It's the "One way or another..." update

Hello, and apologies for the radio silence of late which was rather enforced by circumstances.

I fried the CPU and killed the PC during the polishing work. A somewhat blunt opening but I can't really think of a better way to put it.

I've been without it for a couple of weeks (hence my complete absence from everywhere) as this one wasn't cheap. The fault is mine ofc. Not only because of the sheer punishment the PC has been taking of late (which must be, if we include re-works, over 10,000 renders easily since May), but it seems I bodged the repair to the motherboard earlier this year which is what caused her to go. I should explain that in replacing the motherboard I had to switch the CPU over and in, doing, so re-apply thermal paste between the CPU and the heatsink and it seems that it's this bit I didn't do correctly. The fact I'd added a load of cooling to the PC to stop it overheating again mitigated the flaw in the repair but ultimately it just went.

I didn't screw it up entirely, else it would have gone much earlier, but one of my forum members read through the "live" blog I was doing on the last repair and found the smoking gun. 

"Case seems hotter than I recall and I'm fairly sure it's rendering about 10% longer than before."....  which I really should have followed up on rather than wishing it away as if anything was saying the CPU would be getting hot it was that...

So where does this leave us? Well let me talk about Chapter Three first.

Chapter Three.

The situation sucks, although thankfully the chapter doesn't. It's, say, 2/3rd polished, 1/3 unpolished at the moment and the polishing is bringing the game out even better. The polishing isn't just spot rendering or graphical tweaks I should add. For example it may be extra content, there is an easter egg which the MC can unlock by some repair work. Think of it as a hidden object type thingy. Yet this isn't just a hidden image. It's a fully scripted one hundred render lewd and comic scene. Or it may be a tweak to the gameplay interface. Again, for example, when the MC is deciding what tools to use at the moment they get their toolbox drop down but I've added as a part of the polishing work a "hover box" which appears before their selection reminding them what the tool is and what it can be used for or it might be the odd extra animation to break up a scene slightly. So all good stuff and all designed to make your experience more enjoyable. Are these absolutely necessary? Well maybe, maybe not. But do they do make the whole thing better.

So whatever I'm screwing up, it absolutely isn't on the quality front and it certainly isn't for lack of effort. Two PC kills rather underline that latter one.

I'll wrap up the polishing in the next few days, let the testers have one final run at it and then release it. I did think about releasing it as it is and thus making the September point but, if I'm screwed, I may as well be screwed with a quality product than something that's half and half.

As to pledges and version releases, I stand by what I said earlier in that the release version available to you will be the higher of your pledge in August or September, so yes...if you want to cancel your support in light of my latest disaster (and no, I don't blame you if you do) you'll still get the version you pledged for and I'll PM you the link. I might be rubbish (or unlucky) but I'm not out to screw anyone over. My hardware issues shouldn't mean you lose out.

Going forward...

In between chain smoking whilst bemoaning my fate (just what I've done to annoy the little Gods of developers, I'm fucked if I know but they have my card marked it seems) I spent some time asking myself the question of just what was it that was going so wrong all the time.

The key problem is that I'm trying to be one of the best at this lark but without the supporting infrastructure to be able to achieve it. There is a Catch-22 here in that I need more hardware to make this game more quickly. A single PC is finding it hard to take the strain. But for more hardware I need support. For more support I need to release product more quickly. To release product more quickly I need more hardware...

I'm not in the fortunate position of already starting with a load of IT kit nor have having a great deal of support and yet, scrappy underdog that I am, I'm trying to match, if not surpass, my peers that do and go toe-toe with the very best. So how do I break this circle? Because unless I do, we're going to have more of the same-old, same-old of me working hard and falling flat on my face every time and my nose is getting a bit sore doing that. Trust me when I say I'm as unhappy about me screwing up as you, quite rightly, are. Yes, alright, there were a lot of new mechanics in this chapter that took some time to get balanced and I was keen to get the animated bonus done as well but I can't keep going "oh well next time will be different" and hoping it will be.  I'm tired of letting you down. I want you laughing at my jokes, enjoying my story and enjoying my smut - not listening to me explain again what went wrong this time. This is all the more frustrating as large chunks of the game were completed months ago.

Yes, I could compromise. Do I really need a chapter that needed close to 9,000 renders? I could cut material, reduce the animations, trim storylines etc - but would you really want me to trim the game? Especially once you've seen Chapter Three I suspect the answer would be no. But something has to be done. Something has to change.

So for Chapter Four I'm thinking of doing something different. Of late I've been completing the stand alone modules first then doing the main game but if I flip that on it's head it allows me a possibility to break this circle to everyone's benefit. H5 is designed to be played as complete chapters but is modular in nature. It lends itself very much to splitting down into parts and what I'm considering is exactly this with the next chapter coming out as a series of modules.

The first release would be the main story. So that is the first part of the day up to and including all the freeroam but stopping when we get to the evening choices. After that I'd complete each evening module and then update the main game file. So when I complete the "Caverns" module, I'll just announce it and update the file. If you're not going down that route you can ignore the update and not have to worry about downloading something you're not interested in. I'll carry on doing this with each module with Chadders domme path being the last and with that one I'd then bring in all the final results screens, FAQs etc. Each update would be when it was done and not tied to an end of month. So if "Caverns" takes me a week, I update it in a week. etc etc. 

If you prefer playing a complete chapter then all you have to do is wait until it's finished but meanwhile there is primary evidence of my progress and, perhaps more importantly, regular updates as opposed to this "waiting on a promise" system that I currently have. Given that my testers have stated that some of the modules are larger than some other games monthly updates this might not be too shabby a way to go.

Do I want to do it like this? No, not really. I'd much prefer to have a couple of high end machines with one churning out the animations and the other dedicated to gameplay and core renders and whacking out a complete end to end chapter every couple of months. But I don't have two machines and I'm simply not delivering in a sufficiently timely manner for people to have faith in me. 

In conclusion....

I'd welcome your thoughts on my proposal first and foremost but, more importantly, I wanted to let you know the situation and my future plans before the month end so you could cancel your pledge if you so wish. Especially as I will ensure that you still get the release you pledged for. If you do, I totally understand. I won't hold it against you and you're always more than welcome to come back or, indeed, after you've played the chapter to pop over to my forum and let me know what you thought regardless.

But before you do, I'd like you to consider this. You know I can write; you know I can entertain you; I spend time making sure the gameplay is on point; I care about your experience; my images aren't too shoddy and, if the testers are to believed, my recent animations are top tier (yes, including the lewds). I'm making something completely different to most games out there and to top it all I also have an absolutely filthy mind...

With the tools to do the job I could give you the game of your life. Your support helps get me those tools.

Notty