Happy New Years! (Public Update)

I apologize for the later post than normal for Sunday with me -- I am actually on a boat where the service has been a bit spotty, but it looks like right now things are good!  I hope everyone had a great New Years, and goes on for a wonderful 2023!

I am gratified and feel lucky that things are going well for me.  I started this game almost at the same time when my design business started and it was just 2 people (my business partner and I) and we were pulling about 2-4k a month gross combined with an $1k office rental, and wondering if we were going to make it, and now 2022 is going to end up a year neither of us ever dreamed of...very thankful.  I've also seen KG become a game people enjoy too, and I have met a few very close friends (Di/Emily) and course some good "slaves" too.  I am very fortunate I can do this for fun.

I apologize for Patrons that have already seen some of this info and/or images -- I am doing a public update since I am hitting 6 months now.  (I tend to like to do this every 2 months)

Ok, my current total is about 2,605 images/renders and 80k+ words -- I am not 100% sure on the exact word count but I think it's actually a bit higher.

I am hoping to release Update 7 this month.  I am confident I can finish the content by the end of the month -- the area I am unsure of is when I get to editing/music/testing as things can come up that I don't expect.  My estimated render count is likely about 3,000 images or so, but it's hard to say until I get the exact scenes all laid out.

My Patrons know this already, but I will NOT be billing for February 2023 (next month) if I have not released the update by January 31st.  

I have always strived to be very transparent and fair about how I handle charging Patrons, and I have my own internal metric as to what speed I feel is reasonable given my workload, free time, and other things going on in my life.  I have been a Patron of other games too, and have seen a vast scale of super good to very bad devs in how they work/communicate, etc.  I believe in a very strict code of integrity and honor when it comes to how I treat the people that have taken the time to support me.  Even taking into account that I am running a full-time business and other income streams, I still believe I should be releasing the game this month to avoid charging next month.  So...that's the plan. 

This update will have less pure choices than Episode 6 because there is some set up for the next one...Episode 8 (which is very big and heavy with choices that really matter!).  But there are at least a few very critical choices that matter long-term, and that's all I will say on that for now.

I have also explained to Patrons already that given the size of that update, I am going to split it into parts.  These parts will be a bit smaller (1,500+ renders) but the overall episode will end up bigger because 8 is by far (except for the last episode) the biggest.  Keep in mind that after Episode 8 it will not really be possible for Kane to completely switch gears and go from say totally dominant to totally sub.  It is inevitable that some locking will have to occur at some point to allow clean narratives without having to manage way too many branches that simply become untenable.    

Last, I informed my Patrons about possible post KG plans.  I will be brief here, but likely with more details someday.

1) I have outlined the brief skeleton of a sequel to KG called Karlsson's Legacy.  The one issue with this is I have to base it on some kind of "canon" ending (I actually have three canon endings in mind as the main possible ones) from KG, so I kind of internally debate on this a lot.  So this may or may not happen a specific way, I am still thinking on it, and it's not really here quite yet anyway.

2) I have been quietly talking to another game dev (bigger than I) about a larger scale game idea that was my original idea before shifting to KG.  I knew I couldn't do it with no experience, so I shelved it for now.  My KG outline and lore notes were about one tenth of what I put together for this one.  But, this idea may be something down the road where I mostly write and there would be a few more people helping out with the other elements.  I would never take this on if it interfered with my own game stuff.  So it may never happen, but maybe it will someday.

I sincerely hope everyone has a wonderful 2023, and I apologize if this month I am not super responsive -- I am going to be going really hard in January to try and let everyone play the update ASAP.  From the bottom of my heart,  thank you to everyone that directly/indirectly does anything to support the game.  I wake up feeling incredibly blessed and fortunate every day, and I hope everyone can have a great 2023!