Transparency
Added 2018-11-20 21:54:51 +0000 UTCYou guys are funding the game’s development (because you rock), so I feel that it’s important to always be transparent with you about the way I’m working. I love you guys, and would never take your support for granted.
1.4 will be out soon, but it has taken way longer than I imagined it would. I've just got my head down working on it now, since it's so close to release, but once it's out I plan to do some serious reflection on my working practices in order to try and figure out a way to increase development speed.
This thread is a place for patrons to throw in your comments and suggestions, or just to ask questions about why the fuck everything takes so long. All comments are welcome, and I promise to take criticism constructively: I genuinely want to deliver content faster, and I'm willing to try new things in order to achieve that.
Comments
Jolly good! Crack on.
ultimate_elephant
2018-11-29 17:22:46 +0000 UTC<a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/dev-diary-model-18859324">https://www.patreon.com/posts/dev-diary-model-18859324</a> :-) The problem is actually the opposite: I've got a very clear vision of how I want the game to play out in Bangkok, but the existing framework won't support it, which is why I need to work on systems like SURPS before we can go forward.
Crushstation
2018-11-28 20:18:46 +0000 UTCMy biggest fear is that you've dragged out the Lifepath development because you haven't yet figured out how the game will play once it moves to Bangkok. Or you're not confident it will meet expectations. So you've put a lot of time into the back story, deliberately or not, because it delays the evil day when you have to start moving the game forward. You may have posted this somewhere previously, but in the name of transparency I would like to see a plan, just a bare-bones concept, showing how you envisage the game playing from day to day when the agent is finally on her mission. It may seem obvious to you, but it's not to me. Other than that, I think your visibility and engagement are gold standard.
ultimate_elephant
2018-11-26 19:11:09 +0000 UTCThe biggest timesink is probably the fact that you have another job. That takes a lot of time and energy from your other endeavours. If you don't want to quit your job and work full time on the game, I'd propose outsourcing more parts of the game development. Tasks that can be worked on independently on what you're doing, and that doesn't take too much time. All small tasks eventually chip away on your time though. Those working on the outsourced tasks would get some kind of monetary compensation, since just doing it for fun often results in it not being prioritized. It seems to work very well on Victoria's artwork, for example. Otherwise I think that you might overwork or overdesign some parts of the game. It seems like you've realized something similar (by reading your post from November 1), but it's better that you sometimes overdesign parts than not giving a shit about the game. You're very transparent and work frequently, which is is what most can wish for.
Breadloaf
2018-11-23 16:44:18 +0000 UTCIt just is what is at this point. Still hopeful for the game long term but it's hard to maintain enthusiasm for so long.
Ale
2018-11-23 01:02:42 +0000 UTCI agree wholeheartedly with this. You've gotten so sidetracked on backstory that it's become more important than the game itself. This is too bad-- the perfect is the enemy of the good.
JR Richardson
2018-11-22 21:01:32 +0000 UTCI am absolutely with you, i have suggested that a few weeks ago too :-)
Volgan Ragnarson
2018-11-22 17:17:11 +0000 UTCI love this game but I would like to see different skin colors added to it, other than that keep up the great work can't wait to see what's next.
Marco30
2018-11-21 17:40:35 +0000 UTCThe writing and options were what attracted me to back the game in the first place. I wonder if getting the bones of the story done first should be the priority. The character creation is great, and a welcome addition. How difficult is it "add in" things at a later date? So perhaps start with the club in bangkok. then add in different countries to the creator for people to see how they would change the path and gives replayability. Is this technically difficult?
Trent
2018-11-21 13:21:52 +0000 UTCI like the direction it is going in honestly. You get to pick your nationality, create and customize your character, and now you will get to play out your backstory.
Hanako
2018-11-21 12:38:40 +0000 UTCHeh. And I'm the opposite of sbb0. I feel like you've gotten stuck in the weeds of "wouldn't this be cool" and "then I could do this" and have essentially spent months working to end up in largely the same place you would have been anyway. In fairness, I think you realised this to – that you were almost creating a "university simulator" as opposed to the char gen for this game. The problem, for you, is that the next step is a huge one. I'm not certain about work processes, but you really need to rip the bandaid off and get started on that, otherwise it's just going to look bigger and harder to do every day.
bathoz
2018-11-21 08:40:16 +0000 UTCI also follow Discord and even though I'm not part of the team I got a lot of ideas that I was able to bring in and that were discussed with the team (I sent about 200,000 words of text with suggestions - without the following discussions), some insight into how big the game will be and what we can expect for surprises and tasks. Of course, I would much prefer to play a new version yesterday and finally go to Bangkok for housing, but believe me, the next version will be great and the amount of changes to the current version will blow you away - without that FA has removed from its roots.
Falloutbabe
2018-11-21 06:47:16 +0000 UTCNot going to lie. The slow progress is frustrating and sometimes I laugh to myself that this will be a really great game in 2 years. But the thing that keeps me patient and contributing is that you've already made one of the best XXX games out there. All you need to do is flesh it out. So far, the writing is excellent and I love the agency we get as a player...it feels like we can make choices and our agent can be strong and capable. Almost ironic for a chicksploitation game, but it's a nice change of pace from all the other games out there where we are just basically watching the protagonist get exploited and molested with no agency on her end.
Kurt Wagner
2018-11-21 05:51:41 +0000 UTCI don't feel like there's anything for you to be sorry about. You put your nose to the grindstone and kept us in the loop. And every now and then you realized you'd gone about things wrong and told us about it even as you corrected things. Seems like a good deal to me. I was worried that you might make things overcomplicated so that you'd burn out but it seems like you're keeping things in balance and seeing a good foundation. The character setup sounds like it will be a blast
bsnick
2018-11-21 01:08:50 +0000 UTCI just want to say I genuinely appreciate how transparent you have been throughout the development process. I'd rather support someone like you, who gives regular updates about the progress they're making, than someone who drops off the face of the earth.
Eamon B
2018-11-20 22:25:09 +0000 UTCHow large is the dev team currently?
Lara
2018-11-20 22:10:57 +0000 UTC
