11/29 Status Update

11/29? The month is almost over! Where's that new demo I was talking about? Well it's not 11/30, is it? I still have one more day. Tomorrow demo 3 of Netoria 2 will come out for people pledging $5 and up. This new demo goes all the way up to level 9 letting you see the climax of the act 1 relationship drama as well as the very start of the POV scenes that lead into act 2.

If you're only pledging $1, don't worry, you'll be able to play this demo too. After I get a bit more feedback and tighten some more thing up, demo 3 isn't going to be exactly released publicly, but I will give it out to all of my supporters. That basically means people who follow me on Subsribestar or Patron or are on my Discord. I'm not plastering it all over everywhere I post games yet, it's technically still just a demo. But I think it's in a state that it's pretty presentable. And then the full version of act 1 with all 12 levels will be the wide release, posted on TFGamessite and Itch and all that stuff. Because the hold up on the full version is actually art right now, supporters will almost certainly get access to a mostly finished version maybe even a month early.

What's in those last 3 levels of act 1? Besides the POV villain joining the party, there's a lot of content to build up the POV specific story. For example, on Zaman's POV you'll get scenes of him exploring his body as a woman and maybe even a little girl on girl action...

And by maybe a little girl on girl action, I mean there is lesbian content on that route and here's some art of it. This is for if Zaman stays together with Shahrazad, he also has lesbian scenes with Vashti if that was the outcome of act 1.

Stuff like this wasn't in Netoria 1, but that was more just a product of circumstance than me not wanting it. There wasn't room for female Carwyn + Gwen with the way I had the game structured. And Gwen and Vivian weren't going to get together, they didn't like each other very much. I did work in one scene onto the Carwyn Triumphant route. but Netoria 2 has been designed to have a lot more lesbian content from the start.

At this point we're hitting the problem that is going to slow down the release of act 2 as well. All these different POV rotues and outcomes all need sex scene art. Of course, while this is important in providing different types of content and making the different outcomes actually matter, it takes time for all this art to be made. In early act 1 there is only three pieces of scene art every two levels. There's lots of other stuff like the shadow scenes and gropes, but those are either handled by different artists or don't take a lot of time.

In act 2, every two levels needs twelve pieces of art, and that's more of an average than the real number. Some POV routes are more front-loaded or can be done in various orders making them need even more art early on. So we're talking four times as much on a per level basis. This is not a surprise to me, I'm not calculating what I need and realizing this is a big problem or anything like that. This art demand has been factored in from the very start, and lots of cool content I've had ideas for has been cut or not added to the game because the art production is already stretched to the limit.

But it does make the timeline of act 2 a bit problematic. We're talking a year and half just for the artist to finish all the art I have in the pipeline for them. Never mind how fast I can do anything, that's the hard limit on how quickly act 2 of Netoria 2 can get done. As a bit of perspective, Netoria 1 from release to the epilogues update was 10 months. Just act 2 of Netoria 2 is going to take significantly longer than the entire dev cycle of Netoria 1. And there's an act 3 as well!

So... it's going to take a while. What does that mean for me? It almost certain I'll go back to multiple projects at once. Either finishing/reworking an already existing game or making something new. The problem with that though is all the budget will be going towards making sexy pictures of Netoria 2 characters. If I start making a lot more money maybe I can hire another artist to either speed things up or work on a different project, but even if I'm not drawing things myself talking to the artists, telling them what to draw, giving feedback, and just general management stuff still takes time. There's a limit for how much I can do before I don't have time to actually write or design or test anymore.

All this isn't to say there's a problem. I just want to temper expectations of how fast content will come out after the initial release of Netoria 2. After all, we're only four months into Netoria 2 development and already 9 levels are done with 3/4 for months left before full release of act 1 that realistically would only be 1/2 if it wasn't for how much dang art there is. Act 2 is going to be more like four months to get one POV donw. But enough talking about production timelines and logistics, here's a drawing of a cute girl.

This is the character art for Danya, Vashti's daughter. Minus shading. She's the fourth member of the party joining in level eight. Unlike her mother, Danya is peppy and upbeat. So if you thought Vashti was hot but you like characters who are actually nice to you, have I got the party member for you!

That's all for this week. As always, thank you for your continued support.