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December Options - Important!
🕑 Added 2022-11-21 08:01:07 +0000 UTCAlright folks, I'm back from dealing with the funeral and everything. The weekend sucked. As times, I wanted to ask the Funeral Home if they offered a discount on body disposal if I just went ahead and did in a few of my relatives. Thankfully, the better part of not-wanting-to-go-to-prison won out and I didn't choke two of them to death at the same time, one with each hand, in a fit of rage.
On that lovely note...I need to get my head back into the game, so to speak. And one of the things that needs sorted out is what to do about December. As I mentioned early this month, December last year was a nightmarish hell. The reasons for this were many, but it boiled down to the fact that I have family obligations I can't get out of. Those basically carve an entire week out of the month of December where I can't do much, game-wise, every year. Added to that was the fact that, last year, it was the very first real build of Left Hand Magic, by far the most complex game on the production front than I've ever done. The combination was a nightmare, one that ultimately led to the longest delay this Patreon has ever seen. Granted, that was still only about 8 days, not the month or multi-month delays that some of the big patreons routinely throw out and still somehow get funded (-_-).
Even so, it's absolutely not an experience I have any desire to repeat. Which means I need to sort out how to work things out so that it doesn't suck as hardcore. There are three options I've considered as possibilities, and I will let all of you (this poll is open to All Patrons) have the final call on which way we go.
Option 1 - Left Hand Magic (Limited)
December is supposed to be a Left Hand Magic month. There's no way in hell I can squeeze a full-sized build into December though. Which means that this option is something a little different. Essentially, instead of pushing the Left Hand Magic story forward into Week 4, I would be going back and adding to the existing content of the game.
Male no mistake, I would be adding new scenes. But those new scenes would be focused on expanding current content to cover some weaknesses. For example, the Dom/Sub score currently isn't living up to it's hype. I'd very much like to go back and add a couple of unlockable scenes that only become available if you have high scores in one or the other (and perhaps even a switch scene if you're an even split). One likely place that these could be added are to the Weekends that have Masturbation Option Days. Essentially, adding a few more options to the 'self-care' style days that would only open up for high sub or high dom characters. Things like going out to visit The Dark Indulgence(Veronica's Club) or Visiting The Hive (the VR Place) solo for a Sub/Dom experience or two.
Additionally to that, I'd hopefully add one or two variants or offshoots to currently existing scenes with the main characters. Two of these already exist with Trix, if you have a high enough dominance, there are changes or additions to two of her scenes. I'd like to add some tweaks to similar scenes for some of the others, to beef up how useful/integrated Dom/Sub points are.
This lets me work on Left Hand Magic...but without a set number of scenes or amount of content to be added. Essentially, I'd just spend December adding scenes one at a time, and releasing however many I ended up with at the end of the month. Likely a smaller content release than a normal LHM release, but still LHM content.
Option 2 - Haven's Port (Limited)
The second option for December is to skip Left Hand Magic's place in the rotation for one month. Instead of releasing a Left Hand Magic build in December, I'd release a Haven's Port build. One roughly the size of what is planned this month. Due to various circumstances, I lost a solid week out of November, leading to a smaller build this month. I'm planning to release 15 scenes, yes. But none of those are deep, involved scenes. Making it a somewhat smaller build than usual.
With this option, I'd basically do the same thing. I'd double down on Rose Garden and put out another, similarly sized build. Likely between 12-15 scenes, though with some of them being longer since we'd be getting into some Date scenes for new potential Lovers, of which there are planned to be two on Rose Garden. The end result would be that Rose Garden would likely be roughly the same level of completion as Jerta. Though likely not quite as far along. I most likely wouldn't introduce any of the Rose Garden's Patron spirits, as those add long, complicated sets of scenes. Instead, I'd simply flesh out the rest of Rose Garden.
After doing that, in January, we'd swap back to Left Hand Magic. I'm not willing to just skip it out of the rotation entirely while it's still in the process of building it's own fan base. This does have the added bonus of not having to deal with Left Hand Magic in February either, which is it's own annoyance. But for Haven's Port fans, you'll have to decide if you want extra Haven's Port content sooner...or the larger build that would come if it remained in place as a January game.
Option 3 - CYOA Game
With this option, I don't work on either major game in December. Instead, I'd produce a small Choose Your Own Adventure work, likely either a bondage escape or transformation dungeon escape style game. For art, I'd be using either simple renders or, possibly, AI generated Art. I've manage to produce decent result with the latter (Example 1, Example 2, Example 3), but I'm not sure it's worth the trouble. Either way, I'd be using TWINE to make the game a simple CYOA, keeping the scale limited enough to do the whole thing in a month. Notably, this is the only option where I would also likely retain both short stories. In Option 1 and Option 2, I would likely cut a short story in December as another way to free up time. In Janurary, Left Hand Magic would get a full build, with Haven's Port in February, and so on, reestablishing the usual cycle.
