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Q & A Regarding Kemo Coliseum Project (Patreon)

Published:
2018-09-30 22:58:40
Imported:
2020-09

Content

To be honest, I wrote this since August. I was going to post it after I release the game since I'd rather spent my time working on the game. However, seeing that people finally take these questions to me instead of talking about it behind my back like they often do, I think it's about time.

(The questions listed here aren't all from Stark, but it's something I see quite often)

Isn't the game supposed to come out in 2012?

I admit that this is our fault, as the promotional art says that "the battle starts 2012".

At that point in time, we actively reported our activities and we thought from the context people would know that we're a small group and we were working on a big game - Sugar Shooter 2. There would be no way that a small group like us can finish 2 big games back to back in such a short amount of time. Thus "the battle starts 2012" for us means we're going to work on the game in 2012 and not a promise to finish the game in 2012.

Even after that we actively said on the our blog that we are working on the game and since the game will be free of charge, we decided to ask for donation instead, as well as using money we get from other games to fund the project.

The project was clearly in its pre-production state in 2012, and it was clear to us from people's reactions as well as people who read our progress on our blog and the forum that they understood this.

However, as the promotional picture continued to spread, the context was lost and people assumed that we've worked on the game long before 2012 and it was supposed to release in 2012. We'll take this as a lesson in communication moving forward.

Hasn't this project been getting money on Patreon for $3000+ a year for 7 or more years?

Patreon didn't exist 7 years ago. We started Patreon in November 2014, which means, as of the day of writing (18th of August 2018), we've been on Patreon for around 3 years and 8 months.

In the first few months, we only got around $500 per month. It took us 2 years to reach around $3,000 per month.

However, many people never took this into consideration. Most of the time, they just look at how much support we get then assume that we've gotten that much since the beginning of the project.

While we want to be open about the support we get per month, it turns out that people use this as a way to throw abuse at us, accusing us of getting too much money for not doing anything. Thus, for our mental health and so that we can focus on working on the game, we decided to hide the amount of support we get per month.

As for before Patreon, we have always been open about the amount of money we get each month. You can see an example from the following reports:

All in all, we made around $7705.5 from donation during three years before Patreon.


But aren't you making $200,000 to $500,000 during these 4 years?

I really don't know where this estimation come from. Probably from just looking at the current amount of money we have and then multiplies it with the number of reports we posted? If so, this estimation forgot that our project never started with $3,000 per report.


Here's the screenshot of the amount of money we've made until August 2018.

So, $165,610 during 4 years. That's $41,402 a year, which is... less than half of an average salary for a Unity Developer.

Why does the game take so long? It's been many years and half of the game isn't even finished.

Lack of funding for us to work full time as well as hiring more people on the project is a major factor. During these 7 years, Kemo Coliseum isn't the only project we'd worked on. Relying on donation alone won't allow us to work on Kemo Coliseum full time. And when we started Kemo Coliseum, we didn't have many games in our stocks to be able to rely on their sales either. Sugar Shooter 1 and Sugar Shooter 2, while doing ok, weren't enough for us to quit our day job.

Thus, we had been looking for a way to make releasing Kemo Coliseum as a free game for all gay furries to enjoy possible. First option was to make a web game and get money from sponsors, and thus in 2012 we released two games: Touch and Tease vol. 1 and vol. 2

Unfortunately, the sponsor method proved to be not going well. Only Touch and Tease vol. 1 got sponsored. The second one, due to some disagreement, we decided to release the game for free by ourselves.

In 2013, we made Night Attack Beast Warrior and Touch and Tease vol. 3. With Touch and Tease vol. 3, we tried a new approach where people can play the game for free, and those who would like to support us monetarily can do so and get some behind-the-scene and extra stuff in return. It worked well and everyone seems happy, which encourages us to take this path when we make future Touch and Tease games.

Also, with Touch and Tease vol. 3, it was the first time that we succeeded the crowdfunding campaign. We wanted to spend more time on the game, but we need money so we did a campaign that, if success, the game will be released in one month instead of many more months. And it was a success! At that time, we used Gumroad's pay-what-you-want method with our webpage interacting with Gumroad Webhook to show the amount of money we raised from the game.

(Strangely, when we started a campaign for Touch and Tease vol. 3, there were people who called us a scam too. Hmm.)


Unfortuantely, things didn't go well with us. Gumroad closed its door on us in 2014, shutting us from getting any donation or selling any digital product to non-Japanese. We moved to Selz.com and Ribbon.co, and while they worked at first, they eventually changed their stance toward adult digital product and stopped providing us any service. It was around this time that we learned about Patreon, studied it, and decided to make a move to use the service.


As answered in the previous question, for a team of 3 people, we didn't make enough for all of us to work on the project full time. Thanks to our supporters, the amount of funding kept going up and in 2016 we were able to spend much more time on the project - almost full time now. Even though we are still underpaid, I'm happy to be able to work on the game that there is no other way for it to happen.


But it's just a match-3 game! It's like Candy Crush! Why does it take so long?

There's this misunderstanding that all match-3 games are casual games and simple to make. This is not true. While many match-3 games aim at casual players and their mechanics may look simple, a game that is simple to play doesn't necessarily mean it is simple to make.

Kemo Coliseum is a puzzle RPG game. Even though it's a match-3 that is based on Puzzle Quest, we want to make it different. We spent time studying and trying to come up with a fun puzzle system. (Anyone who has followed this game project since it was started might remember the first system where each gem represents each part of the body and matching them destroy clothes of that part).

We spent time studying Puzzle Quest, Puzzle Quest 2, and all the other puzzle RPG games out there in order to try to find something new. Explore something that hasn't been done. This part of the design takes time, and some time you don't know that your design isn't fun until you implement it (like the destroy each body part system in its early days).

On top of the match-3 system, we need to build an RPG engine. If you have used RPG Maker before, we basically need to make all the base scripts in RPG Maker by ourselves in Unity3D from scratch. Making an RPG game, even with a tool like RPGMaker, isn't an easy task. We have to make contents and the engine, thus it's much more work and it will take more time.

Also, the cutscene in Kemo Coliseum is told in a visual novel style. At the time that we started working on Kemo Coliseum, there was no visual novel engine for Unity3D and we had to make everything from scratch, building our own visual novel language script. This also includes other features such as simple localization that allows the engine to extract only the dialogue texts, as well as an ability to interact with the other part of the engine such as the RPG game database and the battle scene.

This was actually why we created all those small games as well. Night Attack and Touch and Tease vol. 3 served as games that give us more funding, as well as testing grounds for our original Visual Novel Engine. This is so that even though we were working on other games, we still make a part that will be used by Kemo Coliseum.

Still, the number of members in our team is limited. I'm the only programmer in the team, so the programming work is all done by me. This is on top of other tasks I have to do such as:

  • Story Writing
  • Game Design
  • Special Effect Animations
  • Localization (Japanese to English and vice-versa as some writers write in Japanese and I have to translate them to English)
  • Management: Talk to various artists and writers, following up with their work, organizing documents and files of the projects in both English and Japanese
  • Visual Novel Script Writing (I trained Kurono to do this already so now I'm not the only one who does this anymore)
  • PR
  • Customer Support: Talking to people on Patreon, e-mails, twitter, etc.
  • Tech Support: Fixing issues when the games don't run. I still need to support our current games like Touch and Tease vol. 3 from time to time.

I've tried my best doing things as fast as I can while keeping the quality of the work I do. Still, there's a limit to what one person can do. Slow progress is inevitable.

But why isn't there a single new build? Why is there no update?

This is because I don't think it'd be a good experience to release small update for this genre of game. Our game is an RPG game that is supposed to be played when everything is done, or at least a big part of it is done. And there are many components in Kemo Coliseum, which are as follow:

Main Story
This includes visual novel scenes, writing them and directing them. Directing them also includes not just writing, but finding graphic, sounds and background music assets that go along with the scenes.

Monsters
This includes designing them, designing their skills, their parameters, how much exp will they give the player, how much money should they give the player.

Level Design
How should the enemies and bosses appear? Where should they be in the dungeons? Do we have any side quests that will help them clear some dungeons easier.

Items, Skills, Armor Bonuses and Equipments Database
What should we name them? How much should each of them cost? What can do they? Do they solve the problems we throw at the player?

For an RPG game, all of this must come together as one. And each part is time-consuming, sometime even requires looking at the whole game in a big picture. It just impossible for this type of game to be released in a small update without turning it into a super grindy gacha game that let you grind while keeping your interest by adding new gacha contents to keep you playing.

Splitting the game into episodes is already our way of trying to make us releasing the game faster. And now we're even going further to release an update for each main quest. It's still going to take time because that's how the game works.

Also, this makes it sounds like we don't communicate with supporters regarding the release. We have made posts asking and discussing about the releasing style with supporters already, and we have came to the compromise that we will release the game faster with no promise of it being well balanced and we won't do tech support.

Why don't you hire more people? Why don't you hire more programmers?

It isn't that we don't want to hire a programmer, but we can't because we don't have enough money and resources.

A full-time Unity3D Programmer cost at least $3,000 per month (and that's already a super generous number). We didn't make $3,000 per month until 2016, and if we're going to hire a full-time programmer that means we won't have any money to pay for any other part in the game. It's also difficult to find a competent programmer who are ok with a gay-themed game with erotic contents. Not to mention that there's also a time-consuming work involve in setting up how we work together, code quality control and integrating their codes into the main project.

Simply put, adding a programmer isn't an easy task. It's time consuming and expensive, and a wrong hiring could delay the project even further. The nature of the project being a r18+ furry gay game means that the pool of programmers who are willing to do this is even smaller.

I've always wanted another programmer or two to help, but we don't have the resources to do so. However, it's probably useless to bring in another programmer at this point, as there isn't much left for it to require another one.

As for manager, we would love to hire one, but a full time one is also expensive. And as we work with people from various countries, with some Japanese artists not being able to speak in English, we need a person who knows both English and Japanese, which, on top of being ok with adult gay furry content, makes it much harder to find one.

Are you making this slow on purpose to milk money from Patreon?

To be honest, this question is really silly to me as I'd have made much more if I focus solely on working on my day job full time rather than working on this project. As I said earlier, a full time Unity3D programmer makes at least $3,000/month and that's already being generous. The money I get from this project is lower than 1/3 of what I could have gotten given my knowledge and my skills (Programming in Unity3D, Software Engineering, fluent in writing, reading and speaking Japanese and English)

I understand that many of these misunderstandings and rumors happened because of ignorance on top of the history of furry games being full of many failed projects. I get the skepticism and cynicism. What happened to Morenatsu made it even more painful. I can only hope that this explanation will help explain and show you that Kemo Coliseum is a geniune project. We wouldn't have stuck with it this far if we didn't truly want to finish the game.

Why are you doing it this way? Why don't you sell the game like others?

I believe that a game like Kemo Coliseum cannot be made in any other circumstance. Where can you find a publisher that will fund you to make a puzzle quest with erotic gay furry contents that will be free for everyone?

And yes, I want the final product to be free for everyone to play. I want to create a game that money is not a barrier for people to enjoy. I even went as far as making all the characters in Kemo Coliseum licensed under public domain so that anyone can have fun with the casts.

But the free part can only exists after the game is finished. To make the game, you need labour, and I need money to put food on my table in order to give my labour.

This is why I designed this Patreon to be solely about donation. All the rewards are given once and you have them forever. There is no incentive for people to keep supporting other than that they just truly want to support us and still communicate with us. (I remember I was even called "lazy" for not coming up with nice rewards to give out every month. But I want to make a game, not rewards!)

I also set the Patreon to be per progress report because I don't want to charge automatically every month. When I started this, nothing guaranteed that I could work on Kemo Coliseum full time. What if it doesn't make money? What if I'm too busy with my IRL job that I can't work on the game? With this payment system, I can control and choose not to charge any supporter that month. (It's true that you can pause a monthly payment on Patreon now, but this was way way back before that feature was implemented)

I also want to be paid for my labour, but only when I show my work and supporters are satisfied with it. With Patreon system, a supporter has total control over this. They can stop supporting before the end of the month if they don't like what they see, or they can set the cap to the amount of money they can support per month. In my opinion, this is as fair as I can make the system to be.

There were still some people who spread too thin with their Patreon supports or didn't expect to pay a second time. I gave them their money back. Even people who are upset when the game is slow, I offered giving them their money back as well. I never force or trick anyone to support me monetarily. If you have followed my work since Sugar Shooter, you'll know that I keep telling people to support in the way that you can. This is even written on our website that we are ok with you pirating our games.

But if you still think this is a scam or I'm just milking people for money, well, there's nothing I can do to change your mind. And, frankly, I don't really care. The game is going well, and I'm really enjoying working on it.

TLDR

Making a game is hard.

It's been a long journey for Kemo Coliseum for sure. And for a game anticipated by many gay furries, I suppose it can't be helped that there will be misunderstandings and weird rumors around it. And having an amazing artist like NullGhost being the main character designers only makes it worse.

However, I understand where those negative comments or rumors come from. Furry adult games don't really have a good track record. I can only hope that all the previous games that we made in the past will make you believe that we will be able to finish this project.

To the supporters who have been supporting us, I want to thank all of you for making the project coming this far. I believe I've done my best to communicate and show you that this project is genuine, and I'm trying to make a game that I like. Still, if you have any question or something that bothers you about the project, please feel free to talk to me!


- Punipen

Comments

KCrow

Great job communication is key with projects like this and I look forward to the next update.

Anonymous

We apreciate this transparency a lot, trust me. Its obvious making a game like this is not something easy. All our support, Punipen.

Anonymous

Thank you for the post! You should probably make this post available to non-patreons too

Sen

I perfectly understand all this waiting time. I never realised how small your team was until now. As a game design graduate, i know that a game of this scale with the limited resources that you have will definitely take a lot of time, and you'll face many challenges along the way. Stark was really just being petty and inconsiderate, I'd pay him no mind. You guys will continue to have my support because i believe in you guys, and for Kemo Coliseum. Keep giving it your best because you have people who know you can!

Morphbeast

I had always thought what you did in the time frame you are doing it in considering the amount of people you have, who are only doing this part time, that what you have done is amazing. I mean you stay in contact, you post reports, and to some extent, we can look up old information. We can also look up how much doing this would cost and compare. So, thank you for this report and all the other reports you provide to keep us up to date on progress.

Anonymous

I am honored to support such a great person like you. There will always be people in the world, who just can not appreciate what they already have. That's the most pathetic thing I can imagine in this life. Sometimes I fell in this "pool" too, but I try to get out as soon as possible. However, I was never that kind of people, who was just out there, insulting someone, because I don't have a better thing to do... To be honest, I'd say that try to ignore those who just keep bitching about something. Of course, like you and your team, we are part of the "machine" too. Some parts fall out, but we, those who supports you no matter what, will keep you in one piece and encourage you to complete the machine. I'm not as good as you in English communication, but I hope my words were at least a little bit helpful. In this world, words can kill and heal at the same time. My last words: Just be yourself and surround yourself with people who really care about you and your works. The others are meaningless. :)

Ian

This is a really great way to lay things out on the table for everyone. A thought, though: Would this be something that could be put out as a public post for people that were or want to be a patron? I can see why you wouldn't, considering the personal nature, but it may also help bring people back or convince people (then again, some people just look at numbers and freak out!)

Holden

Thanks for the update and the information. It was really helpful to learn more about what's going on behind the scenes. I think it's clear that this is a labor of love and not something particularly lucrative for you. So I'm thankful that you're doing it. Keep it up please! You're doing a great job and making a totally fun game that so many of us already really love.

Solitary Hyena

Some patrons are more like me and are in it more for the porn and (previously) Null Ghost's art. I grew attached to Tharsix and hope to see more of him. So coming from my perspective where I was mostly in it for the porn, i really hoped updates would be more acessible, as well as the CG scenes (which now are not since you stated people were pirating/sharing them to non $10 tier members.) I get that development is long, but many people like me who are mostly in it for the porn/story really hoped to see this project done, and its been lacking alot hence why I dont pay $10 a month anymore. People can say "this isnt a project for you" or something along though lines, and they would be right. I still continue to support this project since i like the story and characters. Becoming a patron, I hoped to see exclusive content sooner, such as early CG scenes fully uncensored and such. I guess what i am getting at is: I know programming is really hard and such, and im grew used to waiting, but it would be nice for those who are in it for characters, sex, and story rather than gameplay mechanics to get some more out of this project, which i felt has been lacking in the past year. I don't think you are scamming anyone, as you stated in the post, but i feel that the long development time has been growing disinterest in the project since we are waiting so long to see more of the world and characters in it, it would be nice if we got access to more stuff like the finished CG scenes or scripts for being patrons, but that is entirely up to you and your team. Im glad the project is still going and not halted as many other furry projects were.

Anonymous

I think the biggest problem is that people feel like they get their hopes up expecting to see progress that has been made and it gets delayed. No one likes delays. I think that drives the conspiracies. Personally I don't think hiding the amount you all are making is going to help (also I don't appreciate the lack of transparency myself). What people want is a gameplay build, to see what progress has been made firsthand so they can justify their purchase. I know you guys really didn't like doing it, but having that tumblr where you had a mapped out plan and updated your progress as you went really for the expectations of when things would be completed and released was helpful. If you can make some milestones and then achieve the milestones on time a couple times I think people will stop the conspiracies.

Anonymous

The game is a lot of fun. I hope you’re proud of what you’ve put out so far. Hope to keep seeing more of what you and your team can do in the future.

Anonymous

I'll fully admit that I did have a thought like this in the back of my head, at least in that it's been taking a suspiciously long amount of time, but just seeing the sheer length of this post addressing all these concerns puts any suspicion I had to rest. You guys have made an amazing amount of progress, and I'm definitely glad I have supported you for as long as I have. You've still got my support going forward, too. Thank you for all your hard work!

kemocoliseum
>>15929618

To be honest, all of us wanted to be transparent about the amount we're making. But as more and more people were using it against us, it was affecting my team members. After we hide the amount, they don't have an ammo to attack us anymore and it's easier to focus on working on the game. If you still want to see the number, please contact me and I'll send it to you through private message. I have no intention to hide it from our supporters. One problem with having a milestone for a small team like us that relies on many freelancers is that it's really hard to make an accurate estimated date of release. I was confident regarding Chapter 3 at first since I got people to lift my weight off of localizations and writing, but then the translator had a serious injury, one writer had to quit for a while due to personal matter, another thought he would be available but due to personal matter wasn't available until this month. With that said, I'm definitely going to go back to updating that Tumblr page again though. Before this, I didn't have time to look at it since there are other more important matters that need my attention such as getting new people to help, making decision regarding important story lines in chapter 3, 4, 5 and 6, etc. and these are the things that I need to make them clear first before I can give a good estimate on when each milestone should be. Although, I don't care much about those conspiracies. This is not the first time someone like Stark came in and called me a scammer, and I'm sure it won't be the last. Even when the game's finished, I doubt they will apologize either. The person who called Touch and Tease vol. 3 a scam sure didn't, so I'm kinda get used to this. - Punipen

kemocoliseum
>>15929543

Thanks for trying to understand and for your honest opinion! To be honest, there's a lot of progress on story and I wish we could write it in the report, but I don't know how to balance it between showing the progress and spoiling the game. The gallery for patrons was leaked once and that upset many Japanese on Twitter, especially those who look forward to play the game and find them out themselves. This is also the reason why we tried this visual novel scene teasers recently. Do you think these are ok and would be what you like to see included in the progress report? I'm open to other suggestions too. Also, it might seem like there's a lot of game-part contents these days, but that's because I'm trying to finish them first so I can focus on the porn/dating/story parts. The game contents we're working on aren't just for chapter 3, but for the rest of the game. As soon as we can get that out of the way, it'll make planning level easier for me and I can focus and spend time on the story parts. In any case, I'm already talking to more writers at the moment to help me with the writing while I'm working on the game part. We were unfortunate with the writers dropping out in the past, so I hope it'll go well this time. - Punipen

kemocoliseum
>>15931474

Thank you! I'm glad it helps. I remember you since Dudedle forum and we had a lot of talk about how Patreon would affect the secret lab at the forum. I'm really happy to see you still supporting us here. It means a lot to me! - Punipen

kemocoliseum
>>15927743

Thank you so much! I'm considering that but I'd like to keep this among supporters first. I'll talk to the team and see if they want this to go public or not, but I wrote this as a public post in mind. - Punipen

kemocoliseum
>>15926414

Thank you! You're right that communication is very important. I wanted to talk about this later, since I want to focus on releasing the game as soon as possible, but perhaps it's better to post this now. - Punipen

kemocoliseum
>>15926557

Thank you so much for your kind words! We've tried to be transparent as much as possible. I'm glad we did write down all the stuff in the past. - Punipen

kemocoliseum
>>15926982

Thank you! As inconsiderate as his words was, he used to be a supporter who paid for the project and like the project, so I just hope that this post will answer his question. But he pledged again recently only to make this comment and deleted his pledge, so I'm not sure if having a conversation was his goal in the first place. In anycase, it's good that he gave me an opportunity to clear this doubt that might be in many supporter's minds and talk to them about what's bothering them about the project or how I'm handling it. Thank you again for your kind words. We'll do our best! - Punipen

kemocoliseum
>>15927148

Thank you. This means a lot to me. I understand that communication is the key, so I try to keep in touch with the supporters. It's a lot of work, and I have probably made some mistakes along the way, but I'm really happy to hear this from you! - Punipen

ZR

I first heard of this project years ago and then was surprised when I first saw it in action some time ago how complicated it is. Thanks for all the work, and I look forward to seeing how things work out in the end. It's quite a huge project beyond anything I imagined. Some people will never understand things like that, such as the people that think Kickstarter projects get all of their funds from the campaigns and then think that represents a video game budget, which it's actually usually a small fraction and mostly shows people are interested so publishers will invest money. Many thanks, and keep up the good work. :)

kemocoliseum
>>15927404

Thank you so much. This is why it meant so much to me when supporters here showed that they care about our team's health and well-being. Working on the game is tough already, and there is nobody sadder and disappointed about the delay than us. So to hear those kind words from supporters, understanding and treating us like humans and not just parts of a machine, it really means a lot. - Punipen

kemocoliseum
>>15928295

Thank you! I'm glad I had an opportunity to post this. It's been on my mind for a while, but I thought I really should focus on the game and this can wait. But now I feel like it's good that I posted it at this time. Writing it took me through a long trip down memory lane though. I felt like we have come really far. I won't stop and I'll finish this project :) - Punipen

kemocoliseum
>>15932016

Thank you! You're right that some people will never understand this. I've seen game developers from Kickstarters and other Patreons went through something like this and it sucks. I'm just happy that I'm lucky enough that many of my supporters are nice and really supportive of what we do. It was a long battle to find funding to make this game, and these days when I work on it, reading the scripts and see the characters on the screen. It makes me really happy and I really can't wait to finish it! - Punipen

kemocoliseum
>>15931320

Thank you! It was a long battle to make this game what it is today. I'm really happy to see it's taking shape. After this game we'll probably go back to making small games for a while though. It's like running a marathon! x_x - Punipen

Rickalator98

Don't fret too much on the haters. I'm proud to be a supporter and don't see myself discontinuing my support in the near future. Quality work takes times and we have personal lives and you and your team are no exception. Keep on keeping on!!

Gystes

Punipen thanked everyone in almost every post he made, but only Canadians are that polite....Punipen said he's Japanese...that means.....PUNIPEN IS ACTUALLY CANADIAN!! The conspiracies are real!!! This logic is flawless!!!!!! Stay healthy my dude

kemocoliseum
>>15933112

I'VE BEEN EXPOSED!!!!!! Really, though. You've been so nice and supportive. It feels really motivating when I read your message caring about my health and my team's well-being :) Thank you! - Punipen

kemocoliseum
>>15933033

Thank you! Just want to let you know that "Keep on Keeping On" is the name of a Japanese song that I like so I'm surprised and happy to see it here XD - Punipen

BaraSempai

This is why I haven't bothered updating my game, I just read the posts once in awhile. Like most people, I just want to play the game when it's done. But maybe if I'm really curious, I'll update and see what's new. I mainly saw this as the first full-fledged bara RPG puzzle game. I completely forgot the furry factor. You mentioned Morenatsu. I'm so sad they never finished, it was such a great game, the writing was beautiful and it was more than just a porno visual novel. I don't know the track record of gay furry games, mainly because most of the good gay games in general are all Japanese-based and hardly ever translated in English. And if they were, I probably didn't come across it online. I'll be honest, I illegally downloaded Sugar Shooter 1 and 2 back in college, but that's before I started working. I like Dudedle Studio's work that much that I'm more than happy to pay for their work now which is a small fraction of what I make per month anyways. If I really want more bara games to come out in the online market, then this is a great way to help make that happen. I loved the Sugar Shooter games because it was such a novel concept. I was really into SHMUPs back in college, especially since I was playing the Parodius games on emulators a lot. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think my favorite flash game from you guys years ago was the ZukoZuko game with the reindeer couple. It was frustrating trying to get full meters for both of them, but I think to this day, their perfect cumshot blasts at the end is the best I've seen out of all the gay/bara games I've played so far. It was so rewarding.

Kevinsora

Whew, I read all of that and I just wanted to say I think what you and your team is doing is no other words then amazing, You could easily get a high paying job, but you sacrificed that to work on this. Its something your passionate about and enjoy doing (most of the time) and everything you went through and have done inspires me even more. I'm currently working on a gay furry VN with one of my friends and its just us two right now and we haven't done anything public for it yet becuase we want it to have a big part finished before doing anything public with it. So I can understand how a small team can create slow progression. No matter there will still be people that will support you because every supporter cares about the game and they care about the team making it. I'm glad you posted this to air out all the confusion people had about the progress and everything really~ You'll always have my support!

Richard

Seems my previous comment disappeared. Not sure if that was an issue on Patreons end, or what, but since I really don't feel the like retyping all that a second time, I'll simply reiterate my key point that you and your team are doing a great job with what you have to work with and that I will stay with this project for the foreseeable future and wish all of you the best with the project and whatever the future holds.

kemocoliseum
>>15935168

Yeah, that was weird. I read all of it though and I'd like to thank you for your kind words and how understanding you've been. I still have a copy of the reply in an email at least! =) - Punipen

Anonymous

I understand. Game production takes a long time.

kemocoliseum
>>15935095

Thank you! And yes, I wrote this post mainly to clear the confusion that the supporters might have, since it's been a long time and there are so many rumors, lies and conspiracy theories out there beyond my belief. As a fellow game developer, I wish you good luck on your project! I definitely want to see more gay games! =) - Punipen

kemocoliseum
>>15934840

I didn't expect this at all and this made me teary. Thank you for being honest with me. I really want our games to be played by many people and that's why I don't mind people pirating our games. I just hope if they enjoy the game enough, they'll come back and support us later one way or another because we still need money to keep going. And to see that you're doing exactly that just makes me really happy. I LOVE Sugar Shooter series and I still miss it dearly. I'd meet Takesamurai-san from sometimes and we wish we could have time to work on a project again, but we both know that I have to finish Kemo Coliseum first. And yes, ZukoZuko is one of many flash games that we made in our early days! I didn't expect to see it's mentioned here, haha. I do miss making small games though, and I have some ideas already. I can only write them down for now but as soon as Kemo Coliseum is stable and I can work more on something else, I'll go through my notes and make those small games again! - Punipen

Anonymous

Take your time, rushing will only make things worse. It's like lecturer forcing a student to rush their assignment XD. And I'll say this a second time. Keep the hard work and take care of your health :)

Anonymous

I don't agree with Stark at all. I completely understand that Quality takes a lot of time, and on top of that, you guys have your own lives you need to live as well, not just programming and drawing. You guys deserve every bit of credit for your hard work and more, considering all the time you have sacrificed for our sake. Also, i say this: Thank you for everything you have done so far. I have really enjoyed your game, and if I could pledge more, I would, if the $20 section wasn't sold out. Don't be discouraged, just make sure the Team keeps balance in their lives, and if you need to rest or if an emergency comes up, then that is first priority. We will wait.

Anonymous

Keep up the good works ! I'm sorry to not be able to support all-reports (max 10/month for me/people I support on Patreon) but surely I would if I could ! I just have a matter with the game that didn't show the starting screen when lauched (New Game / Continue / Options) so I can't play anymore.

kemocoliseum
>>15936361

Thank you! I'll try my best to balance between health, quality of the work, and release speed. It's not an easy task for sure XD - Punipen

kemocoliseum
>>15936915

Thank you! All these messages really help. I'm sharing them with the team and they're really happy! - Punipen

kemocoliseum
>>15937210

Thank you! We will definitely do our best on the game :) As for the screen issue, I might have solved that already so please wait for the next build. - Punipen

Anonymous

Apparently my comment disappeared. Anyway, I don't think you are a scammer, but I think Stark did raise a fair point about how long it has been since a new chapter was released. After all, even as recently as August 13 you were projecting releasing all of Chapter 3 in September, now nothing has been released. It can be hard, particularly for non-programmers like myself, to understand how things went from expecting a full chapter being released to nothing being released. As I recall, Volga's route was once projected to be done this year, now it is looking like Chapter 3 won't even be done in 2018. Are there any plans to find ways to try to speed up production, or should we expect this to take another 3-4.5 years to finish (at 1-1.5 years per chapter)? I haven't canceled yet, but I do have to think about whether I can really justify monthly support of a project that looks like it will take possibly up to 5 more years to finish, especially since it seems all the cuts that have been made have been to the part I was most interested in-the story/romances and yes, the sex. Cyrus' and Tharsix's routes-cut. Romance with Kronus-cut. In a reply to a 10/10/2017 post by Hensoku on the community page of this site, Punipen you stated not only that Isandro, Gruebert, Gimdin, and Murvin would all have erotic scenes, but that "not all" of them would be romance options, implying that some of them would be romanceable. I'll admit it-between that post and Volga's reaction to Murvin's cock, I was hoping for a romance with Murvin in which Volga would bottom. None of those characters were included in the list of love interests in the 2nd June 2018 report, however, so I expect any romances there have probably been cut. You reported earlier that Volga will only be a top, so porn of him bottoming has been cut. And while I remember we talked about a possible DLC, the more the main game gets delayed, the harder it is to believe that any DLC will get done. Meanwhile it seems like a lot of work has focused on things like status gems, trap gems, loot gems, elemental skills/combinations, a system to possibly battle as another character/using vehicles (mentioned in an earlier report, can't remember which month), etc.-all of which, from my point of view, add a lot of unnecessary complications to a combat system already so dependent on luck that an enemy half Volga's level can slaughter him in a few moves if they hit the right gems/cascades. I respect the amount of work you have done on this game, but I think it is reasonable to want something like the old road map brought back to give supporters a better idea of what all has been done, what more needs to be worked on, and at least a guess at how much more time it is expected to take. Without it, supporters like me can be left wondering if it is going to take another 3 years or more to finish, only to end up with a final game in which the parts I was most interested in were cut.

kemocoliseum
>>15937985

There are many things to address here. I'd like to address it in each point so that it'll be easier to read and understand. 1. Volga's route was once projected to be done this year, but now even chapter 3 isn't finished yet. The first time we projected Volga's route to be finished was even before we decided to make his route the only canon route, adding chapter 6 and allow Volga to date all of the main casts. This is a big change and it required us to sit down and talk about how the story will work, as the old scenarios and the endings won't quite work anymore. With the old settings, Volga won't get to fight all of the main casts. But now that he's the only playable character, it must be possible for him to fight all the main casts. There is a lot of re-write, and thus I don't think it's weird at all the there will be a delay or changes in the schedule. 2. Are there any plan to speed up the production? I already wrote about this in this post. What we need for us to work faster is money. Without money, we can't hire more people. In any project, you have to choose two out of three from 1.fast 2. cheap, and 3. quality. We're being underpaid, so "cheap" is already chosen. We want to keep the quality of the game, so we chose "quality". It's impossible to make something cheap and high quality with in a short amount of time, thus it will take time. 3. Should we expect another 3 - 4.5 years to finish? I'd say no, considering most of the database work like equipments, skills, armor bonuses are "for the rest of the game from chapter 3 - 6". For some reasons, many seem to forget that we were making contents not for each chapter in mind, but for the rest of the game at once so we could see the whole picture. By spending time finishing all these database work now, it means I won't have to do them again later (or at least I'll only tweak them after some play testing). Also, during the past years, we never got to work with the completed visual novel sprites of the main casts. Thus, time were spent on these important reusable resources. When we work with NullGhost, there's a lot of bouncing back and forth in term of design and feedbacks, as well as trying to make him meet the deadline. Once these resources are done, we don't have to spend time making them again, so the time spent on working on future chapters should be shorter. 4. Cyrus and Tharsix's routes are cut While this is true, we have made it possible for Volga to date all the other characters instead. That's a lot more contents than 3 - 4 possible dating partners than before. Not to mention the dating system now contains even more stories. You can take them to at least 6 locations, each with 2 dating patterns, each dating pattern has 3 possible outcomes. That's a total of at least 36 branches per character. And there are 8 normally dateable characters, making that 288 possible scenes we need to write. I'd say that's a lot to write already. Each dateable character also has their own important scenes, at least 1 for each of their relationship level, with 5 levels, that's another 5 long scenes for each character, excluding a unique ending in the end game where you can choose to be with your dating partner. Again, this could be misunderstanding from how I communicate, but I hope this shows that the story isn't being cut as much as readjusted, and even added. If you think you're missing Cyrus and Tharsix' stories, their stories will be touched up on in their respective romance routes, so the original plan wasn't 100% cut. 5. Romance with Cronus is cut I'm not sure whether we have even mentioned that romancing Cronus is possible, but it was decided from the early stage of the game that he isn't a dateable option. You can get an erotic scenes with him, but no dating (as of now). 6. Isandro, Gruebert, Gimdin, and Murvin aren't listed as romantic options This is my mistake, as my intention is to keep these characters "secret dateable characters". I did not realize that by not mentioning these characters, people will think that they are no longer a dateable option. Kemo Coliseum's dating system follows an old school traditional dating simulation games like Tokimeki Memorial, where you get normal dateable characters and secret characters that can't be dated normally. Thus, these NPCs can't be dated normally, but you have to clear their special conditions to enter their erotic or romantic routes. For example, in Gimdin's case, the more you sell materials and help him crafting equipments, the more scenes you'll get with him. 7. Volga's bottoming has been cut While it's true that I said by default, Volga is a top, I've also said that this isn't set in stone. I understand that from the CGs Gamma-G has drawn so far, Volga have only been nothing but a top. I can reassure you that we've talked about other possibilities already, with some sex scenes won't even involve penetration. Please understand that we can't decide these things beforehand. We'll have to talk to the team and brainstorm about what do we think would be interesting and suit the two characters. 8. The battle is luck-based and a lot of work focused on the combat system more than the story As stated in earlier reports, we listened to feedbacks and modified the game to be less luck-dependent already with the cascade breaker system. As a game designer, I care about the combat system as much as other parts in the game. Also, we actually did more work on story parts than the combat and RPG parts these days, but I can see that it's hard to show that in the report. Many of the combat mechanics are also important for story telling technique which will be used to tell the main story and some side stories later in the game. It might looks complicated and unnecessary right now, but we hope it make sense when you see it in the game. 9. Roadmap We'll work on this as things are settled. As soon as we have most of the important resources ready, we should be able to make an accurate roadmap. ----------- I feel that there's a lot of miscommunication between us, and perhaps the game or the reports don't meet your expectation. At this point, all I can say is that playing the complete 3rd chapter should really help you making a decision whether you should continue supporting this project or not. If you want to pause your support until the 3rd chapter is finished, I'll understand your decision. As a $3+ supporter, you'll always have access to patron build when it's released, even when you stop supporting. - Punipen

Anonymous

I think what you guys are doing is amazing so far, especially considering the size of your developer crew. For a game with heavy erotic contents, the intricacy of the game play took me by surprise. I expected the game to be a grind to get to the CG parts but i actually enjoyed it a lot. I'm also pleased to know there's even more additions to the gem power ups. So keep up the good work!

Anonymous

I don't normally support many projects like this at all or stick around on certain patreons for long because I usually don't like the direction some projects go and such. Kemo is different not just because of the amount of time and resources going into it, but because of the transparency and the constant updates we get as backers. If you guys didn't take the time to show what you've got done every month and the developments, goals and progress you've made, I know me and a lot of other people would have jumped ship by now. But being able to see the constant progression to a finished game breeds hope, gives us something to look forward to each month and is extremely respectful on your part. I think you guys are doing a wonderful job given your time, resources and small team and I know many groups would have given up by now. Transparency is key when maintaining backers and income and it's been great seeing how far you've come since the early builds and screenshots. Here's to hoping that you keep your mental health well, ignore baseless, hateful comments and conspiracies and continue along doing what you guys have been doing best!

Anonymous

I like how you bring this to front with clarification on what you are actually doing. As a developer, I know that things are way more complicated than they seem to be in the surface. I really love your game, and I think it has an outstanding quality. I am happy to support you now and until the game is finished and even with future games that you make.

Anonymous

Todos creen que es solo de contratar programadores jajaja Usted siga haciendo su buen trabajo !!! Yo esperaré con paciencia

Siryoshi

I'd really like to thank you for putting out this post. It's a very open and transparent message to people, some of whom have donated a lot of money to this project and therefore they do have concerns. Most of my concerns have already been asked and answered in the previous comments, but I'd like to touch on just one point. When you said that you could have made more money by being a full time Unity developer than doing this project, are you saying that you have therefore used this project to fund your everyday expenses because you work less in your normal job, so the more money you make here, the less time you spend there? I'd fully understand that because I've always wondered where the money from this project goes (aside from buying artwork from Null and the other artists, which must cost a lot) when most of the work is done by one or two members. Thanks!

kemocoliseum
>>15940100

Thank you so much! In the West, it seems to me that adult games aren't taken seriously or limited to interactive stories. But in Japan, erotic games for straight guys come in so many genres and forms, ranging from a Final Fantasy like epic RPG, a puyo puyo-liked puzzle, a fighting game to a turn-based strategy game like Tactic Ogre. They all take their game parts seriously, making it fun and integrate erotic contents into the game on top of that. I want gay men to be able to enjoy games like those too, so this has always been one of my design principals whenever I make an erotic games. I like to explore how to add erotic elements into each game genre and balance between the game part and the erotic part. It's definitely isn't easy, but it's fun and challenging to me to design a game like this! - Punipen

kemocoliseum
>>15948018

Thank you! I'm really glad that you appreciate the reports and the communications on Patreon. I'm happy I'm able to build a community that is so supportive of us like this. I'm sure there's still a lot for me to learn regarding communication and interacting with the community, and I hope I'll do better moving forward :) - Punipen

kemocoliseum
>>15948039

Thank you! It's definitely easier to imagine the complexity and issues that a project might face if you're a developer. I'm sure almost every project has an interesting behind-the-scene story to tell XD - Punipen

kemocoliseum
>>15949119

**Thanks to a friend of mine for translating this comment to me!** Thank you! And yeah, how I wish things were as easy as throwing more programmers in to the project XD - Punipen

Anonymous

Keep doing a good job !!!

kemocoliseum
>>15949633

Yes, I'm not sure when, but around last year or maybe two years ago, the share I'll get from Patreon as well as income from other sources (other Dudedle game sales share, Kurono's work and manga's sales share, etc.) was enough for me to reduce my working hour. I lost some money, but I got to spend more time on Kemo Coliseum. This was one of the reason why there was significant progress in term of programming and we could push out chapter 2 with all the important features (revamped UI, new localization system, gallery, scene replay, enchanting armor bonuses, buy skills, special gems etc.) Money we get from Patreon has been increasing, and thus I could slowly reduce my work hour months by months. Before this was possible, we prioritized money from Patreon to Kemo Coliseum first, thus most money were spent on NullGhost. We hired him on a monthly basis, paying him starting from $350/month, before slowly increasing it to $500, and then to $800~1,000 per month depending on the amount of work he submits as the money from our Patreon goes higher. Additionally, working with NullGhost required hiring an interpreter which costed us $100 per month on top of what we had to pay for NG. Whatever was left from paying NullGhost and his interpreter, we divided it into 4 shares, and each of us get one share. The last share is saved for paying for other artists, writers, or buying necessary assets for the game like sound effects, backgrounds, plugins etc. - Punipen

Anonymous

Thanks for such a detailed post, but personally I've never really had any doubts or regrets about pledging to this project. Its actually my longest running pledge so far. You're always very transparent/informative in your posts when you do (or even don't) put out a charged update. I love reading the progress reports and seeing everything come together and I can't wait for it to finally come out. The way I see it, this is your project and you should take all the time you need to do the quality of work you want to do while maintaining a good mental health. The quality of work I've seen so far is why I decided to support the project in the first place and why I plan to continue doing so. Good things take time and while having a small team is slow, even if you had the money to expand, you get to create the product you want to see and it really shows in the end. This is something that I wish there was more of and I really want to see finished even if it does take a while. I can only hope that you're eventual success here will not only result in more work from you in the future, but also to encourage others to do the same. Being a programmer myself (Bachelor's in Computer Science) I can empathize. I was personally happy when you were working on the game as a whole instead of concentrating on getting just the next chapter out since I know how that makes a lot of things easier/faster in the long run. Also with any story driven rpg I'd rather play it all at once when it's complete instead of one chapter at a time. At the start you got out a very solid demo and convinced me this was something I very much wanted and I was fine that it would be done faster at the cost of not getting to play around with it as it developed. Pretty much just wanted to say keep up the good work and I can't wait for this to come out since it's going to be awesome.

Anonymous

Thank you for the time to answer all the questions. But I dont really have the feeling to get milked since I know that game needs a lot of time and effort

Anonymous

Focus on only oyur main project then? Taking on more than you can chew is your own poor decision making.

kemocoliseum
>>16026871

This is already addressed in the post, under the following section: "Why does the game take so long? It's been many years and half of the game isn't even finished." Please read it again, and if you have any question please feel free to ask. - Punipen

kemocoliseum
>>16005815

Thank you! It's great to see that there are people who appreciate how I try to communicate and being transparent with the things we do. This kind of funding is fairly new, and I don't have that many models or examples to follow, so I had to experiment and learn many things by myself. I probably made some mistakes along the way, but I'm glad too see that I got something right. (Also, Bachelor's in CS too! Yay :D) - Punipen

kemocoliseum
>>16019265

Thank you! I'm really glad to hear that. It's been many years and information are scattered so I'd understand that even for some long time supporters, some of these questions might be in their mind. It's good for me that I get to talk about it and make things clear like this. - Punipen

Anonymous

Quite a weak defense if you ask me. Thought I'd just ignore this project from now on but I'll reply this one time since you decided to use my comment as an example and make me a scapegoat. Let people draw their own conclusions and decide who's right and who's wrong here. I know there will be those who only hear what they want to hear on both sides so I don't see a point in arguing any further, but I feel like I should say something in my defense this time around. Let's go. First questions weren't from me so I won't bother to respond to them in detail, but playing the victim card in response to criticism, that's the best you can do? Trying to play on emotions by using such words as "abuse", "mental health", "ignorance", "skepticism" and so on - really? Also I think any moron knows when Patreon was created, there is more than one way to do math and figure out how much a creator is making, just saying. 1) Why does the game take so long? It's been many years and half of the game isn't even finished. "Lack of funding for us to work full time as well as hiring more people on the project is a major factor. During these 7 years, Kemo Coliseum isn't the only project we'd worked on." What? Lack of funding? For as long as I can remember your "goals" on Patreon have been at "fully achieved" and actually had double the amount of backing you were asking for, so people naturally assumed that you had more than enough funds to work with in order to finish the game in a timely manner. Why didn't you bother to come up with higher goals / rewards to set on Patreon all this time then if the lack of funding has been your "major factor"? Why not a single mention of "Guys we need more support in order to get this done faster!"? In fact I remember a few posts stating that you had enough funds and didn't want to take more. So I call BS on that one. 2) "I really don't know where this estimation come from." Says he as he posts a screenshot with $165.610. As if that's supposed to prove how far off my original estimate was? Don't worry guys, they just need a year or two more to hit those higher numbers! 3) "So, $165,610 during 4 years. That's $41,402 a year, which is... less than half of an average salary for a Unity Developer." First of all... in what country? In the US it's $83K but you're not in the US so why are you using US salaries for reference? Misleading on purpose? Wanting to seem like more of a victim? In Japan it's $57K. Second... so you expect a full time US salary just for working on this furry porn project? What? Can I have that kind of a job? Where do I apply?? 4) "As answered in the previous question, for a team of 3 people, we didn't make enough for all of us to work on the project full time. Thanks to our supporters, the amount of funding kept going up and in 2016 we were able to spend much more time on the project - almost full time now. Even though we are still underpaid, I'm happy to be able to work on the game that there is no other way for it to happen." More crying about being "underpaid" (yet still not setting higher Patreon goals) and trying to seem like a "noble white knight sacrificing his life in order to save this hopeless project and make the world a better place". ...also, wait, almost full time since 2016, so 2+ years and you still haven't been able to finish one episode of the game? Not even with rough sketches instead of full-color drawings? Or hire an English native to proofread your texts and make all the dialogues sound more natural? What exactly are you working on all this time? 5) "Splitting the game into episodes is already our way of trying to make us releasing the game faster. And now we're even going further to release an update for each main quest. It's still going to take time because that's how the game works." ...because that's how the game works? Yeah, get it now guys? That's how the game works! Nothing more to discuss here, everyone go home now. I could go on but I'll stop here, this is already a long enough message for half the people who stumble onto it not to read it and I still have one more final thing to say. I used to actually like this project a lot and was rooting for it to be finished ASAP, I backed it myself back in 2015... but I very soon realized that something was off and it was unlikely for it to be done anytime soon due to all the neverending delays and excuses, so I quit, as did some of my other friends. It was frustrating for me to see my own prediction come to life, witnessing the painfully slow progress over the last 3 years and a truckload of new excuses and delays. I feel cheated by having supported you in the first place and by having advertised this game to all my friends as well as on some boards online. I was genuinely excited to see it come to life... but as time went on, month after month, year after year, and it still wasn't even halfway done I've just had enough. You lost my trust, and trust of many other people online. At this point it just seems like you're more interested in releasing those endless "reports with teasers" that everyone is tired of instead of finishing the actual game and releasing new builds... like everyone else who works on visual novels does. They release playable builds, not mere reports of "what has been done and redone a dozen times over again even though nobody asked for it". Maybe you'll find a way to redeem yourself to those who still support you, but to some of us you have forever lost all credibility.

kemocoliseum
>>16028576

Oh, hi! You're back! It's ok, I'll make another post to address this then :) - Punipen

Anonymous

Good read!