The Season for Love
Added 2020-02-16 03:43:47 +0000 UTCGreetings!
I hope you had a wonderful Valentine's Day, and someone special to share it with. But if you didn't, don't feel bad - you weren't the only one (Proxxie was right there with you!)
Since I last posted an update, I've completed half the renders for the new H-scene (minus postwork) and completed another quest. I've devoted a bit of thought to the Alex-Ana relationship - it is the season, after all - and I've decided to implement an Ana relationship 'route.' It'll progress fairly slowly, and will have many bumps along the way, but if you'd like to see them be more than simply 'friends with benefits,' you'll be able to get your wish. (Of course, if you want them to remain FWBs, that's fine too.) The next release has the first real step in that path.
I may end up implementing a relationship route with the new character I'll be introducing in 0.9, but it'll be a bit more... complicated. I'm curious what you would like to see, though. Would you like to have multiple romance options in the game?
Related to the romance bit, I've been working on a number of new expressions for Alex and Ana. Ana really needed it; her current expressions have many different shades of 'annoyed' but not too many of 'smiling' or 'happy.' This part was sort of a pain; as I've mentioned before, Alex and Ana's hair look different in newer versions of Daz, and rather than give the expressions an inconsistent look I used an older version I had laying around to make them. Unfortunately this older version doesn't work with my (Turing) video card, so it uses only the CPU and thus the renders have been really slow. Like, over 10 times slower. I may end up redoing Ana's expressions with her new character model as part of the visual revamp in 0.10, which would get me back to fully-accelerated renders, but I haven't yet decided. I'd posted some comparisons of 'old Ana' vs 'new Ana' expressions a while back and the response was mixed. I think a lot of people like Ana more as a 'girl next door' rather than a hottie (albeit a slightly overweight one).
Anyway, that's all I have for now. Please let me know your thoughts on multiple romance options, and thank you for your support!
Comments
I'm very glad that you realize it yourself and thank you for your honesty. If you feel like you will be able to resolve your creative issues soon then I will trust your word and look hopefully toward the future. It would be a real shame to see The Proteus Effect canceled for whatever reason, if there were ways we could have prevented it.
Sukaiko
2020-02-16 16:23:04 +0000 UTCI understand the impatience and think it's reasonable. I agree that 3 months is an eminently doable update cycle. That's the number I had in mind for this update, and what I hope to hit in future ones. Patron numbers and total pledges have indeed been dropping for a while, and this is quite understandable. Honestly, I would say the biggest reason for the delay is burnout, mostly due to all the acrimony leading up to 0.8's release. It's true that I'm to blame for much of that acrimony for failing to set proper expectations. But it just stopped being as fun after all that. So I started working on (and inventing) things that didn't require much inspiration, like new features, renders, fixing hair models, etc. But writing was the big roadblock here. As I mentioned in a previous post, I also had some problems with the systems I used to capture ideas and plan. These have mostly been resolved now, and as a result I was able to easily look at all my old notes, get back into the plot, get excited about it again and start coming up with new ideas. The story of the last couple of months is basically me rekindling my enthusiasm for the project. It's not fully complete, but I'm now able to both write and write stuff that I like, albeit slower than I would prefer. Lastly, I also had/have some personal issues, which I expect to be resolved in approximately 3 months (and I expect 0.9 to be out well before then.) I think impatience is justified. I will probably not be giving the sort of detailed accounting you may want. I understand this will not be enough for some people, and I don't fault them for no longer supporting the project, or supporting again only when I release. I am frankly amazed and very grateful that so many have continued supporting for this long. And that's where I'm at.
Proxxie
2020-02-16 14:35:55 +0000 UTCThat's an interesting angle of approach actually. Ana has been pretty dommy in the bedroom, for obvious big penis related reasons, but she hasn't really ever capitalized on the fact that in their current scenario Alex is considered an actual slave of an inferior enemy race. This is more than likely because this would clash horribly with Ana's personal sense of morals. But I feel like her being more public about their dynamic wouldn't be an impossible task way down the line. Not personally my cup of tea but I'm guessing walking around with Alex on a leash might be a possible gag/sexual scenario eventually.
Simpleten
2020-02-16 08:11:34 +0000 UTCI like ANA body type as the girl next door. I still like Ana taking on a more dominate male role with Alex. One of her become what she thought she disliked in males as her male hormones rages and she senses that she must role play being an elf better for them to survive and move on in the game. She has been treating Alex probably too much as an equal, especially in town and the guild. I am surprised the other elves in the guild hasn't said much about it.
OhioOkie
2020-02-16 07:17:35 +0000 UTCFrom the characters we know so far, Ana is the only one I'd go for in a relationship with Alex, but that might change with the new ones. The other bunnies are more in the (sex) friend category, if at all. On other topics, I'm honestly concerned about how much time you need to get updates out. I really love your game, especially the main cast, so I don't want to see you fail. That's why you have to realize that taking over half a year for updates is not really sustainable on Patreon. You're shrinking again, same as before the last update. If you want to grow you will need to keep up your engagement and also find a solution on how you can achieve reasonable update times. An update every three months should be possible, Since I don't know where your bottleneck for development is, I can't really help you out there, but maybe you could tell us more about why you need so much time and we could hopefully all find a solution together. There is also the fact that you have planned "only" 2 H-scenes, which for the time you need is honestly very little but if the other content was able to balance this out, then I won't say anything. I do remember you calling this more of a game with h-content that an actual h-game, so if the update times were more reasonable, then it wouldn't be a problem at all. I really hope you can fix whatever's keeping you, as I do want to see you back on track and successfully finish the game in a few years. Maybe you'd like to write an answer and we could all discuss this a little bit more. I do wish you honest success, so I do not want to put on too much pressure. This time I feel it is necessary to ask you.
Sukaiko
2020-02-16 06:38:56 +0000 UTC
