Progress Report #1 - Jan 7, 2022

Hello! Fancy meeting you here!

As promised, here is the first progress report.

But first, let’s talk the easy stuff. Good news: the end is in sight for chapter 1 of the 10 chapters planned for the game. The bad news? We are shooting for a first quarter release. At worst, we’re shooting for a release in April. While I know that seems like a long time, please take into account that I’ve spent over a year (I started in Nov 2020) learning how to use Daz without opening a Patreon so that I could start at a great place. The hope is to not have to go back and redo whole chapters mid-game due to a drastic increase in skill, as some devs have to do. So while it seems we’ve been on the game for a while, I’m actually on my third or fourth iteration of some scenes and am finally at a point where I feel confident that the in-game stuff is comparable to my one-off renders. Also, if we state a goal and miss it, we'll let everyone know we are pausing subs and the subsequent perks until we are done. Since we are new at this, it's possible we'll miss goals. When we do, we'll be unfront about it and pause Patreon until we can deliver. As with anything experienced based, we'll get better at estimating our goals after we get a few of these releases out.

Secondly, what will the game contain/be? As stated in the synopsis, you play as a bartender for a small dive bar that is fairly popular as a place where a lot of great bands get their start. It is mostly a heavy metal bar but hosts other genres as well. You will start a band during the course of the game and will eventually go on your first tour as the game progresses. The whole game will take place during the course of three months, however, so this is just the starting point for your band and The Minges.

Who are the Minges? They are four of your main LIs; Lita, Caitlin, Sloane and Lane. Maybe you’ve seen them around Discord. The fifth main LI is your cute neighbor, Mary. She’s a fresh high school grad whose getting ready to go to college soon. Then there are five main “Hard Sides;” Cris (a bartender with you at the Hellcat), Seok (another neighbor), Rose (a local tattoo artist), Renata (the owner of a local bakery) and Aisline (whose backstory will stay a bit of a mystery for now). Think of the Hard Sides like (for lack of a better example) the HOTs in BaDIK. They aren’t your LIs but they are around enough that you will have multiple interactions with them. Some can be woven into threads with the other characters and result in both good and bad outcomes.

Oh, and there is that. This is gonna be one of those games where the choices you make matter. There will be drastically different outcomes based on your decisions. You can miss content depending on how you play. There will be at least one hard game over depending on your decisions. I know that’s not everyone’s favorite thing to hear but it makes sense for the story I’m trying to tell and, quite frankly, I’ve always enjoyed the aspect of VNs as games. I get bored with games that are just "yes" buttons and enjoy consequences. As those consequences in real life generally mean drastically different results, when possible we will be fully rendering the various outcomes. They will also lead to either more content down the line, or missed content depending on your choices. I will eventually put together a walk through, but please note that I will not force you to make a decision without the girls explicitly telling you that you need to make a choice. In the beginning you are a single guy so you don’t have to tie yourself to one girl (unless you want to) until they ask you to choose.

What are the kinks and how will sexual content be handled? There will be no content that violates Patreon or Discord's term of use. So, no incest, no sex without mutual consent, no loli and no bestiality. There will not be a harem, although there will be relationships that have more than 2 people in them if you choose. There also will not be NTR, MMF, watersports, or scat just because I am not into those things myself and don’t feel like I could do them properly. I’m not kink shaming, but if you want a good meal you go to a restaurant that serves the food you want. You don’t go to an Italian eatery expecting an Indian meal. That being said, please do not ask me to add this content as I won't. So, what does the game offer? Straight sex, threesomes, anal, light BDSM and/or Sub/Dom content, rowdy sex hanging from the chandeliers and very little in the way of missionary. There is probably more but that will give you a good idea without spoiling things. Also, we are going to try and give you options as much as possible to skip content you'd prefer not to see. So for example if you don't like anal, you don't have to do it. While initially this may lead to less content, we will try and make sure that we have equal options as we grow and increase our capabilities and possibly go back and add more where we can.

We can talk more about content in the coming weeks, but feel free to contact me on the Discord server or message me here if you have any questions.

With that out of the way, here are the numbers:

Chapter 1 will contain 9 scenes. Our current word count estimate sits at a little over 12000 planned words and the current image estimate for the first chapter is 1500, give or take (probably give). Of the 9 scenes planned, 4 are fully written, 3 are mostly written and 2 have yet to be written. My estimate is that the script is around 75-80% complete. I’ll be spending some time early next week trying to flesh out the final details on it so I’ll have a more accurate count for you in the next update.

As we currently stand: 

Main menu animation complete.

Scene 1 is complete at 958 words and 109 renders

Scene 2 is complete at 706 words and 53 renders. Two animations are planned for this scene but have not yet been posed.

Scene 3 is currently in progress at 85% complete with 76 of the planned 124 renders, although this may fluctuate due to need. It currently stands at 533 words of an estimated 750.

Scene 4 is 70% written at 808 words.

Scene 5 is 100% written with 130 words. There are 6 animations planned for this scene, currently unposed.

Scene 6 is at 0% dialogues and renders.

Scene 7 is at 0% dialogues and renders.

Scene 8 is at 95% written with 3781 words. 0% rendered.

Scene 9 is at roughly 20%. 100% written at 210 words. Of the 5 animations planned, 2 have been posed. 0% rendered.

Coding sits at roughly 25%.

As you can see, we are still early on, but things are planned out and moving forward accordingly.

Sorry for the long first post. They won’t all be this long but I wanted to lay out everything as clearly as I could so we were all on the same page. If I somehow missed a question you may have, please let me know in the comments below or on Discord and I’ll be happy to answer what I can.

Thank you all!

Wilson