Alright then, I have a plan...

If this is too long for you, skip to the TLDR marker

So, since the clusterfuck with the sound project at the start of the month, I've been poking and plotting, trying to figure out how to rearrange all the proverbial pieces of my shattered planning into something workable. The last little bit of information I needed was exactly how time-intensive the sound project was/is going to be. Which is something I spent the 15th and 16th on. For a randomly chosen example of what a proper redo of the sound-to-scene looks like (at least as good as I can personally make it):

Locker Room Sex Speed 1

Locker Room Sex Speed 2

Locker Room Sex Speed 3

Distinct voices, decently synched to events, with at least a minimal 'sex' sound for penetration. In truth, it took me more time to collect the sound files and learn the software for doing this correctly, than it did to actually make the three videos. They are still pretty basic, but it's worlds better than what I've been doing as a generic placeholder from the start. Doing any one animation (in 3 speeds) shouldn't take more than an hour at most, and that much only for threesomes or moresomes. Maybe half an hour for a single, two-character, set of animations.

The problem, of course, is that the game has well over 200 animations. (I think it might actually be closer to 300 at this point? Really ought to add them up.) Meaning probably somewhere around 100-150 hours of time to hammer through it all. Keep in mind, that's in addition to time spent on all the other monthly rewards and the replacement programming needed.

Completely reasonable for the supposed 'friend' that I gave eight months to do the work in. Particularly as he's a professional that should have been far faster with each individual file than the complete novice that is yours truly. For me, it's a little more aggravating/intimidating, particularly as I loathe the sort of grind implied by doing it all in a rush.

To a certain extent, that's unavoidable now. I'm reluctant to try handing this off to someone else again, as it would be even more a blind trust with a internet rando I reached out to for the work.

Which means doing it myself.

Which also means I needed a plan, since I don't want to just shut the Patreon down and do nothing new for a couple of months while I'm grinding away at this. Early in the month, I outlined what I then thought of as the only set of options I had. With more data and some more thought, I've come up with a fourth option I think will be better for everyone.

TLDR Starts Here

Specifically, do you guys remember The Morning After?

For those of you who don't, or might not even have been around at the time, The Morning After was a shortish, still-renders-and-text game, that I made for December of 2023. December is always a rough development month for me, and The Morning After was something I could make despite losing a good week solid to family/friend events around Christmas time. Despite me calling it 'shortish,' it was actually 24,000 words of text and 192 renders, with multiple endings.

What I've decided to do, in order to not rush into a new complex game while trying to frantically finish the previous one, is to tackle another shorter game like that during the months of November and December. I'll be aiming for a two-part game in the 250-300 render size range, so a bit bigger that The Morning After was.

This will serve as entirely new content for the months of November and December. At the same time, I'm fully expecting it will also let me sink 60-80 hours into the sound project. Hopefully this will get Left Hand Magic's sound 60-70% finished in the background. This will then allow me to take only a single month of pause (as was the original plan) to grind through the remaining Left Hand Magic sound in January and handle an official release on Steam (assuming I can get it approved for sale on Steam).

Obviously, it annoys me that this will put the game release six months past the original target (we're already three months past, due to me underestimating the Harem Route). At the same time, a major delay was inevitable the moment that the 'friend' who I hired to do the sound stuff screwed me over and did jack shit for eight months while lying his ass off about progress. This solution neatly provides YOU ALL with an entirely new game, one which you'll be able to vote on the theme of starting tomorrow, while I chew through doing the sound myself so I don't get hit with another failure by an outside party that screws me over again.

I think this is a pretty reasonable solution, all told. People seemed to really enjoy The Morning After when I made it, and this just extends the same sort of thing into a slightly larger game and makes it a two parter instead of a single release. Hopefully, you all agree that this is a sensible solution :-).