leave2gether
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Long-read status
🕑 Added 2024-10-24 12:13:39 +0000 UTCHi everyone.
I guess you noticed that the project is experiencing a lot of troubles - the whole team is burning out, there is a lack of releases/updates, etc.
What I want to do now is discuss the status and my thoughts with you. I'll add a few polls later as well.
First things first - the total team burnout. Most of the team is tired of the project, few people are leaving the project. I'm burned out myself and I honestly wish to move on and do something else - more on this in the end.
What I feel is wrong about the game now:
repeating events feel bad and they are replacing big chunks of stories that happen just once. I personally keep spending a lot of time doing those one-time stories because I like them. And this is what I want to do eventually - short fun finished stories with 2-3 scenes in total.
too much of everything happens in this game in parallel (which makes it hard to manage) and not enough of everything after storylines are done
grinding mechanics obviously sucked and I don't like it - after completing events once there's very little 'repetitive content' left in the game, making the feel that the whole game content is shallow. If I were redoing the game, I'd split the whole game into blocks of stories that are pretty straightforward (a bit like Visual Novels with choices) - the player would unlock new blocks or have a chance to replay old blocks to get another route / open another scene. This way the game would keep all the content and each story block would be as big as it is planned (instead of 'repeating' leftovers)
In the end, this leads to the circle - repeating events and texts are replacing big stories -> we make repeating texts/events shorter (so that the player need not read it over and over again) -> this neglects the importance of big story chains -> creative depression.
same characters. Don't get me wrong, I love Casey, Lana, and other girls a lot, but I'd love to see other characters more.
with artists' burnout, it is super hard to keep the same game style. I'd rather make a few smaller story-based games instead.
too high arts level quality - at some point developing/drawing arts became a burden for artists, leading to many burnouts. This needs to be settled down in the future.
doing two playable characters was just a bad move - Lana's part of the game feels way too incomplete.
current project mechanics "everything happens at once" turned out to be too complex (burning me alive when I work with it when I add new stuff) and too shallow in terms of adding more diversity
I've spent last week rethinking the project in 'what would I do differently' if I had to redo it - and the biggest thing is structure. I would remove all the grinding and repeating events and break the game into story blocks that the player can play either as new or re-play the old story blocks.
the big pros for 'story blocks' are that I don't need to make entire game conditions for something to happen - the only thing needed is one or a few previous story blocks are finished. For example - oh, Lana and Jackie are now friends? Let's unlock another story block of them hanging out in Vault!
For example, this is how would Panthea story look like in story blocks
And just thoughts.
Well, apparently at this stage it doesn't look too smart to start rebuilding everything. What I think I'd do instead is finish the project this is the main 2025 goal.
I feel less to furry female characters while I like furry male characters a lot. We will have a poll on that.
What would I prefer to do after the project is over are small games based around some situations (like a couple going to the cinema, where the girl might meet her ex-lover, or else - yes, hello to Nikki). A game with a few big different routes, 2-3 scenes in total. A game that can be finished in a reasonable time! Something that tells a fun story and does not ask you to grind anything to get story unlocked.
Okay, let's get to some updates and a few polls in the next updates.
Comments
Cratty
So, the little games sound like a plan. Can’t stop the creator doing his best. :)
Sukira Landi
Think one would have to have a proper vote on that. Hard for me to say atm tbh, I dunno how I feel about that truth be told. Now that she is incorporated into the game as much as she is, it would potentially mean a lot of rework? Also, not sure if you are able to write it into the story as to the why you cannot play as her, that she is so swamped in work so you cannot play her? Not sure. Think the options are as following: A) Completely remove her as a playable character, rework the stuff so you still have the scenes that you can see, but you are not actively playing. Scenes like in the bar, one could witness as working as Casey. B) Keep her, which would mean a lot of work going forward, and you have to make it work story-wise as well which means double work, as I see it. C) Semi-incorporate her into the story, just have the start parts which she is already in, but fade her out as a playable character in later updates (think if you straight cut her out next update, it might be too fast, at least finish or do some of the store stuff that you have built up). Since you can swap between the characters, you can somehow make this work. Either way, not an easy choice. But as it stands, I cannot see how you will be able to make it work with all the story writing + art needed for two characters. Important to be ambitious, but within means. Hope any of this helps.
leave2gether
Do you think it might make sense to cut Lana out of the game as a playable character in one of the future updates?
leave2gether
Thank you, Cratty. At some point, I was thinking of making just scenes, but when I work over scenes, I tend to imagine the whole story too much - with all the supporting art and scenes and then it becomes too big for development and I have to cut it down.
Cratty
Honestly, h-scenes is the reason I’m following the project and enjoying it. So gameplay isn’t a bit priority for me. So if you could create more scenes with same art-style, I’d still like it. Smaller games sounds like a great option, as you would have more space for your creativity and probably create more content overall. So glad you’re going to finish the project, but honestly, just getting the scenes would be nice. I don’t really see the point in completing the project, that burns you out.
Michael McGrath
yeah just peeping on Lana makes sense.
Sukira Landi
I personally always questioned the idea of having two playable characters, while I like the idea and all, and I like Lana a lot. I remember you guys having these "issues" before, and was just questioning if it was too much. I think that idea has to go personally, because it just adds way more work, in Lana's case, the work she does in the store, one could just make scenes where she get peeped on by Casey, ofc you have to have some context to the scenes, so having dialogue that leads to those scenes helps a lot.
lemmon_boi
I'm glad you're back.
leave2gether
Well with the current weekly schedule in the game, there are a lot more things that turn into 'grind' than just money - relations, Vault popularity, and gym stats (even though I increased gym stat as max as I could to keep it a straight story for girl's improvement). Some characters or events occurred only on specific days (like Friday) - which is unlike Visual Novel where I can directly skip days or routines that happen between important stories/days by providing a short text for what had happened in between. One of the things I dislike is 'skipping time' to get to a particular day of interest. Well, skipping dialogs (speeding up) with Space is already in the game, which can't be sped up to skipping whole blocks of text because actions, stat-based, and random events happen within those dialogs.
Michael McGrath
I feel like a lot of these issues could be solved by just increasing the money the girls earn. The less they need to grind the sooner they can unlock the story elements while still feeling like they earned whatever comes next. Also visual novels tend to have a skip or fast forward button. If you can implement that you can have whatever story segment be as long as you want and it won't feel long after the first time.
