February February February (Patreon)

Hello everyone! It is the beginning of February, so, time for that post that I usually do around the beginning of the month! The post at the beginning of the month is for a general idea of what's coming this month along with any news or announcements.

February is a pretty short month - the shortest, even - but I will be doing my best to make sure that I get plenty of content out. Here's some stuff about all that!

Commissions

My intention this month - like last month - is to continue forging on through my steadily shrinking backlog - which is now one and a half stories large. There'll be the second part of Dead Or Alive and also a story called The Fox's Lady, which has those pocket monster thingies in it that are owned by a company that rhymes with Blinpendo. Also, vore!

I have some vignettes that I need to write too, so, I'll be doing my best to pepper in a couple of short stories this month too.

A Tiny Furry In A Huge World v1.2 Preview Build

There'll be one this month. I don't want to make any lofty promises, but, expect quite a bit of content - a good few scenes at the very least. Some of these scenes will feature our new boy Lucas, some of them will feature our guy Bellus, and a couple more will feature characters that you're already familiar with!

You can expect that to drop around the end of the month!

In related news, I am hoping to get v1.2 completely finished by the end of next month. Development for it might end up going on until the middle of April, maybe, but, shouldn't be much longer than that. With that in mind, I'll probably start doing polls for v1.3 this month - which will be about a new themed area (some kinda gymish sports area, probably) new characters, and possibly more!

Macroville Update

There will be a quick update for Macroville (the Game Maker version) that will clear up a couple of bugs and make it perform better at some point this month. I forgot to put this in here when I first wrote the post so I'm editing it in now. Cheers!

Engine Decisions/The Long Part

This is a really long bit that's kind of a follow-up to that whole new engine thing from last month. There's no real way to do a short version of this, so, here's a big long instead.

I have come to the decision that, by the end of the year, I will no longer be making games in Quest and that I will instead be using another piece of software - or an engine, or a framework, or whatever you wanna call it - to make games.

There are several reasons for this, but, rather than go on for paragraphs and paragraphs about it, I will instead tell you the most important one - Quest, as a piece of software, is no longer being supported or updated on a consistent basis. Quest hasn't had a new version or even a patch in the three or so years that I've been using it. I'm pretty sure the last update for it came out in like... 2017.

You might be thinking - well, why does that matter? It works, right? Correct, it does. Or at least, it works on Windows anyway - which is where the majority of my players are going to be. But let's say that Microsoft rolls out a Windows Update tomorrow that completely breaks Quest on everyone's computer. What then? For the most part, there's nobody around who's actively maintaining it, so it's unlikely that someone is going to roll out a patch that'll make it work again. Don't get me wrong, it's not impossible - but like I say, it's unlikely.

This scenario is unlikely to happen any time soon. Like, Quest is fine, it works in Windows (for the most part) and that's likely to be the case for a few years to come at the very least. But, you know, one day, maybe years down the line, maybe even decades, it's going to stop working at some point. That means that the game becomes unplayable unless you start doing weird shit like virtual boxing or whatever.

As a creator, the prospect of all of my work basically going up in smoke because of something that's completely out of my control is terrifying. Like, it's the kind of shit that keeps me up at night sometimes. What if I wake up tomorrow and try to open up Quest to make my game and it's just fucking broke and there's nothing that I can do about it? That means that hundreds if not thousands of hours of work is just... gone. Deleted. Erased.

This is the main reason why I want to change software. I want to make sure that my games can be played for years to come by making them in an engine that is actively being maintained by developers who are being paid to maintain it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fool and I know full well that, at some point, every piece of software becomes incompatible. At some point, many, many years in the future when I'm either too old to care or six feet in the ground whatever I make in whatever engine is going to end up breaking at some point and there'll be nothing that I can do about it. But moving over to a more stable and actively worked on piece of kit will delay that inevitably considerably.

There are also several other reasons as to why I want to change engine. To try and boil a few of them down real quickly...

I don't want to export games as .quest files anymore, I want to be able to export them as .exes that you can just run without having to install a piece of software that I really have nothing to do with. I want to be able to do things like proper resolution scaling and fancier effects and more interesting sequences. I want to be able to work in a piece of software where, for the most part, I have the freedom to do whatever I please instead of worrying about 'can Quest do this?' I want to be able to make decent mobile ports of my games. I want to be able to release an update without it breaking everyone's save data.

So, for the next few months, I am going to make a new game in a new engine - specifically, Game Maker Studio. It will be a text adventure that will mostly be in the style of my other text adventures - you know, you get shrunk, a bunch of people want to do nasty stuff to you, etc. I will not be porting A Tiny Furry In A Huge World - yet - because I think it would be more interesting for me and for you guys for me to work on something brand new rather than just polishing up old content.

I have already started work on a prototype for this and it's coming along swimmingly. I am basically recreating Quest in this engine, but, doing it better. I have the UI figured out, the interactions figured out, the rooms figured out, the inventory system figured out... the only thing that I now need to work out how to implement is a save system. This shouldn't take too long, but I have already spent more time than I should on developing the prototype when I should be catching up on my backlog and Tiny Furry stuff, so... I probably won't be able to get that figured out until next month.

Anyway, after that complication is sorted, I'll be able to make a game. This may take a while, but I'm keeping the scope manageable so all in all it should only take a few months to produce.

The game, like I said, will be brand new in terms of content - but it will also be familiar. I am very excited to make it and I think, when I'm ready to release it in a few months, it will also be a very exciting thing to play. I will not be releasing it until it's all done and ready and polished because since I'm moving over to a new engine I really do want to convince people that it's the best move for me to do.

When it's made, when it's playable, and when people have had time to digest it (hehe) I will do a poll to see what people want me to do next - be that a port or more content for the new game in the new engine.

So, here's the deal. I have to make some sacrifices in order to do this - I can't work on seventeen projects all at once, I am only one fox - I am putting A Tiny Furry On A Huge Quest on hold for the time being. I am not cancelling it - I have put far, far too much work into it - but I do have to push at least one large project to the backburner so that I can work on this. In the process, I will lay better groundwork for A Tiny Furry On A Huge Quest. The game is obviously going to get delayed as a result, but... I think it will be worth it. There is a bright future on the horizon for this game - I just need to get used to a new engine before I can comfortably create it. Plus, you all voted for stuff that you'd like to see in it!

As for A Tiny Furry In A Huge World Plus... I will be continuing to make it for the time being. In Quest, that is. You can expect monthly preview builds and for pretty much everything that I outlined at the beginning of the year to still be put in the game - at least, when it comes to v1.2 and v1.3. I am not sure about v1.4, but that's a few months anyway, so we can worry about that later.

I am still excited to work on Tiny Furry Plus and I can assure you that the content will also be exciting! This month, I will be working heavily on getting v1.2 closer to completion. This means endings for our boy Lucas and more endings for our Fae Dragon Bellus, along with a few other surprises.

I think that's it! It's a pretty straight forward month, honestly - playing catch up with commissions (the light is SHINING through the end of the tunnel though) and making a bunch of content for A Tiny Furry In A Huge World Plus.

I hope you've all had a good start to the month! I'll see you all just after the weekend with a vignette, probably. Until then!