Free Claims For Next Update!

Okay hello guys! I am making this post public so that the community and supporters can have an insight into the process!

• Free Claims for First/Second Tier August Patrons

Firstly I want to announce a free claims for Watchmaker/HaremKing & Deviant Tier due to the delay. I understand that there is a portion of players who pledge for individual updates and I feel sad if a patron upgraded/pledge with high expectations and unable to play a fun update in time. For such high tiers, I understand it's good coin just to support the game! So I will make sure you get your  money's worth. 

As such, due to our announced delay, I will accept claims for DA 0.9 if you were a First/Second Tier patron for August! I have plans to release a 0.9 build this month so you can message me and obtain your free claim if and when it's released. 

For long term patrons who are supporting the game, thanks so much and progress is going well. We are still on track on complete the season before the year is over! So no rush, take your time and pick when to play. I suggest a new playthrough at end of season. It will be worth it.

•  Information on Planned Content

Okay, I know the release is a little haphazard so I will give some information on what's going on behind the scenes and the issues I'm facing so you guys can better understand what is going on! It is very difficult for me to express every detail through a post but I will try to be as concise as possible. 

Currently, the build you have downloaded contains the basic route of Moon, Mia and Sophia.  I am very frustrated as I am still unable to complete the entire story beat in time. Which means we are still in beta by the third tier. There is still a lot of content that I want to patch. I am also struggling for time to polish the update. 

At the very least, I can release a rough beta for you peepos to play before the month ends. As of now, I will have to patch some additional content in the next coming weeks. I am now pondering how much content I should patch and what to fix. Or perhaps we should just release another update. I have another about 600 images worth of content that I had planned to include in this update. 

CONTENT - You will find in this patch. 

- You can follow Sophia event up until you meet Moe for the album. 

- You can spank Sophia

- You can Go shopping with Mia and do two full routes with two girls at the shop

- You can get Mia to preview the pregnancy mechanic. 

- There is also a partial Moon route but I forgot to patch it inside. 

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MORE CONTENT COMING NOT IN BETA: 

So near yet so far. Let me really polish it. I'm currently deciding how much of the content to patch next week and how much to release as 0.9. 

- Completion of all these routes. 

- You can finish Sophia's album quest with Moe and bring her to Maeve to check invisibility. (Problem with this is the bar. You bring Moe to the bar to get him laid and it involves a segment with bar girls. There's too much to complete here not to mention a random bar girl appearing out of nowhere because we havent done her intro arc.)

- Finish your date with Moon. (My major problem with this arc is there is a segment which is of major importance to the story. You guys will know why before season ends. I contemplated releasing it but I can't rush it. You will know why later on LOL. Just remember what I said.)

- Complete Mia's pregnancy after introducing the preggo system and inject her with cum crave genome. (This one I think is self explanatory where the problem is if you play the beta. Needless to say, I need to introduce the preggo system. I can't just jump to Mia's story beat with a funky preggo system. Remember 90% of players don't read patron posts and it might also screw up their saves.)

P/s: It's another massive update but the reason you don't feel that way is because the story beat isn't finished. I know how you guys will feel when you play it lol. Imagine grinding and fumbling around the preggo system and buying all those damn vitamins and not getting a payoff.

 I really tried but I can't get it to release on time. I can't manage the update once it's released as it confuses people. This is why I have no choice but to put out a limited beta as we have reach the end of the month and I don't want the single time patrons to leave with nothing. I can't delay the update a few more weeks. It's truly a pain in the ass believe me. I'm almost half dead guyz... you have no idea. So forgive me if I can't chat with some of y'all on discord. 

For long term supporters don't worry, it really doesn't make a difference. We are very much on track to finish the season and continue with our plan for world domination muahahaha. Trust me, it's gonna be good. We will hit top 50 games once season 1 is complete and when we restructure our release tiers.

• Update challenges

There are several challenges. For example, just to let you guys know my perspective when doing this update. 

Sophia's questline involves trying to get a limited edition CD from her favorite artist. In order to do that, we need to go to the bar with Moe. This will activate a bunny girls questline where you gather all the girls you've collected at the bar. This quest is meant to display the bar system where you can bring the bar girls to the toilet and conduct repeatable events. It will also allow certain mechanics like wearing clothes or buying items and doing additional actions. The result is that the workload is way too massive to make it in time. At first, I believed it was possible to get it out this month because I have already completed the storyline segments for Sophia up till you bring her to Maeve. However, the bar quest alone will take up almost 100 animations if completed to my full vision and also involves completing the introduction story quest for another one of the girls at the bar. That turns out to be way too much of a challenge. 

Another example that you will see is Mia's pregnancy quest. Again, the pregnancy system will involve a mechanic that will be spread through the entire game where you can use the lab to get whichever girl you choose pregnant. It will involve crafting materials for an injection that can affect a genome of your choice. It's really hard to explain until you actually see it. You can see it in the beta build so it will be easier to explain once you've played it. 

Now you can see the issue with this. Regardless of how much work is put in, you cannot see the result until you reach the story beat. In order to make this update a success, I need to get to the end of each of these beats. For example, for Mia's quest, we need to see the result of Mia's pregnancy. However that cannot be done unless you complete the proper pregnancy mechanic to it's fullest! It results in me sitting on tons of Mia contents and unable to get it out in time. 

This leaves me in the usual pinch again. Do I add in content of Mia's cum depraved injection which would probably please the players? But having to skip certain sections in between? 

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Which brings us to problems regarding patreon and updates. If you do not follow this game and it's process, it is very difficult to explain it to you. 

This is a problem that has been plaguing the game since the beginning. When I first started developing the game, I had only planned with the game vision in mind. This is in itself a challenge as I had no idea how or what I could actually code. I only had the story and content I wanted, planned out. To add to that, I had zero awareness regarding patron retention, updates etc etc. If I knew what I know now, I would definitely plan the game very very differently. 

Releasing updates on patron involves a certain formula and skillset. From a developer perspective, while you will have a growing fanbase of supporters who see it as supporting the development of the game, a large portion of people subscribe to get access to an update. This fact creates many problems for me when structuring an update. 

1. You can't spend too long between updates as hype will die down. To maintain relevancy, you need to constantly release to rank in various platforms. 

2. You need to hype an update. Which means you need to hit certain lewd scenes and story beats/ contents. Think of a cliffhanger in a tv series that make you continue watching. Certain beats need to be achieved in order to feel like you've gotten your money's worth. For a game like DA, you can imagine what the issue is. DA truly shines  when each individual mechanic has had time to be built and you are able to play huge portions of the game and hit the beats. This is unlike a more traditional game where you can release each update as a well planned episode. Or to put it in another way, I failed to plan the game properly and also attempted and overly ambitious game for a first project. 

For longer time patrons, you will remember how each of these events occur. It's the same problem. From the update with the investigation at the church mechanics, to the house repeatables, and now the pregnancy system etc etc. 

The issue is always the same. I'm constantly struggling having to release an update by a certain date before the hype dies down. At the same time, you have to deal with hitting story beats. 

This will result in several ways to counter it. All of which will result in a worse game. 

For example, I find myself pushing certain storylines in order to hit a beat. Resulting in a rushed buildup or cliffhanger. Mechanics also end up constantly changing or half assed in order to hit a storyline. Also, we tend to gravitate towards a more VN style as it is easier to satisfy an update.

Okay, I could go on and on about this but I will try to be concise. 

• MAJOR POINTS

I understand many criticisms of the game. I really do. Even from long time patrons.  But most people do not see it from my perspective. It's a marathon not a sprint. 

It is pointless to release one update without taking the whole game into account. Some old patrons suggested to me to focus on each update.  Stop diversifying the game and start releasing satisfying updates. Why complicate things? 

But see, I receive the same comments each segments of the game but they turn out to be what makes DA successful. The exact same comments are made in the first 3 months this game is released! I remember back then when patrons would complain about the church and how pointless it is to introduce new mechanics to it. I also almost had my hair pulled out when I had to rush certain lewd scenes in order to churn out a satisfying update while I was stumbling with the interrogation mechanic. But after that update was released, the game took another giant leap forward. Some of the most loyal patrons were critical about that back then. 

It was the same with the house repeatable and now I'm sure you guys are confused  with the bar girls system and pregnancy system as well. What I can say is have faith! New players are enjoying the game more and more. When all these things are online, it will pay off. You might think it's lame seeing Mia in the pregnant clinic and grinding every day just to visit her, but when the full game is ready with various different girls and all the actions you can do, you will see the vision!

I will share one statistic with you guys that gives me the confidence in my vision. By looking at patron counts, we only have 2k patrons. But looking at lifetime numbers, we already have close to 10k patrons that have pledged to the game at least once!

This means we have a very lopsided growth. We add on average 5-600 patrons constantly every single month. Which is a very good number and could even be compared to very established games with 4-5 years worth of fanbase. 

The only issue is that out of 500 that pledge, 400 drop out and 1-200 remain.  That's a huge drop out percentage. 

This is because of constant disappointment in each updates due to inconsistency. But if you zoom out, players who play the game from the beginning are enjoying the game more and more. The game is developing very well. 

This means the quality of the game as a whole is constantly increasing.  To put in perspective, developers of rival games lose only about 15% of patrons every month. But we are still keeping pace and in most cases, outperforming them! This is despite the constant chaotic releases! 

Which brings me to the next step. What's next? And what's the solution?

• Restructure after season 1

This is the major reason why I have decided to package the game as a season and completely restructure the game and patron tiers after the next two updates. I will wrap up all the required storylines and look towards season 2! Believe me when I say I wish I could redo many things. It's to the point where I even considered making a brand new game altogether. But I think packaging it as season 2 is a great opportunity to start afresh. This is my first game and believe me I have learnt a lot. I also love DA very much and I want to see it completed and go into the top ranks!

My goal is, why not have the best of both worlds? It is possible to make a good game and stay true to my vision, while at the same time release good updates that are worthwhile to pledge to and keep people excited. Can you imagine where we would be at if we had a better structure? I'm sure getting into top 50 is possible! It is my dream and what fuels me to continue making DA better. 

Again, I don't want to drag this post too long but I've done a lot of work in preparation for the next season. A polished game with a functioning gallery and several official translations with all the game mechanics online. 

 Content wise, we haven't even released close to the best content we have yet! Good things takes time to brew! 

Update wise, with the new structure I have planned, we will be able to release consistent updates while still retaining huge benefits for long time patrons. Finally the cheatcodes and patreon polls will be of use. Also, I will show you guys more stuff in the next Monday post. 

Just hang tight peepo! 

Okay, I shall end this post here for the time being. I will elaborate more in private posts where I can post pictures. In a public post, I cant post certain pictures and I don't wanna waste anymore time to edit them to be public friendly. It is also very hard to explain in words without images. 

Ok, this post is too long. See you guys in a bit! 

Speed is my energy!

Moolah Milk.