My Catgirl Maid - A Look Back - Part 1

Part 1 - Pre-Production to the First Release

To celebrate the one year anniversary of the completion of “My Catgirl Maid Thinks She Runs the Place”, I am returning to my “A Look Back” series to talk about the behind the scenes moments that went into the production of the story.

If you haven’t read the last “A Look Back” I did, or are just completely new to the patreon and didn’t know it was a thing, the series is a good chance to have some raw, introspection of the story and can be a little brutally honest about my thoughts and events.

If you are the type that thinks a VTuber revealing their face is “breaking your immersion”, you may want to not read any further as you are just going to have a bad time.

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The story of My Catgirl Maid’s beginning isn’t a happy one. If you’ve read the “A Look Back” for “The Rest of Our Lives” you know things weren’t going well for me.

TL;DR My idea I was working on with the whole “Uncle Artie Virtual Studio” thing tanked and I was back to square one trying to figure out if I wanted to continue to make games or not.

In the end, it was more that I was just done with trying to be a project lead, I started looking for freelance jobs again. It was definitely the right move as I ended up on a project that really helped change my direction on how I approach writing.

The project is called “Messy Academy”. It’s a dating sim/VN for people in the ABDL (Adult Baby Diaper Lovers) community. I was originally going to join on as a co-writer and help out with some of the “free time” events where you had brief encounters with the girls but ended up becoming the main writer as we slowly worked on building the characters and world up..

Working with Bridget (the Project Lead) was amazing as it had been a long time since I had sat down and brainstormed with someone like this. Usually with freelance jobs, you’re lucky if anyone wants to actually work on the project or not. It was nice to work with someone who was so involved and could offer feedback on ideas.

Despite knowing nothing about the fetish, I went forward trying to make it work as we spent some time trying to figure out how to make this little world of hers work. The first version of the game was a little rough, but we got some chapters out there, though the initial reception wasn’t what we were hoping for.

It became quickly obvious that we needed to go into another direction with the project as nothing seemed to be landing with the crowd. Also, it was fairly obvious that my lack of knowledge about the fetish wasn’t sitting well with the fans of that fetish.

So as quickly as I had found the project, I was stepping away from it. Even though it wasn’t, it felt like another failure because of my writing abilities.

A little overdramatic, yes, but considering the path that led up to that… You can forgive me for feeling that. In 2019, I released 2 projects that were failures resulting in me being “out of a job” so to speak in August. In September I found a new project but by the end of December, I’m stepping away from that project and starting 2020 with no direction, no project ideas, and an identity crisis. Where would your head be after all that?

Now, me stepping away from the main writer of “Messy Academy” was the right call for everyone involved. Bridget took over the main writing position again and the project has found steadily growing support for years. She asked me to stay on as an editor/mentor and that was a great chance to slowly rebuild my confidence again while I worked with her behind the scenes.

It was nothing but a win…in hindsight. That first January though… That was rough. What was I going to do next? Hell, what could I do next?

I had ultimately decided that it was time to step away from adult content and the Uncle Artie name. It was just another pen name that needed to be burned and I could think of another one easily enough.

I had some new ideas, but I just couldn’t figure out what genre to focus on next. However, it didn’t matter because I kept drifting back to my previous failures. I’m a stubborn old bastard and couldn’t shake this feeling that I had “lost” in the world of adult content.

I had spent a total of 4 years in the field and all I could show for it was a string of failed freelance adventures and 2 ill received games. I didn’t want to go out like that so I told myself I’d do 1 more attempt. Something small and simple so that if it didn’t work out, I wouldn’t be at a loss for money and I could leave satisfied knowing I’ve tried everything.

I developed the most quick and generic premise I could think of using the ideas of “Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid” and “The Helpful Fox Senko-san” and kept funding to an absolute minimum. 1 character, 4 backgrounds, simple gui and royalty free music.

If it failed, it failed. It wouldn’t have mattered at that point. I was just being spiteful. You want pointless choices? Fine. You want professional looking art? Fine. You want naked people for no reason in the first 30 seconds? Fine.

It was: “Uncle Artie: Unchained”.

Hell, I had only decided to keep the “Uncle Artie” name because I didn’t see a point in coming up with a new one for this game.

It was a throwaway name for a throwaway game.

So, of course people would end up liking it.

Sweet lady irony wouldn’t have it any other way.

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Continues in Part 2 with the story of its production.