All the Feedback We Got, and a New Sneak Peek

Yeah, the next chapters of the story needs to be put into the game. We planned to finish the *new* whirlwind mini-game before advancing the story (it's going to be the basic mini-game of the first "book" of the series), but that can arrive later. After the BJ release (which will have some story), we'll advance the narrative further. We totally agree with you that story is the best motivator to getting through a game. Maybe if we had implemented all the choices we'd planned in Blair's game, the forging mini-game would be much easier to go through. The runic mini-game is a work in progress. We shouldn't have put it into the game, specially the public release. There are two big aspects of it that we did not add (recipes and scribbling) because we thought they were not needed per se. It turns out, though, that they are. That mini-game will make a return when it becomes much easier to grasp.

Valdiii

Again I agree with Funky. In regards to exchanging the minigame with just a choice, I think the minigame would be better (it feels a bit like cheating just choosing the outcome I want). I think with the mini games though is, as I understand, they take a long time to make, so you have to invest a lot of time just to get ONE new minigame, but when you first have that mini game you can use it again and again. So I don't mind you had to spend time on making a foundation with some minigames you can now use again, but I'll like some more story now that you have some games to use. I think story (along with that universe and characters) should be the most important part of the game, that is the thing you can make your own. Just as pure gameplay you will properly have a hard time competing with like "real game developers". This being an "adult" game too, you can't compete on just sexy content either. If that was why the players were here they could just easier google cartoon boobs (okay your work is really good in this regard actual, some top notch scenes, but I hope you still get the point). We want to strip Paige down because the story makes us invested in her, we want to do well in the minigames because we want to proceed in the story. The story is what ties everything together and sort of what makes the games good in a sense, so we need more story now. I think you generally need at around 70% story and then a mix of games and pure "fan service" for the rest, BUT as funky says, those two parts should really also contribute to the story. I have a bit of an issue with the rune game though. It isn't that intuitive, so it's hard to figure out how to get 100% (if you like me wanted the reward), past just memorising the tutorial video. I think you have to start with an easier thing to build, so you understand how it works and then build more and more things (of course with more story around it to make the building meaning full).

It does. We've been entertaining the idea of releasing layered updates. We'd first publish a version with the whole story of the first, say, three days. Then, on later updates, replace parts of the story with the mini-game version of them. For example, considering the Whirlwind mini-game in ADwP, it would be replaced by a choice system, like: "Aim the Whilwind at Paige", "Do the exercise as intended."... This way the story could advance at a much faster pace, but we don't know if it'd be for the better yet.

Funky Munky

An interesting dilemma... as a fan of Telltale Games, I would favour story-driven gaming over mini-puzzles (so closer to the 80:20) ; HOWEVER, mini-games and their outcomes should ideally impact the story being told. For example, the level of success in engorgement spell events affects the character appearance from that point, and to some extent, portions of the dialogue, such as varying comments about their appearance (ranging from flat to huge), or opening/closing certain story paths. I'm happy to have more mini-game content, if it is to develop and drive the story in different directions.... Hope all that makes sense!

Say, if you had to choose between story (visual novel) and the gameplay (mini-games and spells), what would be the ratio like? 50-50 or more like 80-20?

Valdiii

Think I'm with Funky monkey on this one. I've been a supporter for at least half a year, and I've just been waiting to see what happens with paige the next day.

Yeah, the episode strategy is kind of what we tried with this whole Blair thing. To release it as its own episode, but even that became too big due to all the gimmicks we added to it. At first, like at the very beginning, people seem to be way more interested in the mini-games than the story. So we went into that direction, but instead of doing it smoothly, we made a sharp turn and lost a lot of momentum in the process. This new minor goal thing is mostly to accomplish one thing: we're aiming at one sizable game update per month, and not an incremental update like we were doing. Something with beginning, middle and end to give that sense of accomplishment, like you said. The BJ mini-game is not going to be just the animation. There's an introduction, then foreplay, then a crisis, then the ending. These minor goals will be more like small but whole experiences. But you're saying something very important about the engorgement spell and Paige's arc. It's been a while since we updated them and it's way past due. But we plan to solve this two problems with the BJ release. We should probably run a poll about that.

Funky Munky

To be honest, I'm more here to see Paige's story arc, and hopefully to see more of the engorgement spell used - on Paige and other characters. It may have been simpler for you to release each character arc as episodes (ala telltale games) to produce your overall story. It would break up the work into more manageable chunks and give the supporters (and yourselves) a greater sense of progression and accomplishment