[Ep 1.17 “Girls’ Night Out”] Exact report
Hey guys! Sorry for the late report. I had a family thing at the weekend, and ended up taking both days off. I felt guilty and frustrated about not working – but actually I think getting a couple of days rest was helpful.
I got straight back to it yesterday and had an excellent writing day, sexing up a scene that in concept is hot but in execution isn’t exciting enough. The key is adding more build-up and characterisation.
Not all of the sex scenes in Bangkok are supposed to happen inside the club. (Many of the 🔥very hottest quests🔥 on the drawing board take the heroine out into different venues.)
Episode 1.17 happens entirely outside the club, which has raised new writing challenges for me. This time, our heroine isn’t actually required to do anything sexual with anybody, which makes the sex scenes tougher to sell.
Basically, I've to do a lot more work than usual on build-up and characterisation. Without that work, the sex scenes just feel gratuitous, and although gratuitous sex might sound like a good thing, at this point in the story it absolutely isn’t.
People have reminded me recently that perfect is the enemy of good. That’s generally very good advice, but this time I’m really not trying to get to “perfect”, just to “good” – i.e., as good as the previous episodes, which is not currently where it’s at. (It’s as good as the draft versions of the previous episodes, which weren’t good enough to release.)
“The only kind of writing is rewriting.” –HEMINGWAY
Rewriting has taken longer than expected, but I really can feel it all coming together in this final editing pass. Here’s where I am exactly:
I know this looks like there’s still a ton of work to do, but fixing the early scenes has a much bigger impact on where you end up than fixing the later scenes. Build up scene 2 was the fucking killer this time. Now it’s good enough, I’m advancing fast on the other scenes.
I expect to finish nude scene 3 today, and will report on progress at the end of the week. Hopefully breaking things down into this level of detail will give everybody a clearer picture of where we are and when the release is ready than my (famously bad) time estimates.
Okay, that’s it for this report, I’m going to get back to editing. Apologies again that this is taking so long, I’m working so hard on it and I just want it to be good. 😔 I’ll give you an update shortly.
Comments (11)
So, here we are one month over the estimated release date (general version) communicated on Aug 21... 1.16.1P was released on Sep 14, which means they estimated 1 month for the development - they didn't promise, true, but nobody would have believed them anyway at this point. This is a 100% increase in the cost of their product - if this was real money, not just a measly $1 or so, everyone would be outraged. These numbers don't even take into account all of this missing content was initially advertised/planned for 1.16...
I think these kinds of reports are better than setting expected release dates. Tell us what you're working on and what remains to be done for the next release. That gives us a general idea when to expect the next episode without the disappointment of missed deadlines. Those deadlines can still exist behind the scenes as I know that working to a deadline can actually help the creative process, but they don't need to be released to the backers
This conversation's taken a turn for the weird...we all want to give positive support/encouragement/constructive criticism, but we all have different ideas about what that means.
I think you should just take your time and not feel too guilty when something takes more time. Honestly, you are plenty transparent, in my view. You are a creator, not a contract worker. ^^
I agree with the others who say you should have been more transparent and on that note thank you for addressing the concerns regarding your releases. However I do appreciate the clarification that you weren't trying to make it perfect, just good, which is a huge difference. I don't think anyone understood previously that it was objectively unfinished content.
Next time, be more transparent. Nobody is rushing you or anything. But when you say stuff like "it's ready" only for then say oh nevermind I changed my mind and now I think it's not good enough and then months go by afterward. You can understand how disapointing that would feel, right? I understand what you do can take time, I'm not a good writer myself for example. But the transparency part is what I don't like.
Writing is a creative process. Sometimes you get more done by taking a break.
Releasing the flawed version may also cause people to stop supporting. If you're paying for a sexy game and the next release isn't sexy... Not trying to sway anyone either way, just saying there are legitimate reasons to NOT release early as well. Crush, if you do release, be sure to include very big, clear disclaimers saying that the latest scenes are still being reworked.
Always remember, this is a game. You can always rewrite anything in a future patch/release so don't worry about perfect first time. Hit your targets.
Yeah, releasing the flawed version means we can give you advice on how to improve!
Thanks for the detailed report :) Since "Needs work" is very subjective and unpredictable, it does look like a lot of work left... Do higher tier patrons get to preview any of this? Would it be possible to release what you have up until build up 4? From the naming it seems only sex scene 2 has considerable variation/branching, which means everybody (or every path) would be able to progress the same along the story...