Eroico/Steam
Well, it's safe to say that Eroico has done pretty well on Steam.
I can't say how much it's made so far, however I can say that just in the first half month it made more than it did on DLsite in it's lifetime. That is, financially it was similar to releasing a new game. In the future I'll be releasing any games I make on Steam.
As for Kurovadis, I plan on releasing it on Steam and other platforms. However I'll probably pay someone to finish the CGs and make all the marketing stuff to avoid turning it into a time sink. Unlike Eroico, Kurovadis would not be an overhaul, and would not have many changes, outside of a lower price.
Patreon/Animations
That said, because I won't have to worry about money for a while, I plan on shutting down the Patreon.
The long-form animations were fun in the beginning, however the need to one-up the quality and do something that made each animation "worth it" sort of caused me to drag my feet after a while. Part of the problem is that if I didn't find an initial pose or concept I was happy with, it was difficult to commit to animating. It also delayed game development pretty often as I'd sit down to do a Patreon animation, but just wouldn't have the drive.
I'll be finishing the Hex Maniac animation (Yes, I still haven't gotten around to finishing that one). Because there won't be any more animations after that, I won't be charging Patrons for it, given that the current vote won't be used.
What's next/mods
I'll be moving out very soon. Hopefully living by myself will make me a bit more productive.
Other than that, my main goal is to just spend 100% of my time working on one of the in-progress games, finish it, and then get back to Noaika. Technically I could go back to Noaika now, but because I'm going to be porting Noaika to GM2, and because the game I'm working on now is meant to establish a bit of a cohesive framework, I want to finish it first so that I can integrate them all into Noaika.
Here and there I've also worked on things like this:
The above image is an editor that I'm making that will allow me to load an animation, load sound effects, and place the sounds on a timeline at different pitches/volume. I can also control frame timing, loop points, and a couple other things. Then at the end, I can export it as a .txt file used by the game to control everything. This cuts down on the time it takes to do sounds like the ones seen in Eroico, which required me to do everything in FL studio, export each sound, and then manually write down frame times.
This also got me thinking about the potential of mods, since editors could double as mod creation tools. It's something I'll have to consider more, however, since I don't "need" an editor for everything. I don't want to create a situation where I make a tool that's limited compared to pure GML, but that I feel compelled to use to avoid incompatibility with user mods, etc.
Unity
A while back, I briefly messed around in Unity for a day or two.
Unexpectedly, everything feels weirdly easy. Thing is; in GM, once you understand position, movement and basic variable stuff, you can kinda do anything. Likewise in Unity it feels like once you know some basic C#, position, and rotation, everything else falls into place quickly.
It's both reassuring and depressing, because on one hand I feel like I could do anything, and a lot of what I know about 2d mechanics carries over to some degree. On the other hand, it's depressing because it's so easy that it makes me wonder how the hell people make so many bad 3d games with Unity. I guess a lot of people go in trying to avoid programming as much as possible, and just rely on the asset store.
Either way, it's reassuring to for me to know that an H Zelda or Darksouls is not only possible, but honestly not that out of the question. (I'd start now, if I didn't have so much shit to do -__-)
That said, for 2d games, I don't think I'd ever use Unity instead of GM. While Unity is easier than I thought for 3d, it still has aspects that make it slower to work with for traditional simple 2d games (which is what all of my games are).
Boring health stuff
One of the things that was causing my a lot of delay has be sorted out "enough" that it doesn't actively affect me any more. However lately my shoulder has been giving me a lot of trouble, so I'm probably going to have to start focusing on exercising my arms more. I wanna make stuff forever, rather than having it cut short in 10 years.
I've purchased a smaller tablet, in the hopes that the smaller range of shoulder movement will be better. Until now, I've been using an Intuos large, which probably contributed to the shoulder problems. I went with a medium Huion, figuring it was worth a shot, so I'll probably do a review of sorts later.
If anybody has any suggestions that might help with shoulder pain, I'd be happy to hear it. I'll also be trying some eye tracking software, and now also use a mouse with my left hand to try and minimize the time using my shoulder, for example.
Anyhow, that's all for now.
Thanks for the updates! Glad to hear of what sounds like mostly positive progress.
ReplyDeleteDo you have a bad rotator cuff? I got a bad shoulder as well and since my job requires a lot of massive shoulder movement, lifting and attic work, ive been using cbd oil rub and vape to help with the pain. I also found changing my sleep position of my arm helped it not to feel sore as well. Only, thing i can recommend is massaging it throughout the day and slowly stretch it every now and then.
ReplyDeleteFor me, the problem isn't so much pain, as it's the knowledge that working through it will probably make the problem worse and/or permanently worse. If the pain was only this much for the rest of my life, I'd probably be ok with it lol.
DeleteDoing physical labor with shoulder trouble sounds a lot worse than my situation. Hopefully you get it sorted out over time.
Glad you liked Unity, I worked on it for a while, but switched over to RPGMaker MV, why create a new turn based RPG when there is a good one already. Good luck man.
ReplyDeleteyou should consider Kaisen Chuui for the artist of Noaika
ReplyDeleteA lot of artists are what I would consider "generically great", so it's somewhat hard for me to judge one artist over another.
DeleteIt's also weird thinking of hiring someone in the first place, honestly. If I went out of my way to find someone I like, it almost feels like I'd be imposing on their work by paying them to draw something. Especially with japanese artists, I have no real notion of how much work an artist gets, how much they make, what they want to work on, etc.
most professionals tell you right off the bat, from my personal experience anyway.
DeleteI suggest taking a look at some aspects of your daily life to understand how your health deteriorated/is deteriorating.
ReplyDelete1- What and when you eat (fasting is actually a natural and necessary thing for the body)
2- Exercise, lack of, exaggeration without proper rest, or bad form.
3- Posture. I actually got my neck fked up cause of my posture during work, and a misaligned sacrum due to bad posture that kind messed up my knee. (At the moment my knee and hip are good, neck is getting better)
4- Sleep. If you're sleeping well, how you feel when waking up and later during the day. If you sleep enough, and where you do is dark (so your melatonin and GH can be produced and regulated properly).
5- Daylight exposure. If you're getting enough sunlight. This is important for a bunch of stuff, production of vitamin D, regulation of cortisol hormones throughout the day (it's the hormone that wakes you up, it should be at peak at morning and low at night).
To get a start on the information regarding these topics I suggest listening to these two interviews:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfR445ymujk - This guy is a doctor that actually studied nutrition, talks about longevity, chronic ilness, life-style changes and how he helps people with a good margin of success
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Mtw3vBQYOg - This one is a guy who got through a huge terrible bone degenerative disease that should've killed him or left him debilitated for life. It's mostly about the importance of sleep and how to fix issues with it and make it better. This one in particular was a game changer for me.
I hope these can be of help, I think the best thing to do is go through small but consistent changes, and finding out what works best for you. Wish you the best of luck with moving and am waiting eagerly for more stuff you're working on.
I sleep fine, I'm not overweight, and I eat fine, however my problem easily boils down to the fact that I'm on the computer all day. When I'm not on a computer, I'm drawing on paper or playing guitar, which are equally hard on my shoulder.
DeleteProblem for me is, I don't watch TV, and I hardly ever play games, so there isn't much in the way of relaxation that doesn't involve my shoulder (for me, relaxation is just work I'm not obligated to do). The only breaks my arm gets are a km to the grocery store and back each day.
As far as I can tell, I need to take a long break at some point after I release something (Like a month without PC), and then once my arm is better, integrate exercises into my routine specific to preventing pain caused by prolonged computer use. If I do it now, though, it would probably make the pain worse.
Looking forward to seeing your Hexmaniac, I have friends online I think would especially appreciate it.
ReplyDeleteI know there are some minor gripes with Kuro's art, but I think you are worrying about it too much. Personally I think you should save redraws for a complete remake.
ReplyDeleteAs for your shoulder pain, I recommend just trying different posturing. If it has just started up recently it could be due to the weather. Winter tends to amplify pain quite a bit. Eating healthy, getting proper rest and exercising are pretty much a must too.
I dunno if you've looked at in a while, but it's pretty horrible looking lol.
DeleteAs for posture, luckily for me I'm in a situation where I can afford to try things, and buy stuff that helps. Any time I sit at someone else's desk, it seems like a nightmare. The conditions some people work in are crazy.
If you're going to have another artist do the cg's you might better define what Kuro's actually wearing. One of the many problems I had with your old cg's is Kuro's always drawn totally naked. Different states of undress add a ton of variations to scenes. It also conveys things like the priorities of the attacker as well as how sudden the attack is. Of course you can't do any of this if you don't know what the hell she's wearing.
ReplyDeleteI know in the past you've drawn her in a sort of ill defined cat suit but based off some of her sex sprites she must be wearing pants.
Honestly I thought she was dressed up like an 80's anime biker chick: Leather pants and gloves, some kind of short sleeve shirt, and combat boots. Now possibly I'm just projecting my own fetish onto her little 8 bit sprite. But c'mon, there's no way she's wearing a grey onesie.
oh and congratulations on your steam success!
DeleteWell, I made her naked in the OG CGs simply because I wasn't sure what her outfit looked like yet (And I'm still not).
DeleteBasically it's relatively skin tight body suit with some mechanical bits.
The fact that it can pull down like pants is a mystery.
Consider making a downloadable NSFW mod for Kurovadis if you release it on steam, would be a shame if the pr0n was gone!
ReplyDeleteSteam allows porn games now, so no need.
DeleteGreetings!
ReplyDeleteFirst of all: Concratulations on your success on Steam. I'm glad Eroico has been doing so well that you concider releasing more games on the platform. As soon as I got my copy, I've put some hours into it to write a review in my first language. I hope, that my review inspired at least some of my contacts on steam to take a look or grab a copy.
I'll keep my fingers crossed, that Steam will not shut down adult games anytime soon.
I'm also glad, that you doing so well in finding new stuff to work with. Thing with Unity most likely is as you said. People do try to avoid coding and / or use lots of bought assets. Not everyone is good at both graphic and model design AND coding, since both usually need quite some time and dedication to learn. (Especially if it's not your main job and you're doing it as one of many hobbies.) So I'm looking forward to see what you'll be able to create with your knowlage.
I also hope, that you can put your new found time to good use, when you move out. Although I hope you can dedicate some of that time for yourself so that you don't overwork yourself. ^^
But enough talk. Sorry for rambling. ^^
Stay safe, get well quick and keep up your good work and ambition. * salute *
Have you considered publishing all your games also on itch, epic store, humble store and possibly indiegogo (not sure if the last two allow nsfw)? Steam gives you some exposure at the cost of 30% cut while all of the other mentioned take 0-12%.
ReplyDeleteIn general I publish everywhere that I can.
DeleteWill have to look into Epic Store.
Hey there ! Glad to hear You're doing well financially ^^ ! I'm also very hyped for the new Kurovadis CGs ; Some of your "new" pixellated ones were really gorgeous and fitted way better the overall design. About your shoulder, have you considered practicing pilates ? This method helped a lot my girlfriend, who was suffering from muscular and sinewy problems. Anyway, I hope you will get better soon. A good day to you and congratulations for the success of Eroico (you deserve it :-)!
ReplyDeleteI would highly recommend doing exercises that help about tennis/mouse elbow, as prolonged typing and mouse button clicking will both contribute to tennis elbow and can put you out of commission until the muscles in your arm get strong enough to make up for the tendon damage. I don't know about exercises for the shoulder pain, but hopefully others have given you some good advice.
ReplyDeleteThe H Zelda thing sounds great. I'd love to make a Zelda-like at some point (something like A Link to the Past), but I still need to finish my first H game. xD
I'd recommend switching from Patreon to SubscribeStar or something else as Patreon has removed a few adult animators and artists recently.
ReplyDeleteWell, luckily I probably won't be using Patreon anyhow.
DeleteThat said, I generally stayed fairly low-key on Patreon. I didn't post the gifs themselves there, which might be why mine was never taken down.
Have you ever looked at Godot? Compared to Unity, it does a much better job for 2d games.
ReplyDeleteNo reason for me to use Godot over GM for 2d.
DeleteOnly reason I'd use Unity is 3d.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI work as a programmer, my hobby is games and guitar.
I absolutely h a v e to do exercises, as without them I would be I a world of pain! It's not good to be crippled at the age of thirty for sure! Im not, thank god, but I could've been without exercises.
What I primarily do is walking and swimming. Just walking somewhere is also helping me with afterwork burnout problems.
Good thing for shoulders, back, neck and arms are push-ups. You only need to learn to do them properly. If so, a few a day will greatly reduce problems in these areas.
Also helps doing something like mandatory hourly 5 min breaks. It's very hard to do though if you are getting really concentrated on your work. Many programmers and other people of creative professions are guilty of this. But it good to at least try, and certainly do a break if you have a smallest thought of "maybe I do need a little break", because it means that you definitely need a break, like now!
In my case there's some stuff that will unfortunately only be sorted out with surgery. Once it is though, I'll have a lot more freedom to do exercises that I should be doing often. Right now half the problem is that trying to fix one problem exacerbates another.
Delete