Snake Games News №31 (Patreon)

Greetings, Patreon comrades!

We have to admit, we hardly spoiled you with the project news this year.

But at this point even basic courtesy rules require a report from us, at least at the year’s end.

Well, we have to say, we’re approaching this milestone not too pleased with the results.

As it happens, the whole bunch of life and work problems (alas, we haven’t yet become porn tycoons to the extent to make Iris Quest our main job, and we’ll hardly ever become ones) as well as our own and our close ones’ health issues forced us to work on IQ unsteadily and with interruptions through the whole this damned year.

And we tell you this not to complain or justify ourselves. All in all, we suppose, few of you had less complicated year than we did. So, we’re just bragging about not postponing or pausing the work on IQ against such a backdrop. Because the holy rule of work out of sheer enthusiasm says: most of the ‘postponed’ projects are never started again. So, we never truly stopped working, persistently escaping from domestic issues to the magical eastern land of porn Agrabah.

At this point we REALLY want to thank everyone of you who continued to wait for the results of our work despite the lack of news. All of you who continued to donate your hard-earned dollars on Patreon, worry and constantly ask whether we closed the project for good or where did we go and even whine about “why it’s taking so long?!” Your interest and support played a major part in stopping us from ditching the whole thing and burying ourselves in dull day-to-day problems.

Now, setting it all apart, let’s discuss the status of the project.

First, about the release date of the Chapter Two.

The truth is, this matter is a bit vague. We completed a lot of things. From the three main parts of the Chapter Two, one is finished, one is more than halfway done, and we made some good progress on the last third as well. The experience we acquired through all these years helps us to avoid certain caveats of amateur game development and there are good chances that the following chapters will be released much faster. But we still have a couple of complex development tasks which we invented to our own harm. Perhaps we’ll deal with them quickly, but perhaps technical difficulties and already mentioned everyday problems will make us stumble upon them. In any case, at this point we couldn’t estimate the release any more precisely than “we’ll try our best to finish it by spring”. And we’re telling you this desperately knocking on the wood and crossing our fingers to not jinx it.

Now, about the news and their frequency.

This part was always difficult. What should we report to you? “We drew five more pictures”? “We finished one more mini-game, let it be damned”? “Ten more pages of text are written and translated”? Wow, what an exciting scoop!

Alas, I think, we won’t become any more informative. Our attempts to make regular weekly press-releases failed miserably turning into “well, we’re still working…”

So, let’s do it this way. When we have time, we’ll try to post something to not make our patreons and people interested in our project question whether we’re still alive and not abandoned the project. Spoiler: no, we didn’t. If we managed to walk through this year without abandoning it, looks like the only thing that can stop us now is a bullet to the head. We’ll also try to post various related goods like fanart, cosplay and other things which you, our dear players, cheer us up with.

Once certain parts of the game are done, release dates are set, etc., we’re also gonna post here tired but happy news.

But alas, comrades, we can’t promise you neither promptness, nor any special exclusiveness of the ‘backstage content’. Each of our attempts to seriously work in PR field steals time and resources from the main project, and we hardly have any time and resources to spare. All this leads to further delays in the work process. Should we even remind you that “The Goblins’ Curse” was initially planned to be a small mini-game for a few weeks to entertain our patreons while they wait for the main part of the game? But in the end, even though we’re quite proud with the GC, it devoured a few years of our hard work and spawned a couple of local panic memes (we’re using a sticker with Ryona Foo’s head in our internal chat when some team member proposes ‘an interesting idea which is a bit difficult to implement’ or just starting to hum Peer Gynt if such a proposal was voiced during a call). Now, do you realize why we’re so afraid of getting sidetracked?)

So, this is how our awfully long-running project is doing today. We planned it as ‘the project of our lives’ and now we’re desperately trying to stop it from becoming ‘the project of our WHOLE lives’. Hope, you’ll understand us, our patreon comrades and other concerned fellows.

What else? Ask away. And don’t forget to ask us anything that interests you. Not just ‘when is the release?’ Please, ask more ‘fan’ questions. Anyway, to find the time to answer them is much easier than to write another formal report the-work-is-going-on-style.

Believe us, your ‘idle’ question, “Are you gonna put character X from the comrade’s A game to a quest about the situation Y?” stimulates us to work more than another, “When is the release? Why it’s taking so long?!” We’re trying to be creative and involved in this project. So, why wouldn’t you, dear audience, also try yourself in this line of work? We couldn’t have too many ideas and their testing and we couldn’t have too many brainstorms either. Even not used or rejected ideas could benefit the project by allowing us to fix it, avoid a whole lot of mistakes or spark other ideas which we’ll later deliver back to you in the form of new content.

So, don’t hesitate to propose and take no offence if your idea wasn’t accepted. Please, be more daring and creative. Do what you can to improve the product meant for yourselves. And not just demand quicker results from us. Your participation will help us and greatly benefit you. Thanks in advance.)

Finally, a few words about the holiday content.

In short, we’re not planning it. Because we surely won’t be able to release anything during the holidays and we don’t have any ideas about doing something separate, for now we’re planning to spend the holidays working. But! But we’re open for propositions. You can try to ask Father Frost for gifts. But it depends on whether you were a good boy/girl this year. Because we weren’t.)

P.S.

From Xaljio:

You probably noticed that this year my page was dedicated to Library Story and not so much to Iris Quest. Next year we’re definitely going to fix that. Of course, not by decreasing the number of news and releases of the former game but by increasing all aforementioned of the latter. ^__^ Anyway, many thanks for your support, my friends. I’m sure, next year we’ll think of something to make everyone of you happy. So… right, stay tuned, of course!