Hwelp, looks like I may have missed a Nutaku payment so I got two at once. Turns out I have plenty of cash at the moment.
For now, I'll get the dental stuff done and go back to working on the game. Will work on the current Patreon animation here and there, but there's no huge rush since I'll be fine for now.
After the final two animations are done, if I still need the Patreon for income I'll switch to a weekly or bi-weekly game. However, I do want to clarify a few things regarding patreon and what I will and wont do;
1. I will not, and will never do any sort of pay-per-month patreon. I will only do pay-per-release models.
2. I will not do any patreon wherein I'm being supported to work on full commercial games (games I'll sell).
What I would do is a pay-per-update game designed solely to be a patreon project. That is, the game would be free to everyone, with patrons getting the updates early along with some kind of voting power. After the game is complete or I stop working on it, it would not be sold.
After Noaika is released, I will likely not do Patreon stuff anymore, as at that point I'll have 3-4 in-progress games to work on and sell. Though if I'm doing a game patreon at that point, I may tie it up into a finished state over the course of a few months and give it closure.
Anyway, all that out of the way, I do need to start thinking a bit more seriously about what I'll actually do for a weekly updated game.
I think that for it to work well, it should be something that is replayable. I've seen projects like Guilty Hell and Unholy Sanctuary that grow over time into a traditional game, but I find that at a certain point it isn't really the same as playing a normal game if you're either replaying the entire game every time an update is released, or experiencing the one new thing and waiting for the next one.
I think that something with some degree of procedural generation and simulation would probably be my best bet. Either a Rogue-Lite meant to be played in sessions, or something in which success comes and goes, even if you slowly progress. Either way it would be a platformer though.
An initial state for the game would probably be a home location, a procedural generated area outside of that home, with the initial goal just being survival
Each update would contain some kind of H content + game content. For example one update would be a new enemy + an animation, while another update might be new items/mechanics + an animation for an existing enemy, or simply an environmental animation.
The main thing I haven't figured out is whether to focus on long term progression or not. A world you "live in" and come back to each day, VS a game where you're meant to play and win or lose within 20 minutes to an hour. Simple pleasures of farming or befriending monsters doesn't really work if none of it is long-term.
A combination of the two might work, wherein there is long term progression, but also the risk of losing progress or assets, either losing aspects of your character, or encountering situations in which the status quo must be taken back over time. Perhaps with leveling your character to further levels requiring you to start from 0 in order to slowly build your persistent base stats, or losing your home location and needing to take it back. Will have to think about it.
Tell me what you guys would like to see from such a game. There's also the matter of the gender of the protagonist, since chances are it wouldn't be viable to do both genders and two sets of enemies, unless the graphics are low res.
Hey Kyrieru may I ask you a question?
ReplyDeleteYou just did.
DeleteTrue. What is your opinion on anime figurines and statuette?
DeleteI generally don't buy a lot of decorative stuff, since I'm more inclined to spend money on tools. The number of characters I'd buy figures of is also fairly limited, so it's not something that crosses my radar too often. I don't have any distaste for them or anything like that though.
DeleteI see. The reason why I ask you this question is because there maybe a way for you to generate another source of income. Take a look at this. https://www.shapeways.com/product/DFN3DWMT7/tendai-rei?optionId=65351526&li=shop-inventory
DeleteWhat your seeing is the main character of an eroge I'm working on call SplatterSpunk it a top down shooter similar to Enter the Gungeon. I'm selling this figurine to make money so i can work on the game without using a patron.
Kyrieru. You have a fanbase Some of who including me would love to buy a figurine base of a character in one of your games. Which you have three or four depending on Noika(am i saying the name right?). You should be able to generate money from of it. Also i want you to take a look at something. https://texelion.deviantart.com
DeleteThis man made the Tendai Rei Figurine above. Take a look at his gallery. And tell me what you think?
Maybe I'd do something like that in the future, but I don't think it would be as effective as making games, in terms of income. Seems like more of a thing I would do for the fun of it.
DeleteI understand. But I have to say this. Never underestimate the power of merchandising. I'm pretty sure you fanbase will buy them just to support you alone. The other will buy it just to have their favorite characters from your game. In their figurine collection. But still I understand where your coming from. I was wondering do you offer art commission,to get money from the side?
DeleteI don't currently, just don't really have the time. Plus I don't think my art is good enough for commissions yet, at least not in a financially viable sense.
DeleteKyrieru your to humble. Your one of the best pixel artist out there. If you don't think your good enought to make money off your skills. I don't know what to say.
DeleteWho's the character in the first sketch? Is that something from Medabots?
ReplyDeleteJust some character I made. Based on that aesthetic though.
DeleteI kind of like the idea of a long-term kind of game. Maybe have some kind of procedurally generated mission system, which gives the player some kind of advantage if they succeed or sets them back in some way if they fail. The idea of losing a home base and having to reclaim it could work well with that, if you have a mission where a boss monster attacks your homestead.
ReplyDeleteLosing your house opens up all kinds of new ideas too, like having to find a cave to serve as a new home and potentially having to battle a monster that's already living there to secure the cave for yourself. And maybe you can't restore health as efficiently in this state, since you have to be wary of monsters creeping up on you in your sleep, so you can only sleep in short shifts.
As for gender, I vote girl all the way. I like red-haired girls the best, though I'd be fine with whatever.
To add another idea I just thought of, maybe such a game could use an Auto-Save system by default or to the exclusion of all else, to encourage players to live with the results they got.
DeleteWhile I wouldn't call it missions per se, I do think I'd like to have a game where it feels like a world with moving parts. That is, bands of monsters that can pass by, or a beast might make a nest near your house, etc. Elements that interject.
DeleteAs for autosave, it depends how the game plays. I don't think you want a situation where the player feels like it's too risky to mess around and have fun because they're too worried about losing progress.
What about a campaign type map to give the player a visual indicator of where they are and what's going on in the world. Maybe limit what they can see based on where they are - being able to tell everything that's going on in the world would feel too omnipresent imo.
DeleteJust do what Zell23 does and you will be fine. Especially since your pixel art is even better.
ReplyDeleteIf you're looking for some kind of framework for your Patreon title, Perhaps something like Rogue Legacy which has an outside hub for you to spend your currency and a procedural generated dungeon where you could add new room layouts, enemies, and possibly equipment each week? Seems like it'd be pretty easy to modify since new room layouts wouldn't be overly time consuming and new enemies can be sprinkled into rooms that you've already seen and can change how you experience that specific room based on enemy compositions thus creating a new experience.
ReplyDeleteWell, the problem with that sort of game is that it only really works if you have a lot of content.
DeleteI think the format would have to be something that works even at a base level, without much content.
When all else fails..... ROLL DICE!
ReplyDeleteI do like "die-and-retry" sort of games. Something that plays like Eroico except that, to increase replayability, would include procedurally generated levels and permanent unlocks. Horizontal progression only... for example, unlocking weapons that simply play differently but aren't any better than any of the other ones, so you can choose one before every run. Permanent unlocks should improve variety instead of just giving boring stat increases. There could also be various traits you could pick to modify gameplay in some way (for example, Lightweight: jump higher but have lower HP), creating more variety for a relatively low amount of work (mainly adjustments to some values, easy).
ReplyDeleteMale or female protagonist? While I absolutely do not care for males, I'll suggest male protagonist, and here's why. With a female protagonist, you only have a single character, so if someone doesn't like her, the entire game is ruined. Either way, with just one female, you don't get a lot of variety and it's easier to get bored with her. If that wasn't bad enough, male enemies are essentially just Things With Dicks and a new male enemy isn't interesting at all, it's just one new sex position for the main girl. Comparatively, while a male protagonist isn't sexy or interesting, the major benefit is that you end up with a wide variety of female enemies. The variety alone is excellent but has the additional benefit that, if one enemy isn't to someone's liking, it's a minor loss. Every new female enemy that's announced/revealed is a big deal because it's not just a new position for the same old protagonist girl, it's a new female too. Besides, we've already got a million games with female protagonists.
I would suggest making slightly more complex enemies than usual, too. Instead of fightning hordes of throwaway enemies that die in two hits each, with just one attack and one H scene per enemy, you can make enemies that have a bit more HP (5 to 8 hits, maybe) and that can be expanded to have two or three attacks and two or three H animations each. Every enemy can be relevant (will make you go "Oh shit, it's a _____!")instead of most of them being mere afterthoughts that are instantly dispatched and moved on from.
I would highly advise against permanent vertical progression. This almost invariably makes either the late game too hard (before farming) or the early game too easy (after farming). It's more fun (and much easier to design) if the character always starts a run with the same amount of power and simply faces content well-balanced for that amount of power.
Those might just be my personal preferences, but I think they make sense. Taste may be sujective, but nearly everyone will tell you pizza tastes better than a bowl full of salt and mustard, so some recipes are genuinely a lot better than others. The same goes for video game design.
Well, I agree with many of the things you said.
DeleteOne of the things I'd say about vertical progression, though, is one of the ways I've considered getting around this is by matching player progression with the option of higher challange levels. For example, I don't like the way it's done in Elder Scrolls, where enemies scale to your level.
But, I think that if the player has the option of raising the level of areas or enemies themselves with the promise of better rewards, they will. One way of doing this would be to have a form of gameplay or combat in which things can scale in ways other than damage.
That said, I mentioned that I'd probably do some form of progression wherin reaching higher levels requires you to revert your stats in order to gain higher base stats. That way there would be a long term progression, but none of the mechanics become obsolete, and the rise in base stats would be very gradual.
As for gender, think both would work, however the big difference is that female enemies take longer, as they are scrutinized sexually. If you make a male monster, it can be very desirable for the H scene it has, but you can make it ugly and it can still do it's job.
Not to mention, I can stick a dick on a female protagonist as a mechanic fairly easily, whereas turning a male into a female character wouldnt be as appealing for most people.
As much as i prefer male mc over female mc i have to say it's just a fetish thing. Some people prefer to play as a female some as a male.
DeleteI process things slowly, but yes, I really like the idea of being able to choose difficulty levels and get better rewards. If this is done to enable vertical progression, I think it would have to be done in a way that makes it matter. If it's a "you have double HP and deal double damage, but enemies have double HP and deal double damage" sort of deal, obviously there's not much point in there being progression at all. A surprisingly high number of games work like that.
DeleteThe "reset at higher level" option sounds intriguing, but I've practically never seen it implemented. Best I can remember, Makai Senki Disgaia had something kinda like that. Level and stats returned to base, but future growths would be higher? Something like that. It's been a while.
Ah yes, I should have mentioned this to make a fair comparison, but since male enemies are essentially just dick transports, no one really cares what they look like. That's indeed a major difference in how much work is involved with their design, drawing and animations compared with female ones. I still think male protagonist and female monsters represent more variety and more excitement when new content is added (which is kind of what this game would be about), but it's not quite as uneven as I'd initially made it sound.
I don't know what to make of the dick option. It's a really smart way to make a female character more sexually compatible with a female enemy, I'll give you that, and gives you more versatility with enemy content. But I tend to see characters as either penetrator or the penetratee, so my brain doesn't know what to do with a character that's one or the other at different points in time. I think I'd prefer a futa protagonist only if all enemies were female, which honestly ends up being the same as a male protagonist. Though I suppose people would care more about what she looks like, which is a plus, maybe?
I'm looking at your poll and being tempted to vote for "Male", but it looks like "Female" is the overwhelming leader. That's fine, really, but... ohboy, I really hope I like her design. If she has glasses, you can expect to hear a loud "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" in the distance at some point.
In any case, I'm looking forward to it. High-quality games are freakishly rare. I'd still be playing Eroico regularly if it had any replayability. Love that game.
There are a couple ways that stat reseting could work;
DeleteLet's say You start with base stats of 1,1,1,1
You have a level cap of 20. Leveling up to that level would be semi fast. During that leveling, you would either be able to choose which stats to increase, or you would increase stats via items/environment. So by level 20, your stats may be 10, 60, 30, 5, etc.
Your stats would be enough to deal with mid level enemies on equal footing, but some enemies would still be very difficult to take down.
Now, if you die in this state, you would probably lose stats (which is a problem since you can't level up any more), or you might revert to level 0 (maybe on hard difficulty).
So to get stronger, you would use a pedestal /stone /magic-circle /whatever that reverts you back to level 1, but carries over a % of your stats as permanent base stats. If you had 60 ATK, you might get 5% of that back as base stat. So instead of 1,1,1,1, you now have 1,3,2,1 at level 1. This % could be adjusted depending on what I want the speed of progression to be.
This way, certain early game elements will come in and out of relevance, and there will be some element of rogue-lite, but with long term progression. I have some other ideas for this, but that's the basic idea (with arbitrary numbers).
For the futa thing, all the enemies wouldn't be female, but then the protagonist also wouldn't always be a futa. When male enemies are having their way with the protagonist, she wouldn't have a dick, or anything like that.
As for the glasses thing, aside from the fact that I'm not big on glasses, glasses don't translate well in pixel art, so it's rare that I'd have bespectacled characters.
Reading about the base stats idea I automatically think about a min-maxing strategy to boost the amount of points you get on re-spec(?). I like the idea, especially if having points in all stats is easier, making the min-maxing strategy really difficult (but still viable).
DeleteThe idea also creates options for story progression; maybe you need a certain level in a certain stat to open a heavy door, or find a hidden entrance, or catch a certain npc in a lie that forces them to do you a favour - such as letting you through the secret portal in their cellar to get into enemy territory - lest they be called out on their lie.
The danger with the story progression idea is that those areas are left for development later on, and the player routinely walks straight past instead of trying them because in the update they've played the door/odd coloured wall/boring npc doesn't do anything.
wow another game!
ReplyDeletetired of one, move on to another - just like real game dev, right?
A Patreon game would be replacing the animations I do, and would make up about a day out of every week.
DeleteI suppose you would prefer loot-boxes?
Permanent passives (+HP, +STR, etc) with perishable mid-level items. Procedural generation for things like cave systems, static checkpoints for things every player is meant to see.
ReplyDeleteI'd joke and say what people want in a Made in Abyss game with less torture porn and more actual porn, but that sounds like a terrible idea because of scope and expectation.
Well, I can either have static zones but with randomized contents (Like monster hunter), and slowly add new areas,
DeleteOr, I can have totally randomized areas and contents. Or I could have a little of both.
Mechanics in general would slowly grow over time, so the main thing would be having a survival element that continues to be an issue regardless of what the rest of the game is, so that in the beginning there's still challenge, even without a ton of enemies and other mechanics.
My vote's for a male protagonist. Mostly just personal preference, though I do think it would stand a chance of setting the game apart from its peers. Might also be easier to tie in to long term progression (e.g. a monster taming/harem building system) due to the differences in how male vs female enemies are usually handled in porn games mentioned upthread. As for long term progression itself, I'm not much into rougelikes/lites so I'd lean towards a fair amount of permanence. Something meant to be replayed constantly in short bursts would get old pretty quick I feel. Could still have plenty of randomization and replayability, but I think at minimum it'd be best to have either the character or the home base able to survive mostly intact even if everything else is regularly lost. Essentially something like the possibilities mentioned towards the end of the post.
ReplyDeleteWell, the difficulty with female enemies is that they are subject to more scrutiny, visually. You can animate a monster without animating it's face and nobody will care, but with a female enemy you have to spend more time on every aspect of the animation.
DeleteAs I mentioned in another comment, one option would simply be to add the option of futa or gender bending later in development.
Fair enough, if it ends up being too time-intensive for the pace of updates you have planned then so be it. Just speaking to personal preference again though, I really don't see futa etc. as an acceptable compromise. No reason not to include it as an option of course, but at that point I'd rather just go with a plain female protagonist. Both would be a good step down from a male protag and female enemies.
DeleteWhat I meant is that the protagonist could be normally female, with a game mechanic that turns you into a male or a futa. That way you can have a few female enemies that have animations with one or both, without limiting anything, and without dedicating the entire theme to it.
DeleteAgreed with the dude about zell and the dude about a male protag. New girl every update is way better than new thing-with-dick.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of roguelites, have you ever thought about how to make "dying" less counter-intuitive in an H game? I've always thought it was annoying to be forced to lose but I can't think of a good way to align the player's goal with the character's. In a roguelike at least you're expected to die often.
Well, you just have to make it so that dying isn't required to get H, such as giving the player a "tempt" move or what have you (Not the same as a knockdown button, I mean something intentional in the design). There have also been a couple H games where half the goal is finding out how you get certain enemies into a "sexable" state.
DeleteHi! its me "Your 3D stuff looks like crap guy" I hope I didnt show up too early cause I said I comment next year and nothing will be finished, Im glad I only pay for finished products of yours and not get milked trough patreon for your weird work attitude and health problems, see ya next year maybe your "side project" is finished than. your works IF completed are awesome quality though, but aster sucks I hope the artist "S" was not s-purple master shemer of backstabber scam.
ReplyDeleteI'd just like to chime in and say I prefer a female protagonist. That's all. Thanks for the update.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely prefer female protagonist. There's almost no chance for yuri if the main character is male. (That genie boss in eroico was my favorite.)
ReplyDeleteFor your comments on long term progression, as long as you have something to soften the pain of death, you should be fine. Maybe it's base upgrades that unlock after progressing to a certain point, character stats that roll over and make killing enemies/exploring further/base building easier, or some type of post death currency you can save up or spend for upgrades/unlocks for the next playthrough. Or some type of death world that you can interact with that changes based on what you did in life, or that can affect your next playthrough when reincarnating or something.
Anyway, female protag is best protag. Also have female companions/npcs that you can sex up.
I missed it on your twitter, but what would you have drawn if I had asked the bunnygirlthing to "Get Kyrieru to give you a new demo for Noaika."
One of the ideas I had is that when you choose to revert level 1, it would increase your base stats by a certain amount depending on how high you got. However, dying would start you back at level 1 and you would only get some of the increased stats, making it a risk/reward thing. That way, dying when at a low level would also not have huge consequences and you could mess around a bit.
DeleteAs for the girl, she would neither understand what a demo is nor a video game, and probably would have said you're making up words.
Girl protagonist definitely. I love that you generally make tomboy protags, not a ton of H games I see do that. I still get bummed that the martial arts heroine didn't get used.
ReplyDeleteLove your work Kyrieru!
Her anatomy was a little iffy but she had a mean jump kick.
DeleteAn updated Noaika demo would be amazing tho. So we could at least see the new models and resolution in motion.
ReplyDeleteFemale protag best protag.
I've suddenly become overwhelm with curiosity about what percentage of your audience (and us fans) is male and female.
ReplyDeleteMy guess is that very few of you are male and female.
DeleteAs for how many are male and how many are female, I've seen a few female players pop up here and there, however I'd say that the vast majority are male.
A statistical basis for information would be Youtube and Twitter analytics, which show 1% and 7% female respectively.
I'd prefer male protagonist.
ReplyDeleteThis. Haven't purchased the last few games because of this, its nice to see that people really like the female protag, but there is a huge lack of adult action games with a male protagonist, with eroico being one of the best ones.
DeleteI kinda like the idea of a female protagonist as well. Least then the option for male and female enemies can be used where as with a male protagonist can't really step into male enemies without a possible uproar from people or them being strictly enemies with no scenes.
ReplyDeleteHowever in the original post you mention about befriend monsters, is this going back to an older idea of raising them for personal stats and H-scenes?
Well, it's sort of based on that format, however I don't think it would be quite as detailed as that idea, at least in the beginning.
DeleteThe whole concept seems like it could spiral out of control very quickly. You'll end up trying to implement way too many things at once on a way too ambitious schedule.
ReplyDeleteIf I were developing it as a normal game, maybe. However it couldn't really spiral out of control on a weekly release schedule if the requirement for each release is that it contains new H content.
DeleteThe approach would be to work 1 day out of the week on it. Any time left over after doing H would be spent on new mechanics/ new content, so at worst it would stay simple while having more enemies and H. For sound, on the other hand, I'd likely be using existing sound effects I've made, and ambiance instead of music.
If you decide to make monster girls as opponents, I'd wish for them to be recruitable as partners in long run. Say, you've got an achievement for running 10000m in total (number is absolutely random and just to show a point), and with it you get an, say, Lamia. She travels along with you, provides small backup by distracting some enemies, does funny poses while you are running, then catches up, etc.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like a fun idea, but it adds more animations (especially if there's more than one of this kind of companion) for a character that isn't mc or enemy. It's also something that you would probably have to structure the game around - rather than just being a novelty - as it could affect the game balance (if the Lamia is actually useful at distracting enemies).
DeleteI'd really like to see a game that does this though.
I would love to see a weekly patreon game, I think that's a really neat idea. 2 questions theough.
ReplyDelete1. Would it actually be updated every week? That seems like kind of an intense work schedule for you.
2. Would the patreon prices change? Right now they're quite low at 2 bucks a release, but if you do the game, the content is more substantial so would the prices increase? (Not complaining, honestly I think you should raise them)
Otherwise, love your stuff so thanks for caring so much
To answer all those questions;
DeleteIf anything it would cost less, not more. There are a few things that make Patreon animations take a while, even if I'm doing one all at once like I did in the beginning;
1. I don't release them often, so expectations are higher.
2. They are very high resolution, longer, contain more parts, and are generally more detailed than a game animation.
3. It can difficult to adapt the character in a way that looks right, so getting the initial keyframe can cause me to spin my tires until I get something I'm happy with.
4. Because the releases are infrequent, there's the sense that I should avoid repeating myself when it comes to poses, and I'm limited by the self contained nature of them (people will generally want to see the face, for example)
5. Because they take a long time, it can be difficult to sit down and work on them because I know that it won't be finished, and in the beginning I might not make any progress at all as I figure out what the hell I'm going to do.
Even if I was working on one all at once, it would probably take 2-3 days, and then that's all I'd do for the month. Getting 600-700 CAD per animation combined with residual sales is generally enough money in a month.
On the other hand game animations have a few things going for them that make them much easier.
1. The character is the same every time, there's no work to adapt them, and I have an idle sprite to adhere to.
2. The animations are far lower resolution, and are always the same resolution.
3. Animations are not self contained; I can do an animation where you don't see the character's face, or a nonstandard angle because there will be other animations in the game.
4. All characters including the enemies are things I design. Players may vote between enemies I offer up, but at the end of the day, I have full control over the content.
5. It isn't a departure from my normal work, so there's no adjusting to getting back into the groove of things.
For all those reasons, the actual H animation aspect of the work is nothing compared to the Patreon animations I'm doing now. In addition to the H animation, I'd be doing some programming, however all it takes to add H content is to re-use whatever existing code I've already done for a game, which basically equates to data entry. (duplicate object, assign sprite to object, list frames with sounds and which sounds to use, choose speed per section, assign object to enemy object)
Long story short, H animations are way less trouble to make. Because they would be weekly, and because the content is less costly to make, releases would cost less.
As an example, I did the Miku animation over the course of a few days, and that contained the following parts;
Stage background
Room background
Room 2 background
Miku spin
Miku Walk
Miku dive
Miku look around
Miku masturbate
Miku surprise
Guy photo
Guy walk
Guy + miku blowjob
The Miku animation was also about double the resolution of what I'd do in a game. Compared to that, a single H animation and a couple items are way less work.
Oh ok I never really thought of it like that. Well it's good that everyone seems so receptive to the option that will be much easier on you
DeleteI think the female protag with futa mechanics would be best,that way you could do mostly male enemies since they'd be easier for you,but you could also have a few attractive female enemies with possibly just some straight up yuri,also a rogue-lite with stat resets and a home base sounds awesome,that's kinda all I have to say about it since my other questions like the "how to fix dying for h scene" thing were already answered above.
ReplyDelete