Release Date, Poll Results, A Word About CGs

Less writing, more CGs to balance up. Once the CGs catch up, back to the high-speed-writing, it's a mater of priorities.

Cancerouswax

Having black screens in the final release is a no-go for me personally. In that case I'd say take more time. It's also possible to reduce the quality of the CGs a bit maybe, to get them done faster. Although I'm really not sure what your way of working is and if that's possible. Maybe some of the writing could be reworked to require less CGs in some cases? I think a scene with writing and no CG would be worse than omitting the scene completely. But in the end it's all a matter of opinion, as creators we have to made due with what we got and still try to please as many people as possible. I hope you'll manage to please as many people as possible!

Gurdin Alehammer

Mmh...I'll be honest here, I like your game, a lot, and I don't actually have the money to help, but from my point of view it just seems like you need to step down the writing and up the drawing. It's just pretty simple, you literally said "My main concern is that in a few years we will have finished all the written content for the game, and be hundreds of CGs behind which will never get done because funding dries up." Less writing, more CGs to balance up. Once the CGs catch up, back to the high-speed-writing, it's a mater of priorities. Also, someone commented on the gay/Fetish-specific related scenes. I'm JUST partially right with em. It is indeed true that if only 5% of people like certain fetish, you should just crop out the content from the future scenes and leave it with about 1 scene every 3 months.(This is the amout of, for example, gay content other porn games add to their games.) Just because you wish to do an appealing product for everyone doesn't mean you need to add scenes for it every update. I mean, hell, most porn games actually have less gay content than you do. It's not a bad thing, but there's a reason why that's how it is, and I really don't mind it, I personally like it, and I do go through all the scenes, including those I'm mentioning, but facts are facts still. I know I'm not funding you at the moment, because my wallet is...Let's say sad, but that's my opinion right there, and I've played a lot of porn games, believe me.(240+ GB of porn games in my drive, and I formatted the PC 2 years ago.)

Kurague

I think smaller sex scenes don't necessarily need to have CGs, or even fully realised CGs, they could be B&W or roughs as others have mentioned. Bigger story events and moments that are more milestones should be given more CGs if time and budget permit but I personally enjoy a lot of the scenes even if they are just words since they are so well written. Honestly though I really enjoy a lot of the choices you've made as a developer for the game so far anyway so even if you release a smaller update that is more for CGs or slow down on releases I wouldn't mind too much either way.

Super_Walrus

I think some of the more complex sex scenes deserve 3 CGs, and I'd be willing to wait for those. As someone else suggested, you could start with 2 and then add a 3rd when funding materializes. That said, some scenes can definitely be done justice with 2 CGs, and I don't mind those at all.

Umbra Solaris

Love the suggestion of leaving room for more to be added later. Maybe there's no CG for the foreplay, but yes for the sex. That wouldn't break immersion, and later you could come back and add art for the foreplay.

Umbra Solaris

So for me, this game is about corruption. Given that, there's a lot of different types of content you can offer. Personally, I think it's amazing how much you cater to different interests. Some of my favorite adult games have done the same, and it gives me the opportunity to widen my own interests while attracting a lot of people. Sure, you shouldn't sacrifice quality to stretch yourself too thin. But if you can manage to put out a sex scene for each major group of players each release, I think that's amazing. Sure, you can see that 60% of people like 1 specific type of content best. And you could make this game all about catering to those 60%, but then I think the game would lose some of its magic. That said, I think it's reasonable to have content proportional to the interest. So in a game about corruption where the fanbase loves NTR, you can include a lot of corruption and NTR scenes, and maybe longer scenes for those categories (3 CGs). Perhaps fewer and shorter (2 CGs) vanilla scenes. That way you keep the diversity while also responding to player interest. But I really do think that having the vanilla content makes the game feel like a true roleplaying experience because you have choice, and I really admire that.

Umbra Solaris

I agree with Mr.Abusay and perhaps it should be something you could discuss between you and your partners to see if more focused release could be thing. Then you can have a ''calendar'' of which type of content will get out which month and then, this could help you see if a month increase in patreons which could help you determined what type of content your players/fan really wanna see.

Galamuth

Every month you produce "roughs" as the WIP updates. Have you considered just producing the roughs for several scenes to use in-game each month, and then when time permits replace them with the finished scenes? I'm sure that, without having to completely colourize/shade the image, your art team could pump out a substantial number of roughs for a few months compared to the 3 or so currently, and provide valuable visual keys for events. The roughs also happen to be incredibly good on their own, and could easily stay in the game for quite a while to get through your backlog

Funky Munky

I will give you my thoughts as someone that has tried your game, tought it was good, and then stop. Let's start with the most obvious and problematic in my opinion : your game is either too hard or too complex to understand quickly. I don't think I'm a genius, but I don't think I'm too stupid either, and since I'm a degenerate fella, I've got quite a lot of experience with adult games, and after 2 tries where I met a game over because I couldn't complete the first objective (Dunno what it was, something like raising forces and finances during a period of time). So not only that was frustrating (because it's not easy to get the hand of it, and it seems quite punitive), but not being able to see the cg and the story (mainly the cuckolding one, with the girl and the male demon) was really something annoying. There's no real explications honestly when you start the game in regards as to how do that and that. There are numbers and variables, but you don't exactly understand what they mean and how to play with them. They're just here, and the feeling you get is that the author tried to do something nice but didn't succeed. I tried to search for a walkthrough, but didn't find any, so unless I directly asked someone on a forum or here, I couldn't keep going. I'm not saying there isn't once, perhaps there's one, but I didn't find it, so it's either quite well hidden or I was too tired when I searched that I didn't find it. Either way, for a game like that, you need a walkthrough easily accessible, like for example right in your patreon presentation, and a good one. Even games with only 2 choices every hour have one, it's strange that we can't find one here. That is the main issue with your game for me. I'm not saying there isn't anything else, or that you're not working well. Because you are, I think your game, even if I didn't get to play it to the fullest, is good and is different from a lot of the others. That's life as well, sometimes things aren't fair. I can name a lot of adult games patreons that earns a lot more while doing not even half of what you're doing, and I know you can too. It's not fair, but it's the way it is. There's one other issue, in my opinion. But this one will be a lot controversial. I'll say it again : you try to answer to too many people and fetishes. You talk in this post about how you'll need to reduce the number of CGs, but you could simply just reduce the number of routes and focus on 3-4, allowing you to do them right. Look at all that you're doing : there's straight scenes, gay scenes, domination scenes, submission scenes, passionnate scenes, rough scenes. And you try to mix them all all the time. You're bound to lose a lot of people by doing that. By trying to appeal to everyone and everykind of people, you're giving not much to people that only like a few things. Let's take me for instance : I really don't like gay scenes. Meaning that everything you do with the male character involving other males won't interest me. And honestly, that's a lot of things. In every build there's at least 2 scenes like that. So that means that, let's say at least 30 % of your work will never appeal to me. And, let's be honest : there are more people like me than people that enjoy gay scenes. Just like all the cuckolding thing : it wins every poll everytime, there has to be a reason. People saying on your patreon they are tired of that shouldn't matter as much as people that vote massively for that, because even if they don't talk, in the end, they are the ones that financialy matters (even if they're not always patreons, they keep your game alive more). But I can understand at the same time, that you want to do what you like. And if what you like is doing everything, you have every right to do so. But then you have to understand and accept the fact that you won't grow as much as people that decided to refrain themselves from doing what they wanted all the time and instead do what the majority wants. But really then, it's always that choice, for every kind of artist. It's hard, but it's a choice you have to make, and accept what it means. Anyway, I feel like I've been talking a lot, I'll stop bothering you now. I just want you to know that nothing I said was intended to be and sound mean, it's because I think you may be one of the best out there that I don't want you to disapear or give up. And I apologize for any grammar mistakes or whatever, I know there are probably a lot in there, I'm not a native speaker. Have a good day !

MrAbusay

I think strategically choosing black scenes could even be a tool to increase impact. For example, if a scene had two CGS, there could be three black screens to frame the scene, with character portraits bookending the scene. So a 7 step "scene formula" would look like this: 1. [Dialog + buildup with character portraits] --> 2. [black screen and descriptive buildup text] --> 3. [mildly intense CG] --> 4. [black screen with text to describe increased intensity] --> 5. [highly intense CG] --> 6. [black screen to describe the comedown] --> 7. [return to character portraits for conclusion]. This setup could also trigger the reward mechanism in the player to increase anticipation + reward if used often enough.

Jester AI

Any time you are dealing with limited resources, solutions are going to involve sacrifice. Arioch, you are doing this because you have a vision for this game. We are here because we trust that vision and the product you have put together so far is pretty incredible. Further, you are doing everything I can think of to increase your exposure and investment. I guess what I'm trying to say is that there isn't going to be a good solution to this problem but I think limiting the number of CGs per scene is a good start. One suggestion on that: leave a way that you can go back in and insert more CGs later if your funding comes up to par with what you were expecting. You don't want to end up in a position where you can point to a few scenes and go "Oh yeah, those were the ones I made when funding lapsed."

Isefesira

A not so good solution could be to stop story writing every 2-3 months and divert the funds to the CGs, but that would make a kind of unreliable income for the authors and they clearly do not deserve that. Another could be to have less variety in CGs but get complete scenes each months. Hope you can find a solution to create what you envisioned, godspeed.

Alez

Honestly it sounds like hiring an artist full time is going to be the only way to pay for what you are trying to do. I don't know much about the art world but could commissioning a set of CGs all at once for the planned scenes for a character lower the price any? Certainly if you are planning to have hundreds of CGs instead of only 100 their is no way to make that kind of money without a major increase in funding. Don't forget you can also us a CG for more than one scene as long as they have the same characters involved.

No Escaping Destiny

I feel like you began this project with a vision of what it should be and have been doing a great job at making it a reality. I have supported the game for a long time and can't speak for everyone else but I plan to continue support until completion. Setting a number of CGs per scene can get complicated because some scenes are summed up in 1-2 images while others might need more then 3. I feel you should persue whatever will leave you happiest with the completed game. Only you can answer that, but keep up the great work!

Kooba

I would much prefer doing whatever can be done to allow for more CGs to get done. I love the story and writing, but for me one of the things that really makes this game stand out is the artwork. It makes it feel much more like a proper game. The parts that have no art really makes it feel incomplete.

Dakota Mitchell

For sure slow down and catch up on CGs

Raise

I would much prefer continuing new sex scenes without art than to stop to meet up. Obviously the illustrations are great, but I have enjoyed a lot of the scenes without or before they got the illustrations.

Ken

Keep up the good work!

Terebonkoff Game Studio

Yeah I think black and white CGs or anything that can make development like that would be fine with most people

Super_Walrus

Love what you are doing, keep it up

Lukas White

Usually weekends is when I have most of downloads & player's activity. But maybe we have different publics :)

VN Star Wars +18 Game

Last I read he charges high five figures, so that one is a bit out of range. :)

Lord Arioch

It's time ask Pewdiewpie to lend a few million views then.

One way to speed-up things could be go black&white one some CGs, like they do in a manga. Even rough sketches, with a bit of clean-up could be an option. The rest can be left to the imagination of the players. Just my 2 cents, great work so far!