Weekly Report Number 106.
Good afternoon everyone.
I need to make an announcement, so this post is for all members.
A month ago, we held a vote where it was decided that version 0.6 would drop in one go instead of being split into two releases. It’s a really big update, and I wanted to know if people were fine with waiting a bit longer than usual.
In the end, I’m gonna have to go back on that and ignore the vote results. Otherwise, everything’s gonna fall apart, and that’s not something you want... and definitely not something I want either.
Yeah, I admit it. It was a mistake, I have to eat my words. That vote should’ve never happened.
I was ready for a drop, because that’s just how Patreon works, people come and go all the time. But this current drop is way bigger than usual, and it hasn’t even been the usual three months since the last update. Look, these are the stats from this year, highlighting February 11th, when that vote ended, and yesterday:
The sharp decline is obvious. And if I follow what the vote decided, it’s gonna be way worse. The key here is having consistent updates. That way, people show up looking to download something. If there are no updates, there comes a point where people stop getting anything new, they forget about you, new people stop showing up, and we’re left with the same ones, leaving and leaving...
Funnily enough, out of the 25 people who voted to wait longer, 4 are already gone... kinda ironic, right? xD
So, waiting maybe another 2 or 3 months to fully finish version 0.6 is no longer an option. I’ve got almost everything for Safe Mode ready, and it’s actually a pretty good chunk of extra content.
Until a few days ago, I was thinking of leaving that as an "Alpha" and giving it only to some Patrons while carrying on like nothing happened, but I’m not a fan of killing myself.
In case anyone doesn’t know what Safe Mode is, the competition has two modes. Normal Mode, where most of the content actually is, with lots of decisions to make and where pretty much anything can happen. It’s driven by you and a bit of randomness.
And then there’s Safe Mode, where everything is planned out so none of the girls on MC’s team end up in trouble with other men, unless the story really needs it. There are barely any decisions to make.
So, this Alpha version I was planning to release in a couple of days is no longer gonna be an Alpha. It has to be a fully complete version, with everything that implies. So now it’ll be ready sometime next week because it needs a bit more work. An Alpha version is something incomplete. I wasn’t planning to add sound effects and music yet, for example. Now I have to, because it’ll be version 0.6a and everyone’s gonna see it at some point.
Right before I started writing this, I was checking if Mother’s new audio lines were properly integrated into the code, and while I was at it, I played through the update from start to finish, and there’s roughly an hour of new content. Of course, based on my reading speed and letting everything play out normally, the way I designed it.
Over 520 new images. About 8,300 words of new dialogue, even though there isn’t much talking during the competition itself, but once the men are done, there are plenty of revealing conversations.
31 new audio files for Mother’s lines and 25 for the Androids. 26 new animations, most of them tied to the new information interface, which is now fully functional, along with its system for score and status change notifications.
And so far, 4,160 lines of code. I say so far because I still need to integrate some Androids audio files, add music, sound effects, and fine tune some variables to get the in game notifications right in the right moment.
Once all the coding is finished, one last test and the update is ready.
This also means version 0.5.8 will be released for free that same day.
I can’t say exactly which day, because I don’t even know myself. But it’s guaranteed to be next week.
There are still things to do, like finding music and sound effects. It can’t just be random stuff, so I need to go through it carefully and then integrate the audio into the code. The searching process is actually the slowest part, believe it or not... I’m guessing no one wants to see everyone running around with a Tango playing in the background xD
Everything has to fit.
So the next time I show up, it’ll be to announce that 30 Days 0.6a is ready for download, and that 0.5.8 is available for the public as well. Keep in mind, I said next week, but if I manage to get everything sorted sooner than expected, it could be earlier. You never know until you know.
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Comments (11)
What I want is the Normal Mode.
I am really happy that you took this decision! It's absolutely the right one!!!
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I agree with RichardoS, I am all for what you need to do. It's your story to tell, when you release the updates.
By the way, do you know why the music and sound stuff is so slow? Because there are thousands of them. Some things are high quality and others are trash. You have to take the time to listen to everything, track by track, sound by sound. In many cases, you might end up listening for just a few seconds before realizing it won't work, but those seconds easily turn into minutes and then hours. And if something seems useful, you also have to check carefully if you can actually use it, because there are different types of licenses. Not everything that looks free actually is. I can't just use whatever seems good because there could be legal trouble. Yeah, you'd have to be really unlucky for that to happen, but it’s a possibility, and it's better to avoid it.
But... but... but the cash per patron has increased by 5.9% 😅. I hope things really pick up! Do you think the full non-safe version 0.6 will be ready by May?
In theory, yes. In practice, I can't say. If you've read it all, you'll have noticed I don't even know for sure when the work I've almost finished will be complete. To search for and successfully find just one piece of music that I find suitable for a scene, or that might work for multiple (which is also relative), can take 20 minutes or several hours. Sound effects are just as complex, and I need to set up a lot of them this time. For those reasons, I'm not sure, even with something at 98%. Much less can I know what will happen with something I haven't even started yet. If I were to say "Yes, it will definitely be ready", I'd be lying. All I can say for sure is that I won't stop until I have it finished. Only then might I take a day, and then I'll keep going with what's next.
> Funnily enough, out of the 25 people who voted to wait longer, 4 are already gone. I know shit happens and everyone has issues they may not be able to control, but still -- that's disappointing. I really prefer the less frequent, larger and more satisfying updates, and I'd hope my compatriots of similar mind would be more dependable than that. Still, I agree with what RicardoS wrote below - some people are being squeezed right now. It's easy to overextend yourself when you want to support every appealing project you come across.
And i think the drop in pledges isnt exclusive with your channel, i heard this is the case in many other channels - maybe it has to do with the current Situation the World is in, i think at the Moment many people are more careful with spending their money.
I know some Latino developers. For example, an Argentine guy (he's on the recommendations list) stays pretty steady at something like $1600 a month. From the start, his growth was way faster than mine. But the key to his success is that he updates every two weeks, which is why he's so stable. Of course, his game is in Unity, and his updates are almost 100% code. He doesn’t have to spend time rendering anything, and because of that, I could never update that fast. The thing is, he doesn’t go down. Every update, he goes up just a bit more.
For my part this is all ok, its your story to tell - no problem at all, at least by me ! 🫡💯👊