Progress update - July

Hello everyone! Here's another progress update, along with a few thoughts regarding the current situation with itch.io and steam.

Assets

First of all, I wanted to show the assets for the animation. I've decided to work on in first since it's the most time-consuming part of development, not tackling it right away gives me the feeling that I'm not making any progress.

Right now, it would look like this, though I still need to polish the expressions, add sweat, and maybe throw in some ripped fabric to sell the scene better. Most of the assets are already done, I just need to optimize a few things (like shadow layers) and it’ll be ready to rig.I've also made progress with the other CGs, I have many partially started that I’ll be finishing as I work through the update, and I also cut out a few that felt redundant.

Sprites

(I changed her design a bit, in particular her make-up, I like it better this way.)

I also need to start working on the second part of the update, another giant beast to slay. I began with Rea’s future version since I thought it would be more interesting to show off first, but I also need to give Rea's old sprite a fresh coat of paint so the difference in quality doesn’t clash too much.

Progress

Overall, progress has been good. I’ve been a little distracted by personal stuff, but I always try to put in the same amount of hours. The only downside is that it’s been harder to focus on anything requiring logical thinking (like coding or writing). As for the art side of things, I can do that almost in autopilot, so I’ll keep working on assets and CGs for now, which is fine since there’s still plenty to do in that area.

Steam/Itch.io situation

I tried not to react immediately to this because my first impression was pretty pessimistic. I still feel like I shouldn’t give a final verdict until the situation develops further, and that’s why I’m sharing my thoughts here with you instead of making a public post (at least for now).
I won’t lie, it’s serious, but not for the reasons people think. My game isn’t sold on Steam, and the lack of visibility on Itch.io won’t kill the project. Even after getting delisted, I’m still getting traffic and views for some reason. But it’s pretty obvious to me that they took that step because banning NSFW games directly would be way too controversial.

What worries me the most is the future. It's the idea of fading into obscurity, of knowing that the project I've worked on for so long will always be something distributed in allyways (metaphorically speaking), something almost illegitimate. The prospect of having my project on a legit and well-known platform gave me hope, something to work toward, but now I feel like I'm destined to be a pariah and it makes me question whether it's really worth putting so many hours into this every day.

Of course, I know I'm still in shock from the news, so I'm not taking my own thoughts too seriously right now... but I doubt the situation will get any better.

Android Life as it is can't be sold on Steam (cuz of the school setting), but my other project, "Flat Injustice", could, and that was the stepping stone to fund AL to completion, but now that option is basically gone. I know AL has a popularity ceiling, and that’s fine, it's been in development for years and people already know what to expect from me (Please do not misunderstand this, I am very grateful for the support and am fortunate to have you). That’s why I wanted to create a product I could actually sell to support AL and maybe even some other things down the line. Flat Injustice isn't a passion project like AL, but it's something I enjoy and that makes use of the unique skillset I've built while working on the game.

My plan was to release a demo soon so the wait for v0.5 wouldn’t feel so long. I already had the assets for animation prepped and a few CGs in progress (here’s a preview), but now I’m not really sure there’s much point in continuing. I’m also not planning to launch another project on Patreon just to increase support any time soon, so if the situation with Steam doesn’t improve, I’ll probably try to reuse some of those assets in a different way (The assets I have can easily be reused for Emily or Kana, although I'm more tempted to use them in a scene with Luna.). There’s also the possibility of an SFW version of the game, but right now I’m too burned out to promise anything. I’ll try to keep pushing forward with v0.5 and take it from there.

That’s all for now. I’ll keep working on the remaining CGs so I can move on to the endings before animating anything. Bye!