NextWorldGames

Arai Alt. Version Set Sneak Peek

I'm happy to share with you all the alt. version set for Arai!

The set was created by the ever talented Lobolualua and will go live his Friday!

Mofuji Alt. Version Set Sneak Peek

I'm happy to share with you all the alt. version set for Mofuji!

The set was created by the ever talented TaiOni, and will go live this Friday!

Anxious Girl in Cute Frog Costume Sneak Peek

I'm happy to share with you all the game's next avatar, who won the avatar drive with the theme "Anxious Girl in Cute Frog Costume": Kaori

She was designed by the ever talented Wenbeez, and will go live this Friday!

March Economic Update

Never got around to posting the economic update for February, as I had to take a week of sick. So here comes a combined update for both February and March.

As for the monthly results, the game ended up with around 2k USD in the positive for January and 1k USD in the positive for February.

So after fighting all of last year to be in the positive, starting 2025 out in the positive is a great development, and a huge stress factor off my back.
The game is still roughly making around the same as it did last year, but now that I'm back solo, the saving from one less salary (even if it was only part-time), greatly reduces the expenses so helps make the game break even.

Now that the game is making money again, my first goal is to rebuild the game's monetary buffer so it's more safe against swings in the economic situation. Hopefully I'll be able to get it back up to around 15,000 USD where it was a couple of years ago, before it was completely decimated the last couple of years.
Once the buffer is back up, I'll look at bringing in more help with the game. Probably won't be an employment again before the monthly profits are higher and can support it. But I have been wanting to get a UI/UX expert to help with both the design for a mobile version and an overhaul of the game UI as well, so I will probably be looking in that direction once the buffer is back.

That's all for this time, happy to finally be able to share green numbers with you all again!

Adventure Ignis Alt. Version Sneak Peek

I'm happy to share with you all the alt. version set for Adventure Ignis!

The set was created by the ever talented Lobolualua, and will go live this Friday!

Catgirl Noel Alt. Version Sneak Peek

I'm happy to share with you all the alt. version set for Catgirl Noel!

The server was created by the ever talented TaiOni and will go live this Friday!

Valentine Alt. Versions Sneak Peek!

I'm happy to share with you all a couple of entirely new valentines seasonal alt. versions featuring Noel and Emiri!
These alt. versions features them in their original designs, but with updated poses showing them preparing to hand over chocolate to their special someone!

The Noel version was created by Lobolualua, while the Emiri one is by TaiOni, they have both done an amazing job, and both versions will go live this Friday!

Elika Alt. Version Set Sneak Peek

I'm happy to finally share with you all the alt. version set for Elika!

The set was created by the ever talented Lobolualua, and will go live this Friday!

December Economic

Ended up being a bit more work than I expected, but finally got all the numbers updated for December, so can share that December ended up around 2K USD in the positive. Which is a strong result for the month, which I'm quite happy with.
Sadly, it does mean that 2024 ends up roughly 2.5K USD, so I sadly wasn't able to break even for the year. But was a rather hard and challenging year, so only being down 2.5K USD is something I can live with.

Going forward into 2025, the economic situation is looking to be a lot more stable, as Sheepy have stopped, which is a big reduction in the monthly expenses.
Don't have the final numbers yet, but January looks to already in the positive, which is a great start to the year.
Economic wise, for the new year, I don't plan on taking on any new major expenses and instead focus on building up the game's economic buffer, which have ended up pretty low after the last two years negative results.

Once the buffer is looking good again, and the economic situation is still going strong, I do hope to expand the development team again, but I'll be aiming for a stronger situation than last time.
I also hope to hire an UX/UI designer to help improve the game UI, and do the design for a mobile version of the game.

Thanks to all of you for supporting the game through 2024, looking forward to sharing another year of AMQ with all of you, which should hopefully be less chaotic.

With all this economic work done, I'll be retuning to the development. Sadly haven't had much dev time in January due to it, and some sickness, but I hope to start shooting out several patches during Feburary, along with a new AMQ Awards event!

Lunar New Year Sneak Peek

I'm happy to share with you this year's Lunar New Year alt. versions for the year of the snake! Which this year features Kuriko and Akane!

The Kuriko ones are by Lobolualua, the Akane one by TaiOni and the background is by Wenbeez, they have all done an amazing job!

All Lunar New Year content, including past years, will go live this Friday!

January Development Update

Hi everyone, hope you all had a good start to the new year! It's time for the first development update of the year!

December ended up rather hectic, as beside fixing up newly realized Community Quizzes, I wanted to get the Quiz of the Day content ready before I headed off for some Christmas vacation, which I sadly didn't manage.

But now we're into 2025, it has been a bit of a slow start to the new year, as I always take the first week of January off, and was then hit by a bit of sickness. But I'm back in action, and have been finishing up the last work left on the new themed quizzes, which should start in the coming weeks.
Next week I'll also be finishing up the bookkeeping for 2024, so expect the economic update should drop shortly after. But from a quick look, December looks decent, but we'll sadly probably still end the year in a small negative. But as I'm back to solo developing, the economic situation of 2025 should be a lot stronger.

As for what else I have planned going forward, I'll probably be spending the next time focusing on a lot of smaller fixes and upgrades (especially to the community quiz system). Got a large backlog of bug reports and feature requests I want to get through.
There's also the AMQ Awards coming up in February, so look forward to that!
Finally, I do hope to pick up Sheeps work on the Nexus mode as well, so first finish up multiplayer saving for Nexus, then start releasing more avatars in it.

That's it for this update.
Thanks for supporting the game, and can't wait to share with you all where it'll go this year!

School Girl Lilith Sneak Peek

I'm happy to share with you all the Sneak Peek for the new Avatar Drive skin: School Girl Lilith!

The skin was created by the ever talented Wenbeez, and will go live this Friday!

Winter Skin Sneak Peek

I'm happy to share with all of you the next set of winter skins, this year being for Hibiki and Hikari!

The Hibiki skin was created by TaiOni and the Hikari by Lobolualua, they have both done an amazing job with them!

Both sets will go live this Friday, together with past years winter skins. As a new thing, the Christmas skins will remain available until Monday next week, making this weekend having both Christmas and Winter skins available at the same time.

Christmas Teaser

I'm happy to share with you all a small teaser for the next animated skin to hit the game!
Still getting the last couple of details with the animation sorted, so expect the full reveal later this week.

New Christmas Illustration

I'm happy to share with you all a whole new Christmas Illustration to ring in the Christmas season!

The illustration was done by the ever talented Wenbeez, who have done an amazing job with it!

November Economic Update

Finally got the numbers for November together, and the good news is that November ended in the positive, but the bad news is that it only just broke positive by around $20, which still leave the overall year around $3500 in the red.
My overall goal for the year is still to break even, through that's going to be pretty hard to achieve with only December left of 2024.

One big change for next year, is that Sheepy will stop working on the game. This isn't solely because of the economic situation, but when Sheepy joined last year, the goal was to increase his hours as the game grew, so he could go from part-time to full-time. But that sadly didn't work out, and it instead turned into a challenge to keep funding his salary. Doing this time, Sheepy also started burning out on development work. So because of this, we decided to end his employment from the new year.
So what does this mean for the game going forward? I'll still be working full-time, but will mean some slowdown in the development of Nexus, the plan was to have Sheepy focus on this, but with him gone I'll have to fit in the development in my schedule (I won't stop development of the Nexus mode, but I'll most likely have to pause some of the major features planned for it).
The only good part of this, is that it'll greatly improve the game's economic situation, as without Sheepy's salary that game should definitely break even if we can keep up the current levels of income. I do hope to expand the team again down the line, but will most likely wait until the economic situation is more solid for it, until then I'll continue investing the money back into the game. There's still so much more I want to do with it, and I plan on continuing to work on it, until it's the best it can get!

Christmas Alt. Version Sneak Peek

I'm happy to share with you all this years Christmas alt. versions, which are going to be for: Miyu and Mao!

The Miyu versions were created by TaiOni, and the Mao versions are by Lobolualua, they have both done an amazing job with them!

Both sets, together with past years Christmas alt. versions, will go live this Friday!

December Development Update and 2025 Ranked Changes

HI everyone! Wrote back in the October update that I wanted to try posting monthly dev updates. I ended up skipping the one for November, as I was extremely busy getting the community quiz mode ready for launch, and already did several posts about it.
I also want to share some changes I'm planning for ranked next year, that I've been working on together with the ranked mod team, and would love to hear what you think of! If you're only interested in these, feel free to scroll down. I'll mark it when I start talking about the ranked changes.

So since the last update, I've spent most of my time on getting the Community Quiz system ready for the full release doing the anniversary event, which meant it needed to be ready mid-November to leave room for the Patreon early access. Which overall left me around 1.5 months to develop all of it, a pretty tight deadline as I would normally estimate the development time of such a feature to be 2–3 months.
But after several weeks with long nights at the office, it was great to release it to all of you, which what overall have been a pretty solid launch I'm quite happy with. There were some bugs, and still are several upgrades I hope to make to the system, but I was happy with the state I was able to release it in.
Last week went with fixing the different bugs that popped up in the system, and I plan on spending this one on some of the feature upgrades to the community quiz you all requested in the Discord, so expect a feature update too it later this week! Through, I won't be able to fit everything into this one, so more will be added down the line, as next week will focus on getting the changes to ranked ready for the new year before I head off for a Christmas development break.
That's it for the update, below are the ranked changes I've been discussing with the mod team.

Ranked Changes
I've worked with the mod team (and props to them, it was their idea) to reimagine how the ranked mega lobby works, to make them more of a fun daily event with more variety in them.
The idea is to change them to a daily themed game, which functions like the current ranked matches with a mega lobby hosted at set times for each region. But instead of using the current random song selection, each day will feature a themed quiz using the Community Quiz system. These quizzes will focus more on the fun of the mega lobby than the competitive aspect (got some other plans for this, I'll outline it towards the end).
The mod team will craft or select Community Quizzes that fits with the daily themes, which will then be played across all regions for the day. The plan is also to make it possible to nominate your own Community Quizzes for this, so the mod doesn't have to create all of them.
The plan is also to make it so you can play the quizzes either solo or as a team, which the option to hide teams from the scoreboard if you want to compete against other solo players.

Finally, what about the competitive side of things? The new mode isn't designed to be super competitive, so I hope to roll out a new competitive ranked mode doing the first months of 2025. This hasn't been fully designed yet, but one idea I'm playing around with is a ranked queue, where you can match up against other equally rated players 1v1 or 2v2, if not enough players are in the queue you'll be able to play against "ghosts" of other players, which uses the players answers stats.
This is still early in the design phase, so nothing is decided for it yet, but the plan is to create a new competitive mode that'll be available all day.

That's it for the changes to ranked, let me know what you think about it, and if you have any questions/inputs to it, but them below!

Queen Ritsu Sneak Peek

I'm happy to share with you all the next skin for Ritsu, which won the 66th Avatar Drive: Queen Ritsu!

The skin was created by the ever talented Wenbeez, and will go live this Friday!

Community Quiz Ready to Launch!

Currently finishing up the last couple of details for the new community quiz system, so it'll go live later today!
So before that I wanted to give you all a breakdown of how it works, and the launch will function.
But first off a huge shoutout to the mod team, who have helped test the system over the weekend, you've been a huge help in finding bugs and improvements!

Community Quizzes are split in two parts, one being the builder allowing you to build and share quizzes, the other being the quiz browser allowing you to play those quizzes. The quiz browser will be available for everyone to use when the update goes live today, the quiz builder will launch in early access for level 3+ Patreon, before launching for everyone on Friday the 29th of November.

To start out with the quiz browser, it's a new window where you can browse quizzes published by anyone, shared by your friends or made by yourself. These quizzes dictate what show/songs are played as well as the guessing time, specific sample points, playback speed etc., allowing the creators to fully design their own quiz experiences! All the quizzes will be playable as both regular quizzes, multiple choice and teams!
For the published quizzes, you'll also be able to earn medals based on your performance starting at bronze 40% guess rate and ending at diamond for a 100% (for multiple choice, these are changed to 80% for bronze and 100% for silver).
To help sort out in all the quizzes available, the browser contains several filters, such as difficulty, song types and release time.
This won't be included in the initial launch, but I'll also be adding high score boards to the quizzes, allowing you to see your own and your friends result on each quiz.

Next up, there's the quiz builder allowing you to build, share and publish the quizzes playable in the quiz browser.
Already did a Sneak Peek of the builder, explaining how the building works, so check it out for the details on how it works: https://www.patreon.com/posts/custom-quiz-mode-114840480
First of, to create quizzes, you'll need to unlock a quiz slot for it. All players get one for free at level 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 (so a total of 5), and additional slots can be brought for 25,000 notes. It'll also be possible to purchase unlimited slots for a one time $5 payment, and level 3+ Patreons will also have unlimited slots for as long as they're a level 3+ backer.
Quizzes can be freely edited and deleted until they're published (made available for everyone), then they are locked and can no longer be edited or deleted. After publishing a quiz, it'll lock the quiz slot for 14 days, after which players will receive a new free quiz slot to make up for the one used by the published quiz.
Beside publishing quizzes, you'll also be able to set them as shared, making them available to everyone on your friend list, while still being able to edit or delete them.
Both shared quizzes, and unshared ones, will playable in both single and multiplayer.

That's it for the new system, I'm happy to finally get it out to you all, and can't wait to see what quizzes you all make!

Quiz Creator Update

Wanted to drop you all a quick update on the new Quiz Creator I'm working on.

First of all, it'll have its own window where you can search and look up quizzes created by others and friends. As part of this, I plan on making it possible to set up to two descriptive tags on your quizzes, that can be used by players to filter for specific types of quizzes.
The current tags I got are the ones listed in the screenshot, but if you have any suggestions for additional tags, let me know below!

Next up, as for the release date of the new system, I'm still hard at work finishing everything up for it, but I hope to release the early access for level 3+ Patreons on Wednesday next week. Going to be a couple of late nights to get everything ready for then, but unless something unexpected pops up I should be able to make it.
The early access will mean only level 3+ Patreons will have access to create and publish quizzes, but everyone will be able to play the published quizzes.

Finally, to avoid people spam publishing quizzes, I'm planning on adding some restrictions to it, such as a minimum level and a limited amount of publish within a timeframe. I haven't decided on the final numbers yet, but I'm thinking either level 10 or 20 to get one publish each week, with a new Patreon perks for level 3+ Patreons allowing them to publish 5 quizzes each day no matter the level.
It'll still be possible to share quizzes between friends without publishing them first, they just won't be discoverable or playable by players not on your friend list.

That's all for this time, looking forward to sharing the Quiz Creator with you all soon!
Oh, and if you have any questions about it, post them below and I'll do my bes tto answer them =)

----Edit-----
I've also been thinking of another way to monetize the Quiz Creator, by making it a feature unlocked by either buying it with Notes, supporting the Patreon or paying for it. (Everyone will always have access to play the quizzes, this is only about creating them)
The idea going something like: To unlock the Quiz Creator you have to pay 100,000 Notes, and to publish quizzes you'll have to pay 20,000 Notes to publish a quiz (you'll still be able to play and share quizzes with friends without being this).
Instead of paying Notes, you can also permanently unlock the Quiz Creator and avoid the fee for publishing quizzes for 5 USD or while being a level 3+ Patreons.

There would still be some limitation (but the same) as to how many quizzes players can publish per day, to avoid people being able to spam them, but I overall think this system is simpler while also helping to fund the game.

Let me know what you think of it =)

----Edit 2----
Worked a bit more on how the Quiz Creator could be unlocked. Based on some feedback I felt the other idea I had with the 100,000 Notes to unlock was to steep especially for newer and more casual players, especially if they also have avatars they want to unlock.

Players gain a quiz slot at level 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25, for a total of 5 slots.
When creating a new quiz players need an empty quiz slot.
Players can buy additional quiz slots for 25,000 notes.
It's possible to get unlimited quiz slots by paying 5 USD (one time) or while players are a level 3+ Patreon backer.
Quizzes can freely be edited, deleted and shared with friends as long as they're not published (made available for everyone).
Once a quiz is published (which can be done for free), it'll no longer be possible to edit or delete it, but after 14 days players will get a new quiz slot to make up for the one taken by the published quiz.

Girl in Wedding Dress Sneak Peek

I'm happy to share with all of you the game's next avatar: Yua!

She won the avatar drive under the theme "Girl in Wedding Dress", and thanks to the amazing work of Wenbeez, she's now ready to make her appearance in-game!

Yua will go live this Friday!

October Economic Update

Just got the numbers in for October, so here's the economic update for the month.

Tl;dr: The game is down 4000 USD this year, which isn't critical just yet, but something that needs to be reversed so we can at least break even this year, and avoid having to scale back on development. So any support is greatly appreciated!

As I'll be sharing this outside of Patreon, a quick introduction for those of you who haven't seen them before. Since this Spring, I've been posting the economic results for each month here on Patreon. AMQ is entirely self founded, meaning I only got the money earned by the game to spent on developing and running the game (server costs, artist commissions and salary for me and Sheepy). As Next World Games is a company, running out of money a month isn't an option, as that would mean bankruptcy. To avoid this, I aim towards having a decent amount of money in the bank (around 15k USD), which can then dip during months with bad sales, and recover doing months with good sales. But this does all require the game overall turns a profit or break evens, otherwise it would slowly bleed money. Which leads into the update for October.

So the overall result for October was 1500 USD in the red, which combined with the bad September months puts the game at around 4000 USD in the red for the year. This isn't at the critical state yet, but I was hoping October would turn a profit, and we really need to turn this around to avoid ending back up in the same situation as April (where the game was down 7000 USD).
So if you're able to support the game (backing the Patreon, buying tickets or donating to the Avatar Drive) it would be a huge help! If just 5% of AMQ players spent $5 a month, the game would easily break even, so any support is greatly appreciated!

To end on a positive note, my overall goal for this year is to end up breaking at least even, which I think is very doable. October actually had rather good sales, but ended up in the negative due to a sale tax payment to EU (this happens every 3 month) and a yearly bookkeeping bill, next month I'll also be receiving a tax refund (happens every 3 month as well), which should help improve the situation. That, combined with the amazing support I see from all of you, I believe should be able to push us back in the green before the end of the year! And for 2025 we'll hopefully stay in the green all year, allowing me to invest more into the game, really want to increase Sheepy hours (he's only part-time atm) so help speed up the development, as well as bring in a UI/UX designer to help overhaul the entire games UI.

So thanks for reading this entire block of text, and supporting the game!

Christmas Alt. Version Vote 2

With December only a month away, work on the new Christmas alt. versions will start soon. So, like with the Halloween skins, I want to put the avatar choices up for a vote!

This time, I've narrowed down the options a bit more, so each poll will have 3 avatars, and the winner of each poll will receive this year's Christmas alt. versions!

Decided to narrow the options a bit further down compared to Halloween, as these were the 6 avatars I was considering for this year's Christmas alt. versions.

For the second vote, see here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/115183880

Christmas Alt. Version Vote 1

With December only a month away, work on the new Christmas alt. versions will start soon. So, like with the Halloween skins, I want to put the avatar choices up for a vote!

This time, I've narrowed down the options a bit more, so each poll will have 3 avatars, and the winner of each poll will receive this year's Christmas alt. versions!

Decided to narrow the options a bit further down compared to Halloween, as these were the 6 avatars I was considering for this year's Christmas alt. versions.

For the second vote, see here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/115184468

Neoko Alt. Version Sneak Peek

I'm happy to share with you all the alt. version set for Neoko!

The set was created by the ever talented Lobolualua and will go live this Friday!

Custom Quiz Mode Sneak Peek

Hi, wanted to drop you all a quick preview of the Custom Quiz Mode, I've been working on for the last couple of weeks.
This new mode will feature a new quiz builder (shown in the video), that will allow everyone to design their own quizzes, down to individual anime/song picks and sample points! I'll go into a bit more details about how it works down below.
Beside just the builder, the update will include a browser, where you can look up quizzes created by your friends and published by others players, which can then be played in both multiplayer and single player game's!

But on to the meat of this sneak peek, the quiz builder!
Every quiz will consist of one or more rule blocks, these serve as the main blocks of the quiz. You'll be able to set the amount of songs picked from each rule block, and if they should be picked in random or sequential order. So if you want to create themed sections (for example an easy, medium and hard section), you can set up a rule block for each. The blocks are able to contain more than songs than there are picked from them, so it's possible to introduce randomness in what songs are picked for the quiz.

Once you have your rule block, you can add songs to them in 3 different ways: Song Blocks, Anime Blocks and Algorithm Blocks.
Song Blocks: The most basic blocks, representing a single song in the database.
Anime Blocks: Will pick a random song from the selected anime, you can toggle op, ed and inserts on/off for it.
Algorithm Blocks: Set up the game's algorithm to pick the songs, using the normal quiz settings.

All 3 types of blocks can be used and mixed, to hopefully create any quiz you would want.
Finally for the blocks, the rule block defines the base quiz rules (sample point, guess time, playback speed) for all blocks in it, but it can also be overridden on the individual blocks, so you'll be able to select the exact sample you want for each song. To make the easier, there's a live preview you can open the song, where you can edit both the sample point and guess time while viewing the video.

This is pretty much it for the Quiz Creator page, through one feature that probably won't make it in at launch, but I hope to add in not too far down the line, is an option to add all matched song in the library filter at ones (probably in their own block type).

Hope you enjoyed this Sneak Peek, any thoughts, feedback and inputs on it are more than welcome! I've had a huge focus on making it easy and fun to use, with the dragging (you can also double-click anime/songs to quickly add them) and the vide preview, so if there's something you think can be improved even further I definitely want to know!

As for when it'll be ready, I really want to get it out doing November (hopefully in a couple of weeks), so expect to see it in-game soon! I'm also planning a Patreon (probably level 4+) early access for it, but I'll share more details as we get closer to the release =)

That's all for now, been looking forward to sharing this with you all, so hope you like it!

Animated Halloween Skin Sneak Peek

I'm happy to share with you the game's next animated skin, which this time is going to be for the Spider Eksu Halloween alt. version!

(As always, Patreon opsizes the video, so see the attachment for better quality)

The animation is by DucVu FX, who have done an amazing job bringing the game's resident slime girl to live!

The animated skin will go live this Friday!

New Character Illustration!

I'm happy to share with you all an all new full size character illustration! This time featuring Miyu as she's about to unleash one of her powerful attacks!
The amazing art was created by Wenbeez.

This is the second character illustration for the game, that I really hope to have more of created for the game, as they help really bring the characters to life! With the second one done, I'm also planning on starting to use them as login screens for the game, instead of the current Nexus image, so expect to see them there soon!

As a new thing, I've also put together poster prints in the merch store for both the new Miyu illustration and the Komugi one released back in January! I'll be releasing them fully next months, but you Patreons can already find them on the secret store pages listed below:
Miyu: https://merch.animemusicquiz.com/Miyu-Character-Poster-p703922466
Komugi: https://merch.animemusicquiz.com/Komugi-Character-Poster-p703922445
As a bonus heads-up, I'm planning on increasing (probably not by much) the price of t-shirts in the merch store, as the price for having them made have gone up since I originally released them, but wanted to give you all a chance to get them for the old price first.

Halloween Alt. Versions Sneak Peek!

I'm happy to share with you all this year new Halloween alt. versions, this time for Noel and Lilith!
A new unique Halloween themed background is also here!

The Noel set was created by TaiOni , the Lilith one by Lobolualua and the background is by Wenbeez, they have all done an amazing job with them!

They'll all go live together with past year's Halloween versions this Friday!