Progress Report - June 24, 2024 [Question At Bottom Of Post]

Hello, everyone.

I hope you all have had a better week than I. Cuz mine's been rough.

As you probably already deduced, this week's poster isn't of Pharmmetra. And that's because the project is in a bad state.

Last week, I noted how I had 6.5 minutes of storyboard done, with 7 ideas I wanted to implement, and 3.5 minutes to implement them in. I noted how it'd be a challenge to include them all, and I'd probably only be able to go with 4 or 5 of those ideas.

In the days since, I was able to implement ONE of those ideas. ONE. And it ended up taking up the entire 3.5-minute section. The storyboard, with that one idea implemented, is at 10:03 right now. AKA, exactly against the 10-minute mark. And I haven't even gotten around to implementing the full ending yet.

You can CLICK HERE to view the 10-minute Pharmmetra storyboard, as it stands now.

In the days after getting the storyboard to that spend, I proceeded to spend a few days trying to cut the storyboard down. And I absolutely agonized over it. I tried and I tried and I tried, but I just couldn't bring myself to cut anything out - I personally feel like every shot is either load-bearing or has important characterization. Cut out a load-bearing shot, and the story just felt rushed and jumbled. Cut out a characterization shot, and it felt cold and impersonal, which isn't the vibe that I want at all - the idea is that picking up and knocking up ladies is just a casual activity that Pharah and Symmetra partake in, a casual date-night sort of thing. So them being personable and expressive is really important to that idea.

Like, I cannot stress this enough: trying to cut the project caused me genuine anguish. If you've been around for a while, you know that I have bouts where I tend to spiral into a deep depression and fall into a really dark place. Usually that spiral sneaks up on me, but trying to cut this storyboard down, I could physically feel myself spiraling. I actually had to straight just disconnect from the Internet for a bit, because I was afraid I was going to do something I regretted. I don't know how many times I wrote a "I give up" Tweet, posted it, and then deleted it a few seconds later.

After three days of being caught in this death spiral, and after a genuine panic attack over genuinely not knowing how to save the project, I decided to take a step back and put together an emergency backup project. The idea is that I will try one more time to fix the Pharmmetra storyboard - and if I can't, then I have a project that I can fall back on, as a safety net.

This backup project is intentionally extremely low-narrative, with very little characterization, very little storytelling, and a very simple theme. Because of the low-narrative nature, none of the previous contender ideas fit (all being fairly high-narrative, even the lower-narrative ones). And so I ended up spontaneously come up with an entirely new idea for it.

The emergency project I came up with is what you see in this week's Progress Report poster: Moxxi whoring herself out for some quick tips. Short, sweet, and to the point.

I shared an early prototype of it on Twitter, and the reception was pretty warm. I've since hammered out more of the storyboard, between yesterday and today, and got it just about finished.

You can CLICK HERE to view the 8-minute Moxxi storyboard, as it stands now. Do be aware it has music, so adjust your volume accordingly.

The public reception is encouraging, but its really you guys and gals, my Patreon, whose opinion I'm most concerned about. And so, I'll just ask you all point blank:

Would you be disappointed if I ended up shelving the Pharmmetra project to do this Moxxi project instead?

And then relatedly, would you rather I try to fix Pharmmetra, or would you genuinely prefer the Moxxi project?