Analyzing recent polls + Solvalley patch news (Patreon)
Content
Hello!
Since this post is very large and has information that most should not care about, there is a summary at the end. You can skip to it if you only want to know the most important things.
I'll start by talking about the Solvalley patch. The intention was to make a quick update and get back to work on HS Tutor and the next project, but I'm spending much more time on this patch than I wanted to. The problem is that I already had a lot of stuff done for old scenes, but most of them were low priority "sharing" scenes, so I had to create more Solo content to balance things out. The characters that will appear are:
1. Victoria (bar) + Lara
2. Barbara (cop)
3. Barbara (cop) + Sarah
4. Miranda + Lisa
5. Sabrina + Delilah
* Scenes 1, 4 and 5 have "sharing" variations.
I already have over 500 images and 70 animations done, but I'm wondering if it's still worth putting so much effort into Solvalley now that I have the results of this poll:
As we can see from the graph above, a significant portion of my patrons no longer care about Solvalley School. Of course, there's a non-negligible amount of people who want content periodically, so there is still some justification for creating some new scenes, but the idea was that the patches would be small, maybe two or three scenes, and no bigger than an HS Tutor update, as is happening now...
So I decided the following: the next patch, which is almost finished, will be the penultimate "big" update I will do for Solvalley School. After that, there will be an extra patch with the school dance scene. If I do any more patches for Solvalley after that, they will only contain a single scene, never more, so that I can devote my time to the HS Tutor and the new project.
About the new project
After being annoyed by many problems with Honey Select 2, I have finally reached a point where I'm confident that I can create characters, images and animations of acceptable quality. Note that I don't consider Solvalley School "acceptable quality", so you can expect the new project to be much more pleasing to the eye. The graphic style is more or less similar, instead of the "anime" style we have in HS Tutor, it is a "semi-realistic" style we have in Solvalley.
The original idea was a lonely guy moving to a city where he will meet girls, but after the polls I changed the theme completely.
First, it is good to remember that there is nothing "scientific" about these graphs, but I think they are good to give a general idea of what you are most interested in. Based on this chart, I have decided a few general things about the new project:
1. it will take place in a more or less empty apartment building
2. the MC will move in at the beginning of the game, where he will live with a landlady and 3 roommates in one of the apartments
3. it will be possible to recruit girls to move into the empty apartments
4. the MC can have his own apartment after progressing, where he can invite a single girl to live there.
Point 4 will not be too complicated. The idea is to implement something like Solvalley's harem mode, where you can call Kyra to talk and train her sexually until she is proficient in all aspects. But this time this feature will be included in the main game and will involve all the girls.
Then we have this other poll:
Again, this goes against my original idea. I wanted to make the game as simple as possible, the player would just click on the girl in a "girl finder" and be taken to the scenes. But it became clear that people wanted a map and some dating sim mechanics. So I decided to implement those things, but in a way that made sense.
In the current versions of HS Tutor and Solvalley School, the dating sim mechanic and the map just hinder the player's progress, which is sometimes quite annoying. But it wasn't always this way, in the beginning both games had a 30 day limit and the player had to manage things properly to see the good ending with the girl of his interest. As time went by I decided to focus on a sandbox-style and the mechanics became superfluous.
The new project will be made in such a way that the sandbox will be its natural state from the beginning. And I think I already know how to make the free roam mechanics and also the management mechanics not become superfluous or act as barriers to the player's progress. But you will have to wait for the first version of the game to see what I intend to do, because to be honest I will only know if my ideas will really work when I start implementing them.
Finally, we have the most controversial and explosive subject, solo X sharing:
To be honest, I managed to fuck up this poll and it doesn't say much. But I think it is possible to draw some conclusions from it. For example, the idea of having no male characters at all, as I did in HS Tutor, is less popular among my patrons who voted than having male characters with girls to be stolen. Overall, I think it is safe to conclude that the idea of completely removing male characters from the game is not the best option.
The idea of a game that is a full orgy with no restrictions, like the first prehistoric versions of Solvalley School were, is of course the one with the least appeal, but I expected it to get almost no clicks, but at least 40 people who answered the poll clicked on it.
Personally, I have no problem with "sharing" scenes as long as they do not involve humiliation. But they are problematic for a number of reasons. The biggest problem is when they somehow "leak" into the main game. This happens a lot in Solvalley because the game originally had no distinction between "sharing" and "solo", so things always got mixed up somehow. The second problem is that they take up time that could be better spent for most of my patrons. The third problem is that they appeal to those who like full NTR too, and sometimes, in an attempt to please them, I go too far in some scenes, making them almost unbearable. In other words, sharing scenes are a problem for me.
But I don't want to disappoint some of my patrons. So I'll keep the possibility open. But one thing is for sure, the "solo" mode of the new project will be indistinguishable from HS Tutor in the sense that nothing will leak to it if the sharing scenes exist.
SUMMARY
- Solvalley's patch is almost ready and has so far 500+ images and 70+ animations
- I will get back to work on the HS Tutor as soon as I finish the Solvalley patch later this month
- the new project will involve an MC who lives with a landlady and 3 housemates
- the graphics will be in Solvalley's "semi-realistic" style, but with a higher quality level
- the option to click places on the map and manage certain things will exist, but will not hinder those who want to advance in storylines easily
-the possibility of a "sharing" option in the new project is open, but if it exists, it will be more discreet than Solvalley's, and also with less abundance of scenes compared to the "solo" mode