Wednesday Notice | What's Next?

Hello everybody, version 0.4 is released and with it, the first chapter of Covenant of Morn finally came to a conclusion. Now I feel like the game itself and I as a developer reached a big milestone. Enough reason for me to take a look back, at what went right and what went wrong, as well as what that means for the future. This update is pretty personal, more than my usual stuff. But I felt like it was important to talk about it, be transparent.

THE MISTAKES:

The planning for Covenant of Morn began as early as 2021. Back then it started out as a tabletop roleplay game that I made for myself and friends. I ended up liking it so much, that I decided to make it into my next NSFW game. Very much to the chagrin of a good friend of mine that has always been my go to guy for feedback on ideas. He preferred another idea of mine, that I'm not sharing here as it might still become reality in the future. The funny thing is, even though I went against him, he was probably right. The other idea would have been much more popular.

That was my first big mistake. I didn't understand my own community. Or saying I wasn't understanding them is a misreprensentation of what happened, I misjudged them. When I made CoM I knew that some of my choices would be unpopular. But I was convinced, as long as I keep the quality to the highest possible standard, people would look past it and enjoy the game as I wanted to make it.

That assumption was wrong. Till today I get regular 1-star-reviews saying they can't play the game as long as the main character has purple skin. I went from a full on harem power fantasy with fast paced action and constant tension to a slow burn urban fantasy, mystery plot. This and other choices, very much alienated a lot of my old community and drove down engagement very hard.

From version 0.1 of CoM till today I've lost roughly 30% of my income. People have lost interest in my work to the point that it sometimes isn't even pirated anymore. Which is both kinda great and also kinda bad for me : D Long story short. Covenant of Morn is a financial grave. It's not doing well and even now, where so much work and polish has gone into it and things are really coming together, people don't care much about it.

THE LEARNINGS:

But dropping the game isn't really an option for me, not when I look at the other side. At what I learned from it. When I began making Covenant of Morn I was fucking unhappy. I was living in a flat-share with a roommate I didn't like, I had alotted about 99% of my being to being a Dev and did nothing else, while I didn't even like the work I was doing. Yes, I did nothing but work and I didn't like my work. I know that everyone enjoyed MIST and I'm very grateful for it, but working on that project made me miserable.

It made me feel small. I sometimes have these two voices in my head. One is a tiny little nerd guy that develops porn games from his dingy bedroom. The other is a selfmade artist and solo developer that makes erotic games. Back when I made MIST, the porn guy won very often. Almost every day I felt litte and kinda pervy. Like I couldn't proudly look people in the eyes and tell them what I do for a living, even though I should be fucking proud of what I'm doing. Today, the porn guy is almost gone.

The selfmade artist, the solo developer, is now my voice. When people ask me what I do for a living I grin at them and tell them everything they want to know. Now only 50% of me is a developer. The rest is enjoying his life. And in return, I'm also learning about making games.

I have improved as a developer. The graphics look much, much better than ever before. The sound has improved, the UI has improved, the animation has improved, even the code isn't as messy as it used to be, granted, it is still messy. The dungeons are more complex, the characters more diverse and above all, my writing is improving by leaps and bounds. CoM forces me to tackle so many difficult problems, that I'm learning things every single day. As a writer, I made the biggest jump. I can feel it. When I go to the drawing board and plan out future scenes and mysteries, I can tell how much things have changed. How much clearer and more focused I am, how much easier it is for me to grasp all the important threads and weave them together into a story. Where I was struggling and fighting before, I now feel calm and controlled. The only problem is, even with all these learnings, what does that mean for the future? What does that mean for Covenant of Morn?

THE CONCLUSIONS:

As I said, I'm not dropping Covenant of Morn. I never even considered it. Financially, this game is lost and I don't see that changing. But I don't really mind. No matter how much I earned, I never really raised my standard of living. I have a nice apartment now, but it's actually cheaper than the room in the flat-share. I built most of my furniture on my own and buy second hand wherever I can. I'd have to lose about 70% of my income before it becomes an issue. Losing money is annoying and scary at times, but this game is giving me back so much more than MIST ever did. As an artist and as a person, I've been learning a ton and have been doing better than ever before.

But for CoM that will also mean some changes. My editor (StrayHero) and I have been cooking up a few changes to the game that'll mix things up. I'm pretty certain you'll like what we're preparing for the next two chapters. I'm also setting myself a deadline for how long I want to keep developing CoM and will make changes to the planning accordingly, as I'm realizing that with the current pace the game will be in development for another 3-4 years and I'd rather have that be 2-3 years.

And I've also learned that I'm pretty proud of my work. I don't feel small and I don't feel like I need to prove myself anymore. With CoM I broke out of my mold and freed myself from making harem power fantasy games. With CoM I also realized that those games are fun and already know that for future projects I want to combine my two inner voices. In the future I want to make games that both the nerdy porn enjoyer and selfmade artist will enjoy. And I think when they end up joining forces, great things will happen. For the rest of developing CoM, I'll already try to get the two on the same page. It might take a while though.

I'm pretty excited about the future. No matter what happens next, I think I'll welcome it with open arms.

And for those who are wondering. Since the release of 0.4 I spent most of my time making some 3D Assets, building a new environment and first and foremost planning all the changes and plot for future versions. On saturday I'll be leaving on a vacation for a week. Afterwards development will be back in full swing! YOu'll hear from me again soon! Have a great week.