MegaBlueBall
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Talking about custom characters and future polls
🕑 Added 2020-10-19 19:32:02 +0000 UTCWhen thinking on ways to speed up the development, I realized that the one thing which takes me the most time to create are the art assets.
When I'm working on the programing side of things I do it at a good pace because that's what I have the most experience with, whereas when I'm drawing the monsters and animations it's very slow because of my amateur art skill and inexperience in the area; I have to work at a slower pace in order to produce some decent results, whereas a professional artist would not only work faster but also create much better assets in that time-frame.
Initially the custom enemies were a nice idea to reward the game's supporters (of which I'm really appreciative in this early alpha), but what I didn't anticipate was that this amount of extra work would have such an impact on the speed and flow of development in general.
Ideally there would be a dedicated artist working with me, but currently I'm a single developer which means that I have to stop the programing to go drawing and vice-versa, so it's difficult to decide on which area of development to focus since I have to manage the expectation of the supporters (who mostly want to see new enemies and scenes) and the necessary systems that need to be worked on to progress the game's development.
Let's take a look at the custom enemies that are currently in the game:
- Poll #1 -> Alraune/Plant Girl Vore
- Poll #2 -> Blonde Kitsune Reverse Sex
- Poll #3 -> Flower Blossom Tentacles Pit
- Poll #4 -> Futanari Boss Cock Vore
- Poll #5 -> Salamander Vore
- Poll #6 -> Wolf Girl Mimic Vore
- Poll #7 -> Arachne Oviposition
And now the custom enemies remaining:
- Poll #8 -> Lamia Vore (work in progress)
- Poll #9 -> Mushroom Girl Cock Vore (in queue)
- Poll #10 -> Werewolf Boss (in queue)
- Poll #1 (tied) -> Minotaur Boss (in queue)
So while there's a decent number of custom enemies completed, specially when considering that they were made alongside the other necessary work done in the game during these past months (which includes making other enemies, creating new stages, programing new systems, etc), it is also clear that I've fallen behind the schedule due to the sheer amount of work to be done in a reasonable time-frame.
Thus I have made the decision to pause the custom character polls in order to reduce this extra amount of art work and consequently speed up development. I say "pause" because I honestly enjoy the idea of making new enemies based on the supporter interesting ideas so I want to run polls again in the future, but currently it is becoming unfeasible to generate this amount of extra work.
That said, it won't be paused immediately so as to give a fair amount of warning to all supporters and give them a chance to manage their expectations for the polls. In other words, I'll run some 2 or 3 more polls to close up this year and then focus on completing the remaining custom enemies as well as moving forward with the main development of the game's systems.
I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience, and thank you for your comprehension.
Comments
Vik Virtue
That sounds like it would work out for the best. I enjoy the polls as much as the next person, but if it's getting to the point where it's getting extremely difficult to keep up, then I am 100% behind pausing the polls in the future. If there are a few things that can really deter progress, it's burnout and being overwhelmed. Neither are fun with anything.
