Mind Drop #11 (2/16/2021) I rambled lole and information sprinkled in (Patreon)

Long post! And not on Wednesday!

Game related stuff:

- As the days go by and with me making changes and the shortened length of this month there will likely only be one release this month. But, that release will be the size of two updates (400 renders) near the end of the month.  

- Character sheets should be finalized and posted this weekend. (Or early next week if I want to tweak things.) (Includes a short summary of each character, age, birthday, and measurements for the girls)  

Dev related stuff:

- Thankfully way fewer crashes this week. I like to think I'm a pretty chill person but the constant crashes that I had last week truly frustrated me. There were days where 3-4 hours were spent just loading after crashes.

- I mentioned in these past few posts about potentially having a model change for Lauren. After some tweaking I've decided it's not necessary and she only needs some TLC. Images in discord soon.

Personal related stuff:

- There's honestly a ton, but it's super hard to talk about in this sort of post. There's so much happening and it's all great. I'll go into it all and talk about it when I'm able to. (hopefully soon) 😊

MIND DROP:
Okay, so it's called mind drop so I think this is a good time to introduce this. The idea for these weekly posts is for them to be able to discuss anything and everything. Teasers, update news, personal news, polls, announcements, and most importantly a place for me to ramble about random thoughts I have.  
This section isn't well thought out or well structured. It's really just me starting with a topic and rambling. I'll also be entirely brutally honest so this is a good look into how I operate.  

So, I'm a rather introspective person. I enjoy thinking about why I feel certain ways and how certain things happen and it extends to other people. I enjoy thinking about why people make the decisions that they make and things like that. Honestly, while I can be annoying at times this is one of the things I like most about myself. I'm someone who can have a 3 hour conversation about almost anything.
And that's basically what this section of these posts are about. (They'll only be a thing when I feel like adding them.)

So the topic of my ramblings today will be about some of the unspoken things about my hiatus in 2020 and things that have changed since then. (For context: https://www.patreon.com/posts/necessary-post-43240275)
Why this topic? I think I'm far enough removed from this now to discuss some things and it gives the perfect background to talk about some other things.  

To start things off I'll give a little reminder that my mental at this time was pretty fucked. I don't remember the exact timeframe but I think it was mid-July.  Things were pretty much at their lowest at this point, I just decided a batch of 200 renders needed to be remade for the 5th time and the pressures of everything was really starting to pile up.  
At this point I really started to crumble. The best way I can explain it is that I never had a singular thought, I always had two thoughts at the same time that I jumped in-between. There was no organization to my thoughts and it felt like I had little to no control.  Depersonalization became a real issue, a real weird issue. That mixed with imposter syndrome led to a lot of weird emotions.
WVM Day 1 first came out late August 2019 and by all means was an instant success and it grew really fast. And I can honestly say that at this point in mid-July there was not a single day in that almost year where I felt I deserved the success. Hence where the imposter syndrome came from.  

And that may sound harsh but WVM was never made for success. I was broke as fuck my entire life and was born into a broke as fuck family where everyone was broke as fuck. I honestly do not care about money. I was happy when I made $250 a week as long as I was able to provide for myself and whoever I needed to provide for. And if WVM ever falls back down to that point then I'll still be here chugging along. The goal for WVM was to make enough a month to pay for internet and the assets I wanted and some pc upgrades. That was all. So I felt guilty about the success, WVM is in no way a technically good game. There's no music / sound, most of the content is opt-in / opt-out, it has a messy timeline, characters change at random, there's not much to offer if you don't want a Gary Stu MC.  And at this point in time I was a target of some of the devs of "technically good" games. There was a lot of shit talking behind the scenes from devs that felt they deserved the success more than I did. And in many ways I agreed with them at the time.  I tried my best to be a part of the community of devs. Part of this included my first round of dev shoutouts in Day 6. But today I interact with very, very few devs.   

Anyway, that was a long winded way to lead into that for the first and only time I considered starting over. And before that leads into people thinking I almost quit making WVM... no, what I mean by starting over is that I almost deleted this patreon account. I wanted a fresh start. WVM would've continued on as it has but under a different "dev".  (Me but a different name)
Crazy right? Pointless even. But that's a true thing I considered, and yes it was stupid. For some reason I justified to myself that if I did this it would solve some of the imposter problems I was facing.  
But hey, that's what I like about thinking about these things. I can laugh at old me. 😁 (Also just since it should be clarified and I like saying it. WVM is the only game I care about making. Never worry about it being abandoned or having it compete for development time with another game. I will not work on or make anything else until WVM is done. And that's many years away.)

So why share this now? I dunno, I felt like it. It's funny.
One of the positive things to come out of everything last year is that I have way thicker skin now.
WVM was my first time sharing something that I made. I was absolutely unaccustomed to receiving criticism. I had jobs before where I might be told to change how I do something but I usually only got praised at my jobs. I've also always been extremely hard working with a good work ethic. But none of that matters when someone is judging something you made from a creative perspective. Shit was completely foreign to me and I tried to handle it well. I absolutely didn't shy away from criticism, I looked for it. I had long conversations with some critics.  
And criticism was really good at first. I knew I had a shit ton to learn and I embraced it. But as WVM grew there were so many more voices and ideas. And almost all of the ideas contradicted each other. And instead of feeling like I was learning and evolving it started to feel like the opposite.  
But nowadays I have people I trust to tell me if something is wack and while community feedback can be a mixed bag, you guys also let me know when something is too far. I don't feel personally offended by criticism and I realize how absolutely silly some of it is and how silly it was that I let it effect me personally in the past.  

One thing I didn't think much about is how much of an effect I can have on someone... whether it be positive or negative, simply by making WVM.
on one side of the coin I have received death threats and on the other side I've received messages from people talking about how much WVM helped them through a bad time or even how my portrayal of trans characters have made some people change their ways and be more accepting... even to go as far as saying they've reconnected with family members / friends that they unassociated themselves with because of their identity.  
So idk, at a certain point I had to wake up and realize I make WVM for the side of the coin that enjoys it and finds substance in it and not for those that would like harm to come my way. 😁  

Okay, I have to wrap this up at some point or I'll go on forever. So let me put some closers on this.  

I think I'm done with my imposter syndrome. Somewhere along the way I realized that "technically good" doesn't fucking matter. I know what WVM is and isn't.  
It's a fun time with enjoyable characters. It's not groundbreaking, it's not the best thing to exist, it's definitely flawed.  
And that's okay. WVM was created because I had so much fun when I first found Daz and it turned into a hobby that I sunk all of my free time into after work. It was never meant to be any of the things it isn't.  
And I deserve the success I've found. Which sounds very cocky to say but there isn't a better way to say it.  I spend the money I make in a responsible way that benefits the game and I'm always open and honest about how much I make and where I spend it so you guys can have all the info you need to decide if you want to support me.

Why I feel that way is that I never did anything shady or fucked up. I posted day 1 on reddit and one other site and that was the only time I ever pushed or marketed WVM.  
I've never asked for any support, I've never asked for shoutouts, I've never asked for anything. Anything that was given or other marketing things were done by others that believed in me.
What I'm saying is that I didn't choose to be successful. I worked my ass off making something that I enjoyed and people fucked with it and I'm eternally grateful for it but that's all there is to it. I shouldn't feel guilty about it.   
And to all of the devs that do think of me negatively for whatever reason, I don't know of you all but from the ones I do... you're all very talented and I hope you find the success you guys deserve. And that's that.   

WVM is a game I selfishly make for myself. It's entirely compromised of things I enjoy and doesn't have anything I don't like and it will always be like that because that's where I'm best and that's where I have the most fun and that's exactly the reason WVM was made.  
I made the game I wanted to play. It's not made for anyone else but I'm so fucking lucky and happy that people enjoy it.  
This will likely be put somewhere more official instead of in the middle of a rambling post but let's talk about some of the content that will / won't be in WVM.  

Will be: Pregnancies (mostly optional outside of a few girls), Girl-girl action (optional), more trans girls (Optional, but they may already exist 😎), large group sex (somewhat optional. Shauna+Jamie are the only forced girls so technically it could be just them), and a lot of other things but for some reason I'm blanking, mostly normal fetish stuff... nothing heavy. Oh, please don't tell patreon because of the obscene amount of lewdness but there will be handholding... and lots of it.  

Won't be: NTR, rape, any form of abuse, any form of nonconsensual sex, no going deep into fetishes, there won't be any scenes with other men at all, basically mostly only vanilla stuff will happen and that's because that's all I fuck with.  

A very important thing to remember in WVM is that every girl is a virgin, even the moms. And the MC is the only male that will ever bang them.  
It's a lovey dovey game where the MC helps the girls and they help him. And everyone smiles, hugs, and kisses.  

Oh boy this really got away from me. My previous rants usually would end when my hands started to hurt but now that I know how to type properly I can go all day.  I've created a monster. At least it's a positive rant instead of one of my old negative ones. 😁  

So, to put it together. I'm a very different person than I was in mid-July. I'm way more confident and happy. I don't feel like a fuck up for every mistake because mistakes happen and they're just part of the journey.  I know you guys fuck with me and what I do and you guys are super understanding of things. And I fucking love you for it and I hope you guys know that. I'd be in such a worse place without you guys.
The new work flow has helped a ton with my mental and everything but my new mindset has helped even more so I feel. And I can credit it all to my fiancee, grandpa, and all of you.  

Oh and another clarification is that my comment about shoutouts in day 6 had nothing to do with those devs being one of the ones shit talking me or anything like that. It got away from me but I was going to mention that I haven't talked to a single one of those devs in half a year... but that's no fault on their part. It was just more of a comment about how I've sort of isolated myself after some of the bullshit.  
But my most recent shoutout of Killer7 and Eris Discordia were just from me wanting to shout my homies out. They've both always been awesome and super friendly with me and I fucking love 'em and they make good games. There are some others I plan to shoutout soon so be on the lookout for that and please show them all love.   

Rant over 😊
If you have any questions about anything please ask!

Sorry for the wall of text! If patreon would let me hide it behind a tag or something I would but sadly that's not a thing! Thank you to anyone who read through it though, and thank you all for being around for these posts. 😊 Love you guys <3

(Also, one more clarification. The poll from last week was just for fun for some of my theory boys. It in no way implies you shouldn't trust one of the characters.)

POLL: At this current point in the story which of these characters do you trust the MOST?