[Release] Superheroes Suck Version 2.081 - The Final Public Build

PC Version: The Availability has Passed

Mac Version: The Availability has Passed

Android Version: The Availability has Passed

Change-Log from 2.075 to 2.081:

• 1 Riley Event!

• 1 Valentina Event!

• Harper's Seventh Event has been Redone!

Below is going to be a very long written, sappy post, so let me get the essential questions out of the way first:

• Game development will continue. We are 75% through the main story. I expect to finish the main story within the next year and a half. Development of epilogue content may continue afterward depending on demand.

• The game will be moving onto Steam. After the Steam launch, I will make plans to get the game on itch.io
  I am aiming for an autumn release this year. The Steam listing will be posted here once it is wishlistable.

• The Early Builds will continue uninterrupted. Every six weeks, as normal, a new version will be available on Patreon.

• The Public Builds, offered freely for almost seven years...
  They will conclude today. This post will be available for at least the next two weeks before being removed in preparation for the Steam launch.

My only regret is that I wish the final public build had been larger with more events, but this has been a very difficult year for me. That near-death experience in December really threw me off balance. I've lied to myself many times saying that I've recovered. Truthfully, I am still recovering. I apologize. I know what I offer is the complete game and not just the newest events, but I would have liked to end things with more fanfare.

Okay. The rest is going to be a very long post about the game's history! Download and enjoy the content if you'd prefer to skip this. I wouldn't blame you; this is as much for me as it is all of you. If you end your reading here, take care and I hope to see you again soon.

For the rest of you, let's turn the page back one more time.

I began game development in February of 2019. I was in my late twenties and I was always home. I'd reached an arrangement with my family that I would take care of my grandparents fresh out of college as a live-in in exchange for some financial compensation down the line. I would be sacrificing a good chunk of my work history and my actual pay check. They needed to be watched at all times. I was given no stipend. After six years of this, I took up coding as I already owned a modest (old) computer and I wanted something to do. That's the computer you used to hear references of when I spoke about a hamster wheel running my render machine.

The first game idea was supposed to be an RPG text adventure. I'd always fancied myself a storyteller although I'd mostly written... Well, internet erotica. It was always going to be an adult game. Anyway, I figured dabbling couldn't hurt. I was wrong. I had no idea how to code and spent months knocking my head against it. I had sixteen pages of story written and absolutely no way to convey it. I would, mired in frustration, come across my first visual novel April of that year. Or rather, I'd already played several, but I would find the very first using 3D renders.

It looked like a cheat code. I couldn't draw. I still really can't, and the idea of having images meshed to my stories was something I'd never imagined to be possible. My stories surely weren't worth pictures... but what if I made those pictures? There were several concepts for a game back then. The winner was a thriller set in an environment similar to the show Mad Men. You'd go around seducing the wives and secretaries of powerful CEOs in order to drag them into scandal and ensure corporate supremacy. It was... ambitious. And cut short, as there were no assets similar to an office building that could run on my machine. I also ran into serious story issues. The main character required would need to be either under duress or a clinical sociopath to ruin the lives of at least two dozen people. I'm not saying those characters can't be compelling. I've watched American Psycho, but the story was complicated, dark, and cynical in a time for me that quickly became complicated, dark, and cynical. My grandfather had a stroke July of that year, and I realized soon after that I was going to be homeless and penniless.

I released the first build of Superheroes Suck in November of 2019. I was homeless in December of 2019.

Money does strange things to people. They'll cherish you all their life until someone whispers the word "inheritance" into their ears. I saw the signs. I moved my stuff, everything I owned, into a small storage box and went searching for apartments while I waited for someone who once held me on their shoulders in Disneyland to hand me an eviction notice. None of this process was subtle, which I found odd in the most surreal way, like a carjacker knocking on your door demanding to borrow your keys. There wasn't going to be any compensation. I never saw my grandparents again. I hear they didn't survive Covid.

It was that era where I wrote the first four hours of Superheroes Suck. Very few of it remains in the game now. I've remastered most of those old renders using better lighting, camera angles, and pacing, but the soul is still there along with a few special frames. My grandparents used to smoke. I think I made the protagonist a smoker in a nod to them. The protagonist's frustration with his daily life, the trap he feels, the helplessness, is a reflection of the selfsame misery I was in. It wasn't that I wrote the protagonist to be me, but since it was all I felt, it was all I could write. Missus Powell was snappy and angry at that time as well. That part of the game is also gone. Still, I'm very happy with Superheroes Suck. In some of my darkest moments, I chose to write about more than just heroes. I wanted to write about being someone's hero.

The protagonist is unremarkable for the first fifteen hours of the game. This was intentional. The mystery element of his powers was fun, but the goal was to create real relationships based on real situations. The ladies of the Academy don't enjoy his company because he is strong. They enjoy it because he is genuine. They've lost something, something the protagonist himself starts to lose. Human connection. Their problems are normal, ordinary, and have nothing to do with punching bad guys. They could have fixed them, but their status as a hero isolates them. Their sacrifice isolates them. That's why being a superhero sucks.

I got a job at the local hospital, moved back in with my mother, and continued game development. This period was messy. I had little idea of what I was doing and no idea on how to improve. They don't make courses on "how to create a visual novel" and the medium was more or less dead outside of Japan and a few niche translation sites. I did my best. The "updates" were larger then. Ten events at a time! But these were atrocious in quality and should have read "negative ten events" as I would need to go back and redo all of them. There were major failings in the story, grammar, game design, UI... everything. What kept me going was the idea that, even just a little, the game got better every week. I've held that true to today.

I do not think Superheroes Suck will sell well. There are too many problems that would take me years to fix, but I don't have the heart to abandon these characters or their stories to make another title. This is my ship and I will sink or sail with this crew until the sun does set. I owe that to them. I owe that to you. This game has both given and taken many things from me over the years. It's tied to my mental health in a way that's impossible to untangle. Writing is a drug, a free and lasting high. When I put out an excellent update I feel like I can do anything. When I put out one that falls short of my expectations, usually content quantity, I have nightmares every day for the next six weeks. Looking back on it now, I will always wish I'd have done better than I was capable, but I do not regret dedicating such a large part of my life to this project. Many of you have told me it's helped you in similarly dark times. That's worth it. This is worth it.

I have a modest goal. If the game could just make twenty thousand on Steam in twelve months, then I could afford to continue development while picking up a second job again. It would be hard, but that would be doable. I don't know what it would do to the update schedule as I've been working on the game full time for almost two years now, but my body is getting to a well enough state that I can return to the workforce. Somewhere. Everything is expensive. Most days, I'm surprised anyone would give me a dollar, let alone how much many of you have donated over the years.

So long as I have a computer that can render, electricity, internet, and a roof, my goal is to finish this game and make good on the hopes you've entrusted to me and this story.

Thank you, all of your, for your support over these last seven years,

~Developer Solace