Devlog #2 - Addressing Common Criticisms (Patreon)

This post is definitely going to be a long one. But if you're interested in hearing me (the writer & game designer) talk about the game + seeing me address some of the most common criticisms we receive: both direct criticisms of the game, and criticism of us as developers, you'll want to read on. Though, just a quick disclaimer: there's nothing wrong with constructively criticizing us or the game, and nobody should be attacked or ridiculed over it.

I'm hoping that by making this I'll provide some clarity into my own thought process behind some of the commonly criticized themes of the game, as well as clear up some of the massive and sweeping misunderstandings surrounding the #1 criticism we receive as developers, which is (as I'm sure you guessed) that we take too long.

So without further ado I'll start with the game...

Common Criticism #1 - the game isn't realistic/believable enough.

Let me be clear about something: Radiant is, and always has been, a fictional adult and erotic fantasy style game with elements of realism. The very premise and plot, by all accounts, is far from "realistic" as you're playing a harem game about a guy who woke up from a coma after ten years and is romancing three wards, two employees, the mother of his manslaughter victim, and a girl who died.

Radiant has never tied itself down to the restrictions and limitations of the real world, and it doesn't plan to start now. Something that is very important to me as a developer is allowing players to escape reality and have fun in a sort of pseudo-realistic erotic fantasy world. The idea is to cater to the fetishes and romantic interests of players; not just when writing sexual content, but when writing the story for this game as well.

That doesn't mean the game will be, or should be wholly unrealistic. You will often find elements of realism or serious subject matter sprinkled in. An example of this would be the circumstances surrounding Gracie's passing: I treated this delicate subject with the utmost care, ensuring that every little detail including the type of cancer that inevitably took her is wholeheartedly realistic and believable as to not trivialize such a heavy subject.

Of course this part of the game is never criticized, and I bring this up because I think it speaks to my abilities as a writer. If I wanted to write a more realistic plot & scenario I very much could, and therefore the not-so-realistic and fantasy scenarios are intentional and should be treated as such. Take everything you read in the game with a grain of salt.

Which leads me to a more specific criticism we've faced (by a small number of people) following the release of the third chapter: Brooklyn's pregnancy. 

I've said it before and I'll say it again... but wait for the details before rushing to judgement. Not only is artificial insemination / medically induced conception a very common real-world practice, but I think players will find it's very fitting for Brooke and her reasons for wanting this are very typical of her character, especially when more of the details about it are fleshed out and explored in future chapters during our discussions with her.

I also think it should be fairly obvious why I went this route: not only did I want Brooke to be a very unique and interesting character, one who's easily distinguishable from common character archetypes, but I also wanted to appeal and cater to players who have a fetish for and are attracted to those who are pure. This is a very clear example of fan-service, aka ensuring that at least most of the main female cast haven't lost their virginity/are untainted & pure, and me intentionally sidelining realism in favor of erotic/fetish content & fantasy.

Common Criticism #2 - the girls fall for the main character too quickly.

I could once again just write this off as erotic fantasy, but I actually took care to ensure there's a reason for this. I'm someone who has a lot of experience with girls out there in the real world (I was raised by them, grew up around them, and I've been in multiple serious relationships + was married), and if there's one thing that's absolutely certain (generally speaking of course), it's that girls aren't much different from guys in this regard.

What I mean is girls (often-- again, I'm speaking very generally here) quickly fall for men who are confident, good looking, in good physical shape, successful in their careers, well-endowed, and passionate about something. So it should come as no surprise that our six-foot-one, green-eyed protagonist who is written to fit all of these stereotypes is successful with women. Even so, this should be taken with at least some salt, since it is, as I said an erotic fantasy game. I have no interest in writing your average 18-year-old virgin MC who quivers at the sight of an attractive woman like some games, and I think people aren't used to this.

Common Criticism #3 - there's too many girls & I want more triplets.

This is among the more understandable & expected criticisms, as it's perfectly normal for players to want the main trio more than the others. In fact, they're literally written and designed to be the most desirable.

So what gives? Why not just stop adding girls and make them the only focus of the game?

Well, before I can answer that, I need you to stop for a moment and try to recount your experiences with other developer's games (assuming you've played other games like this one). Did you ever, at any point during those experiences start to get a little bored? Maybe like you're stuck in an endless cycle of more of the same thing? Because I know I have.

Radiant is a game that will be more than thirty-hours long by the time it is complete. If we only ever focused on the main trio, I can pretty much guarantee you that the novelty would wane and things would get stale & repetitive pretty quickly. By doing it this way, we're keeping things fresh, interesting, and fast-paced. The time we do spend with the girls will be more impactful, and fulfilling, and leave a bigger impression overall.

Furthermore, every "side-girl" in this game has something big & important to offer to the main plot and they're there for enrichment. They are not "filler" in any conceivable way.

Finally, and because I hear this a lot too: you don't actually have to worry about getting less time with the main-girls with each new-girl I add to the game. This is because I follow a simple formula with each new chapter & update:

The triplets & main-girls: ~65-70% screen-time per update.
The side girls & all other characters: ~30-35% screen-time per update.

By doing it this way, we could effectively add as many characters as we want and it wouldn't mean losing time with The Triplets, Natalie, Alita, or Brooke. And we have more than enough time to properly explore each side-girl, all of whom will offer fulfilling relationships and satisfying endings. The answer to this criticism is therefore simple: I'm putting long-term fulfillment over short-term gratification.

Common Criticism #4 - the MC's thoughts & dialogue don't align with choices.

This is more of a criticism specific to the "Dark Path," so if you're doing Purity or Lust it probably won't make a lot of sense. It is true, to an extent, that when making Dark choices in this game the protagonist's dialogue & behavior will sort of "swing" pretty heavily in a different direction than normal. While some may see this as a negative or even a bug, this is an intentional design choice and something I've addressed previously (see: the post I made on Discord a few months back). 

The way I see it is this: human beings are unpredictable, nuanced beings with heavily swaying & varied moods, behaviors, and feelings. Just because the protagonist is going down a "dark path" with the girls doesn't mean he hates them or will only ever think about them negatively. Much like in real life, how we feel about something or someone will sometimes vary greatly throughout the course of a single day depending on our current mood, circumstance, whether or not we're feeling cranky, our recent interactions with them, and even how much (or how little) sleep we're getting.

Simply put it doesn't need to be, and you shouldn't expect it to be a black & white story just because you're heading down the Dark Path. A common theme of this path will be the MC feeling angry, moody, and slowly spiraling down a path of sexual depravity with an increasing affect on his behavior and psyche as time goes on. Which actually leads to our next criticism...

Common Criticism #5 - the choices are not impactful enough in the dialogue.

This is actually normal, and unlikely to change much until around Chapter 5. The reason for it is simple: the game needs time to register and analyze player-choices to ensure stability in the dialogues, thoughts, and outcomes. It is also smart to allow players time to get to know everyone before locking them into certain outcomes. Jumping the gun on this is a common mistake made by developers, one that could lead to inconsistencies such as showing a Dark scene to a player who wasn't necessarily interested in the Dark Path, or thoughts & expressions that don't necessarily fit what the player is thinking, and more.

Consider the crucial choice & points-systems as more of a long-term investment that is slowly branching and will have a greater impact on the plot as time goes on. In fact, if you're someone who's replaying to experience multiple paths and experimenting, you'll have already noticed these things being far more impactful in Chapter 3 as it was the most diverse and heavily varying update to date.

Common Criticism #6 - the big one.

Finally, we get to the biggest and most common criticism we've received since making this, and this one's not exactly related to the game:

"Why do the updates take so long?"

Rather than giving you guys another list of what some may say are just excuses, I'd like to actually make use of the method most-often used by those who criticize, ridicule, and even shame us for taking a few months for every update: comparison.

Too often do I hear the words, "There's plenty of other developers who release games like Radiant every 30-90 days. Why can't you?"

First off, and most importantly: that's simply not true. The vast, vast majority of erotic game developers do not put out 1-2 hour long story-content updates with various paths, branches, and choices every 1-3 months. This flat out is not true and does not happen. I know this because I'm a huge fan of the games and I myself play them.

In order to understand why this is such a common misconception, you have to understand how the games are made. In Sandbox games, for example, the "sandbox elements" are often finished/coded before the game is even first released to players. This often creates a massive slow-down in individual playthroughs, since on average you spend at least 30-60 minutes navigating through the same sandbox every single time you play an update.

In Linear games, to use another example, there is little or no branching, no varied outcomes, very little in the way of choices, and every single playthrough will be almost wholly identical or the same. There's also a lot of games that give the illusion of choice, but this is still considered linearity and I can assure you, when comparing this to Radiant, it's not the same. In fact if Radiant were a linear game, I'm confident that we'd be on at least Chapter 5 by now, as the vast majority of my time spent developing it is spent making it feel like a "game" rather than just another erotic visual novel.

Which leads me to the next comparison: branching & choice-driven story games.

How many truly branching, choice-driven story games can you confidently say puts out 1-2 hours of story content every 30-90 days? If the answer is none or "maybe one or two," well... we're starting to get to the point of what I'm conveying.

...but if you thought that was the end of our comparisons, well... let's just say we're not even close to being finished yet, as there's still a metric fuckton of things we must compare in order to accurately say "There's plenty of games like Radiant that push out 1-2hrs of content every 30-90 days."

In game development... the one thing that almost always flies under the radar & never receives praise or recognition... is the game's production quality. Production quality is the games overall polish and functionality. It is the way the game looks, feels, plays, and sounds. It is the way everything you see on screen is presented, and whether or not there's a quality factor in said presentation. It is the quality (or lack thereof) of the artwork, animations, writing, sound effects, transitions, and music. It is the lack of, or abundance of bugs, inconsistencies, technical glitches, misspellings, and grammatical errors.

Production quality can literally make or break a game... or at the very least seriously hurt the overall experience and a games ability to be immersive.

Production quality is the one thing that sets Radiant apart from most other games, rendering the vast majority of comparisons completely moot. But because once again, players don't often see or notice things like this, they make comparisons anyway without even realizing that they almost certainly prefer to have it.

Here is just a very small (shortened) list of things that we do, personally as the games developers, to ensure this game has a higher level of production quality and value:

• Custom dissolves between nearly every single image, animation, & line.
• Custom fadeins&outs between nearly every single image, animation, & line.
• Custom transitions between every single song and sound effect.
• Custom transitions between the menus and choices.
• Recording, tracking, & reusing every variable & choice made.
• Modifying, editing, or altering music.
• Modifying, editing, or altering sound effects.
• Modifying, editing, or altering images.
• Modifying, editing, or altering animations.
• Writing a first draft of the story several chapters in advance.
• Writing a second of the story several chapters in advance.
• Writing a third (final) draft of the story at least 1 chapter in advance.
• Custom pauses, waits, no-waits, or scene transitions.
• Losslessly compressing images to minimize file size without quality loss.
• Losslessly compressing animations to minimize file size without quality loss.
• Losslessly compressing music to minimize file size without quality loss.
• Losslessly compressing sound to minimize file size without quality loss.
• Removing filler dialogue or unneeded exposition.
• Shortening scenes/no drawing out discussions or dialogue.
• Custom statistics screens and menus.
• Custom ending credits updated each chapter.
• Ensuring the compatibility of save files.
• Varied facial expressions to match tonality.
• Conveying talking or not talking in expressions.
• Conveying pauses in rendered expressions.
• Frequent "changing up" of rendered poses to keep a scene fresh.
• Care and effort put into posing and scene design.
• Various Easter Eggs hidden inside images and story.
• Extra/unneeded animations for important moments.
• Tirelessly & rigorously testing the game, sometimes upwards of ~10 days.

In addition to all of the above, I also take great care to ensure that the game is fast-paced & constantly moving, I spend hours helping create an official walkthrough, I add useful features like named-saves, and I always make sure there's an Android port ready soon after release. I also rarely, if ever, will needlessly draw out discussions simply because it makes the update longer. These are "little things," but they add up & rarely get noticed. Little things we may not consider, such as "how many people are working on the project" can also lead to making huge mistakes when drawing comparisons. With Radiant, there's only two of us.

If you can take all of the above and still safely & confidently say "There's plenty of other developers who release games like Radiant every 30-90 days. Why can't you?" ...or even anything in that ballpark... then maybe I've just been living under a rock-- because I haven't found them. Every game is different, and each has a different process behind it, and it's therefore extremely hard to draw & make accurate comparisons without breaking things down and examining every little detail. And I say this without even so much as touching on all of the other stuff I have to do, as this games developer, not even inside of the game.

The truth is, I wish I wasn't as rigorous and hellbent on ensuring the updates are as good as they possibly can be. By doing very little or even none of these things, I could rocket updates out the door, and as a result end up with twice the number of patrons and a lot less criticism from the community, because these days there's a large subset of people who care more update "timing" than the actual quality of the games themselves. But I also know that Radiant took off initially because of its quality, and I owe it to those who have stuck around and supported us from the beginning to ensure I never forsake the things that made them love the game from the offset, even if it's at the cost of my own income. So no, I don't have any plans of reducing quality, or the size of the updates simply so that I can appease the other half of the AVN audience and fling updates out the door.

I hope that by taking my time and writing this I was able to make you all feel a little bit better and less uneasy about the criticisms we commonly face. At the end of the day, regardless of the fact that this is a hobby of mine and something I enjoy doing, I take development very seriously and treat it as if it were a normal job. And I like to think I'm pretty good at the job. If you disagree with anything I've said here: that's okay. The point of addressing these criticisms is not to "prove you wrong" or to make you doubt your own conclusions. Instead this, for me, is about being transparent and letting our players & supporters draw their own conclusions. If you feel I haven't properly addressed your criticism or concern, or have something to say or add to the discussion, feel free to comment below.

Thanks for reading,