comic. I didn't release it anywhere besides patreon at this point.
However, some I definitely will release on further platforms to increase our visbility after a delay. Some I will keep exclusive for our patrons.
I plan to release Karma on Steam next year, maybe with a slight retouch. That should give us more visibility then ever before and I am quite excited for that step!
Lastly as soon as Terror is fixed, runs properly, I will give a 0.1.0 version of godot free to play. But I won't leave it there, I will book addspace, so
you might see Terror or PowerPlower on adult sites in the future. I have little to spare, but as far as I know money spent on adds has the best value at the start.
Quality
All of this is for nothing, if we can't create an amazing game. We are more than slightly different than every other adult dev. We are making an adult game, one that has story, art and gameplay. It's not just an adult game to jack off, it's an experience, an alter ego one can live for a while.
The goal is to have players be happy, hateful, up, down and hopeful. To deliver an experience that they can shape, that they will remember.
I can't promise you anything besides that
I am giving everything I have to make that come true.
Next update will be in January, I look forward to it.
Eon
)
