Agents of Heels v0.25 – News, Progress, and NTR Future Plans Poll.

Hey all, howdy-do then? We’ve had some a lot of fun lately with Lara and Raven, y’all have seen, but at the same time we’ve been working away hard as we can at our leading agent and Nat’s newest update too. Sadly, here we are again, cap in hand, with news to share but no game to download yet. It’s time for some news and progress, as well as setting out some plans. Yes, we’ve got another poll for you too, as we want to include y’all in the next decision up ahead. Let’s get to it then.

What’s Going On?

If you’ve been following along on our Discord, we’ve been trying to keep y’all informed with a few bursts of news and some planning discussion there already, this last week or so. Essentially, the status is similar to what it was in our last big post, only the progress is a lot better on it. We’re just having a hard time crunching it still, keeping pace, and getting the renders through the process (which is exponentially more complex than most of our scenes to date, for both art and writing). Yeah, we said it’d be done by June’s end or we’d be putting Unshi’s hand in the fire, and so you know, the coals are warming as we speak. What matters though is actually getting the job done though, so let’s keep being serious here, at least in this post. It’s simply a long process for a different kind of payoff, and as it has become apparent, we’ve bitten off more than we could chew in a proper month, clearly. That’s a self-assessment for after though.

Where Are We Now?

Progress has been made. It’s been hard fought, and treacle slow at times, but we keep pushing it. The good news here is that we’re finally breaking through the wall, hit by hit. We’re almost done with CGs at last, and all the effects listed in the last post as to why things are grinding like tight gears day by day. We’re at last getting our feet back on Terra Ferma, with only things ahead of that’s part of our every release process, stuff we can say with a sigh of relief we know how to do well, at pace, and thoroughly, as we wick some sweat off our brow.

The bad news is, we still have things ahead of us. We still have a few CGs left to come out. There’s a number of days of writing left once the last of the CGs batches are finalized and accounted for, we’ve got post-production and engine work too which is a day’s job alone, and on top of it we reported on Discord we’ve got a major bug to implement a fix on for some Bad Nat players post-Mission #2. All that means we can’t possibly hit a June release now. It’ll be July, but if all goes well, early enough in July.

What’s the Plans Going Forward?

For those that know us and have been around this page long enough, the first week of July is always one of our most busy. We’ve got 4 straight days of social entanglements to tackle, including a team Birthday, so it’s always a bit chaotic to say the least. We will however been keeping on with AoH and aiming to get our release out at last in the first week, likely closer to the very end, and finally get it off our hands. There’s really not a lot else can do but keep plugging away at it and getting it done after all. The more fluid elements are what comes after.

We’re not happy with this situation at all. Delays mean less prompt content for you guys and we get less beWilderverse, which is our life’s work at the end of the day. We don’t mean that to sound to grand and big headed, but it’s true. We’re in this for the passion of the content as much if not more than y’all, after all. We want to get this done, and then see what is best for the next steps, for all three parties: You fans, use creators, and the beWilderverse itself.

Our first thoughts were to pause this page’s billing a month, so July would be no charge for you supports, and give us a month to get back up to speed on what we wanted to originally do in June, on our own time. That however, is not the best idea. Who doesn’t like free stuff, especially games about women using their best bits? Sadly “free” isn’t without some cost, and potentially setting ourselves up in a position to be behind on bills is serious trouble for our long-term prospects here. Just look at Noemi to know that debts can be toxic and being caught under them makes for real problems. It’s best we leave a stronger person like her deal with that in fiction, rather than risk this fandom in reality. Even the fans on Discord were/are unanimously against the idea. So we need to do something else.

This is our current plan now: After completing AoH v0.25, we’re going to do a double dose of Noemi between July and August, 2 back-to-back releases of v0.19 and v0.20, one after the other. This doesn’t solve the problem directly, but it’s got advantages and we hope gives you the fans the best outcomes in the short term. Long term, doing doubles of one game over the other isn’t a good plan, but in this situation, it’s an advantage we can all benefit from. We’ll make a quick case here, but this post is a poll so you can have a say on if it’s what y’all want. If you group vote convincingly against, we’ll go back to the drawing board and come up with some other steps forward. If y’all are generally tied or all for it, then off we go!

So here’s why we’re considering a double NTR update:

- Production is easier and quicker. Noemi has the advantage currently in that the scripts for the next few versions are already written and ready to go. The engine production time is significantly more than AoH, but it can all be done parallel, so it’s all about how quick we can make the final art, which is a lot quicker than AoH’s Mission content, that’s for sure.

- Noemi fans have been waiting. Noe has been backed up plenty by AoH already this year. We want to make sure her fans get service too (this idea actually was suggested by fans). We know that more than half of you are her for Noemi, and most people here are fans of the at least NTR game, even if AoH is your preferred one, so this way most people get good stuff they’ll like, though maybe not all.

- We could use a switch up to get the creativity flowing strong again. Variety is the spice of life after all, and keeping the excitement high and a steady morale is a critical in make good sex as it is in war. Getting some time with Team Noe will only make us hungry to suit up Heels with a passion once we’ve had a little absence.

- Goals and Progress. We’re well aware AoH is near it’s ending, has been for a long time now, and the only way we’ll get to v1.0 and starting thinking of any Game 3 is by keeping at it. We know that. However, we set out goals for Noemi this year too, and we want to get after them as well. Noemi is a much bigger game, with so much more potential still to tap. It needs more love to make it stand up to where AoH is now. These next 2 versions will go a long way towards rounding out the underserved parts of the game, and the sooner it happens this year, the sooner we can do even better things.

- Proper Planning. What’s good for NTR is good for AoH too. As it has become obvious, we’ve bitten off more than we could chew with this Mission #3, and that’s after we tried to keep it manageable. Having some intermittent time to reassess and replan Corrupt and Bad Nat’s intro phases that are upcoming, so we don’t have this happen in v0.26. Now… We don’t actually expect the next 2 versions to be as bad anyway, since all the scene set-up and prop work is done for this version (hence a lot of the delay), but we’ve got a lot more renders to make in the upcoming versions that will have to be properly retunk and optimized before we dive back in.

There’s a fist full of reasons we think a double Philly dinner is our best foot forward. Obviously, the ideal would be to not be in the situation in the first place and to have been able to do our usual game to game leapfrogging, including in June, but here we are. We are very sorry for that.

So, what do y’all think? Can y’all dig a 2 course meal of Noemi over the summer peak, after we get Nat’s mission start out and get her next outing on better footing. We’ve got this up as a poll so you can vote, and comments here below or on Discord are always welcome too. We’ve got to decide this pretty fast though, as we want to be clear with y’all what’s what for July like we always do for months ahead in our Goals and Review posts. Being on the level each month matters to us. So be sure to get you vote in before June 30th at 23:59 GMT (and also get your vote in on Lara and Raven by then too).

Too Long, Didn’t Read!

M’kay, once again another long, but hopefully informative, posting. Here’s a quick recap for those that don’t like a lot of info.

- We’re still behind with AoH and a June release is now impossible. The situation is much like it was before (see link to last news post above), only we’re clearing the most troublesome stuff now at last. It’s going to be some more time yet though.

- We’re getting to the point CGs are finally done, but there’s writing, bug fixes and engine work + Post-production to do still

- We expect the release at the tail end of the first week of July now.

- We’ve considered pausing the billing on this page for July, but due to our own long-term concerns and fan dissatisfaction, we’ve decided against it.

- Instead, to get back on track and to make sure we get content moving again, we’re planning on doing back-to-back NTR game releases for July and August as we get AoH back on firm footing. However, we have left this open to a vote by you the fans.

- If you want 2 NTR versions over the summer sooner, vote YES

- If you want us to get back to AoH as soon as possible after a little Noemi that’s already due, vote NO

- Votes will be considered up until the end of June. We’ve made a case above as to why this is what we feel is the best path ahead.

So that’s about it. We hope this has been worth your time to be told what’s what right now. Communication is important, we know, so we try. We’ve talked enough though, so let’s get back to it. As we said, the only way to progress forward is to keep working at it, so we will. Vote away, we’ll keep and eye on it and be by the Discord as per usual. Until we see y’all for June’s Review and July’s Goals….

Be informed to the gills, having your voice heard and beWilder!