Personal Post: My Game Dev Journey... and maybe a sexy game?

Hey everyone! Let's catch up a bit!

So as some of you may already know, last year I busted my butt to get far enough ahead on my Patreon work so that I could take 2 months off (November and December) to begin the process of making my own game. Mind you, it's a dark fantasy dungeon crawler with brutal combat and a grimdark art style, so maybe not everyone's cup of tea (it's not a lewd game lol). You can see the progress on my SFW game dev twitter:
"The Black Road" on Twitter

I ended up getting the entire combat system up and running so far, which was awesome! I've learned a ton on game design and programming during the last two months, and this got me thinking... should I make a cute/sexy game?

Why A Sexy Game? 
Now, I want to say this up front: I am not sure if I want to work on two games at once. "The Black Road" is where my passion is. That said, I make my income through Patreon, so that means I'm committed to making the usual 4 pinups a month, as always. Lately though, I look around on Twitter and see all the amazing NSFW artists, and I can't help but wonder: "What makes my work special?" I am grateful for all of you who support me here, despite the fact there are so many fantastic artists doing the same thing as me, and often better. But the question still stands:

How is the art I offer here any different than the thousands of other artists who make nude/non-nude Patreon pinups?

I want to step up. Earlier last year, I felt this way. My solution was to make comics, and try to tell a story with my art, to connect people to the characters I make. To my delighted surprise, people responded so well to it! My Patreon grew more during those 6 or so months than any other period before. The work was brutal, I was pulling 12+ hour days to learn and refine the stories and art for those comics. But the work paid off and I learned that I had a strong desire to tell stories!

I didn't know I could do it, but I did! In fact, I was so pumped for that progress, that I ended up wondering:

If I can make comics, why not games?

I've always enjoyed games. In fact, I must admit, I don't actually read many comics, myself. but I do play games, and always have! There's so much ability to tell stories in games! I've always wanted to make my own, but I never thought I had what it took. But after proving myself through comics, I felt empowered! And so my attention refocused, in some ways completely out of my control.

I slowed down on comics about mid last year in order to spend some time looking into game development. I didn't know anything about programming. I didn't know anything about game engines. I spent many hours on YouTube learning my options and landed on the game engine Godot, I tried a tutorial by a well known game dev tutorial YouTuber named Brackeys on making a "first platformer game". From there, I played with what I learned to further my knowledge. I got pretty far, too! Made my own pixel art, enemies, animations, items, and level art, and got it all to work in a playable level!

But in the end, I realized that this project was a bit too big for a first time project. I love pixel art, but making a full metroidvania platformer game is a huge undertaking that often takes 4+ years, even for experienced devs. So I decided to shelve it and start thinking smaller. Something within my existing wheelhouse of skills. that's when I decided to start working on "The Black Road", which I already mentioned above. Here's a screenshot of combat after 2 months of dev work:

So now, here we are, January of 2025. After 2 months of solid skill grinding, I have learned enough programming that I feel confident to work on at least simple game projects. And here I am, also feeling like my pinup content needs some refreshing. A new angle to lift my work up to the next level. So this got me thinking. Why not make a sexy game?

Something simple. Something light.

As I said, I am already on the hook to make 4 pinups a month. But... what if I spent the time I'd normally spend on making those, and work on updating a little dating sim visual novel game? Here's the concept:

Card Battler/ Boss Rush/ Dating Sim, where you partner with sexy waifu gamers to take on bosses in an arcade machine at the local Pizza Joint. Her cards change your deck to keep each fight fresh, and the rewards are relationship progress in the form of visual novel type cutscenes that lead to sexy splash art for an in game gallery.

Would anyone here be interested? What would that even look like? How would I keep up with monthly updates? How do other patreon game devs do it?

I still want to keep working on The Black Road. That's where my main passion is, now. But I still do enjoy making pinups, and for my income, I am committed to continue to at least make the usual 4 pinups a month that I usually do. But if I could find a way to turn those 4 pinups a month into progress on a sexy little game where you could chat with these characters and play for sexy rewards... would anyone be interested?

Feedback and Advice, Please!
Right now, I don't want to promise anything. In fact, the idea of failing to deliver on this is terrifying to me. I don't want to mess up the good relationship I've built with all of you. I am grateful for everything we have built here, over the nearly 10 years I've been running this Patreon. But I also feel like I have more to offer, when it comes to this whole "art thing".

So any advice, thoughts, or feedback on this idea would be greatly appreciated! Let me know where your head's at on all of this!

And thanks for reading through this to the end! It's been a while since I did a personal update, and I'm glad to reconnect a bit. 😁

~Ray