New Year

It's this time of the year again. A moment to look back, but also look forward. I mean, can you imagine? A year ago, I wasn't sure if I will be able to make money creating porn games. Back then I made a rather lighthearted post talking about rescuing kittens and such. Looking back at it, I think my attitude was rather understandable. I was betting on success, but there were no gurantees.  For all I knew, A Foreign World could flop, and I'd have to downgrade game development to a fun hobby I do on weekends. If I had been too serious, I might have started to cry... Which unfortunately is quite hard to transmit in text-form, so I wanted to avoid that.

You can already see that even this year, I won't shy away from the occasional joke. Life would be too boring otherwise. Also too depressing. I mean, When I looked at what I've created this past year I was shocked. I've released Episode 2 in December. Let's drop a bomb, I'm pretty much done with Episode 4.5, but this still means that in an entire year, I only produced 2.5 Episodes... Not really something to brag about. 

Doing the math. That's 5 updates on 12 months, which ends up at a bit more than two months for each update. Since I'm not doing this full time, I always say that an update will take me 1-3 months depending on what's going on in my life. 

You've guessed it. There were other things going on in my life :D

Let's get a bit more personal. I sometimes want to refference things that matter to me, but people reading this wouldn't understand unless they know who I am. I was avoiding to share things about myself in fear that knowing who created A Foreign World would take away from the enjoyment. By now, I believe my work is good enough to speak for itself.  Not perfect. Not even close. But good enough to be enjoyed by anyone, appart from who wrote it.

And yes, there is some insecurity attached to this. Usually, to be a good writer, you have to know things. You need experience. If you want people to feel pain, love, heartbreak, or fear... It doesn't hurt if you can draw on expreience.

I didn't have that when I started writing. I know it like it was yesterday (Nope). Six years ago, I was 16 years old, I wrote a story about a boy who can read minds. Well, initially I wrote a story about a guy that was blackmailed by his sister, and then turned things around, blackmailing her in return. What can I say? I was always quite creative :D

The fun part is that at that point I could barely read english. English was one of the subjects I was always on the brink of failing. Still, I wrote my first story. Horrible stuff. I rewrote it multiple times. I even published it online. To this date, it gathered 105,516 views. It has 756 positive and 69 negative reviews. It is what got this entire thing started. Good times.

So as a 16 year old kid, I was writing about... Other 16 year olds. Obviousely, since I knew what it was like to be that age. Got me in trouble later on, when Steam banned my first game which was set in highschool. 

I'm 22 now. I now know what it's like to be a university student, so it's time to blow up!!! Being a DIK, Fresh Women, Milfy city (I think that guy came home from college), and WVM. Good things happen when you create porn games set at university. 

Obviousely, I'm joking. I still have a lifetime ahead of me. There is more than enough time to write about my experiences at university. Has there been a biography in AVN form? If you want to see it, then keep supporting. I'll release it for my 60th birthday.

For those that haven't been paying attention, that's in 38 years. Some people would say that's almost tomorrow, other's would ask me if I don't plan to hand down the family buisness by then.

Yes I'm young, and I was insecure about that. You'd be surprised how many devs are my age. I think there is no middle ground. Either you're below 30, or above 60. Everyone else seems to have a life.

Well now that it's out, let's start to talk about my year. I made my first real money. I was delivering newspapers as a kid, but that doesn't count. I made 5 $ a week. I now make a lot more than that. I didn't know that when the year started, though.  Last year I was taking a step back from my studies and focused on game development. I was still enlisted at university as a plan B. I'm german, so it's pretty much free. 

Well, it was time to make a decission. I either put all my money on Game dev, and hope that it suceeds, or I go back to university and finish my degree. I went back. Yeah... The decission has been made at the end of last year before A Foreign World released on Steam. 

So, this year, besides releasing 5 updates, I also had a 4 month long internship, plus some classes before christmas break. Time that could have been invested in A Foreign World. It would have been more fun. I'm sure. But hey, I'm basically doing research for the game that will make me rich, so awesome.

Tbh, I don't know how to feel about finishing my degree. I don't think about it much. I'll finish it so I'm not forced to making it as an independent game developer who eventually burns out and ends up depressed.  Should be a good enough reason. Still, I don't like that it consumes quite a bit of time. 

Hope you guys don't mind playing therapist. It's okay to share my life's story here, right? :D Don't worry, I'll bring it all back together.

So looking at the last year only through the lense of game development, it wasn't that successfull. If you include the fact that I was doing it besides finishing my degree, the picture changes quite a bit. No need to be depressed about this performance. I know I can do more, but hey, I'm a 22 year old kid creating porn games. Cut me some slag! (Yes, I'll use it as an excuse from now on :D) 

Mistakes have been made. 

One of which I want to annouce right here. The more I think about it, the more I believe that A Foreign World is overpriced. Therefore I'll make it cheaper in the new year. Here, I said it. I'm sorry (and also grateful) to everyone that bought the game at it's initial price of 17$. I know, some games make their Early Access prices higher than the actual game price, but they usually communicate this clearly. I failed to do that. I just had no idea how much an AVN was worth. I still don't but I'm closer than last year. 

I'll also lower the price of A Familiar World. It's embarressing to mention that game. The reviews on Steam stand 2:3 against it. 5$ for some bad puzzles and (absolutely amazing) artwork, also wasn't my brightest idea. I guess, I'll lower that by 5$ and once again appologize to everyone who bought it at it's initial prize. Here it's not that bad, since I didn't overpromise. I said it was a fantasy puzzle game, and it was a fantasy puzzle game. Final update coming out today, by the way.

Back to A Foreign World. I mentioned I was done with Episode 4.5, so why isn't it out yet? Good question. Forcing translators to work over christmas is a bit inhumane, so I totally understand that some of them don't get to it before the new year. The update should be out by the middle of January. It's awesome. I'm sure you'll love it. Give it a couple of weeks, and you'll be able to see for yourself.

And now I'm here... At the end of this post, and I can't think of a proper ending. The images up top are some of the better ones I made this year. I think I'm just going to stop writing mid