New Game Thoughts

Damsels is humming along, and I think you'll be pleased with the amount of content in the release on Monday. I still have a few renders to finish up and some testing to do.

I wanted to give you a little more information about where the poll results have been leading my brainstorming, and how I'm interpreting them, and I wanted to do that while it's still possible to change your votes.

So, as it stands now, looking at the polls:

Poll 1 shows a preference for Contemporary, with a preference within that for Paranormal. That's cool with me -- I haven't been offering options that I couldn't get enthused about. Most of the Paranormal games I've seen use the paranormal aspect as a way to influence the women (Harem Villa, Lab Rats, Corruption, The Gift) into doing things they wouldn't otherwise do. I'm not judging those games, but it's not what I want to do. I'm fine with the paranormal aspect perhaps making the Main Character a little more attractive, or giving him unique abilities that are in demand by the women he seduces. And I have a number of ideas bouncing in my head where the girls have paranormal abilities as well. Hmm... might make a poll of that, if I stay unfixed on a single idea.

Poll 2 shows a large variety of preferences, but leans pretty clearly toward longer games. Longer games take longer to finish, because they require more content and more renders to avoid the repetition and grind from being excessive.  When I first started making games, I made shorter ones largely because just making a game at all was a challenge and I wanted to make sure I'd be able to get to finish the project, but I know what I can do more now. It takes more versions for a longer game to start resembling a full game experience, rather than a prototype. I'm presuming the voting means that y'all are good with that. :)

Most of you also voted for a game with some kind of conclusion.

Poll 3 is the most clear poll of the bunch, even though it hasn't been active for that long. A little combat, but keep the focus on the erotic. Got it. I can do that, and am looking forward to it. Combat will happen only to the degree that it fits the theme and the plot -- it won't be a box I feel I have to tick.

A few other thoughts: Game 4 will be a Ren'py game. There will be a lot of full screen renders, and more renders per scene than you see in Damsels. I want to do deeper character development than I've done before, and the girls you are attempting to form relationships with will be individuals with their own personalities, not procedurally generated.  The choices you make with each girl, and which girl you choose to focus on, will affect the outcome.

I've got a number of different ideas, at various levels of "fleshed out" -- but if you have ideas you'd like to throw at me, this is the very best time for that. It's possible that one of your ideas will mesh beautifully with something I've already been thinking about, or send me off in a totally new direction.