More proof that he's still reading this thread, because he's responding to a lot of the criticism he got here.You must be registered to see the links
Hey, everyone.
It's been a little bit since my last written report, I've been staying offline while I figured a lot of stuff out and I have a lot to talk about today. This will be a long post so I'm going to leave the most important info at the top.
- Pledges will be unpaused at midnight EST, please adjust pledges accordingly
(More info at the bottom of this post)
- I added some stuff and I'm working on the final touches to the final two scenes in E13, the update will be north of 300 renders and at least 12 animations. I have 15-ish renders left in the Jasmine scene and 12 renders left in the Flight home scene. And one animation in the Flight home scene currently rendering.
It will be released March 3rd, 2025 at 5pm EST.
- Dev reports will start being posted weekly again on Fridays, starting March 7th.
- I took a short break after releasing the Daliah scene, back in the seat now.
- The book down below mainly focuses on why the Daliah scene was so difficult and how it will affect things moving forward and also what to expect out of the next two chapters.
SPOILER WARNING:
If you have not played up until the end of the Daliah scene in Episode 13 - Beta 6 then you should avoid the rest of this text unless you're just chill with spoilers. I didn't state much directly but without the context of the scene it probably won't make any sense.
There are also general "spoilers" for the path WVM will take from here but it's nothing direct.
Before we get into it, I'd just like to reiterate what WVM is and what it isn't.
WVM is primarily a porn story about a wholesome harem and playing "Gotta catch 'em all" style. There is a heavy focus on pregnancy and the MC alongside the other girls rebuilding their lives and having one big giant loving family that most of them never had or got to experience.
This game does not punish the player, no one will die, there won't be anything along the lines of sex crimes (besides indecent exposure at times), essentially nothing too dark. Daliah's story and the events at the bowling alley is pretty much the peak of how far I'm willing to go.
I always feel the need to say it so just so it's said, there will never be "NTR". No girls will ever cheat, even with other girls. Any girl on girl action will always be optional. (And yes that includes any transfeminine character.) There will not be any other guy on girl content (The only exception being Skye as he is transmasculine. Any character born male and still identifies as male will never be with any of the girls.)
(I'm also not saying you should feel bad if you like NTR, I just personally don't and I feel it's antithetical to what the game is.)
Basketball has currently taken a huge back seat, admittedly I view the basketball side of things mostly as a plot mechanism to move the story forward but it still needs a lot more love than it has gotten.
All of that (besides the basketball bit) has always been the plan and will never change.
So, I finally got the Daliah scene out... and the world didn't explode.
I promised to tell you guys about why it was such a struggle and now that it's out, I can do so.
But it's a lot more than just the scene itself, it's a culmination of my shortcomings over these past 5 1/2 years as a dev that really pressurized the scene for myself.
You guys deserve to know where my head is at, this past year and a half has all been talk about how I'll release things but it's time to talk about the game.
Back in 2019 I found out about adult visual novels, I played a good handful of them at the time but while there were many great games even back then... I couldn't shake a feeling of dissatisfaction as there wasn't one that just hit the spot for me.
So at the time me and my little 1060 GPU did a little google search and found Daz3d.
So I downloaded it, messed around and had a good time. I then spent money I didn't really have at the time on assets and before even having the basics down I sought out to make WVM.
WVM was a story I already had in my head, though admittedly the basketball side of things didn't fully become a thing until I found myself actually making the game but it's a change I'm glad I made back then.
I knew the beginning, I knew the ending, I knew the major plot points along the way and just decided to figure the rest out as I went which I'm not so glad about.
WVM was originally meant to have a "good" and "bad" path.
Good being mostly what the game is now, bad was still tame but the MC would be a more selfish and controlling person, essentially getting corrupted by the fame.
Makes sense, right? Sounds pretty good.
Well, when it came time to make some of the "bad" choices I just genuinely didn't enjoy writing or working on that side of things.
So, I didn't. I just kept making the "good" path and tried to smooth out some of the earlier setup for the "bad" path.
Most of this stuff such as "cheating" on Jamie, the basement scene with Elizabeth, and any other early out of place moments will be removed in the season 1 rework.
So I kept going on... just churning out content and slowly learning.
I to this day can't tell you exactly why but WVM became a "success" very quickly.
I was brand new to all of this, just figuring it out as I went and I knew I sucked especially compared to other devs. So imposter syndrome hit me hard.
I was way too emotional about criticism, I took almost everything to heart and it led me to make drastic changes to many characters and those changes were very controversial and still are currently. As well as other decisions that were mostly out of my control but I regret how I responded to them.
Which just led to a large increase in criticism and I let all of it steer me way too much.
Even though I took it harshly, I still sought out criticism as I was trying to get better.
I had a lot of people supporting me with their hard earned money and I felt indebted to them to keep growing and improving. Though things were definitely slowly wearing me down.
Around this time is when I hit a real rough patch, life got hard but I'm not talking about that today.
The first real large bump in the road to me was the bowling alley scene. To be honest with you the first draft of that scene was darker and more grandiose than what was eventually released and that ending was going to lead into a whole other thing.
Nothing too crazy, things still ended up mostly as they did anyway at that point but I just felt so disconnected when it came to writing for the scene that I had to make numerous changes.
There's a guilt associated to failure and the guilt just kept growing over time.
All I could see was all of the previous mistakes I made, everything was broken in my head and I didn't know how to fix it.
I kept telling myself that I'll just address the issues in the rework but the rework just kept growing and growing.
Then the exhibition game happened, alongside this was when the timeline change happened and the rework was now being reworked.
And I eventually got it out and I don't know if I've ever said this but that game was originally meant to end in a much different way. Iris was originally going to be introduced at halftime of the exhibition game. It was supposed to be right after the scene with Katie and before talking to Harper and Willabelle and she would alter how things played out.
There was a lot of setup before the game about the MC being in his head and feeling panicked. A sense of doom that was building up to the second half and then eventually spilling over to the cheerleaders being missing.
Which again the ending of that scene was also changed, originally Natalie wasn't going to be with the rest of the cheerleaders when MC and Cedar found them leading to a whole other path that I just couldn't bring myself to commit to, I had the same problems as the bowling alley.
Once again I could only see all of the flaws in the entire story, all of the other setup that eventually leads to nothing or all of the alterations made because I changed my mind.
I don't know if it's the imposter syndrome or just anxiety or what but all of my failures just felt like a giant boulder on my chest and I was trapped beneath. I tried many different iterations and all of it either felt forced or flat.
But after ditching most of what was troubling me, I got it out and things went smoothly for a bit as I just focused on more fun stuff. This period between the exhibition game and the Daliah scene has mostly just been sex scene after sex scene and I don't hate that... sex scenes are fun to make but I can never just stick to it... I don't want to say I get bored of it but I start feeling really shallow.
So after everything, I just said fuck it... it's time to overcome all of those insecurities of mine and commit to the Daliah path.
I had it all planned out, everything was going great... then the yacht scene happened and I once again found myself stuck and unable to commit and that scene changed as well, not to the same degree as the others did but there was a lot of setup I cut out as at this point I decided the Daliah intro would actually just be an intro with minimal information but it would set up enough to tackle it later.
That's why the original update I made for E13 from the end of the spa session to flying home was only 400 renders. There was no sex scene with Hannah and Eden, no autograph scene, no Lulu scene, the resort scene was just a handful of renders either leading to the Jasmine date or the plane, the original Jasmine date was very underwhelming, and the flight home was also just a handful of renders. I don't have the exact numbers right now but I think all in all that 400 render updated turned into around 1800 renders.
Part of me wishes I just put that first update out back then, it would have sucked but admittedly we'd be much further along in the story right now, but the other part of me knows that I would have just gotten stuck the next time it came up. Which is why I decided to retry, and retry again... then eventually enough time passed to where I couldn't skip over it even if I wanted to.
It has been a very, very rough year. I let everyone down over and over again, my reputation is in the gutter, people genuinely hate me, I caused so much anger and frustration, and I was in mental prison for over a year. No matter what I did I would think about the Daliah scene, I constantly had dreams about it, I've lost countless nights of sleep over it. Not to throw a pity-party but it sucked.
So, now that it's out. Was it all worth it?
No. I'm glad it's out and I can work on rebuilding but I lost the trust of everyone, I lost friends, I understandably make a fraction of what I used to make, I spent an entire year of my life obsessing and stressing over a scene in what is ultimately just a porn game. I'm not writing this to grandstand and act like I overcame some great feat I'm just letting you guys know where a lot of this came from. The simple truth is that it's embarrassing that I got so mentally blocked by those scenes and that's mostly why I haven't talked about it until now.
And this isn't some new revelation for me, I knew what I was doing was wrong and you guys deserved better and I kept trying to force it out but I wasn't able to.
What about it was so difficult?
Like every other time before, writing for it just felt impossible at times. I just felt stuck and all that was on my mind while I was writing is all the other times in the story I tried to do something similar. I don't know how to describe a mental block but it was awful. I knew I was the bad guy, I knew what to do to fix it but I just couldn't no matter how hard I tried. I really struggled with what information to include and what information should I hold onto for later. I also really struggled with how dark things should go. Ultimately I found that them mainly focusing on MC's life instead of the club went the smoothest.
Also it was a lot of information... many times I considered ending the scene earlier on and to split it into two different times by having the MC meet her again near WVM. After releasing the first half of the scene I had mostly decided that's what I was going to do and that's why it was at that point only 100 renders left, some of which were some of the phone calls.
Ultimately I decided against it and I ended up including most of the information.
It was also a lot to tie together and it even in the released version feels forced, there was also a few things that contradicted earlier moments in the game as they are changed in the rework so it just felt like trying to stack 100 blocks and no matter what I did it would always topple over.
I don't remember at what point it was exactly but eventually I had gotten so burned out on working on that scene that I started making Episode 14 and adding all of the extra scenes, I genuinely love working on this game and it felt good to make progress at something even if it hasn't been released yet but I do wish I would have stayed focused. Changes to the Daliah scene now meant changes to other scenes and it became an even worse headache.
Daliah's model completely changed 8 times, Iris's model completely changed 4 times, Quandra's model completely changed 2 times, and the room the scene took place in was always the same room but the decor and lighting changed 9 times.
Every time I thought I was past a hurdle, something in life would happen and knock me right back.
When it came to the information, I really struggled with how to deliver it. For example the Riley reveal has been placed near the start, middle, and end of the story numerous times. Sometimes it was hammed up too much, sometimes it was glanced over. The same thing went for Stacy's mom and sometimes Margaret was there from the start or she was never shown.
This scene was iterated on so many times... I think my final solution of Iris rapid firing them in the end was pretty underwhelming but it just felt the best to me after trying many different things.
The ultimate goal of the scene was to give the MC some information and establish Daliah and Iris' characters. Mostly Daliah as I wanted Iris to remain a little mysterious. I also really wanted to illustrate the extremes Daliah would go to for the MC. But ultimately I do feel the scene could have been cut down a lot more than it was.
There was also the issue of the scenes I added to E13 like the spa sex scene and lulu scene just making the heaviness of the Daliah scene feel so out of place and that's still the case but I do think I needed something to help ease the story back into place there... it was just a little too much. When I first made the Lulu scene I had intended to make more parallels between the MC and his father but I took most of it out when I released it before the rest of the Daliah scene.
I touched on that last issue some in the rant post I did a while back when I was borderline manic. I regret doing that, it did not get the point I was trying to express across at all.
There's honestly a lot more but it will feel even more redundant after this, but if you have any questions feel free to shoot me a DM here.
I'll admit that I'm still not super content with what was released but it's out there, I don't plan on making any changes.
Why was it so important?
Daliah and Iris are very important characters that open up a path into a storyline that I've wanted to do for a long time.
As said above WVM will always be a wholesome happy harem game no matter what and WVM has always been pretty damn linear. (Insert "You want sum fuk?" image here)
Even still, I enjoy giving players options where I can. WVM has long needed choices that have lasting impact on the story, as it currently stands there's very little drama inside of the harem and I intend to keep it that way but I feel like the MC needs more agency over the on goings in his life and past, and not related to this but more agency in bedroom activities too.
But, I'll always respect the player that just wants some drama free fun wholesomeness so one of these paths is strictly that.
There will technically be 4 main story routes.
Rachael, Willabelle, Daliah, and Iris.
Daliah and Iris' paths are pretty similar content-wise but tone-wise and ultimately how things end up are different.
I won't spoil too much about it, there will be follow up talks with Rachael and Willabelle about the Daliah meeting that will outline them pretty well.
You will not outright pick a path straight away but rather through multiple options in the next chapter, any time one of these options appear they will clearly state which option goes to which girl.
Choosing one of the girls will not lock out any of the other girls as romantic options.
I know this might sound like a very large change but it's honestly not, for the most part it's just there are moments in the story that will change a part of a scene depending on which route you're on.
WVM will still remain mostly linear.
So, how did releasing the Daliah scene feel?
Honestly, I thought when I released it I'd get worse. Spending so much time on something that didn't need that much time will never feel great. I had this feeling that as soon as I'd release it I would instantly regret it and I would panic and just hate everything I make even more.
But no, I felt very relieved. I had been awake for 4 days straight before releasing it and it was good that I fell asleep really soon after releasing as those first few hours after release are always the worst in terms of anxiety.
I woke up the next day and looked to see if there were any issues and to see feedback. Some people were happy, some weren't but everything wasn't on fire.
I knew it was weighing me down but I didn't realize the degree that it was.
After so much failure it felt nice to finally be past it, for a long time now I've felt really out of tune with WVM, just not knowing exactly where I wanted to go with it.
I've said it a few times now but the mental block caused the Daliah scene to be much more than the Daliah scene was. I had attached a lot of my failures and insecurities to it.
But now that it was out, I felt like I was able to let that go as well.
It felt like I could see clearly and properly reflect and realize just how much I fucked up. But I also felt really motivated, I looked over everything and I realized that I didn't have that feeling of regret and frustration, most of it I really like and that's the first time in a long time that I've been able to say that.
When working on the game now I don't have that scene looming in my thoughts and making me hate everything or the constant feeling of fear. I know exactly where I want to take things and I'm excited to work on getting there.
What happened next?
I worked on the rest of E13 for the next few days after, I wanted it out as fast as I could get it out but I was drained. I was so behind on sleep and I had been helping a friend move during this time as well as a few other things. I was physically and emotionally gone and I didn't want to hit a point of absolute burnout and I knew I was flirting with it.
I ended up deciding to take a break on the 16th and 17th, I came back and got a good bit done on the 18th-21st but I still felt really tired so I took that weekend off of dialogue and render work but I did a lot of the stuff that I've been neglecting like organizing my files, getting rid of old assets, and I set up a virtual machine for my android builds so I stop breaking them. On Monday I had to get an eye exam and my pupils were dilated so I wasn't able to do much of anything but I've been steady at it since then and I feel the best I have in a long time.
So where is the rest of E13?
The next build of E13 will be the final build of E13. No more betas for it, so I went back and fixed some continuity error things like Alexis' choker randomly changing to a different one when she went to the restroom. I also ended up completely changing 3 of the problem animations in the Jasmine date to a different act as I just wasn't able to make the former ones not look super janky and stuttery.
I'm still animating inside of Daz so there's always going to be some jank and stutter, I'm also still using genesis 8 on most girls so some positions just will never move in a way that looks right no matter how much I want them to.
Also Jasmine's date got pushed back a lot from my issues with the Daliah scene so I wanted to make sure she got her time in the light so I added a few things to it.
As far as the flight home scene goes, I'll be honest and say that all the other scenes got a lot of time and love and the flight home was always an afterthought and it showed but it was mostly fine since it's a rather unimportant scene. The mental block blinded me to a lot of things and the scene was very robotic, just point A to point B.
And honestly I'm just having a ton of fun with the cast again, I saw a lot of opportunities to show off some traits of their personalities and after so much time on E13 I didn't want to end it on a dud scene.
Furthermore, while I'm on the topic of the cast. I've heard the complaints that the WVM cast is getting way too large and there's too much focus on new characters and not enough on the original cast and I agree.
The cast has grown very large and newer girls already have much more screen time than original girls and that's a big problem.
Season 2, E14, and all of Chapter 2 focus on making progress with the "original" cast while also getting back to the basketball. (And not introducing new girls, besides Jax's girlfriend)
Some names are: Harper, Natalie, Skye, Stacy, Rainn, Kimmy, Veronica, Vanessa, Mabel, Moon, Lauren, Mackenzie, Emiko, and Carly
E14 will be days 37 and 38, Chapter 2 will have some day skips and much less events in a day as everyone settles back into their normal schedules and it will include Days 39-45. Chapter 3 will be similar to Chapter 2 and include days 46-52
Ultimately, there is so, so much I would change about this past year but I can't do anything about that now. I've written really long posts recently but very rarely about the game. I usually talk about how I want to be better and my plans for being better and how this time is for sure the time I'll be better.
It doesn't excuse it at all but I was in an awful headspace and I felt worthless, I thought I meant it every time I said it but obviously those posts didn't come true.
The only thing I'll promise in that regard today is that I'm going to try my best, I feel really good right now. I'm not scared about the next steps I have to take.
I obviously wanted to have E13 final up this month but I took a lot longer to recover than I thought I would. Usually a few days of taking it easy and I'm good again but I was in rough shape.
It's also on me for adding things again but it is truly different than the times before, there's no fear or uncertainty. I saw the scenes with clear eyes and there were very clear and fun improvements to make. I don't hate the scenes, I'm not just praying I'll like it this time. When these renders are done, it's done and I'm finally out from beneath the number 13. But I still owe you guys 14 too.
It was honestly nice to write some of this out and it was nice to talk about the game, for a long time I've somewhat avoided it just because I didn't know what the future would hold, I was starting to believe I'd be stuck working on that scene forever.
There's a lot left to go but I feel good about it being a much smoother ride.
Alright, I think that's enough book for one day.
Thank you guys for everything. I'll talk to you guys in a few days.
Why are you unpausing pledges again?
For the same reason as the last month, I know I just recently promised I wouldn't do so again but I simply have to. The money is going straight to bills and food, I've stated for many months now that all of the upcoming content (Rest of E13, E14, a few updates afterwards, and all side content) will be given to former patrons via the Discord or by sending me a DM and there is no need or reason to be pledged right now unless you just simply want to support.
Also, anyone who has been charged within the last 3 months of this post and / or has been charged in March 2025 is more than welcome to ask for a refund, no questions asked. Just DM me the word "refund" and I'll have it sent your way as soon as I see it.
Then there's this same thing that we see every cycle:
BD: "Setting dates doesn't work for me. I'm not going to announce deadlines, I'll just announce when things are finished."
Also BD: "Dev updates will be every Friday."
Hey Braindrop. Stop looping.
