Let's talk about goal/reward changes moving forward.

Hey guys!

I know I said I was going to get this post out within a week from the build drop, but I ended up getting swept up in the build cycle for Homecoming! I’m sorry!

I’ve been thinking about the goals and rewards we have on offer. I’m going to start with the rewards first since that’s easier for me to address. I first off want to apologize to our Junior and Senior patrons. I have fallen drastically behind on updating our Soundtrack folder and uploading behind the scenes content and there is no excuse for that. I promise I am going to do better with this moving forward so you’re getting value for your pledge.

For our sophomore patrons, I also want to apologize for not having much for my music WIPs. I’ve been struggling a lot with “musician’s block”, which has left me with nothing to share with you guys for a while. I do have snippets here and there, but it’s the classic case of feeling “it’s not good enough! It’s not good enough!” that seems to keep me in a rut. I’ll try my best to get more pieces out there for you guys to get more value for your pledge.

Lastly on the rewards, I’ve noticed we’ve had an increase in the number of new patrons joining at the freshman tier. Our Patron credits section in game has grown so large it’s honestly hard for me to manage at this point, hehe…

As the game is growing more and more in notoriety, there’s a change I’m going to make to our reward structure that will hopefully protect my sanity down the line. Starting in December, the “name in credits” reward will no longer be offered to patrons at the Freshman ($3) tier and will instead be an exclusive reward for Sophomore ($6) and up patrons. Patrons who pledge at the Freshman tier through the end of November will still receive the old reward, so don’t worry if you’re a new and are unsure if you qualify! Thank you for understanding why this change is necessary.

Now onto the goals. As you are all aware, we have achieved all the way up to the $1400 goal of Zach getting a route. As far as the route goals are concerned (Russell, Chris, Zach), they’re “locked in” and won’t be subject to change. The issue we’re running into right now, though, is the feasibility of some of the other goals. As Devilizer is the sole artist on the project, we came to the conclusion some of the goals expand the workload for him far beyond what is physically capable, such as the drawn backgrounds replacing the filtered photos we already use. We all want Santa Lucia to be complete within a reasonable time frame, and some goals just expand it beyond what I feel is acceptable. As such, I will be removing certain goals from our tracking list and consider alternative ones to put on offer.

I will also most likely be changing the tracking system from USD to number of patrons. It’s a bit petty, but I’ve seen enough discussion negatively comparing the way I offered character routes as stretch goals versus other VN creators that I feel this is something I need to do to demonstrate it’s not a money thing to me, it’s about gauging interest in continued development of the Santa Lucia project.

Thank you all again for your time and understanding with these changes. I hope this post finds you well.

~Dzahn