Mayfly EP3 - Early Preview #Final
Official announcement: I will release the update date before June 30th.
This is the final Early Preview, since this update cycle has indeed taken way too long—I've decided to make it public.
Here are the final versions of the scenes for the four LIs appearing in 0.3. I plan to add CG content for two scenes in 0.3, but they will be on different routes of the same character. You can save your progress in different branches to unlock the CGs from each route.
A bit off-topic: if you're here just for the game progress, you don't need to read below.
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I know many people are very unhappy about how long this update has taken. Yeah, I really should apologize for that.
I'm sorry.
But I still want to say a few words in my own defense: as a fresh graduate, I've been through a lot in the past year, including but not limited to—preparing for graduation exams, moving between cities and changing apartments to find a job, job hunting, working a part-time job on top of that, and losing a family member. So for someone like me who just entered the workforce, the time I can spend on AVN development is probably just one day off per week.
I'll only talk about these real-life struggles once. I tried not to bring them up before because it made me feel like I was fishing for sympathy from my fans. But since so many people wanted a concrete explanation, and some even attacked me for posting 'Daily Practice' content, thinking I was just stringing fans along, I decided to write it all out here.
I hope you all realize that with the current level of support, there's no way I can become a full-time developer. Even though saying this feels like admitting failure, sometimes objective facts are just that. I don't want to admit it, but it's right there.
So what does that mean? It means I can't have the ample development time that those successful full-time creators have. It seems like many people expect me to spend all my working hours making the AVN, without ever considering whether I'd starve doing that. And within my limited working time, I've also been actively taking in community criticism, optimizing and improving my script and renders... or anything related to the game. If you can't see that, at least you can see whether my renders have improved over the past year, right? I don't have a studio either—everything in the game's development is done by me alone. Maybe many people imagine game developers as at least a small studio, but in reality, the vast majority of AVN creators work solo.
As a young creator in my early twenties, I hope you can give me a little more understanding and opportunity. I have always, consistently, dedicated myself to delivering the best content I can at each stage to my players. And I can still promise you this: if the income from this AVN at least allows me to quit my part-time job, I will put all that extra time into development.
It's not like I have much of a social life anyway—what else would I do?
I did, in the community, post overly optimistic release dates because I overconfidently overestimated the time I could spend on AVN development. Even though I kept saying that you should always refer to the official schedule posted on Patreon or in announcements, no one really paid attention to that.
Okay, I have to admit, this is all my fault — I inevitably still think the way I did back in college, making me feel like my development would go smoothly, but in the workplace there are always all kinds of strange interferences that pull me further and further away from my expected timeline. However, I really shouldn't have casually made promises in the community that I had no confidence in, even if they were just meant as jokes.
From now on, I'll try to be more careful with my words in the community. And I also won't post 'Daily Practice' content anymore.
I guess people would rather see a silent AVN developer—because that gives the impression that they're always focused on developing the game. I've fully understood that now. Thank you to all the fans who taught me that.
At the same time, I must thank my patrons—truly thank. In fact, my patrons have always shown great patience and have continued to act as friends encouraging my development. So the above announcement is not aimed at anyone in particular—it's just my public response to the ongoing doubts both inside and outside the community recently.
A special day, huh? I love u all❤
Comments (30)
Hi Jason, I'm a sophomore university student from China. I just finished playing the new 0.3 version of Mayfly. It left me with a lot of thoughts, so I went back and read some of your older posts, and I wanted to share some of them with you. When I first saw Mayfly, honestly, what caught my attention was of course the game itself. The visuals looked great, and the characters were really distinctive. But after I slowly learned more about what you've been through while making this game over the past few years, that part honestly affected me even more than simply thinking, “Wow, this game looks really good.” I'm a university student too, and I'm only in my second year. To be honest, most of my university life right now is just going to class, doing assignments, and finishing whatever the school asks me to do. So when I saw that you had already started making Mayfly while you were in college and kept working on it until now, I couldn't help comparing myself with you a little. I don't think we're that far apart in age, but you've already managed to make something this complete and this beautiful. When I look back at myself, I feel like I still haven't really made something that I can call my own. It honestly made me think about how just a few years can lead two people around the same age down completely different paths. I also started to realize that creating Mayfly probably trained far more abilities than simply “knowing how to make a game.” One example is aesthetic judgment. I genuinely like the clothing designs in the game. Even when some of them are obviously sexualized, I still think there is a strong sense of aesthetics behind the combinations of clothing, color, style, and character identity. To make characters look good, you have to constantly think about what kinds of clothes, colors, and combinations work together. I imagine that kind of visual judgment can even affect how you understand clothing and personal appearance in real life. The same applies to hairstyles and character design. Many of the male and female characters in Mayfly have very distinctive looks. When someone spends years adjusting faces, hairstyles, clothing, lighting, and composition, they are also constantly training their own judgment of what looks good and why. Then there is the writing. When you create a character, you have to think about much more than what that person says. You have to ask why they would say it, what kind of experiences formed their personality, how that personality affects their reaction to a situation, and how another character should respond. I think that is also a form of studying people. Real conversations work in a similar way: behind what someone says are their personality, experiences, emotions, and motivations. I imagine that spending years writing characters and dialogue can gradually change the way you understand real human interaction as well. So eventually I realized that what I envy most is not simply that you can make such a beautiful game. What I envy more is that you found something during university that you genuinely wanted to work on, and you kept doing it for years. That is also something I am very curious about: how did you first discover this kind of creation? And what made you keep going from the initial interest all the way until today? I'm already in my second year of university, but I still haven't found something that gives me that feeling. I have many thoughts and I study my university subject, but I haven't yet found a project that truly feels like my own—something I could imagine still working on several years from now. Your story therefore made me ask myself a serious question: If someone spends their university years not only completing courses, but continuously creating something of their own, what kind of person will they become by the time they graduate? I was also deeply affected by what you wrote about the past year—graduation exams, moving between cities and apartments, job hunting, working, and losing a family member. If all of those things happened to me at the same time, I honestly don't know whether I would still be able to keep a long-term project alive. So instead of focusing on how long an update takes, what impresses me more is that after so many changes in your real life, you still did not completely give up on Mayfly. Maybe these things simply feel like parts of your own life to you. But for a university student a few years behind you who is still trying to find his direction, your experience genuinely had an impact on me. It made me seriously ask myself: A few years from now, will I also have something I can look back at and say, “This is something I truly created during my university years”? So I just wanted you to know that Mayfly has given me something beyond the game itself. Somewhere on the other side of the world, a university student in China saw your work and your story, and because of it, started thinking differently about how he wants to spend the rest of his university years. I think that, by itself, is already one kind of value your work has created. I hope you continue developing at your own pace. Real life is obviously more important than a release schedule, and a delayed update does not erase everything you have already created. Thank you for making Mayfly, and thank you for being willing to share some of the life behind its development. I wish you all the best, and I look forward to seeing where this story eventually goes. ❤️
Honestly, its not that deep. I just felt like it, so I went for it Sometimes, the first step is easier if you don't overthink it—because if you do, you'll never take it. But once you're on your way, you need to start thinking again, or you won't be ready for what's coming It's a bit of a paradox Good luck—if you're still in school, that means you've got endless possibilities ahead Just don't let the daily grind make you forget to think
Why did the leader block me? I'll just comfort you. I didn't do anything, right? The DC game community called Linchengxi, please let me out. I didn't do anything and was blocked by you for no reasonBoss, I didn't do anything
老大为啥给我拉黑了？我都没干啥吧😭
我dclinchengxi
Hey, no matter what others say, I think you're doing an excellent job.
best wishes
老大，我还有多久能玩到0.3呢
best wishes
oh hello....
To be fair im pretty sure if people saw the last post was a year ago you probably wouldn't have much of a patreon left regardless as long as work is being done and an update is given every once in a while im a happy camper
加油
加油啊Jasonton。我会一直支持你的
o may gad... ambatu naaat
im glad you said that i and probably others just thought the funeral was your only issue and you just weren't really coming back. but by saying all that it makes you seem more human and not just a faceless name on patreon. its when devs constantly say the same reason that people start feeling like there not telling the truth anymore and just delaying things. for me atleast i like when the devs open up. its only thru what the devs mention to us that we have a chance to relate to you on a human level.
great
加油！
In defense of folks who are sceptical of your "daily practices", this is a rather common shenanigan to slow down Patreon erosion without actually doing anything. There have been many developers who continue to post wallpapers, character polls, random CGs or even supposed screenshots to keep appearances of working without any real output, so naturally people would gravitate towards suspicion when they see that. I think the longest someone managed to drag this way without delivering so far is 3 years for a supposed remake. Not saying you are as I have been following your work and being a free tier member I'm not really entitled to criticize your speed either. Just trying to add some context why some folks might take your posts the wrong way.
加油啊
加油
加油捏~
加油老哥
期待新版本！
加油JT
I'm proud to have played and followed this game from a dedicated developer like you, my friend
日常练习啊!😭
为什么我进不去你的discord？
加油 不用对自己太苛刻
加油！
Can't wait!