2018 in the rear-view (get it)! (Patreon)

Heya guys! Just as Urka is staring deeply into Hiro's backside because it's about to be completely over, we too are looking back at 2018 because it's done and over with. Let's begin, then! (And Urka - you break it, you buy it)

This year has been our best yet, with an incredible amount of progress made on ToA, our first experience working with people outside of our duo, and more and more people reaching out to us to say that ToA is a thing they love and appreciate, which is the best.  We've also seen a steady growth in just how many of you there are supporting us here on Patreon, which is tremendous, giving us the feeling that we're heading in the right direction and will continue to do so. Thanks to all of you, patrons new and old, borrowed and blue, who have helped us make ToA what it is today.  

Let's throw down some milestones and stats.

YEAR-END REVIEW:

This is the second full year of ToA development - the first prototype being completed in October of 2016. It's also the first year that Maj has been full-time on the project. 

ToA characters introduced this year:

Lura the Mouth Fiend, Mermaid, Warlock, Giantess, Dullahan, Alara the Elf Lady,  Wasp, Isla the Vampire Hunter, Drunk Tavern Gangbang Patrons, Vampires, Minotauress, Ritual Impregnation and Cultists, Doppelganger, Fire Elemental, New Werewolf, Brothel Girls, and the Ettin!

We've finalized much of the World Map's look and feel, starting early in the year with UI/UX changes, showing the companions on the map, and ending with a pretty big graphical overhaul, got a bunch of new options and replay features, including the ability to quickly start a new run with the same character, meta bonuses and achievements, we majorly updated the arousal system, started feminization, greatly expanded the brothel and quests, improved the character creation UI, added things like the grapple indicator, oviposition, colon/rectum/sphincter status, surrendering, ranged combat, defense overhaul, Urka as a companion, stealing, ironman, sex toys, ambient sounds, drunkenness, a bunch of  other stuff that I won't list from the change logs because then this paragraph would be enormous and unreadeable (I started this planning to list all of the new features that were introduced this year and it's absolutely ridiculous, I'd forgotten most of them were done this year, honestly, just check the changelogs!), and tons of new animations and CGs.

Also, we hired a music contractor who gave us an entire unique score for ToA! Thanks again to A Complete Spiral.

We started 2018 with 1440 patrons, and we're ending it with 2920, more than double, an increase of almost 1500, and just shy of 3000 patrons.  That is.... uhh... carry the one... uhhhh...

Well, anyway. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-

-hhhhhhhhhooooookay. Hi everybody! There's a lot of you now. We're gonna need more appetizers. The discord server has also grown so that we now have a mod team and a bunch of channels and I don't actually know everyone anymore. The Swedish uprising has been properly quelled, at least. The Swedes have been properly subjugated.

We hit more of our milestone goals, including our 24 hour stream which, based on our poll, seems like it'll be more likely a week of streams-every-day, which should nevertheless be a ton of fun.

The surveys have continued to be a real sign of engagement and support and have really helped us make decisions big and small, so thank you to everyone who participates in them. Like we mentioned recently, we will be changing the pace of new encounters so we have more time to devote new content, both art and script, to existing encounters, so if you've been meaning to weigh-in on who gets to show off their stuff stuffing Hiro or vice versa, now would be a good time to let your voice be heard!

We've been plucking away at the roadmap, mostly focused on finalizing the major systems, but getting near the point where it's all over but for the screaming, where by "screaming" we mean the actual content development for story mode and for things like boss fights and maps for adventure mode, which means, hopefully, that 2019 will be the most content-filled year yet! 

We've been a bit quieter here on the Patreon than we'd have liked, we'll try to post more frequently about what we're working on and what we have planned. While working on the world map we had a lot of fun, and we realize in hindsight that we should have shared more of that with y'all, but it can be hard when we worry that someone is going to gripe about anything non-dong related being worked on. We'll try not to worry as much about that in the new year.

FINAL THOUGHTS (2019, here we come!):

We're super excited to get the battle UI done, along with a whole host of changes that'll get ToA more in line with its original design, which should hopefully make it more fun to play and sexier as well. That'll be coming early in the year... after that, we're going to be keeping one eye on the roadmap and the other on story mode and whatever other content we're planning to fill out, like more CGs, animations, skins and variants in scenes and art. Should be a ride.

The last weekly of the year is up right now on the Dropbox, and the last monthly of 2017 will be up tomorrow along with the v0.2.08.0 changelog, in 2019.

Another one bites the dust. For anyone who was having a hard time in 2018, we hope 2019 works out better for you. We hope we can be a part of that.

Happy New Year!

Majalis