Rebooting YummyTiger Gaming!

Good Morning! This is going to be a LONG post. Information on Monday's release can be found at the end.

There have been a number of changes to YummyTiger Gaming's Patreon over the past two months. These changes were needed, and represent much of what I've learned the past two years. When this Patreon started, I had zero experience managing anything like it, as well as very little experience building a game. The Patreon was created in response to multiple people playing a very early demo of Aylia's Story and asking if they could donate. I had no website, no blog, or anything to facilitate these requests. I did not start this with the intention of making money, but I also wasn't going to pass up the opportunity. A naive amateur developer jumped into the ocean of game development and YummyTiger Gaming's Patreon was born.

I'm not going to rehash the history and the mistakes along the way. Most of you have been here for the ride, and the relevant posts are still up for those who want to pop some popcorn and read about it. In sum, YummyTiger Gaming has been plagued by grandiose claims, absurd predictions, showstopping perfectionism, naive planning, and other issues. The result of which led to the alienation of many of the people I was doing this for in the first place--something that bothers me more than I can express in mere words. Still, many of you have not given up on me and I don't have any plans to give up on you. Thank you.

YummyTiger Gaming is undergoing significant changes in a number of areas (each will be detailed below):

* Changing from a lone developer to an assisted development approach

* Improved planning and access throughout Patreon

* Discord creation for real-time access with patrons 

* Pledge collection and policies

* Modified patron tiers to reflect a new release structure and offering patron tier rewards that can (and will) be fulfilled

* More transparency in terms of project status, goal fulfillment, and reward fulfillment

Assisted Developer Approach - As many of you know, a person with experience in managing game development was brought on in a limited role last fall. He chose the handle, Man in Black (MiB), and offered much needed assistance. In late spring, as my attempt to go full time and jumpstart YTGaming was fizzling, I asked him to take a more active role. He agreed, and has been working with me behind the scenes to launch what YTGaming should have been from the start.

One of the bigger changes is my relinquishing large portions of the creative process through commissions and bringing people onto the team. Sprites and tileset work is now 100% commissioned, Scripting and related work will be divided among multiple people, an additional artist is being vetted for background and miscellaneous system artwork, Editing and playtesting is less and less my sole responsibility. This is all being done to improve development speed by using your generous pledges to do so. Aylia's Story will remain my vision, my dream, but I will now receive the much needed assistance to reach the finish line.

Patreon Access - This improvement is easy to describe, but took MiB a significant chunk of time to implement. As a Patreon ages, things become harder and harder to find amidst the garbage heap of posts. Since April, MiB has been pruning needless Patreon posts and implementing a more effective tagging system. The goal is to provide patrons a quick and easy way to find releases, artwork, game information and lore, tier rewards, and pledge information. We've went a bit back-and-forth on tags, but feel we have the start to a better system in place. 

Discord Creation - Frustrated by the message and comment system Patreon uses, a Discord server was created for YummyTiger Gaming. All patrons are invited to join the server using the invite code: wv9vvg7. This server has a SFW discussion channel, a NSFW channel, announcements, and release bug reports and discussions. It provides patrons with a way of communicating with me quickly and receiving instant information on projects.

The Discord server is NOT meant to replace Patreon. I know things have been silent the last few months, but I've no plans to stop posting updates here. What we envision Discord to be is a medium for quick updates, less concrete information, idea brainstorming, and messaging of overall less import. Discord participants should expect that information given is not absolute and subject to change. Patreon posting on the other hand will shift to more concrete information, game relevant posting like lore posts and artwork, release dates that should not be missed. I plan to offer less informal chitchat-style posts (labeled as creator messages), and make Patreon a medium for patrons who just want the key information and rewards.

Pledge Collection and Policies - This area is obviously very important to many patrons, and something that I always want patrons to fully understand. I created this patron with the goal that you'd only pledge in conjunction with releases. Despite all the issues YTGaming has hit along the way, I've never swayed from this policy. YTGaming has run one pledge and released one full translation (the post is tagged for new patrons who are curious).

Pledge collection has been the area where I've had the most back-and-forth with MiB to find a fair middle ground between providing a stable income source to fund commissions and development, but stick to the pledge per release model. Aylia's Story chapter 1 today is a far cry from what I'd planned when I set this page up. It's bigger, more dynamic, has more custom assets and systems, and hopefully, better artwork than I thought I was capable of. In order to keep this level of quality for this and future chapters, we have to run more than one pledge per chapter or divide chapters up differently.

That said, we want you to understand what a "release" means, and we want each pledged release to be significant. Chapter 1 will now constitute 3 pledged releases (only two of which will be pledged for). Each release will contain 5+ scenes, add multiple hours of gameplay, and multiple quests. Chapter 1 currently has over 25 scenes with artwork, so each release would consist of around 8-9 new h-scenes, battle events, sex appeal skill artwork, and all the other custom assets that make Aylia's Story the game I envisioned. That's quite a bit, and actually about what I'd planned chapter 1 to be when I start my Patreon years ago.

The policies regarding pledges will remain patron-friendly. You control when you give money, that will never change. If you're ever unsatisfied with a release, you may request a refund for the last pledge. If you've successfully pledged in the past, you may skip a pledge and still receive access to releases, voting, etc. I will provide you with notice prior to any pledged posts, and label all pledged posts clearly. Pledged posts will not be pruned.

Modified Patron Tier Rewards - If you've been a patron for awhile, you've probably realized that the listed tier rewards have largely gone unfulfilled. A number of polls were ran over the first year, two $20 selections were conducted, etc. I didn't intend to ignore those rewards, but they became less a boon and more of a hurdle. It is important to me that you get rewarded for your patronage. While I consider Patreon a donation, I still want to thank you with actual rewards.

As such, MiB and I have worked to create a reward system is will not adversely effect development and will be realistically doable. The tiers have been changed to reflect these rewards. While I was silent over the last three months, I actually had been sending MiB posts and rewards throughout July and August to evaluate what was and was not realistic before going live. I didn't want another rehash of past "reboots."

Going forward, I will be posting higher resolution artwork for CGs and other artwork available in releases. RPG Maker limits me to 640x480 (which is painful), but all my artwork is vector and can be scaled accordingly. In fact, I often have a lot of detail that is lost when I drop it down to 640x480, so I'm quite happy to start posting artwork at higher resolutions. This is also an ideal reward since it doesn't take much time away from development. The artwork is already done for the most part, just needs minor tweaks to look appropriate at a higher resolution. 

We also plan to add developer tutorials from myself and MiB for aspiring developers out there. I've made a lot of mistakes, but I've also learned a ton. Perhaps you can glean some information from these posts and avoid similar pitfalls. We plan to release two pieces of high resolution artwork each month (based on the prior month's voting), and at least one developer tutorial.

Beyond that, YummyTiger Gaming will finally go live with the release model I discussed in May. Releases will now be divided into Alpha, Beta, and Public. Alpha releases will represent more tech-style demos that will show progress, but often suffer from bugs and missing components. Beta releases will represent pledged releases, and will be posted 1-3 days before public releases. Beta releases will be complete chunks of each game and will have gone through an editing and playtesting cycle.

Finally, polls will resume and will be conducted the first week of every month. I can't promise every poll with be extraordinary, but I'll do my best to offer some fun options. One aspect of every poll will be a selection of which character you'd like high resolution artwork of for the following month.

More Transparency - Whew, that  was a lot. The last aspect of Patreon changes I'd like to discuss is how we aim to improve transparency. First, for the overall Patreon goals, you'll find a "Goal Status" section telling patrons what has been done and what is planned. Second, on the 1st and 15th of each month, a status update will be made detailing what is planned over the new few weeks and what's been done. This will not be an exhaustive list, but should provide patrons with an idea of where things are going. Finally, at the end of each quarter (March, June, September, December), a post will be made detailing reward fulfillment. This will also offer new patrons information on what artwork, developer tutorials, or other game related posts they missed. 

Give me the PRECIOUS! - That covers all the changes we have planned to YummyTiger Gaming. This is the last "reboot." I went full time last January, and enjoyed a half year of meandering through game development. When I spoke with MiB in the spring, one thing he discussed was his experience with artists and other creative persons--actually, how much they can annoy him at times! When the releases were not ready in May, we discussed taking a step back from Patreon and using the summer to get shit in order. I hope we've done that.

In terms of actual releases, Aylia's Story 0.10 Beta release candidate will be posted August 31st at 2am (PST). This will no longer be a pledged POST, as I want to give people at least 48 hours to evaluate whether they want to pledge or skip a pledge. I just ran out of time this month. I WILL be running a pledge next month for the second portion of Chapter 1. The nice thing about doing it this way is you'll hopefully have Chapter 1, release #1 to evaluate and see how much content you can expect per "major update." Either way, it was good to start bringing the pledge amount in-line with those who are still wanting to support YTGaming. Thank you for sticking with me! I really do appreciate it.

The first Chapter 1 alpha is planned for release in the first week of September. Alpha releases through Chapter 1 release #1 will be available to all patrons. 

Thank you for your patronage. Despite all the setbacks, I'm proud of the game Aylia's Story is shaping up to be. It's time for the game's Patreon to reflect that.

YT