sierralee
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June 1 Update
🕑 Added 2025-06-01 17:00:09 +0000 UTCFirst, a great follow-up from last week: TLS is back to Overwhelmingly Positive on Steam!
Or to put it another way that emphasizes how amazing this push of fans was:
This surge of reviews has given the game a bit of margin again, so hopefully we can maintain that. I also appreciate those who said they only review finished games. Maybe you guys can help balance out the inevitable negatives when version 1.0.0 launches. ^-^
I would love to go from this through a purely positive update, but unfortunately I have to be honest and report that I wasn't happy with my TLS progress this week. I feel like I got jumped by various business things. Just assorted junk, from emails to surprises to websites getting in the way of my work.
Not all the distractions were negative, though! Some of you may recall that I've submitted various novels to various literary agents. Well, half a year later, I got some potentially positive results. I had to have a meeting (on the phone, like a savage >_<) with the agent, and there's still a question of the editorial process, but this is the highest profile agent I've ever had interested in my work. Communication and prep for this ate into my work, plus I lost some time being anxious; I have no idea whether their criticisms will align with my idea for the book or whether this will come to nothing. I can be flexible, but not infinitely flexible. =/
And, if I'm being perfectly honest, I spent a while just irritated at RoyalRoad and wondering if posting there was worth the Audible paycheck. Yes, probably, but I sure don't like it. I wish I had a perfectly calm mind that was never disrupted by frustrations, but sadly I'm not there yet.
Anyway, when business things cut into my focus, I try to at least clear a lot of them off my plate. So, for example, I have updated the TLS image pack for $10 backers. The previous version was so large that some people had trouble downloading it, so I've now split it into two. One "finished" image pack with many scenes, then future changes will be to the second, smaller image pack. There's assorted new art as well, as usual.
Matching nicely with this work, I've been communicating with a TLS player (one of us here!) who contributed some assets for the store page. I was planning to update the screenshots... but when I try, Steamworks for some reason says "Dimensions provided do not match any known assets. This image will not be saved." Why? Well, the documentation says screenshots "Should be high-res, widescreen format (16:9 aspect ratio) and at least 1920px x 1080px" - kind of annoying for a game that isn't those things.
The fan also offered potential updated trailers, which I have attached to this post. These are just the first drafts, so of course they'll change: for example, I suggested removing the text and have drafts for that. But what do you think, what should be included in a Steam trailer for TLS? I think I probably want to put the battle busts first in one of the trailers.
This is something that sadly isn't done this week, but is still necessary for getting ready for the final release. I may work more on it (or really, just give direction to the kind fan who will do the actual editing work) but I hope that next week I can report more progress on the next update, which remains my priority.
Comments
Rachnera
Regarding the trailer examples: Video 1 Far too much overlay text. In particular, I would entirely remove the one above the combat example as it's quite redundant with what is effectively shown. The intro with Simon just walking through a bunch of places is quite weak. Maybe start with a "pre-credits" banger to immediately grab attention? Like a 3-seconds clip of the Yarra's titfuck and theology dialogue with no context? I would insist more on the choice part, by not only showing some of the choices, but also some of the variants that are consequences of those choices. Instinctively, I would also move that part earlier in the video, so it can pull double duty as examples of dialogues/characters in addition to "choices matter". Showing the harem screen is a good idea. I would however also remove the overlay text there. The part about the base is not bad per se but I feel way too long compared to how important it's in the game. To be sped up? I like how it ends, I would just shorten or speed up a bit the mini-gallery of art. At 00:36, Carina is really tiny compared to the other battle busts showing up just before and after. Video 2 Both trailers shouldn't share the same music if they are to both be on the Steam page. That instantly conveys an immense impression of cheapness ("they couldn't even afford two songs?"). I guess the intent is to give a glimpse at the plot of the game? But, as is, it's kind of incomprehensible. There's a guy with a big cleavage, and then he gets call on his intelligence by a villain, and then he's at a church, and at the end the bearded guy is talking with people we've never been introduced to about some stuff? Is he the mustache twirling villain heroic cleavage guy will have to kill to save the world?
Dubsington
I have one reservation about the videos - A lot of people have been trained to see any use of default RPGM characters as a red flag warning of general quality issues. That's unavoidable here for reasons we all know and understand, but you might want to really lean into the Anikanth angle to show that "Yes, it's default art in some cases, but we've really done a lot with it." Basically, I'd show the default-RPGM characters (or at least Simon) in some Anikanth CGs, as well as some combat screens with the cool torsos on the left, before showing actual RPGM map-play screens. My thinking is that the enormous RenPy-VN-loving crowd will be much less put off by the RPGM label if they have a few seconds to see that you're not conforming to negative RPGM stereotypes.
