Home Artists Posts Import Register

Poll

Development news and an important poll

  • Keep this month's billing cycle as usual 714
  • Pause all payments until the update is delivered 99
  • 2022-03-18
  • —2022-03-25
  • 813 votes
{'title': 'Development news and an important poll', 'choices': [{'text': "Keep this month's billing cycle as usual ", 'votes': 714}, {'text': 'Pause all payments until the update is delivered', 'votes': 99}], 'closes_at': datetime.datetime(2022, 3, 25, 1, 57, 56, tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc), 'created_at': datetime.datetime(2022, 3, 18, 1, 44, 41, tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc), 'description': None, 'allows_multiple': False, 'total_votes': 813}

Content

Hi everyone,

this past week I've been laser focused on development, so much so I find it hard to take some energy and time to write an update, which means I end up postponing it.

I feel I'm definitely getting my mojo back, and though I'm finding some tasks more challenging that I anticipated, I've been taking care of them slowly but surely. Right now I'm going over each chapter re-writing and restructuring everything that needs to be touched, cleaning up and improving things here and there, and making a complete overhaul of how the stat system is implemented, which until now was rather messy. I'm finishing reviewing chapter 7, and 8 and 9 should be way easier (less stuff to retcon). 

I keep adding some new art here and there, and I can't stop to find things that could've done better, but I need to draw the line at some point. I'm already taking way longer than I originally wanted and I could polish the game in a ton of areas, but I can't wait to be done with this whole review process so we can move forward to Chapter 10.

It's time all the pieces start falling into place and complete this whole process, but I'm not sure I will be able to deliver at the end of the month, though that was my initial goal. After all my work is done, thorough testing will be needed to make sure everything works as intended and I didn't mess the plot continuity in some way, and that might take some time due to how complex the internal logic of the branching plot is.

Not getting paid last month surely lit a fire under my ass and I really hoped to have everything ready at the end of the month, but since that won't be the case, I'm not sure if I should do the same this month and pause all payments. Not getting paid two months in a row could be pretty painful, but I want to be fair with the value I deliver to you guys. So let your voices be heard in the poll below and I will go with what you guys feel is fair! 

Comments

Jase C

Well, I'm angry that you paused payments last month and that you're even worrying about it this month. There is no guarantee we get a monthly release. And with how big and high quality this game has gotten, I think that's an unreasonable expectation. There are creators who have not even posted a message in more than a year and are still collecting payments, which of course is bad. But you are always keeping your patrons informed and you are always making progress, and you worry about a month or two. Stop it. It's not good for your mental health nor your finances. We are here to support you.

Anonymous

As a video editor, I have been advised to "work in layers". "Have an awesome "special effects" idea? Put it aside. Get the whole thing done, then go back and fine tune or work on those sick ideas or special effect areas." It's a lot easier (peace of mind) when you can rework or improve stuff without feeling like the whole project is slowing down.

Dennis

What you say is true, but it also does not cover the reality completely. It is more a safety for not raising the bar to high in the developement process and is aimed at traditional workloads. In these deadline-bound works, as you know, after the regular work is done, there is almost never any project time left to do some special things anymore. And after the project-finish-line, most of the time, you already have a new project waiting and/or the customer is not paying for improvements of the already sold project. But here, we do have a special situation. Eva is really paid for her work and has no real deadline. She has the special possibility to work on whatever aspect she likes - as long as we like this too, everything is fine. So doing a rework in mid-work in patreon-games, this is not a certain danger of failing the (non-existing) deadline, but is a chance to do the needed work now while it still has some impact on her future work. If she improves the stats-system now, she will have 11 (?) more chapters to take advantage of the improves system. This is a not to be underestimated advantage in contrast to doing it "for the art" but without a hard benefit after finishing the game.