Players, we have to cook!
Hello! I'd like to start by wishing you all a most fortunate 2025 and that this year may bring you all less bad news and more of the good ones.
Setting that aside, it appears that there was a black screen bug that was always happening on a fresh restart and I apologize for that. I was a bit burnt out on fixing bugs last month before the holidays began so instead I decided to pull myself away from the online development world a bit and more into actually playing what we have in Malevolent Planet 2D from beginning to end.
I have managed to do that and I've also played/watched other indie games with big communities/fanbases. One of the games I've checked out was MiSide which was very creative in all sorts of ways and I recommend it if it looks interesting to you.
It would take a long time to go into what I've learnt, but comparing them with what we have so far made me realize our writing isn't as bad as I thought and given that it's a NSFW game I also realized I have kept myself on the safe side in terms of writing "dark/sad content". I've played many games that left a big emotional impact on me like Mass Effect and I've always wanted to make something that could also make players "feel something", but that conflicts a little with the excitement players might feel from a NSFW game so that's why I've kept the darker parts of the story in the background rather than display them outright. When you really start thinking about things you're probably not so excited for NSFW content, at least for me.
For me a great game is a game that makes me long for more and often just like after finishing a book I feel deeply nostalgic about what I've just "experienced", and that's why NSFW games and SFW games will always be kept "separate", because in a NSFW game the goal is providing excitement to the player through NSFW content, whereas in a SFW game you have to provide excitement to the player in different ways. Both "genres" are valid, but that's a big distinction in what connects a player to a game and it's why what works in a SFW game even one with suggestive almost NSFW content (like some visual novels and not only) may not work in a NSFW game.
And that was just a short summary of what I thought about during the holidays.
For our game, because February will be a very busy month in terms of real life plans that will pull me away from my PC, I've designed the following plan:
The "Return to the Ship" content will have 4 parts, each with its own release. I will work overtime to reach at least 2, preferably 3 parts released this month.
Each part will have its own week. This week will be Part 1. Below is the calendar.
Each part will contain bugfixes, improvements and new content. Because there'll be a weekly update through player feedback I can fix all the critical things by the next update
All the updates will be kept on the December itch link so if you already accessed the itch link for your tier you'll have access to these updates too.
The last thing to mention is also very important. I have published a Trello board that will be actively maintained by me, providing transparency on development and bugfixes as they happen. We had a trello board in the past but I got better at planning and we have an actual release date this year by the end of the summer when there shouldn't be anymore bugs and things to polish.
You can access the Trello board here and if you want to submit bugs or whatever you can always ask me and I'll invite you to be a contributor to the board. Every bug that I'm aware of is mentioned there and I'll most likely weekly in the status updates publish what was solved that week and link directly to the trello ticket.
That's about it for now, so on Friday we should have a release and now I need to get back to working on it!
Comments (2)
Hmm I would say that the build up to a NSFW scene is what makes the scene more memorable than anything else. So to me, is the opposite, if a NSFW game makes me feel things other than 'lust', it means that I care about the characters and the world enough to want to see them thrive and to think more about what lead up to have everything exploding in a sensual scene rather than going through a gallery of NSFW situations. And honestly, the way I instantly cared about your world back when I played a demo when the game was still made in HTML is what pulled me in. I can understand your point of view though, but I would strongly advise you to stay true to your vision if making a meaningful story is what you aspire to do!
Thank you for the thoughtful reply :) I hope I didn't give the impression that I won't stay true to my vision, it's just an observation I've made that would allow me to actually put more depth into the story plot by focusing more on the characters and making the story be something the players view through the lenses of the characters, which if they can empathize with can lead to a very interesting situation. This is better described/showcased in this webtoon https://m.webtoons.com/en/action/omniscient-reader/list?title_no=2154 where the "NPCs" become more like real people with their own personalities to the protagonist because the "PC" can relate to them I also agree that the build up to a NSFW scene is usually the best part, and my intention is to make sure the story isn't an excuse to show NSFW scenes/situations but something that's actually interesting on its own which can be tough but I'm learning and observing. I really recommend that webtoon by the way, I've never seen something like it with so much depth.