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Looking Back and Leaping Forward! Ambitions for 2022 and what YOU can expect!
🕑 Added 2021-12-31 01:49:56 +0000 UTCJust like that, 2021 comes to an end. A whole year, flashing before our very eyes. While it was undoubtedly a year of hardship for many of us, our understanding of the world shattered, our hopes tested time and time again, and losing people from our lives be it temporary or less so, I hope some good came out of it for everyone too. I hope that, despite how rough it's been, we can all look back and see how much we grew. I hope we can appreciate how we've grown. I hope we are proud of all that we have accomplished, even if it wasn't a lot.
What a wild year it's been for me. This time last year, I had a small handful of subscribers and supporters and was pulling in about 10% of what I am today. I was out of options after years of job rejections and nearly out of time... so I threw together the last of my money into a small project idea that I had written down half a decade ago about a PbP Forums game I had about, instead of damage, enemies would slowly transform the players limb by limb. Those transformations would alter their stats and combat abilities in various lewd ways. An idea of a time before I accepted and embraced my kinky side.
It's wild, looking back. A game that I threw together a few days before New Years. Unannounced anywhere except for a few weeks prior on this Patreon. The plan was to hopefully get enough to afford the dental crown I needed. Little did I realize how neglected the TF lovers of this gaming world were. Victoria's Body, despite it's flaws, gave me an opportunity I never expected I would have. It gave me the time and resources I needed to go for broke, take a risk, and transform my life's work into making these games.
With a meme of a dream and a few more months of time, I went to work on the follow up game! Veronica's Body came from refining those rough edges of the first game and a desire to increase the QoL of my games in general. The emote system was an experiment to make the dialogue flow a little more naturally and make it a bit less tedious to program. The gradual TF mechanic was added to give me more ways to mix up the combat and overall I continued to grow as a designer and developer.
With my time on Veronica's Body coming upon the deadline I set for myself, I took a new risk. Game Over CGs. Instead of spending days adding new little Game Over cutscenes, I would increase the value of the game by following the industry standards and writing some juicy scenes with a juicer, fully illustrated backdrop. This also caused me to raise the price a bit.
And well, the numbers are still out for Damsels of Vice to really confirm or deny this, but I have a feeling that the extra price increase hurt the sales of the game despite the massive increase in value. Veronica's Body didn't sell quite as well as Victoria's Body, but it sold enough to buy me enough time to make the next game. It made me wonder if it would have done better at the $9.99USD price as the previous game. I also learned to never press CGs as a selling point because people get really entitled when it comes to value/CGs... which is dumb IMO because I am selling games, not image packs. *eye roll* (plus ONE CG costs me more to commission that it does for someone to buy all of my games COMBINED)
Now that Veronica's Body established a more solid DNA for the series, I wanted to take some time to let new ideas stew. Making games this quickly has a real temptation to have everything become sort of same-y and I wanted to avoid that, so I worked on something that was inline with probably my top/second kink.
Originally, Damsels of Vice was going to have three playable characters (because that's what a lot of games like that do) but because Veronica's Body sold less that I was hoping for, I needed to cut it back a bit. With Veronica's Body I invested in some Royalty Free sound and music assets (which is why the music is so boppin') and with Damsels of Vice I upped the ante a bit more by going for Yanfly's paid RPG MV script bundle. Part of it was out of necessity but I had a lot of extra stuff to work with and add that special visual flair to keep things moving and make the battles more interesting looking. There's still a ton of new scripts to mess around with too!
Oh, and in the middle of it I got a written commission job (still open commissions btw, just hmu). I ended up using that money to invest in some tileset packs for RPG Maker so in future projects I plan to import those to give myself for settings and themes to work with.
Obviously, I was also chugging away with Lustfall too! Using the money generated from my other projects and the generosity here on Patreon to fund the new battle cards for each update. Believe it or not, we're still not caught up to where I am currently working. I aim to be done with Update 9 content before this next project! I am super hyped that we reached the second milestone and got the card design upgrades. It's a bit more work for me, but it makes things look WAY better.
I've also dipped my toes in other game engines to expand the types of games I make in the future. I did most of a Unity Match-3 tutorial, stared at some old code of a text-based battle game in MS Visual Studio and am always looking into new templates and ways to pick up easy 3D modeling.
So, now we come to 2022!
As always, a new year brings new challenges and tough obstacles... but also exciting new projects and artistic growth! Here are some of the plans and ideas going forward!
Lustfall
Update 7 is slowly starting to be commissioned for. With the inclusion of the new card styles, I anticipate it make take a bit longer than usual. Especially considering the commissions are just as many as the last update. So yay, lots of lewds and a shiny new coat of paint for those who are new or who want to replay the game.
Update 8 will likely happen next year too, similar to the release pattern that happened this year (a release in the spring and in the fall). That brings us to only two more updates. Ideally I would love to finish the game this upcoming year (Update 10 will be the final update and conclusion to the story) but the project is free and is a HUGE money sink so I can't really afford to put a lot of extra time in it. I would feel bad about suddenly charging for the game so late in the story and it would just be kind of a mess. Unless it gets a lot more voluntary donations or we reach the final milestone, it will be difficult to justify spending a huge chunk of time on it.
I will be showing off older lust magic lewds (the ones that are safe to show here) as I work on them as part of the $5 Kinkster tier bonus in their new card form so that's something you can look forward to while you wait.
New Games!
Oh heck yea! I have so many ideas for new games right now! The exact projects I take up to work on might change, but the goal is to release two new games minimum this year in the same cadence that I did with Veronica's Body and Damsels of Vice for 2021. A summer release and a winder release. Once I have the luxury of taking more time on games this might change, but for 2022 I need to keep up the pace!
VB3 aka Hanaja's Body - Now that I have had a break from things I want to get back to the TF series! This time, it will feature the trickster demon and all around antagonist, Hanaja, as the playable character. I have some ideas for transformations and am thinking of going a more anthro route with a lot of them. It will probably feature 4 TFs or so and be similar to Veronica's Body in the way the combat works but I am thinking of ways to toss in a fun mechanical twist.
Damsels of Vice 2? - I loved working on Damsels of Vice and have some ideas of new characters for the sequel. It really depends on how well the game currently sells. The battle system is super fun and there is still a lot more to do with it so I will be very happy to return to the series this year if the fans want more. Because of having multiple playable characters, it's a lot pricier to make but having more playable characters to use in battle gives me more tools to have fun with when designing combat.
Damsels of Vice but with Semi-Perm TFs instead? -A twist on the formula that could be fun. Same combat as DoV but the characters retain their TFs after battle in order to help them solve puzzles. Could be way out of my budget at this time.
Bondage Match-3 - This would be a longer term project made in Unity (mostly because most of the systems would be coded from scratch as opposed to using plugins and templates). I would probably use inspiration from the old dice games, Bondage Adventure and Bondage Arena to make a sort of Puzzle Quest style adventure. I could see something like this having a lot of opportunities for DLC playable characters.
Rogue-like/lite Card Game - Something like the game Inscryption where the gameplay is relatively simple to understand and play but with cards that feel like characters and can be permanently changed depending on what sort of tricks and traps they fall to in combat. This is the least likely to happen this year because I have no idea how I would even set something like that up... But I have plenty of "ideas" and notes about it already.
??? - Who knows?! I've also been thinking about making more action-oriented games too. I know you can do more action focused games in RPG Maker itself and with Unity you can do anything. A long time ago I made a simple platformer game in the engine so making a platformer game with tricks and traps could be fun. Maybe something like Wario Land 4? Either way, I would need to either spend a crazy amount on some decent sprites (16-bit at least) or figure out this 3D Modeling thing.
Other Ambitions
More Written Comms - The writing commission I did back in November was a lot of fun and I would like to do more! I don't know how much time I would have for them, but picking one up every couple of weeks would be great fun.
RPG Maker DLC? - I might try something like this with Damsels of Vice in the near future. It would be great if I could offer optional DLCs for future games (cosmetics, like new costumes). Not sure how possible it is, but I have some leads so I am going to mess around and maybe put something out there.
Drawing - Always wanted to git good as drawn art but never had the time to practice. I want to work more on my own physical drawing. Mostly for fun. I invented a fursona that I want to also use as like an official company mascot so she's a good thing to practice and really learn how to art better.
3D Modeling/Animation - I touched on this in college for a semester. We never did humans which seem pretty complex and this was AGES ago but the more I look into things, the more versatility and use I could get out of some models when compared to 2D assets. Plus, people will simp like mad for any 3D project and frankly, I want to make a 3D lewd game that ISN'T complete ass to control like most of them are.
Re-familiarize myself with Unity - Back in college I used Unity (2?) and became quite proficient at it. I made a lot of prototypes and projects with it. Since then I haven't really touched the engine and a lot of that skill and comfort has evaporated. It would be nice to get some level of mastery again so I expand my game engine choices.
Dream Enhancements for Lustfall - Thanks to my work with Damsels, I have a great idea of how to handle some of the dream enhancements for Lustfall that I spoke about in an old post. This includes a more interesting skill system and battle images for our heroines. It would take a lot of work and extra commissions but it would make the game so much more amazing!
CHALLENGE MODE 2022 - The Obstacles
TAXES - Hoo boy, I am going to get destroyed on the taxes I owe. Just part of the "benefits" of being a small business in America, I guess. I've been anxious about them for a while now so hopefully it's not as bad as I think it might be. Definitely going to be pushing commissions at that time.
Wisdom Teeth - So, I'm pretty old for wisdom teeth. I need to get them removed sooner rather than later but since I have to pay out of pocket for the entire operation, it's gonna be a few grand. I will hopefully be able to start saving a little by then.
Laptop - While I don't mind being a hermit, I do want to go an visit family sometime this year. The thing is, I don't have a way to work or keep an eye on things when I am not at home. Desktop for life! Moving forward I want to get one so I can work wherever I am. It will also be a valuable back up if this computer bites the dusto...
Health Insurance - I have a feeling that I am going to be forced to sign up for an ACA plan again this year. Last time, the cheapest plan I could get was around $300/mo so if that's the case then my monthly expenses are going to jump up by a frustrating amount.
All and all I am MEGA HYPED about this upcoming year! I hope that the games that I make and bring to all of you will be even better than the ones this year and that we will inspire each other to new heights. I am proud of my artistic and personal growth this year and hope to continue growing as an artist, business and (most importantly) as a person!
Have a happy, healthy and KINKY New Year!!
-THE Sub Supreme
