The Hungry House Final Update Plans/Dev Commentary/Sneaky Announcement/Stuff (Patreon)

Hello everyone!

So, after taking a fair bit of time to think about everything to do with The Hungry House - which is a text adventure I published on here back in November - I think it is time to make the post that I said I was going to make about it.

I'll give you full disclosure before I go into things: this is mostly a vanity post, as in, I'm mostly going to be talking about the development of the game and my feelings about it post-development. I say mostly because I am going to talk about an update that I have planned for the game. I'll put that at the beginning because it's the most interesting thing so to speak.

Anyway. This is probably going to be a long post so I'll stop prevaricating and get on with things.

Planned Update

I didn't originally plan on doing this, but, after stewing over things for a month or so, I have decided that I would like to add some more content to the game. I am not going to announce an exact release date for when this'll drop, but, it'll be sometime in the next couple of months. This update will add:

- A proper super secret third ending
- New areas and puzzles
- A new character to interact with (a male)
- About three or four new scenes
- New content in existing areas
- Sound effects and ambient noises

My aim is to round off any rough edges, add some content, and generally just polish the game up into it's best possible self - or, as close to that as possible anyway. Because there was a bit of a rush into release a few things got left on the cutting room floor so to speak and I'd like to both restore that and add some supplementary stuff that came to mind after the game's release.

If you're worried about this taking time away from other projects that you might be more excited for, then, well... don't be! My plan is to do the vast majority of the work that I'd like to do here in my off time, so, when I wouldn't usually be working anyways. This is why it might take a month or two for it to drop - I don't plan on stressing myself out by adding a ton more to my work load.

Following this update - aside from any last minute bug fixes - I won't be adding any more content to the game, so, we will definitely be done with The Hungry House after this.

That's the interesting news. The rest of this post is going to be about the game's development. I can't promise it'll be very interesting so if you're not interested then, y'know, feel free to tap out at any point. I won't take offense. Really I'm writing this out for myself more than anyone else, anyway...

Spoilers for The Hungry House will follow. Just as a warning.

Early Development

The Hungry House did not start out life as The Hungry House, but, rather a game that was called Kyoween - and Kyoween was a very different game to The Hungry House.

I'd describe The Hungry House as a spooky narrative-focused text adventure that has some vore scenes along the way. You move from area to area, solve simple puzzles, possibly engage in some vore, and, if you want, you can poke around the areas a little more for some story tidbits. Kyoween, on the other hand, was an attempt at making a proper text adventure horror game. Mechanically and narrative-wise it was much different. The narrative was just sorta eh - you were trapped in a house with a creature that had murderous/voreish intentions and was stalking you - but mechanically it was very interesting, or at least, I think so. 

The house in the final game is only a handful of rooms large but the original house was a little more expansive and had about fifteen rooms total, though, some of those were just stretches of corridor and boring little areas that didn't have much in the way of content inside of them. This was kinda deliberate, though - I wanted to have a larger place because there was a monster tailing you at all times, so, you needed more room to be able to run around and have possible escape avenues.

The monster that was following you around had something resembling an AI. At the start of the game - after the player has entered the house, anyway - the monster would spawn somewhere random at the opposite end of the house. From there it would patrol randomly, moving from room to room on a random path.

Sounds pretty basic, right? Well, here's the cool part - or at least, what I think is the cool part. The monster's biggest strength was that it was able to hear things very well. So, when you entered certain rooms, you might step on a creaky floorboard, or trip over something, or open a door or do literally anything that made noise... the monster would hear that and adjust it's patrol route accordingly and start to take the quickest path toward you. 

Under normal circumstances it would move one room for every action you took (so, looking at something, picking it up, moving, etc) but if it heard you then it would start moving two rooms. When it arrived at the room where it heard the noise coming from (assuming it didn't find the player on the way) it would go back to patrolling a single room.

The coolest part about this (and the entire 'puzzle' of the game) was that there were several ways that the player could willingly create noise in order to distract. For example, you could go into one of the bedrooms and set an alarm on a clock - or ring a bell at the end of the corridor and then use a secret shortcut to get somewhere else that the monster couldn't get down. This would allow the player to pull the monster somewhere far away from them so that they could get on with the games puzzles without getting jumped.

The player would also be able to kinda 'craft' objects - like make a noise bomb that they can remotely trigger - or do things like oil creaky floorboards so that they'd no longer make noise.

Basically, the entire game was themed around this 'monster is hunting you based on the noise you make' sorta thing. However...

This Was Cool But It Didn't Work

Now, don't get me wrong, on a code level this all worked. A working prototype was the very first thing that I made. This might sound obvious and... it probably is, but here's a game design tip: on a coding level, make sure that you can make the thing that you want to make and that it'll work the way you want to before you go ahead and put a ton of effort into it.

Anyway. The reason it didn't work was because it was a text adventure. In a different game - let's say a 3D one - it's a lot easier to throw cues at people that something is coming for them. You would be able to hear things like footsteps approaching you, or you'd be able to spin the camera and glance down a corridor to see if the monster is behind you. In a text adventure this would be achieved by typing a command - a listen or a look down corridor - and it's much, much more cumbersome as a result.

So I decided to throw out the work that I had done and make a more traditional text adventure. Throw out the horror stalker element and replace it with creepy weird shit instead while keeping the vore, because, you know, that's the important thing.

Back in Octoberish when I made the decision to completely change the entire thing and turn Kyoween into The Hungry House it felt like the right thing to do. With a couple of months of hindsight, I still think that it was probably the right thing to do, but... at the same time, I do regret not being bolder and just going for it and trying to make it work. It might have been cool. It definitely would've been quite unique.

At the end of the day, though, I think it would have been more frustrating than anything else. There's no real reliable way of the player knowing where the monster even is so doing a clever lure thing might just end up getting you killed because RNG wasn't on your side and, oops, the monster was actually right next to you instead of where you thought he was. I might have been able to avoid this somehow but it would've taken a lot of gameplay tuning and fucking around and likely months and months of effort for a short vore game that I was (trying) to make in time for Halloween.

But, yeah. That's what the game was originally. On paper it sounds great - to the point where I'm still thinking now about how I could take these mechanics and actually make them work in a vore game somehow - but in practice it kinda sucked. At least with what I have available to me right now.

Maybe I'll make it one day anyways...

The Hungry House

So, to finally start talking about the actual game rather than it's prototype, The Hungry House started development properly around the middle of October when I realized the prototype that I had wouldn't make for an especially fun time. My initial plan was to knock up something short and simple in a week or two but the project eventually blossomed into something that took... about a month and a half? Something like that.

I am proud of what I made. Like, really proud! It's definitely not the best thing in the world - it's too weird for that - but it's a unique and fun experience that tells an odd story even if it wasn't quite what I was trying to make in the first place. Plus, the vore is good. I am really proud of the vore scenes in that game.

At the same time, though, it feels like I missed a few opportunities. I think the lingering feeling of all the work I put into the prototype not getting used feeds into that, but, for the most part, I think it's because I had to rush the game out. I wish I would have had more time to work on it - like, maybe three months or so to do everything that I wanted - which is why I'm going back to update it one last time. To do everything that I wanted. Within reason, of course, I don't wanna spend all of my free time on it - but you get my point. There are some missed opportunities that were missed simply because of time, and I'd like to rectify that.

The most glaring thing - at least in my opinion - is the game's super secret third ending. It's kind of lame and that is kind of the point - it's like, you do all of this dumb esoteric stuff and get mocked for it regardless - but in the end I planned to do much more than that, so, I'm going to do that. There was also a lot of interactions on the first ending that were cut and a big chunk of the second ending was cut too, so, those will be restored as well. Doing so will add about an hour or more of gameplay to the whole thing. I think it will be worth it.

The thing is, though... I didn't have to rush the game out in the first place. I rushed it out because I announced it and got people ready for it and then, as always, I didn't actually give myself enough time to do everything that I wanted to do. Had I not done that and done the clever thing of like... not announcing it until I was sure it was ready, then I could have taken all the time that I needed. Instead, I announced a release date and rushed myself.

This is the most important lesson that I learned from this game's development, and it's something that I'm trying to adapt now in everything that I do. It's the reason why I'm not giving out a solid release date on A Tiny Furry On A Huge Quest, and it'll be the reason why I'll only announce exact release dates for projects in future when I know they're ready to go. This will mean less stress on myself and better stuff for everyone.

Don't get me wrong. I don't plan on spending any more time than I actually do on things, I just... plan on rushing myself less. That's all. This isn't an I'm slowing down thing, more, I'm learning when to put the gas on. If that makes any sense. Probably doesn't.

That doesn't mean that I won't announce projects that I am working on. For example...

Macroville 2

I am working on it. It won't be in the Quest engine. It'll be in something new that'll not only work on things other than Windows PCs, but also mobile phones. Pretty much anything you want! It's in very early development but I have the basic code that I need working and raring to go, and I also have the desire to return back to the silly little world of the Jepis.

Being completely honest I'd like to get A Tiny Furry On A Huge Quest out before this one, but, given that Macroville 2 is a significantly smaller project it might end up coming out first. Who knows?

It'll be cool. It'll basically be more Macroville. New interactions, deeper gameplay, all that good stuff. I'll say more closer to the time.

What I can say for certain is that, like everything I make, it'll be available on Patreon first.

Anyway, before I get ahead of myself and announce that the release date is next month or something...

Hungry House Public Release

I am still thinking about how I want to do this. My initial plan was to release the game for free, but, given that I am trying to put more value in myself and my work I might end up selling it for a buck or three over on itch.io. If you're worried about me getting an ego, don't! My self-worth has risen from zero dollars to three, so we're hardly skyrocketing into the stratosphere over here.

Whether I do this or not depends on whether I feel as if the final product is worth the money. The reason why I want to do it is because the passive trickle of income from A Tiny Furry In A Huge World Plus has been really nice and I'd like to make more of it because it makes my life easier and it means I can spend more money on making cool vore shit for everyone to enjoy.

Anyway - before I do anything in terms of a public release, I'll upload it to Patreon and let it sit here as an exclusive for a month or two. You guys are my closest and most ironclad supporters - or at least, that's what I think - so you all deserve to be the first to play it and enjoy it.

I think I've rambled on enough! The long and short of it is that I am proud of The Hungry House but at the same time - as the author - I can't help but see the annoying things that I didn't do, so, I am going to go ahead and do them and make a better and more content-rich game.

I'll see you on Tuesday with another poll... and then on Wednesdayish with a story! Until then, vore fans!