0.6 Development Update 18 - Mini State of The Game Edition (Patreon)

Hey, folks.

This update will be public, sort of a mini state-of-the-game post.

The last three weeks were very frantic with life stuff, but I’ve been thinking a lot about v0.6.3. It’s a big update if we go by the numbers. It has 16000 new words (most updates are 10k words or fewer), it has a whopping 450 new renders (usually it’s closer to 200), a main story event, a new group event and a sex scene.

And I’m really, really not happy with it. The two biggest events turned into dreary exposition dumps. There are bright spots here and there, but overall the scenes are too long even after all the editing, the visuals are very dry, and it all feels wrong to me. I’ve been feeling that way for a while now, but the last update made me sit down and think real hard about the direction of the game.

I’ve been unhappy with the pace of the main story for a long time, and now and then some rough spots come up in the personal stories, but lately I feel like there’s a more general issue with the atmosphere and the very soul of the game. I don’t know if it’s the general stress getting to me, or if there’s something else, but there is a slump, and I want it to end.

I want to stop pushing for something, anything happening at the expense of everything else for a moment, take a deep breath and focus on the good vibes. The next update will be the first step towards this. It won’t be the biggest of updates, but it will add a lot of warmth to the game. The little things, the feel-good events, nothing groundbreaking, but I am certain they will make you smile. And I want to add more life to the House after that. Maybe not in the very next update, but I will try to slip in a small event or a minor activity now and then. Just something to make me and hopefully you smile.

And please, don’t get me wrong, the cozy updates won’t stop the rest of the game from happening. We’re making a lot of progress with the background chars for the future scenes. Another month or two and Naomi’s story will take a big step forward. Yona’s story is due for a big advance. Then Rae’s story, Cait’s story, etc. Furthermore, I have the main story plan drafted out and if we’ll be able to pull it off visually, it would have some pretty epic stuff in it. And even if we won’t be, it’ll still have this epic stuff in, it’ll just look janky. But believe me, good things are coming!

Speaking of good things, I’d like to mention one particular thing I’m really proud of. It is the graphics quality we manage to put out. Credit where credit’s due, both 3D artists working with me are doing amazing work, and I had a lot of mentoring from another person on the light setups. I do believe the game made another large leap forward in the last few months. By now we’re pushing the limits of the suite and the legacy models. We will keep on pushing said limits as far as they can go, but I don’t know if there’s another solid visual upgrade left in the tools that we have right now. Still, I really like how most things look now.

Finally, I’d like to hear from you. How do you feel about the game? Are you happy with the development? Is there something in particular I should focus more on? Please leave your thoughts and questions and I’ll try to answer as many of those as I can.

And see you soon!