A Few Follow-up Questions About Mayfly
After my last announcement, I want to clear up a few things.
1. Is Mayfly on hold indefinitely?
I can’t say when public updates will resume, but putting new releases on hold doesn’t mean I’ll stop working on Mayfly. It was my first game, and the foundation I built early on has its limits. As my ideas have grown, its current framework has struggled to support everything I want to do with it.
I’ve hit some roadblocks while developing it. The game hasn’t gained the traction I’d hoped for, and I don’t have a way to turn things around overnight. I want to try something new and see if I can find a way forward.
I know what this sounds like. Plenty of developers have said, “I’m not really leaving,” only to disappear afterward. I can’t promise exactly what the future holds. Who can? But I’ll still be around, and I’ll keep looking for a breakthrough.
2. What did you mean by an unhealthy supporter tier structure?
I’m talking about how supporters are spread across the tiers. Mayfly has a very low conversion rate from followers to paying members, yet there are always people willing to subscribe to the highest tier. Meanwhile, supporters at the lower tiers keep leaving. The whole thing looks a bit like an hourglass.
That leaves the game increasingly dependent on a small number of its most dedicated fans. Without enough new supporters joining at the lower and middle tiers, the income is unstable, and that imbalance can start to limit where the project goes.
For example, given the choice, I’d rather have 13 people supporting me at $10 a month than one person at $138 a month. If that one person cancels, I could lose a quarter of my monthly support at once.
3. If version 0.4 improves things, will you keep updating the game?
Yes. If 0.4 turns things around, you can call my last announcement a load of crap. I’ll tell you where things stand one month after the update has finished rolling out to all supporter tiers.
As for why I announced this so early: I don’t want to wait until I’m actually stepping away and then try to explain everything when things have become ugly. I also don’t want the people supporting me to feel that I kept taking their money while hiding what I was thinking. Once I started considering a pause, I felt I should tell my supporters and fans ahead of time.
Integrity matters to me.
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上一则公告发出后，我想再把几件事说清楚。
1.《Mayfly》会无限期停更吗？
我目前无法确定何时恢复公开更新，但暂停发布新版本，并不意味着我会停止制作《Mayfly》。它是我的第一部作品，起初打下的基础还不够扎实。随着我想做的内容越来越多，现有框架已经渐渐难以承载它们。
制作这款游戏时，我遇到了一些瓶颈。它目前的发展也没有达到我的预期，而我暂时找不到能让情况立刻好转的办法。所以我想换个方向，尝试一些新东西，看看能不能找到突破。
我知道，有些开发者说过“我没有真的离开”，然后就再也没出现过。我没法保证未来会怎样，谁又能呢？但我会继续待在这里，也会继续寻找新的可能。
2. 你说赞助层级结构不健康，具体是怎么回事？
我指的是赞助者在各档位的分布。《Mayfly》的付费会员转化率一直很低，却总有人愿意订阅最高档位；与此同时，中低档位的赞助者又在持续流失。整个结构看起来像个沙漏。
这样一来，作品就会越来越依赖少数特别喜欢它的人。没有足够多的新赞助者加入中低档位，收入很难稳定，开发方向也容易受到这种结构的限制。
举个例子：如果可以选择，比起一位每月赞助 138 美元的会员，我更希望有 13 位每月赞助 10 美元的会员。因为前者一旦取消订阅，我的赞助收入可能一下就少掉四分之一。
3. 如果 0.4 更新后情况好转，你会继续更新吗？
会。如果 0.4 真的让情况好转，你们就当上一则公告是我放了个屁。我会在 0.4 版本全部发布满一个月后，告诉大家结果。
至于为什么这么早发公告：我不想等到真正停下来的时候，才狼狈地解释这一切，也不想让支持我的人觉得我早有打算，却一直瞒着他们收取赞助。既然已经产生了暂停开发的想法，我就应该提前告诉赞助者和玩家。
任何喜欢和关注这款游戏的玩家都应有知情权。
Comments (20)
大佬真心希望能多花时间在打磨推动剧情上，你精选的bgm和建模打光，还有作品中体现出的摄像素质，都让我在体验游戏时感到享受，能感受到作者的用心，你是在用心对待这个作品，也是真诚的对待玩家，或许您对演出质量的追求有较高的追求，但还是希望大大做好取舍和平衡，真的很喜欢，久违的让我感到游戏的戒断感，希望你能灵感爆棚，顺利的推进制作
作为一个曾经的完美主义者，我总是把目光聚焦于自己觉得最显眼最突出的地方，而往往忽视了一些小细节，恰好是这些小细节，差一点把我拖入了无尽的深渊。我想说其实很多人如果可以给自己申请一些时间去思考自己目前为什么会处于现在这个处境，这可能会解决你想不通的某些问题。我虽然不懂游戏，但是我真的很喜欢Mayfly的渲染和建模。遗憾的是，剧情，角色塑造以及更新时间又时常让我内心在拒绝这款游戏。那些出名的电影往往都会基于一个出色的剧情，人们难道会因为某些角色没那么好看就会放弃这款电影吗？我想不是。个人认为，更新时间慢，剧情不太让人满意有可能是你把绝大多数的精力放到了你觉得最显眼最突出的地方，也就是建模，渲染，人们会驻足在这停留一段时间，但粗糙的剧情又会让他们走向下一个地方。我很羡慕且敬佩Jason有时间做自己喜欢的事情，且能在某一方面做到顶尖，希望你能更好，我会时常关注你的作品，谢谢！
被人推荐的第一款slg，真心希望能够越来越优秀，请一定要坚持下去
建模好 但是剧情进度太慢了 从原始版本玩到现在 剧情没推进多少 可以参考别人的 先推进剧情 在优化建模 不然很难有人愿意等
没想到一年后是这样发展的，真是可惜，理解你的决定，但挺唏嘘的
I'm not... the best guy for giving suggestion, since personally I'm doing not better than you, (Even worse). However, I would give you my... Vision and opinion. First of all, I'm with you from the first version, like this one before reworking and other stuff, and the first version was released like.... few years ago? And, even with rework, and all that time you released 0.3 just in this year, if not mistaken. Now, about rework.... Ppl hate it. Especially, when it's take so much time, in your place, I would like to continue the story itself, gather some audience, giving them strong base about world, and only after few updates return to stuff which you wanted to rework. Second, release time. I asked some of my audience about release schedule, and pretty much ppl choiced... More oftehn update, but shorter. Like, if we take a... Unravel of August? Forgot that game name, but he made very short update, and still in 0.3, he have almost 200 sub. But he not waited with release like few year, but litreally releasing update almost every month before gone. Except that, when you last time did major update on itch? Or, other promotion? Since, even if you game one of the greatest, you still... need a good promotion. Of course if you not the best writer in the world, and ppl would suggest your game to each other. (Except myself promotion ppl don't promote myself to each other just saying avoid that dude xD) So yeah... I still can speaking and speaking but.... that was my tho about that. And... I just hope you will finish MayFly, cause with all effort which you spend on that... Kinda sad to saw it abandoned. Love you dear :D
《蜉蝣》作为一个视觉小说，却没有一个视觉小说应有的剧情质量支撑，即便重置了之后,也只提升了渲染和建模质量，整体剧情文本丝毫没有提升，剧情毫无代入感，文本味同嚼蜡，角色单薄，写不出好的剧情，还不如像《异世界天堂》那样卖角色，多制作一些上垒cg，至少还会有玩家买单，毕竟《蜉蝣》唯一值得夸赞的就只剩建模了，同样目前只有0.3版本的《野猫》，短短的叁个版本，就把排球队主要成员的人设，性格，人物背景，经历，讲的清清楚楚，剧情有起伏，有情感，角色鲜活，让玩家有代入感，只希望《蜉蝣》这一次失败的制作经历，能让作者把重心放在剧情文本的打磨上，而不是光有渲染和建模，让整个游戏金玉其外，败絮其中
赞助付款感觉好麻烦啊有其他方式支付吗
我非常喜欢你的游戏，这是我玩的第一款slg，我听说要停更后，专门下了个vpn领了十分钟看这条公告，不要呀，虽然这款slg有点缺点，但总体挺好的加油加油，不要放弃呀，等我有钱了一定给你赞助真的真的
💯
Thanks for an honest and proactive dev update, sharing the RL consequences about $ supporters and tiers and your longer-term thoughts.
Looks to me like a classic case of perfect being the enemy of good. Your graphic renders are seriously good, the style is very unique and one can definitely see you out in great care and effort to make the best for every scene. However good art does not equate to a good AVN business. The development cycle is way too long and it doesn't help that your subscriber engagement is very low. From a visibility POV, people don't get a sense that anything is really moving and nobody likes to subscribe to a black box that produces something brilliant but only once in a blue moon. Even this announcement, from a personal ethical perspective, I give you a complete thumbs up for your candor. But seriously how does what you are doing help your case for V0.4? The financial situation is only going to get worse, there are not that many who will subscribe for something that is already destined to be halted in 7 months. Whatever your decision post V0.4, I hope you can find some way to overcome the need to try and perfect everything at the expense of timely updates. And something you can start now is to start sharing frequent and consistent updates what's going on in the developmental process. It will help in retention and confidence building. Patreon engagement is a low hanging fruit - relatively low effort but delivers moderate returns. Don't waste this opportunity. The 30 minutes you use to do a devlog evey week will far exceed in return what you can get from spending the same amount of time adjusting a shade or texture.
❤️
在所有视觉小说中，这是我最喜欢的一款，希望0.4情况有所好转吧，我太喜欢这款游戏了
🤤🫶
Damn
The last post really scared me😲😲😲. Your serious and responsible work is commendable. As a college student, I envy your ability to make games independently. And I will continue to support you.🥰🥰🥰
我刚毕业还没有能力赞助作者，但是我觉得作者在做的事情很酷，很有艺术性，等将来我有能力了一定会补上迟来的赞助的💪
不知道说什么，那就留下一朵花花吧🌹
很喜欢你的作品🌹