Current Status, and Elf Enchanter’s future

I'm sure many of you have noticed, but Elf Enchanter did not release a build for the Nanoreno jam. It's been over a week since the game should have been ready for that, and unfortunately, the honest truth is that the game is still not in a state suitable for release.

The script, art, music, voice lines, and all assets for the first route/ending are all completed, but the game is still just under half-coded, with many parts of the game being very very simple in implementation.

It's not yet a game I'm proud of, and game jam deadlines and past promises be damned, I'm not going to publish a half-assed product.

I know this is disappointing for many of you who are looking forward to playing this game, but because of a number of factors, I will be delaying the game's release, and cancelling my prior plans for a free public demo/beta release of this game.

There are a number of reasons for this decision:

1. My past experience with Magebuster’s early demo was not great, and I felt like I could have made a much better first step if I had just waited until I had a more polished game. I got negative reactions from certain sites like f95zone that I should have gotten from a closed beta instead, and I’m sure that certain people decided never to pick up the game again because of their poor experience with an incomplete game. In fact, that incomplete demo is still circulating in certain corners of the internet, and I don’t want to misrepresent my future games in the same way. I want to make a better first impression with Elf Enchanter, similar to how I did with DKD, which launched in a fairly complete state initially.

2. I want to focus more attention on the game’s finished release, and not waste the first wave of publicity on early access. In short, I feel that I can get a bigger boost of popularity from the public if I launch the final game withiut first trying to push around an early build.

3. This game is a short one, lasting perhaps an hour or two at most. I want my fans to get the full package all at once, and not drip-feed anything to dilute the experience. That’s a break-up of the experience I don’t want anyone to go through, given how unnecessary it is with the game being so short.

I hope you can all understand this, and can wait a little longer to play the game. I can’t say when it will all be finished, but I’ll make sure the game is as good as anyone can expect come release.

There are a few more things that I’d like to say regarding my games and plans for the future:

1. Elf Enchanter will be the last game I make with my partner Kronifer, who made the artwork for both Demon King Domination and Magebuster. We’ll finish our third game together, then part ways. This is not because of any resentment or hate, and I still consider us to be friends, but after certain issues with the production of Elf Enchanter, I believe that going our separate ways will be for the best, so we can both work on projects we enjoy and care about. After the completion of Elf Enchanter, I will look for a new artist to make future projects with. This will add more variability to my portfolio, let me make connections in the industry, work with other passionate people, and hopefully improve the look of future games.

2. I will be reworking the rewards system of my Patreon again soon. I made the current structure with the intent of making Patreon my primary source of funding, and the focus of my customer support. That’s not how things have settled. The majority of my income over the past few months has been from Steam and Itchio, for direct sales of my games, and in retrospect, that’s logical. Making short games one-by-one doesn’t suit Patreon’s monthly subscription like the ongoing projects of other NSFW games with monthly updates. As such, I don’t feel like I should use the current set of rewards for much longer. I would do better to simply focus on my games, rather than regular updates, rewards, and exclusive content for a single platform. I’m thinking of moving Patreon to a more fitting model that better fits my current use, as a platform for the occasional public update on my status, annoucements about games, and content previews. I will take down my highest tiers, which have gone mostly unused up to this point, and provide anything I would have given to those tiers to everyone. I will make it so the offer of games is more similar to offers elsewhere by making it so $5 patrons will not receive both Magebuster and DKD, when Steam and other services price the two priced together at $9. And of course, I will eventually give copies of Elf Enchanter to $1 Patrons. Changes are coming soon, and are experimental, so please bear with me.

3. Despite Elf Enchanter’s unfinished state, I have made a page for it on Itchio, which you can find at https://belgerum.itch.io/elf-enchanter. Pre-orders are available for those of you who want to show your early support, and Steam keys will be available later for any who do pre-order on Itchio. I cannot provide a video trailer yet, nor will I offer any builds before the final release (barring closed beta testing), but I’ve made preview assets for the page so you can see what to expect from the game, and be ready for when it eventually launches.

Thank you to everybody who cares enough to read this, and I hope you can understand my current position, goals, and focus. I will continue working to deliver good games, and prove myself worthy of your support.