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Good evening dear community,

Let's get straight to the point: We are aware that the current build has been disappointing for those of you that had different expectations based on our previous stuff.

We won't go over the details again as it has been mentioned in several posts that we are in the early process of implementing an actual core game and its pipeline pretty much from scratch.  But we want you to know that we have heard you and will act upon it to improve things from now on. The way we handled this release wasn't very smart indeed and we learned a lot from all your feedback (positive AND negative).

We have concluded two major changes to our current way of handling things on Patreon:

  1. Releases wont happen on a monthly basis anymore:
    For a game project of this scope, having a monthly release schedule for several different tier versions and expecting all of them to have fresh new features and content and to run smoothly is just not realistic. We don't really know how long exactly things take, which makes it very difficult to plan new releases. Having tight deadlines like these only forces us to go out of our way to hack certain features into the build that we planned on having. Those then cost time to then rework, are very prone to bugs and in the end cost us even more time. Making deadlines even tighter - a vicious circle which basically is a step backwards from the way we want to do things. So from now on the builds are ready when they are ready and not one day earlier.
  2. Patreon Tier 25 changes:
    This is an additional change we want to make that should be a Win-Win for everyone. The tier 25 reward will be handled differently. Patrons in that tier now will get the builds a whole 1-2 weeks earlier. These will be raw editions of the actual build version that we need a larger scale testing on. We noticed that capturing all the bugs and issues in our own testing env doesn't cover well. So now this select group of patrons will be able to test the builds and give us proper feedback on their state, put in small feature requests that they consider worth adding, point out game-breaking bugs and help us to improve the builds into an acceptable state. Then the reworked and bug fixed version will be released to the lower tiers with their respective content once its done.

We hope that these changes will ensure that the quality of our project increases and that all of you have the experience they expect and deserve for being part of our community.

A big Thanks to everyone sticking around and supporting us.

-Wild Life Team

Comments

Icarus Unleashed

Absolutely do what you need to to support your work. It is possible to release more frequently (agile software development with 2 week sprints), but there you have to set the expectations pretty low on precisely WHAT gets released. There will be some times when it seems that not much has happened, and then a whole new suite of customer-facing features is unveiled. I think the key here is setting expectation... which I think you have done really well thus far. Keep up the great work!

Anonymous

Don't feel too down, people's expectations are too high for anything nowadays. I knew what to expect from the build but often not people skim information and then they blame developers for it

FrofiFly

Happy with the change. It only confirms that you guys are serious about this project and means you'll dish out something quality instead of something just because people expect something. Great to hear it!

Anonymous

Don't let the haters get you down. The expectations of some are just unobtainable no matter how good a job you do. Done when it's done is a far better method, most of us are patient I believe.

Thom Hurley

Sounds like a solid plan guys, like I said in one of my earlier comments I would prefer less updates, and better builds once they are released. At least for me that makes the most sense. Keep up the good work regardless, as it still seems to be shaping up to be something truly amazing.

Kim Åkerman

I didn't comment on the post originally, but I have to admit, my first impression of the build was a bit disappointing at how bare-bones it was. I understand developing a game takes time, so I wasn't going to comment, but it seems I was maybe not alone in feeling that way. I guess I was just expecting something more after the long wait. Still, I don't think removing monthly updates is a positive thing as that was part of the reason for this disappointment. A long wait followed by little difference in the build. I'd rather see you introduce features monthly as they become available even if they are small. It's easier to feel the game is making progress and the current state of the game when you can see it for yourself. I think expectations would be lower if the time inbetween builds wasn't as high.

adeptussteve

Its impossible to go back to monthly releases. We are at full production now and learned quite the hard way that builds need to function better. Due to the amount of features and mechanics we have planned its just not going to happen to have things released monthly. We aim for 6-8 weeks between each release (give or take). It is how it is mate. Not much we can do to fix that. Unless our finance double and we double our team size, there just wont be enough resources to knock out builds monthly. -S

Anonymous

Demo had boobs in it and therefore it was a good demo

Lee Thompson

I've always felt Patreon's monthly structure is ill suited to software development cycles. Really you're left with 1-2 weeks of development time with that structure. (Also I think Patreon should introduce some additional cycles like bi-monthly, quarterly, etc.) I understand that because of the monthly fee structure developers try to have something new each month to keep folks happy but it really ends up causing development to be much slower than it would be normally.

Trapo

Take money for creation not monthly then

adeptussteve

The lack of finance is whats forcing us to slow down release schedules in the first palce. This wouldnt be a very smart move would it?

Anonymous

It's definitely the best option, monthly releases couldn't fulfill all expectations as -and you perfectly explained it- it takes too much time to finish on time with a runable build. Furthermore, as you decided to create a whole complexe and deep game, it'd have been quite empty in real big new content between each month and the frustrations would have been even greater. Take your time, keep creating great stuff, your patrons are still behind you to support that nice project ! We should be the only ones to thank you for your job dudes.

Anonymous

Nice work!

Firts Lats

Well said, and well thought out. You are right on.

Macadam

i lost my pledge and my bank dont want to reactive it -_- . i will do necessary to re-pledge. i m sorry. hate this bank.

Macadam

of course, keep up the good work :), you not lost me. i'll be back ASAp

Anonymous

Smart decision, guys. I totally support this. Thanks for the feedback. And please never forget: There will be always haters. But they are few. A lot more are lovers of your great game. Keep that in mind! ♥ love and greetings to you all. Keep it up.

ZULEYKA GAMES

All sounds reasonable. Looking forward to update... keep your great work up, colleagues! ;)

Anonymous

Keep up the great work guys! I think every project has different needs when it comes to pipeline. Therefore something for food for thought: set up a "sandbox" similar to how u used to have it, could be even more basic. As you're setting up new animations/girls/costumes for the main game, throw an update or 2 into the sandbox as a monthly treat. That way your focus is still on the bigger picture but u have a straight forward way of giving everyone something to sneak a peek at. This would work I think as long as everyone knows bigger builds are still coming and this is just some fun stuff to keep things going.

Anonymous

This is actually a pretty neat idea. If we assume that no advanced system but mainly assets and animations would be put into this sandbox environment, it shouldn't be too difficult to set up, in comparison of course to showing off the fully functional game-side scenes. Steve, maybe have a look at this here and tell us what you think, I for one agree that it's a great idea that should hopefully be simple enough for you guys to manage just for a monthly build.

Anonymous

nice work