DEVlog #15 - Goals and Milestones

Hey everyone!
Mr. MegaloDEV here!

Pweh, April had a lot of big news for NSFW creators or maybe I'm just too new to this. Lots of good and bad to process. I was going back and forth on what specifically to cover for this one but with a major goal recently hit, I figured I'd focus the bulk of it there. Then lets talk a little about 0.1 and finish up with some milestone talk.

$750 Goal Hit

Yup, we hit $750 total between both our funding platforms! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE SUPPORT! As stated in the goal, with this achieved we can now continuously support the project's 2D art pipeline. I can't stress enough how huge a goal this is for us.

Next Goal(s)?

Well funny thing about that. Starting later this month Patreon is going to remove the "goal system" as they don't think the feature does anything. I'm not sure how they collected their data and therefore how useful it is. Either way I'll have to figure something out as I personally have always liked the idea of goals. If done right they can give a general sense of what the creator is doing with the funding provided. Maybe I'll integrate the goals into the about page similar to kickstarter page? For now I'll use this DEVlog to list out our next two goals and what reaching those goals will provide for the project.

Anyways, the next stated goal is:

Assets n Mapping! [$1,100/mo]
At this goal we’ll increase our spending on various assets the game needs. Ranging from sfx, vfx, lewd sounds, etc. Leftover funds will be applied towards a monthly budget for a mapper.

One of the criticisms we've had so far is the lack of sound... I AGREE. Good sound effect libraries can be quite costly. Once we hit that goal we can start to afford those nice packs. The second part of the goal "monthly budget for a mapper" is for securing consistent funding for paying for a mapper.

After that goal we have:

Pixel Artist! [$1,350/mo]
At this goal we’ll allocate a $250/mo budget towards commissioning pixel art.

Ideally, I want Accursed to look like one of the best eroge games out there once released. Not just be a gallery of great looking 2d art. I want all visuals in the game to be complementary. That all begins with a great pixel artist. When this goal is eventually achieved we can afford to commission consistent pipeline of pixel art each month.

I'll be blunt. There is A LOT of pixel art to do. We'd start with NPCs and the remainder of Emma's sprite variations to reflect her outfits. Once enough sprites are done we'd start replacing the placeholders in-game.

0.1

I could call this month's upcoming version 0.1. But I don't want to. Instead we will continue the current naming convention and it'll be 0.0.15. Why? Quality plain and simple. I want every 0.x version to be major and in order to set a good precedent there are still a few more areas of the game that need to be addressed. 

Below I'll list out items I consider "critical" for us reaching 0.1

1) Audio Pass

Background music, sound effects and more. Every area of the game should have SOMETHING unique. And the h-scenes NEED some sfx.

2) Full Dialogue Pass

The dialogue in the game has gotten general praise and we thank you for that. However, some of it here and there is still pretty stiff and should be ironed out.

3) Combat

This one is pretty self-explanatory. We obviously need some fully playable battles in! You can read more about this in our last devlog.

4) Mapping

We want every currently in-use map to be up the quality of the more recent additions. A few of our current placeholders... are pretty barren haha.

5) More Polish

It is really damn hard to find good kiełbasa in the states. We could use some.

So when do I think we'll achieve this? 

My goal is what would be June's "0.0.16" will instead be 0.1
I've been able to set aside a lot of time for myself over May and June to accomplish the above "criticals" as well as getting much more story content into the game.

Milestones

Now lets cap this devlog off with some more awesome news. On top of the $750/mo goal we've also hit or are about to hit some major statistical milestones.

• We've surpassed 300 followers on twitter!
• Over 7,000 downloads of the public version on itch.io!
• Almost 1,000 collections/wishlists on itch.io!
• Nearing 500 followers on itch and Patreon!
• And of course we've almost hit 100 active patrons!

Until next time...
And from the bottom of our hearts, thank you all so much!