thesolarionproject
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Long post - 0.16 - future of the project
🕑 Added 2021-07-29 10:17:37 +0000 UTCHey guys,
I want to up date you all on what's going on, since I know I've been a bit unusually silent this month.
Just to put this at the start there will be a tiny delay for the 0.16 build. It will now be released on Monday instead of tomorrow as originally scheduled. If you pledged this month hoping for the build, do not worry. As always with any delay that overspills into next month, if you cancel your pledge you will still receive a copy of the build via messages.
That said, this month has been a bit of a bad month for me mentally. I'm not really sure why, but both my mood and energy levels have been extremely low. I have done work on the projects, but no where near the amount and standards I normally try to strive for.
However I feel like the pendulum is slowly swinging back towards normality for me, so hopefully just a temporary blip in production and nothing too serious to worry about.
The Solarion Project's Future:
At this point I've slowly been coming to the realisation that this project will likely not reach its goals we set out with. And my original plans for the size of the game will have to change to accommodate this.
Thinking it through I was put into 2 paths of travel; I either continue on with the full content I planned (5 progression levels, with 5 parts of main story and a crap tonne of side NPCs) and potentially spend the next 5 years or so developing it. Alternatively I slim down the amount of planned content and have the project completed at some point in 2023 (depending on the amount of content I cut.)
I have decided on the latter.
In either plan the content will not include the harem / extend harem or the extra content scenes that was stated in the goals. As I said, we're still pretty far away from that, and I don't see that changing any time soon.
There are a multitude of reasons why this project won't see the super successful heights other projects reach, all of which fall on me from a game design perspective. I know we have some pretty die hard fans on the project, which is really awesome! But I don't think the game has that broader appeal, given the lack of specific fetishes and it being somewhat story & romance based.
One thing is I definitely don't want to seem ungrateful to the people who have supported this project. It really does mean a lot to me, more than I can describe that you have allowed me to at least have a go at doing this in some full time capacity.
And I don't want to come across as greedy either, I know some people will ask how I can't consider the current level of support successful and while it's true we do have a great deal of support, being completely honest balancing my finances every month to see how much artwork I can afford has been really difficult.
I did really believe in this project, which is why I didn't immediately go into job hunting as soon I lost my previous job. I thought it would just need time. Unfortunately 18 months later and I'm still struggling to secure enough artwork and be able to live.
Anyway, I know that sounds like a lot of doom and gloom! But I just wanted to lay out everything so we can all understand my position.
Going forward I will be polling different ideas to both fans and patrons to gauge if there are little (or big) things we can do that will make a bit of an impact. To give a small snippet of an idea is that recently I moved my second project onto rpg maker, a move which was risky but actually received A LOT of positive feedback, and I wonder if that is something that could apply here. (Not saying it should be done - just an example.)
No more Q&A's:
Malaena's Q&A next month will unfortunately be the last Q&A, at least for a while. This is mainly to help with the financial constraint that the Q&As add. This is so I can focus on acquiring artwork for the main game.
Though I really loved the Q&As and I know people enjoyed them, unfortunately the gain didn't make up for the cost.
That said I don't want to leave Space Rangers without a reward, so Witchking has agreed to do a few sketches on the months without a build. I'm thinking of doing a series called "The Captain meets..." where our MC meets a few famous characters from other franchises (very much like the Lady Dimitrescu set) and Space Rangers can vote on a character out of a group. Witchking has offered to do this without charge, so a big thanks to him!
If you like the sound of that Space Rangers, or have a different idea, please let me know!
I'm sorry if this came across as a really negative post. I wanted to try and be realistic about the situation instead of plodding along pretending like everything would work out fine. Not all our plans come to perfect fruition and that's ok. The main thing is that we tried and gave it our best.
To all supporters past and present I thank you so much again for your belief and support of the project. I know based on this post the end result may not have as much content as we originally thought, but I will damn well make sure it's still a game you all enjoy!
If you have any thoughts please let me know here or on the discord.
Until next time,
- Nergal
Comments
I'm not sure if you misunderstood the post or anything so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and ask, what would you do in this situation? Because those 2 choices I presented are the 2 choices I have. So what 3rd option is there that I've missed? The content will still be rolled out as normal (as it has been for the past 18 months), it's just the amount of content planned we have to strip back. I know you're likely disappointed with the news, but I ask you kindly to step back and try and see the logic behind this rather than reacting emotionally.
just like it was with urban demons he comes with the same lame excuse. with urban demons it was the same at the beginning he worked really hard on this game but from time to time there came less content but more and more excuses
It's sad see such a great project have to scale back it's plans. I would have thought withking00's art alone would attract a great amount of backers. Cutting back on the NPC's is understandable and I'm ok with no harem but thinking we may not get the full progress on the crew is hard to bear honesty. Learning and bonding with them has been great. I hope these lovey ladies can still all get an ending they deserve. Too bad about the Q&As I had another question to ask Lillith but I understand. While this is tough to hear I understand why you have made this choice. I wish you all the luck going forward and hope you mode gets better. I will still be along for the ride of course.
SpectralTime
I won't pretend I'm not disappointed, but I understand. At the end of the day, you have to do what you have to do to put food on the table. I believed in the project too, which is why I'm also disappointed, but... if it's not drawing the kind of money it needs to draw to justify the ambitious original goals (or even, iirc, the revised goals), then I can only wish you luck in completing the new goals and with whatever project comes next.
Arisato
It is unfortunate that the content has to take a cut since I've just recently backed this project because of its story and the somewhat romantic focus. I hope you can keep the 5 progression level plan on all the crew members (does Shuma count in this as well? She's definitely my favorite lol.) Maybe we could possibly introduce higher tiers that support keeping certain content like the progression levels? But thank you for updating us and I hope your situation gets better
Shura
So question; I'm hoping no harem means no harem *ending?* Like, we can still unlock the scenes of the girls in a playthrough, but the ending it with be the choice of one girl, yeah? Personally I'm fine with choosing one for the end, but I'm hoping I wont have to make one save for every girl. Is this answerable at this time?
