Problems

Hello everyone,

This time, I'm afraid this post is not meant to show you new stuff about the game but to explain a few problems that you need to know.

First of all, health problems. If you've followed me for a long time, you know I don't tend to fall sick often but when I do, I do. Well it happens that last week I made a renal colic. It's when a kidney stone block the ureter. It's a pretty famous problem for being in the top 10 of the most painful thing in life. And I can confirm it. I got hospitalized in urgency and the pain kept getting worse and worse to the point where I almost collapsed ^^' Thankfully, they gave me a perfusion to ease the pain and after spendig a whole day at the hospital I got a treatment to evacuate the stones (by enlarging the ureter). Thankfully it wasn't big enough to force surgery.

Anyway, the meds I've been given worked, but the painkiller also had a strong side effect: making me sleepy (it's the kind of stuff you can't take if you plan to drive: it's forbidden). So this week was definitely not productive on my side, as I tried to recover. I went to see a specialist today (because I was asked to) and basically I have a second stone in my kidney. For now, it's not a problem, but I'll have to check it regularly because if he blocks the ureter as well, I'm good for another hospitalization x)

So yes, you can expect a few more days of delay.

Second problem, SubscribeStar. For some reason, some of you are unable to see any of my posts on SubscribeStar. That's why this post is made visible by everyone on Fanbox. These last weeks have been a bit strange on SS side for me. My banner and avatar disappeared, I tried to reupload my avatar but it disappeared again. One of my patrons got denied the possibility to pledge to me, but I'm not completely shadowed. I can still write posts (for those who can read them), I can still transfer funds etc... I've contacted them, they haven't answered me yet, so it's a bit of a wait and see situation. But try to prepare mentally at the possibility they ban me for whatever reason. It will maybe never happen, but it doesn't hurt to keep it in a corner of your mind.

And that leads me to the third point. I have to admit I'm getting tired of these problems. Patreon, Booth, Gumroad... Running from site to site to have the right to make video games, it's a pain in the ass. I miss the good old days when it was one site, and you only had to bother about your game. So here's the thing, I know it will be a big problem if that were to happen but I'll have no choice: If SS kicks me out for some reason, I'll move to Japanese sites exclusively. Probably Ci-En (DLsite's patroning site.) It would lead to two major consequences: the difficulty for patrons to support me (since Paypal, MasterCard and Visa are not usable on DLsite anymore) even if there are workarounds, and the fact that if I do that, my games will be released censored. Now don't totally fret, I'd probably upload patches on the Blue Axolotl site to get the uncensored CGs, but I wouldn't be able to provide them together with the game. And if that happens, I also wouldn't have the right to put a txt inside the file directing towards the BA site, so if you haven't done it, I strongly suggest you to bookmark it because it might become much more important for you in the future ^^' Of course, should such a thing happen, I'll write an open post on Fanbox to talk about it.

And finally, I'd like to mention the next release. I know some of you are getting tired of waiting and it's easy for me to see that. As usual, the number of patrons has decreased ever since the release of the v0.2. I'm not trying to justify anything. I know we're late. SoVR was supposed to be a "small game". Well it turns out it's the biggest team I've ever had. I've always had one background designer and one colorist working together. Here I have 2,5 colorists (because Aimless, the background designer, also helps with coloring.) Okay, Carlis just arrived but still. It's not easy to find a good balance between crunching and progressing steadily. There are also personal matters that will maybe be discussed one day that can help explaining why we're a bit slower.

But in all honesty, for THAT specific update, you can blame me. I'm definitely the reason things are taking longer than intended. It's my fault because I asked for a base pic that has a myriad of variations. Now that it's over, it looks awesome, but hell, it took ages to do and that's completely my fault. I know it's not even the best idea since you'll end up with a lot of scenes having the same base image, but there's always that little voice inside me that reminds me of the biggest base image in SoV2 (Reiko with Yuki & Ayame in futa mode) that led to 12 different scenes that were all nice. There are many things I asked that caused that delay (the sub menus are taking way longer than for the base story. The status screen was just a couple of variables and quest lines, the status screen for the post game content is much bigger and even contains interactive stuff, so it's MUCH longer to do. There's also the skill tree that took long) so even if it's not totally right to say that, it's a bit as if we're starting the game from scratch again.

The building of H scenes also takes easily twice longer. Not only with my writing (because before it was just dialogues, now it's dialogues + narration), but also in their creation. The fact I have to pay attention to layer priority with the accessories and all creates situation where I easily take much longer to create a single scene than before. The result is awesome, though. But it's longer.

Tl dr: Yes, we're taking longer than usual but there are reasons.

That's all I wanted to say. Don't worry, I won't wait a full week to release the next post. Bear with me a bit longer, please. Thank you.