WorshippersOfTheGain

Looking back at 2022

Added 2022-12-30 14:29:16 +0000 UTC

As 2022 draws to a close, I thought it would be good to touch base with you all and explain my development plans for next year.

Also, consider this a big FAQ, and please feel free to drop questions in the comments as well!

2022 - Summary

Considering that the game has only been in full-on development for 6 months, it's crazy to see how positive the reception has been. I was initially really worried about bringing a text game to Patreon, but the outpouring of support has utterly quashed those fears.

Personal thoughts

I'm happy with the diversity of content and gameplay styles. I want to explore this more in 2023, giving some of the new planets gameplay styles that take the player by surprise (Dungeon crawler, text-based combat, etc). As much as I can, I want to write an adult game where everyone has a favourite zone and where the variety keeps things interesting.

Player feedback has indicated that there are a lot of bugs in the game. I'm going to make efforts in 2023 to incorporate more testing into my workflow. I've spotted a few silly mistakes in my code and should've caught them had I used more rigorous testing methods. I also think, personally, that some of the scenes (particularly older ones) could do with being a bit juicier. I intend to revisit some of them and really dial the lewd factor up to 11.

Development progress

The game is approaching 180,000 words. I'd estimate that the game is about 35% done.

There are 8 planets left to write about, including the current one. There's also the main quest, some side-quests I'd like to write for each planet, etc.

Rest assured, I'm just getting started, and there are TONS of opportunities for player-suggested content as well!

Artwork

Thanks to everyone's support, the game is now performing well enough that I can invest in new artwork for it.

Along with the 2 pieces of artwork added in recent builds, there are also 8 pieces of artwork in production (Set to cover all remaining bad endings).

More images will follow a short time after those are complete. The main challenge here is the specificity of the art commissioned. The game is massive, and it's currently unfeasible to commission artwork for every scene. Instead, expect more general artwork to be added and appear a few times throughout the game.

Engine change

As mentioned earlier in this post, the game is getting pretty big. In fact, according to documents and other developers I've spoken to, FOXXX is approaching the upper limit of what the current engine can handle.

The game currently runs on an engine called "Twine Harlowe". It's a very comfortable engine to use, and it's pretty powerful with a decent number of features, but it does have some critical flaws.

For one, save files are cumulative and uncapped. Currently, if you play FOXXX long enough, especially on a mobile device, it will hard crash. There's no remedy for this in Twine Harlowe, and this issue will continue to get exponentially worse as the game increases in size.

For these reasons, I will be porting FOXXX from Twine Harlowe to Twine Sugarcube. It's a different branch of the same engine, it looks practically identical from a player's perspective, but it has a plethora of options that make optimisation, stability, accessibility, etc., considerably easier to manage. It also boasts QoL features built-in, like 10 save slots, save export/import, etc.

Throughout 2023, I will be implementing new content in parallel. The current version of the game (Twine Harlowe) will continue to go out as per usual. A port of the game (Twine Sugarcube) will also be in development behind the scenes. At some point, 6-8 months from now, there will be a switch from the current version to the Sugarcube one.