Investment Round 6 - 4500€ Goal (Patreon)

Thanks to everyone's support we are already close to catching this goal! Usually, this poll would be limited to 10€+ patrons but I would like to give all patrons access to this post to give everyone a general impression of the current use of the budget and the new freelancers applying to snag up the next 100€/month investment. So as an expection, this poll will be enabled for everyone.  

Okay then, let's dive into the matter. Currently the budget distribution is as follows:

• 2D Artist: 900€
• Mapping: 200€
• Writing: 250€
• Assets: 200€
• Administrative: 50€

Currently I see about 3 main areas where we can further improve production:

Assisstant writer. As you may know from my recent devlog posts I am currently searching and interviewing new assisstant writers to replace the previous one. The focus is on getting writers who are willing to properly familiarize themselves with the game. Currently, I have two applicants who I both requested to write a test scene to see their skills. Similarly to back then when we did the artist search, I plan to also create a poll to get some input from everyone else. I was hoping we could have already found our next assisstant writer before doing this poll actually, so it would be easier to judge whether spending more money on a writer is worth it. However, one of the two writers is still in the process of creating the test scene. So, I will just give a quick rundown on the profiles of the two applicants and post the scene that one of the applicants has prepared. This way we have at least a bit of a basis to see whether it is worth spending more money on this.

BeforeI give a quick a summar of the two applicants, just a few quick words regarding the test scene: I chose a real world scene that I had planned to do in the future where Aura & Laura meet the Rowdy Student & Co group again. However, Aura's corruption has already fairly progressed and instead of getting into a fight with them, she ends up getting turned on and sucking their dicks. And then also gets Laura involved.

• (1) elizzyviolet: Among other projects, I was the lead writer on the hit visual novel/match 3 hybrid game Furry Shades of Gay, have written for several games made by CyberScherzo Studios, and am currently a writer for The Company, a text-based game with around 1300 patrons at time of writing.  I also have a huge backlog of stories on Literotica, and made the well-received text-based RPGs Slime Girl Caverns and Succubus Draining Maze.
  Test scene: Google Doc
  Price: 0.1 USD per word.
• (2) Alberto Pizzaolla: I'm interested in the position, especially since you mentioned "mind effect" content is something you're looking for. I'm pretty big on that stuff and I believe I can do a great job writing those kinds of scenarios. English is my first and only language, and I'm familiar with various isekai and anime tropes.  I've worked as the lead writer for Rosa's are Red, and am currently working as the lead writer for Our Apartment.
  Test scene: Not done yet.
  Price: 0.06 eurocent per word. (Same price as previous assisstant writer)

The decision of which of these (if one of them) will be getting the position of the assisstant writer is still something for later when Alberto finishes his test scene. His price is also the same as the previous writer, so with the same funding in this area we could get the same amount of output. The first applicant is quite a bit more expensive and if we go with her, then in the long-term it might make sense to stock up on the writing budget.

Composer. Music has been a topic that has been popping up a bit here and there. I think it's a very interesting opportunity to raise the game's quality (as opposed to production speed, for that writing investment would make more sense). 

I had tried to do some individual commissions for music in the past, but the composers all had to withdraw due to real life issues. And with many composers I have the issue that their work is not significantly better than what I could get for buying a music asset pack. This time, I was approached by decently skilled composer and since the new investment round was coming up, I thought this would be a good idea to give this another thought. 

The applying composer is mammothplant (Soundcloud, Soundcloud-archive, Twitter) who specializes in creating Shin Megami Tensei-like. With Star Knightess Aura having some influence from this, this could be a good fit. He has also prepared a sample for what he believes could be a good direction for the default battle them. I have also attached the sample to this poll. The price would be 100€ / min.

RPGM Dev. This one is also a recurring candidate. I have already mentioned in the past that the time I spend on bugfixing is steadily increasing due to the large amount of content the game has by now. The purpose of this developer would be to take some load off my shoulders on the bug fixing department and work down the bug reports after a report. I have however not found someone who could fill this position yet.

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Investing more oney into our artist Emubi will need to be skipped this round. It's possible that the recent increase to 900€ will be enough to saturate him due to him maxing out on production speed.

Aaand that's about everything I have on the freelancing side. Let me know what you think! 

Personally, I think if we go with a cheaper writer, then I don't think upping the writing budget is going to do much (since I still need to script everything the writer creates, so we will be hitting some limit on how much I can reasonably commission at some point) and getting a composer on board would be more interesting. On the other hand, if we go with a more expensive writer, and if she is worth the additional price, then stocking up on the writing budget would probably be useful.