monstersouls
patreon
Progress Update June
🕑 Added 2020-06-26 22:36:52 +0000 UTCHey guys hope you are all doing well! I have a few things I wanted to talk about regarding the state of the project and the patreon campaign.
I started out the month by continuing to work on the character models and rigging for the 3 buddies. Currently buddy 1 and buddy 3 are finished and buddy 2 is in the process of rigging.
I created animations with Buddy 1 and Buddy 3 having fun with the hero primarily as a way to promote the project on twitter and as a break from doing some of the more boring work. These animations will be used in future events in the game. Buddy 2 will also get his turn soon.
After considering options for commissioning background art for some of the locations in the game I decided it would be best to tackle it myself for the time being. I managed to create a preliminary version of the tavern and the start of the lower city street zone where the player will access the Tavern, the shop and possibly other locations and services in the future.
Combined with the hero's bedroom and home zone this covers the major areas for the demo release. There's other areas that I would like to include later but I think that will come after the first release.
Although the town isn't ready for playing yet, I can release a build with an updated Animation Viewer including the new buddy animations for you guys as soon as I update them for all the skin variations.
Plans for July
For July I would like to finish off the buddy character models and animations and focus some time on some of the writing in preparation for creating the events that take place in the town. I could also start to link together all the different zones in the game.
I know everyone has been very eager for sound and possibly voice acting for the game and it's something that I'm very excited to have as well. Originally I wanted to reach a goal of $3000 per month and it would take up a chunk of development time but perhaps looking into this sooner rather than later would help create some additional enthusiasm around the project. Let me know your thoughts on this.
Additional Reward Tiers
I've added a new reward tier, for $25 it includes getting your name or alias in the credits and on an in-game monument on top of the other rewards. This is a persistent reward, you only need to sign up for one month to get it. Maybe in the future I can look into upgrading you to fancier monuments the longer you stay on.
Let me know your thoughts on this as well or if there's anything else you think I could add as rewards.
Thanks again for your support and I hope you have a good weekend!
Comments
Matt Kulisch
That's so exciting! I'm definitely a completionist, so I'd be looking forward to that. The longer the better: it's really fun so far!
Monster Souls
The prototype dungeon is around 20 minutes long, maybe longer for first time players. I could see future levels being longer than that but I'm not sure what the sweet spot is, maybe 30 minutes? We'll have to see. Each dungeon might have 3 or 4 levels that will become more challenging with different monster varieties and more complex layouts as you go deeper. So they could take longer to explore for completionist sake but may still be clearable in a reasonable amount of time.
Matt Kulisch
Honestly, I cannot remember where I found you, but it was one of the .gif's that caught my attention. Thus, the animation did deliver the hype for me, at least. And the demo so far is really fun, cute, and exciting... I'd definitely love to see a linking together of the zones: the ability to leave the dungeon and return to town, walk the streets, see more dialogue between the hero and buddies. How many levels are you thinking for the dungeon? Is the demo-length the kind of standard you're thinking? Or will lower levels have longer (as well as harder) play-thru's?
Monster Souls
You'll be able to run around the town very soon! Sharing the animations has helped me gain a lot of exposure for the game and hopefully they get people hyped for what's to come in the future. At some point there should be a cutoff so that not everything in the game will be spoiled. I'll consider opening a discord server in the future. Thank you for your feedback!
Monster Souls
In regards to voice acting at this stage, I was thinking of basic combat sounds (grunts and HYAHs) and maybe the one liners that the hero and Ash say during combat. I don't think it would be too elaborate but I agree it's not really something that should be focused on in early development. Thanks for your feedback!
ncognizant
Hi Monster Souls Dev, I wanted to say thank you for all your hard work so far! As a pledger, what’s been motivating me to give is seeing the quality of your work, as well as the idea of the game itself; a gay-focused, dungeon-crawling RPG with erotic elements. I think it’s important to support a game like this because of how rare it is! If you’re looking for a bit more cash each month, here’s what I’d recommend: finish up the main gameplay loop. The sooner people can see and interact with what you’ve been building, the sooner you’ll see more pledges. As a subscriber, I’d love to be able to walk around the town, even if gameplay is limited (no shop, no free roam in tavern, etc.), as long as it somehow links to the dungeon. Id also recommend sharing some more of what you’re doing on Patreon, don’t be afraid to share some of the boring stuff with us! Perhaps seeing some more of the nutty-gritty updates could be a higher tier feature. Also, I’d be a little more wary of sharing animations, as with any erotic game, a lot of the excitement comes from novelty. Be careful not to share all of them beforehand. Lastly, probably the most important recommendation I have, is to open up a discord server for the game. Other projects I subscribe to built nice little communities that attracted more people. It could even get you in contact with other game devs that’ll advertise your game to their discords—that’s how I’ve seen projects grow fastest. Thanks again everything you’ve done so far... looking forward to what you do next!!
Caelum
I'm not to concerned with having more of a playable demo right now. But seeing more writing sounds exciting. 👀 Especially if it gives us a chance to get to know Ash/the Buddies a bit. As for sound, again, not too concerned with having that right now, but it's as good a thing to focus on right now as any. A good music theme or two is always nice to listen to, and could help build your game's personality. Voice acting, on the other hand, def feels like something that should be looked into much later in development. At least until we've seen more of the characters you plan to introduce. But right now, I just want to know more about The Boys. 😩 Nothing like a good teammate / side fling / RO, lol. Regardless, I'm excited to see what July brings!! 😊
Monster Souls
I will consider ways to break it up though, thanks for your feedback.
Monster Souls
While I appreciate that the longer dev cycles are going to turn people off I don't think constantly tacking on small bits of content with no overarching goal or structure is going to work out in the long run. I'm trying to keep the long term plan in mind here and the city is part of the core gameplay loop and will set the stage for the whole game.
uman
For whatever it is worth, the most important thing is to get to playability. Like right now. You have a great idea, and great art, but you don’t have a game to play yet. If it were me, I would not be focusing on the town or the buddies. The focus should be on the player being able to do something, and based on the demo, the dungeon offers the most playability. I’d be focusing all my efforts on building on that. Every single month should offer the player something new, even if very small, to do.—a quest, a room, a bit of treasure to find, a lad to rescue. If the town is important, give us 1 place, just 1, that we can go to and interact in. Something. Anything. Spending a month working on 2 1/2 buddies that you can’t do anything with isn’t going to draw many ppl in. Adding town elements that stay invisible to us won’t either. You have to release something that allows us to play the game. The animation viewer thing is cool, but figure out a way to immediately incorporate that into the game so that we can experience the animation during game play. Battle a troll and lose and get nailed in the butt. Something. Anyway, just my 2c.
