Monthly Update - Waifu Wonderland Goals and Direction

It's once again time for a monthly update on the progress of Waifu Wonderland!

The game has been out for over a month now and has gotten an update. So I wanted to talk a little bit about the goals for this project, future plans for the project, progress made towards v0.2, and finally about some changes to how the Patreon will be run. Since Patreon doesn't have stretch goals or any way to display that kind of thing anymore. Strap in, this is a real long boi.

These goals also include different types of content, and depending on the amount of support the game gets going forward, will change the direction of the game.

Goal #1 - 

So let's start with the baseline goal. This is the goal I have for the game by the time v0.3 comes out. If the game doesn't have this much support by then, then unfortunately, I'll consider the game a failure and stop development. However, there's a caveat. If we haven't made much progress towards the the goal by the launch of v0.2, then the game will be "done" with the v0.3 launch. Meaning that all existing storylines will have been wrapped up, at least enough for it to be a stopping point. And the current areas will be filled. Making it effectively "done" up through the apartment tier. Partially because I don't want to completely abandon the project in the middle, but also because this way I could put it up places like steam as a finished game and hopefully get something for all the work I put in.

Now for the actual goal.

Either 50 paid patrons or $200 a month.

There are games that launched within a week or two of WW who have already hit and surpassed this, so I consider it an extremely reasonable goal. I also made it either 50 paid patrons or the $200, because if someone wants to whale, then that makes it worth it. But at the same time, if we hit 50 paid patrons, even if they're all just $1 patrons, that's a good amount of people that like the game enough to support it. I wouldn't want to stop developing the game when there's that many people who like it enough to support it. $1 is basically nothing these days, and I only see about 0.70 of it after taxes and fees. I put that tier up because it's something that almost anyone can do as a way to show support for the game, even if they can't afford to do any more.

I was waiting until after a couple of updates before displaying patrons, because I didn't want to scare anyone off with a low number. That doesn't seem to really have mattered though. The number is public now, so you can track it. Seriously, even just $1 would go a long way.

I also have this goal because it's a number where people start being willing to do cross promotion. I'd like to collaborate with other games and do stuff like guest characters and/or to include other artists' work as collectables, but without support, no one will want to do that.

Goal #2 -

Alright, so let's say we hit goal #1 by v0.3. Awesome! I keep developing the game and add in the next tier, which would be the house. I'd add on to storylines, add new storylines, and new areas. The game basically keeps going as planned.

However, I also have another goal in mind for after this, leading up to v0.5. It's still a long ways off, and again, this goal depends on the number of patrons there are at the v0.3 launch.

But right now, the goal is between 100-200 paid patrons, or $500 a month by v0.5.

Again, this this is a pretty reasonable number. There are games that launch and get that within their first month with no updates. By the time v0.5 rolls around, it should be at least a year since the game's initial launch, and at least a year and a half since I started developing it.

Much like the previous goal, if we don't hit this goal, this will be the end of the game. Once v0.5 hits, it will be "done".

However, if we hit this goal, I'll continue developing until the game as planned until it's finished.

Stretch Goal -

I do have a stretch goal in mind though. I have a big fear of using parody characters, but I would honestly really like to include them. But since I plan on releasing on Steam, I can't use parody characters. If we reach this goal, I wont care about launching on Steam anymore. The game will be making enough. So I'll include a new "cosplay convention" area. You'll be able to run around a convention and seduce women in cosplay.

This goal is a big one though. The goal is $3000 a month.

This is definitely a lot, but it would need to at least be enough to pay my bills and be able to save a little bit for when Waifu Wonderland is complete. I'm sure I'll have another project in mind by that point, but it can take some time to gain support. So I'll need a bit of a buffer. This is one of the reasons so many games milk the one project for so long.

Stretch Goal #2 -

This is the animation stretch goal. I'd need to make enough for not only myself, but to also hire at least one person to do the animations. So it's a lot. From offers I've gotten from animators, the rough average is about $100 per animation. I do at least 4 scenes a month, but would also need them to do more than that to catch up, but still be a realistic workload for them. So I'm putting a budget in for 6 a month. Basically, 1 and a half per week. I would want the best possible animator, so I doubled the average and would budget $200 per animation. With $200 per animation and 6 animations per month, that's $1200 a month.

That makes this goal $4200 a month.

You may be wondering why I put the animation goal as the last goal. It's because I'm honestly not sure I'll be able to find an animator good enough. I really don't like tween animations, and that's the kind of animation that would need to be put into WW. So I'd need the best of the best, which is going to be both hard to find and very expensive. Especially considering how WW is based around having a lot of different characters and scenes. Finding someone that does tween animation in a way that I actually like and think looks good, and is also willing to work on a long term project, and can do at least 6 animations a month, and is within budget, is just going to be extremely difficult and borderline impossible. I don't want to have this be an earlier goal, hit it, and then be unable to find an animator and seem like I'm just scamming people out of money. Having it at the end gives me more time to scout animators if we start to get close to the goal, but also means that the game is would already be successful enough that some of the better animators may be willing to work on it.

Them's the goals -

And that's it. Those are the goals.

I wanted to be as upfront as possible about how I'm judging the game as a success or a failure. If we don't make the goals and I do end up having to drop the project, I don't want people wondering what happened and having the project just be yet another abandoned game.

So if you want to see the game continue, it would mean a lot if you supported the project. If every free member were to just do the $1 tier, we'd already be at the first goal of 50 paid patrons too! I'm know I'm bad at shilling, but I had to. I'd really like to see the project continue.

Progress Last Month -

With that out of the way, let's look at the progress made last month! I'll be including the characters after v0.1.1 came out.

First we had 4 new characters with Freya, Rinko, Akari, and Skadi. Each with their own scene.

Then there was also Angela's updated artwork and new scene and Seika's updated artwork and new scene.

For a total of 4 new character CG, 6 new scenes, and 2 updated character CG and 2 updated scenes.

Then of course v0.1.2 was released with a bunch of gameplay changes. You can check out the individual post if you want to see the full patch notes. But basically, I made the game easier.

Now let's talk about the full plans for v0.2. 

I've been kind of waiting to see how the game does before talking about long term plans or schedules for WW.

It seems to be doing okay in terms of plays and views, so I wanted to talk a bit more in-depth about what I'm planning to add. At least current plans. These things could very easily change.

For what I'm dubbing the "v0.2 cycle", I have 34 art posts planned. Art posts include both character CG and scene CG combined.

These 34 art posts are split into two groups, one group for iterative updates like v0.1.2, and then one group for release all at once in v0.2.

I don't want to completely reveal everything yet, especially since the specific characters may end up changing to better fit new stories or idea concepts I come up with, but this is what I have planned for iterative updates.

Iterative updates - 16 total art posts

4 poll characters - 4 art posts
Angela
Seika
Working Girls
Madison

2 One-off women - 4 art posts (these are one-off women to just fill out the world and make it less grindy, like Alicia and Sakura)

Rinko - (added to v0.1.2)

Akari - (added to v0.1.2)

Akari's Daughter - 2 art posts (one for char cg and one for scene cg)

Pregnancy Character - 2 art posts (the plan is to include both her normal scene and pregnant scene in a single post)

4 of the 16 are already done and were implemented in v0.1.2, with the 4 more coming in v0.1.3.

Big Update - v0.2 - 18 art posts

New Starter Scenes - 3 art posts

Freya - 2 art posts (done and announced)

Skadi - 2 art posts (done and announced)

Scientist Main Story Character - 1 art post (character CG only, since her scene will be the reward for finishing the first part of the lab storyline, which will come in the next update cycle)

The Demoness - 2 art posts - (Design being chosen by this month's poll!)

Medical Teacher - 2 art posts

Ms. Tyler - 2 art posts (part of the MMC storyline)

One-off women - 4 art posts (depending on how things flesh out, one of these may be replaced with a main story character)

Goth Seika - 0 art posts (since she's just variations of Seika's scenes, it wont be it's own update and wont waste a slot)

4 out of 18 of these are done and ready to be put into the game.

With some quick math, you may have already figured out that 34 art posts with 2 a week means 4 months and 1 week until all of the artwork is done. About 6 weeks have passed since the release of v0.1.1, and so we can take 6 weeks off of that already. Which means that if I stay on schedule, all of the artwork should be done and posted by September 21st. That's a week after the monthly update should have been released to Waifu early access supporters.

You probably also noticed there's about a week's worth of extra posts for v0.2, which is why it's 4 months and 1 week instead of a nice round 4 months. I had considered cutting a scene for v0.2, so that after exactly 4 months v0.2 could release, but that's not really possible. Since all of the v0.2 characters need to be added into a single update, it's going to take a lot of time to implement them. When doing the smaller monthly updates, I can implement the characters as they get done. Just doing either one character and one scene or maybe two scenes in a week isn't too bad. But doing 6 characters and their scenes, and then also 3 more scenes on top of that, and then also having to implement the main storyline which includes a new area, and then also the side story that goes with the Medical teacher, and also the continuation of the MMC story with Ms. Tyler, and also adding in a new set of collectables (I'm planning on adding at least one every big update), and then also testing all of this to make sure I didn't break anything is just way more than I can do in a week. That's minimum a week if I really rush, work all day every day, and nothing goes wrong, two weeks if I work like normal and nothing goes wrong. But something always goes wrong lol. So instead, I added one more character, and then I'll have 3 weeks to work on getting v0.2 finished. If I finish early, then I can get a head start on v0.3 content and be able to add more.

However, this will likely be reworked due to the recent opinion poll. I want to include the same number of scenes, but what they'll be will likely change. More on that later.

However -

This is only if I'm able to stick to the current schedule of doing 2 art posts a week. Which could very easily change. For one, I've been trying to get more than that done to get v0.2 out faster. So that's still a possibility, and my ultimate goal. So I don't want to give a potential date for v0.2's release until it's much closer and I'm only working on v0.2. And secondly, if I end up getting a day job again, I may have to end up switching back to one art post a week. It just depends on how things go. Unless I can find something remote, I'm unemployed until at least the end of July, because I'm moving then and can't get a job until after I move. From there, it will just depend on how much support the game has and what kind of job I end up getting.

Another important thing I want to mention is that I'm planning on moving to Japan in 2025. I have a job offer, but it doesn't start until early next year. I need a certain amount of money to be able to get there and get setup with things like first month's expenses and a plane ticket before I go. So once I move in July, I'll need to be making money somehow to ensure I can actually get to Japan. I honestly don't need all that much. I'd really only need to make around $700 a month for the rest of the year to have the minimum of what I need. If WW ends up making that much, then I can continue working on it full time. At that point, I'll even make it my full time job and dedicate full time hours to it. Hitting that goal also means blowing through all of the goals and makes the stretch goal a lot more possible. As of now, my only production goal is to do at least 2 art posts a week and get those characters/scenes implemented into the game though. Which is roughly 24 hours of work. Basically, part time. I've been working more full time hours in some weeks to try and get ahead, but I haven't forced myself to. If I did, I could easily get at least 3 pieces of art done each week. Which is what I would do if the game makes enough for that. Although I'd probably stick to 2 art posts a week still, with the third being a sort of surprise bonus added into an update. Since I think it would be fun for there to be some characters no one has seen yet, and also because I already post a lot of updates each week. I don't want to add another one.

But as of now, the game isn't really making much. Which I get. The game has only had it's initial version and a single update. Which is why I've dedicated so much time to working on it. To better show what it can be.

However, like mentioned above, I do have a specific time limit to how long I'll be working on WW before I deem it a failure. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy making WW and really want to keep making it, but I just can't keep working on something forever if it's not getting supported.

But it'll be "done" -

That's why my goal for when December hits is for the game to be potentially "done." Like mentioned above, at that point I want to have all the storylines introduced at least wrapped up enough that they don't feel incomplete, and the current areas filled enough that the game feels like a finished product. Things like having the first part of the lab storyline finished, having Angela reveal what she's doing and why, and have the MMC characters all in the game and at least have revealed what was supposed to have happened in the original series. It wont have nearly the amount of stuff I wanted it to, but at least that way I can call it done and not have to leave it as abandoned. That's also why I set it as December. If I'm a month or so away from hitting that point, but still haven't hit the support goal, I'll still "finish" the game. At that point I'll still have some time before I move to Japan. I just want to make sure it's actually done before I move, so I'm setting the goal a bit earlier to ensure some wiggle room.

Anyway, at this point, I'll then try to release it on Steam to see how it does. If it does well enough there, I may do a "sequel" to add the rest of the stuff that I initially wanted to put in the game. Or maybe have it as DLC or something.

Speaking of which, I do want to talk about plans I have for if I can continue working on it and more fully realize the game.

More specific plans for future content -

Starting with the lab.

The first section of the lab story will see "monster" girls bleed into the game, and the second section is planned to be you to going into a monster girl world. These will be a little more monster-like, but still mostly humanoid. Like one is planned to be a slime girl. But my favorite slime girls are just normal women, but one color and slightly transparent. So it'd basically be a normal character, but with something like purple skin and slightly transparent. Anyway, the monster girl world would play out a little bit more like a normal RPG. With there being themed areas that are basically dungeons, and even having generic wandering monster girls for you to seduce to sort of fight your way through the dungeon (no random encounters though, you'll be able to see them all). These wandering monster girls will also have a scene. They'll all be the same scene with color variations, but I still wanted to have something. Then at the end of the dungeon you'll find their "Queen". You successfully seduce them and you'll get a stat boost, a bonus stack of cash from the lab, and maybe some kind of exclusive item. The monster girls will then stop wandering around so you don't have to worry about running into them. You'll instead be able to freely seduce whichever version of the wandering monster girl you want and the Queen at any time in a specific spot.
I also had the idea that your body would change to better fit the world, kind of like how in KH they'll change to fit in with the world. Like how they turn into sea creatures when underwater or monsters in the monster world. Current possible options include what I call a "Licker" which is basically just Venom. A big buff guy with a long thick tongue. Head wont be so toothy though, it'll look a lot more normal, and probably wont really show up in scenes anyway. It's just an excuse to be able to do thick tongue in mouth while also banging them. I'll have an example if I end up talking about it again. And then a werewolf. I'm planning on having a poll to decide what you turn into though. With the option to not turn into anything. Since if people don't like that idea, then I don't want to force it on them. These areas will have more actual sort of monster girls though. I have one unique idea that I don't think has ever been done before that I think would be really interesting. Like everything in this game, all of this content will be completely optional though. It's technically the "main" story, but the game is designed so that you don't actually have to do it. The first part will unlock the rare women, but even then, just starting the storyline will have that happen. You wont have to actually interact with any of the women you don't want to.

Then in the open world I have plans to implement 3 more "tiers" for you to unlock by buying a house, a nice house in the upscale neighborhood, and then lastly, a mansion. Each one would unlock a specific area.

The house would unlock another neighborhood, that would also be filled with housewives and MILFs. The upscale neighborhood would be filled with classy "mature" women. And then the mansion would let you do things like hire wait staff. Like maids and a chef. With the idea for there to be options for you to pick from. Probably just color variations like the working girls, but still, I want to have some choice there.

The house and nice house would unlock more women in the larger world, but not the mansion. It's supposed to be extremely difficult to unlock. So I don't think adding in women who will only sleep with you if you buy the mansion would be fun. I don't want someone wandering around and finding a woman they like, just to find out they can only seduce them if they unlock the mansion. I want it to be fairly self contained, but still worth the investment.

And then I also have plans for the office building and hospital. They're both planned to be implemented in the v0.3 cycle leading up to December. The hospital just being an area to seduce nurses and a doctor. But the office building has potentially big plans. Leading up to v0.3, I'll just be implementing a base level where you can get a job without much of a story. Just as a way to make more money. There will be at least a couple of office ladies for you to seduce, but there wont be much there.

If the game continues though, I plan on having that be it's own story. Basically the idea is to work and gain work exp, like you do with the data entry job. Except once you hit a certain amount, you can ask your boss for a promotion. Of course your boss will be a hot woman of some kind every time. So you beat them in seduction mode and you'll be able to get the promotion. And bang them of course. You'll be able to work your way up with each promotion giving you a different floor to access with different women, as well as a big increase in pay. I'd like to also implement different ways of working with each floor, so you're not just walking there, draining your stamina working, then going home to sleep, but I haven't figured the specifics of that out yet. But by the end you take over the company and become the CEO. The idea is that to be able to afford the mansion, you'll need that job. I'll also be implementing other higher cost items you can buy along the way. Like a car and nicer clothes.

Then lastly, I also would like to be able to add in sort of "secret" areas. Areas you can only access by train or by car. Some early ideas are concerts where you can buy a backstage pass and seduce the female pop star you paid to see. A hot spring inn type of area where you can bang the hostess in a kimono. And of course the convention area where you can pickup women in cosplay if we hit that goal. These secret areas would have specific unlock conditions, and would be fairly small. With only 3-4 characters max. Otherwise, things could get out of hand very quickly. Except the convention area. Since it's meant to be a crowded convention and the only area where characters are in cosplay, I'd continually add to it for a while.

If all of this stuff got fully implemented, I'd start looking to wrap up the game and start a new project. It would take a while to get there, but when complete, it would feel like an actual sandbox game completely full of stuff to do. I want there to be TOO much content and too many women, and have it be actually sandbox. Not like most "sandbox" adult games where there's only a handful of characters and it's mostly just a couple areas with a mostly linear story. With the sandbox part just being some map navigation and choosing which character story to do.

There's a lot of other ideas I'd like to implement too, but these are the bigger and more fleshed out ideas. Sort of a baseline for what I see as minimum content to be actually finished. The way I've set up the project, is that if people like it, there's a lot I can add to it. But at the same time, there's some natural stopping points I can use if the game doesn't do well enough to continue. I also do have a limit on how long I would stretch it before moving on to a new project too. Since I don't want to be one of those devs that only ever works on one thing and continually milks people long after the game should have been finished. I have plenty of other ideas for games I'd like to make and never want anyone to feel like their support is being wasted.

Opinion Poll "Results" -

I also wanted to talk a little bit about the opinion poll. After reviewing the results and thinking about it a bit, I've decided to implement the rare women and the random women. Here's how they'll work and a rough timeline for implementing them.

Random Women -

First up, I'll be implementing the random women. I've already started working on them. I actually lied above when I said I'd be implementing collectables. At least for this update cycle, I'll be working on implementing the random women instead. Mainly because the work load is getting pretty heavy, and I needed to cut something. Getting all of the random women in the game as quickly as possible is going to help the game a lot more than another round of collectables. Especially since I don't think most people even know they're in the game. Anyway, I have no real timeline for when all the random women will be done or how many different kinds will be put in the game. I'm basically going to add them in until the main areas feel full. I currently have a list of possible types to include as random women (first being a "random skank" as a nod to Haramase Simulator), and I'll be making my way down the list until the areas feel full. Right now, the goal is to implement at least one random type each monthly update. But we'll see what happens. This is what I meant earlier when I said that the current character plans would be reworked. I've been trying to do the random women on top of the normal women, but it's getting to be a bit too much. It really doesn't help that even though the game on Itch has more than 20k views and more than 10k downloads across trackable platforms (as of writing this), the game has gotten almost no support. Even just looking at Itch views, the conversion rate of people who looked at the game to supporters is approximately 0.004%. Which is truly terrible. Based on what I've read, that's lower than the lowest tracked conversion rate there is on Patreon. It's understandable, but still very disheartening. Especially since other projects with less in them and with lazy stuff like AICG get huge amounts of support in significantly less time. It's makes it hard to stay motivated when it doesn't seem like people like the game. Not trying to be a bummer or anything, just being honest and transparent about the dev of the game. If the game ends up having to stop development, I never want anyone to wonder why.

So if needed, I'll end up cutting some characters to make room for at least a couple of "random" women. One or more of the one-off women specifically. It'll technically end up being more characters/scenes in the game if I end up doing this. It'll just be variations instead of unique scenes. I'm currently planning on doing ~10-20 variations, depending on how many areas they appear in. A random skank isn't really a specific theme, so they would appear in a lot of areas and so they'll get a lot. But something themed to a specific area like a random schoolgirl wouldn't appear very often outside of the school, so there wont be as many of them wandering around. Point being, getting some random women in to help with the grinding is my top priority right now. One-off women were originally being put in to serve the same purpose, to level up to prepare for the storyline women, so cutting them would be the most logical thing to do. I'm hoping they'll all get to be added in eventually though.

Rare Women - 

On to how I'll be implementing rare women. Rare women will be implemented in two ways. One will be as random women. Each random type will have different rarities of women. There will be the basic ones, which will have the highest chance to spawn and be worth a normal amount of exp. Ones with unique colors inspired by certain characters will be uncommon and will be worth double exp. And then one more unique variation that will be worth probably 4x exp. I'll have something that tells you if they're rare or not when you talk to them. The uncommon ones will say something like, "You don't see random skanks like this too often." and the rarest will say something like, "Wow, I didn't know random skanks like this actually existed!" Each version will have their own sprite, so once you know which is the rare, you can tell at a glance instead of having to talk to them every time.
The idea is that common ones will appear roughly 60% of the time, uncommon ones appear roughly 30% of the time, and the rare one will appear roughly 10% of the time. So even the rarest shouldn't ever be TOO rare. We'll see how it works out when I implement them though.

The other type of rare woman will start to appear once you've started the lab storyline. The intro to the lab is that beings from other dimensions are bleeding into our own. The main story will have you tracking down the more dangerous ones. But others will bleed in and out of our reality on their own. These will be the rare women. Whether they spawn or not will be random and they'll give at least double exp for seducing them. And once they spawn, they'll stay on the map until you've beaten them. That way they'll be a bit easier to find. That's also why they're worth double exp. If I had them despawn every day, I'd bump it up a lot, but I'd rather have them more accessible. Having them as part of the lab story means I can give a short tutorial on them as well. So people aren't confused by what's going on. They'll have their own specific sprite animation as well, to show they're a rare. Since I'll be focused on the normal update content, random women, and cut ins for a while, these lab rares probably wont start to be implemented for a while.

I still haven't had time to implement a scene replay function for women with one-time scenes like Mirai, so for now, you can only get scenes for the random women when you encounter them. I eventually plan on making it so you can repeat any scene for a random woman you've already seduced (but no exp), but that's still a ways off. My primary goal right now is implementing the random women and filling out the world with the monthly updates, and then implementing the main story and the pregnancy storyline in v0.2 so I can start adding in more women who can get pregnant.

Why the others aren't in -

The other options just didn't get enough votes and/or just weren't really worth the time investment for me to implement them. At least not right now.

Cut-ins got a lot of votes, and I'm planning on giving it a test run because of it, but it's going to take a lot of time. The plan right now is to finish up the kissing cut-in I started and see how it looks in game. But it's the absolutely lowest priority. Basically everything else will need to be ahead before I start working on them again. And I'm just going to be doing a full test at first, they may not be implemented at all. It just depends on how the scenes flow with them.

As for the gloryhole, it got the least votes outside of getting 0, so I can't imagine people are very into it. But I may still add it in for fun, because I like the idea and it honestly shouldn't be very difficult or time consuming. I literally just have to draw lips a couple of times from the front and then a POV view of a wall. Basically just the one very simple scene and then a lot of copy pasta in game.
It'll be a completely optional side thing, so anyone who doesn't like the idea never has to engage with it. I'd only do this after everything else is in the game or I end up super ahead with some extra time though. Or maybe on my own time for fun.

I did ultimately decide against the motion blur. It got 0 votes so people don't seem to be into it, I don't really like it, and it would mean a ton of work having to go back and make motion blur variations for every scene and then go into the game to put in the new variations. It also adds more time to every scene I make. Same with the discord server. People don't really seem to be into it, I don't really know what to offer there, and having to manage it would be a lot more work. I may revisit the discord server if I'm able to get a mod or something to manage it for me, but that's another thing that entirely depends on how much support the game gets.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to vote, it was really helpful! I probably would have shelved all of the ideas if no one had voted.

A change in process -

Almost done. Since a decent number of people have been saying the art looks like AI, I've also been changing up my process a bit, and changing parts of the artwork, to try and combat that. This may lead to a shift in style a little bit as I try to change things to move away from that association. As well as smooth things out and get used to a new process. Basically, I'm going to start using different kinds of reference and be looking at AI to try and stop doing details that I see a lot. I'll be trying a couple of different processes and seeing how they look. Maybe doing a combination. First, I'm going to try looking at porn photoshoots for poses rather than normal stock photos or just making stuff up like I've been doing. Then I'm going to try making my own references in Koikatsu. I'd rather not do this for every character, since it requires making the character, then doing the posing and everything. Which will take at least a couple of hours, if not longer. I'm probably just going to try making existing characters that are planned to have more scenes, that way there's a higher level of consistency and it should ultimately be less time. It all depends on how the art turns out though.
I'll be playing with different levels of detail as well. Like adding in fingernails, changing up the body types a little bit, and having more varying types of lips. A part of that is also because I'm going to try making some character art more dynamic. Instead of them always just being in a basic standing pose, maybe one will be laying down, or bending over, or have one leg up. They could be touching their face or have their arms up. Poses that are a little more dynamic, and from what I understand, more difficult for AI to do. The original idea was for the character CG to be more like VN character CG. So just basic standing pose in basic lighting like you're actually talking to them. It's also meant to be a little bit more detailed version of old 90s-00s anime, which generally is also fairly basic in terms of lighting and shading. Since it's extremely difficult and time intensive to do more advanced shading and lighting for things like frame by frame animation. But I think that's one of the things that's leading people to think it's AI. Maybe the character CG is a little too generic. So I'm basically trying a more RPG approach to the character artwork. Like I'm making dynamic art as if they're actual enemy battle sprites in an RPG, rather than just character CG. I'll still have some in basic standing poses, but I want to mix it up a bit. I'll still be using the same brushes and same techniques to make the artwork, so the style shouldn't drastically change or anything. But things may be a little different as I work through this newer process and make an effort to move away from the AI association. Since I'm pretty worried that this association is one of the reasons the game isn't getting much support. And more drastic details that get added, will eventually be added into older artwork for a little more consistency.

Post Schedule Changes -

For the last part, I wanted to talk about post changes. I've noticed a lot of fluctuation in number of free members. I can't help but think it's because I post so often. So I once again lied above. I've decided to do as few posts a week as possible, which means 2 posts a week at most (mostly for version releases), and see how that works out. I'll try to still have the same production schedule and be making at least two pieces of art a week, but they wont all be posted. I'm doing this for a few reasons.

One, like I mentioned, I've seen a lot of fluctuation in free members. Getting multiple notifications multiple times a week about new posts has to be a contributing factor.

Two, I went and took a look at other game patreons, and am going to try and be more like those. Most tend to update once or twice a month at most, but I think that's way too little. I thought that updating once or twice a week, instead of 3-4 times a week would be a way to reduce the total number of posts without going awkwardly silent for weeks or even months at a time like other pages do.

Three, I also noticed that no one else seems to do what I do, where they post every scene as they get done. It looks like they just make them and people play them in game on release. So I wanted to try that approach. It should make for a bit of surprise and more excitement for the updates. This will also cut down on the multiple notifications that come with posting the different quality versions of each scene. I'll still be posting the 1080p and full quality artwork for patrons when a new version is released. I'll be releasing them at the same time as the updates.
As a part of that, I also wont be announcing every character. My current plan is to do a character intro every other week. Since again, that'll make for some surprise and excitement when the new update drops. Since there will be new characters. I'll go more into the full schedule of what's getting posted when at the end.

Four, these posts take up so much time. Something I'm not sure if I've talked about here is that I actually have arthritis in my hands (I'm not that old, I just got "lucky" and developed it as a complication to getting sick). That's one of the many reasons I use RPG Maker instead of something like Renpy or even Unity. I could technically make something in those engines, I've used them both before and could put in the work to fully learn them, but it requires a lot of typing (especially Renpy), and the two things that destroy my hands the most is typing and playing video games. So to compensate for that and keep my hands from hurting as quickly, I have to slow down my typing speed and take short breaks every few minutes (and when I play games I do real weird stuff like alternate which fingers press buttons and use my legs for triggers). Because my hands just don't move very well and I try to go slow, making a post here can easily take an hour or two. Usually by the end of which I can't do anything for another hour or so because I end up rambling and overdoing it lol. This is cutting into dev time a lot. I could have 6 hours scheduled, but then spend 2-3 on a post and only have another 3-4 to do any actual work. Cutting down on the number of posts to just one a week will help me be more productive. For context, I started writing this post a week before it released and spent about 8 hours total writing the whole thing. That's why I probably kind of repeated myself a couple times. Those parts were written on different days and I forgot I had written about them already. I did try and go through and update parts the day before this post was actually released to make sure the information was still fairly up to date though.

As for what I'm posting each week, here's the tentative schedule.
First week - Monthly update. This will include the poll results from the previous month's poll. Then I'll also be posting a new poll.
Second week - Character intro. Waifu Early Access release with Full quality artwork pack.
Third Week - WIP Post. Waifu WIP release with 1080p quality artwork pack,
Last Week - Character intro. Waifu Fan early access and then public release. Full versions will have a 720p artwork pack, but not iterative updates. To give some added benefit to the other tiers.

I'll also try to remember to only do one notification per day if there are multiple posts. Like just having a notification for the monthly update, instead of the monthly update and the poll (which is what I did today. The new poll is also live!). I'll be doing one character intro for that month's iterative update, then another character intro for the next big update. The second character that gets added in an iterative update will be a surprise, and then half of the characters in the big update will be a surprise. I'll update the banner and title screen to include them, and put locations for non-story characters in the patch notes so you have an idea where they are.

Again, I still have the same working schedule and will be including the same number of scenes and characters each update. They just wont all be announced.

Every day I'm ramblin' -

Alright, that's enough rambling for today. If you read the whole thing, you are a true Waifu Wonderland fan, because that was quite the long boi. Hopefully that did a good job of explaining the rough outline for v0.2, as well as the future for the game as a whole. I tried to go into as much detail as possible without giving everything away, so people have a good idea of what they'll be getting if they decide to support the project. I hope you look forward to future updates!