LordArioch
patreon
The Future of Seeds of Chaos
🕑 Added 2019-09-24 09:08:00 +0000 UTC Hello everybody,
We are going to get a bit more serious than usual for a change, as I have, after numerous discussions with other members of staff, come to a few decisions about the future of the game. Today I will talk about these decisions, why they have been made, and what changes will occur as a result. Some people will be happy with these decisions, and I suspect some people will feel otherwise, but I came to these conclusions by thinking about the health of the company, and my staff, going forward.
Bi-Monthly Releases
After a discussion with the rest of the team, as well as our backers, we have decided to move to bi-monthly releases. Getting out a release on time every month is a very stressful occurrence. There is no margin for error, so if anybody is late for legitimate reasons, it becomes a mad scramble to account for that. It also creates logistical problems when we need to add things that may require more than a month of development time, such as the upcoming mechanics overhaul. It also makes it impossible for us to assign art for future events (one example being the upcoming fall of Rastedel event, Winter has asked for art to be commissioned in advance, and it is just not possible) because all art has to be commissioned in the month to match our quota.
The only thing changing on this front is that the game will come out bi-monthly instead of monthly. I will still commission the same amount of art every month, and the same amount of writing, meaning that each release will now be double sized, with 30-50k words of new content, 6-10 sex scenes, and 16 new CGs. This means that following this month’s release, the next version will be released in November.
Selling Seeds of Chaos
We’ve had a lot of positive feedback from people, who tell me the game is good and we should be selling it as an additional way to raise funds for development, so I have decided to sell Seeds of Chaos. Since it is a long way from being done, we have decided to split it into parts (similar to how Telltale used to do it). The first act, when finished, will become a “complete” game, and Act II will be released as a new game that will either import your game data (if it exists), or ask you a series of personality questions to determine what happened in Act I (with a full recap).
We still need to finish the act, as well as the mechanics overhaul, commission all the missing art, more music, and a bunch of other shit needs doing, so this is still quite a while away. We haven’t decided how to price it yet, but when we do, all backers who have pledged that amount (or more) total will be provided with a steam key.
This unfortunately means…
The End of Free Releases
We can’t sell a game that we also give away, so we’ll have to stop doing the free releases. The public release of the upcoming backer release in November will be the final one, which will transition into a sort of trial version for the time being. We have been doing them for a long time now, and what is currently in the wild serves well for a very long demo (it has far more CGs than most finished H-games). Once the mechanics overhaul is finished, we’ll introduce a new version that is capped at week 60 to serve as the definitive demo going forward. Hopefully it’ll help bring in backers, and sales, when the first act is finished.
That is it for today, since I have a release to get ready. I’m sure some of you will have different feelings about the choices that we’ve made, but I hope you can at least understand why we have made them, and how they’ll help us with running the studio in the long run. We want to be here making games for you guys for a long time to come, and this seems like the best way to ensure that.
Comments
Robert Arctor
Seems like a solid plan. Good luck going forward 🙂
ego
Congrats guys! This all sounds like a very good and logical progression. I will continue to back your efforts and hope your business continues to grow.
Lord Arioch
I now have to pay for things I never intended to, like music, sound, marketing etc, so I removed the goal. If there is money for CGs, I'll get more CGs. You say it is not cool, but 8 is generous by comparison, I can't think of any 2D games that add 8, non-variant, CGs every month. That includes games that make far, far more money like Summer Time Saga.
drako
yea im all the way whith selling the game on steam you deserve more money for the team , one thing i blame you for that you keep changing the CG numbers -1 less everytime it reach a goal since the start , now you remove the 10CG for 10K ...not cool.
Devon Childers
This is all honestly fantastic news. There's just no way I can keep up with the releases, the posts, hunting down each scene, etc. I've really been sad about the state of endless Patreon projects that have literally years of development left to get to where it originally promised. This update means there will FINALLY be A game. I can download, play it, keep my progress, not have to reinstall and spam through 6 million words of dialogue to hunt down the piece of new content... I'll finally be able to see everything in the game in a reasonable way. And then when another Episode drops, I'll be right there for that, too. PinkTea does it. Studio FOW does it. This is all great news!
Pancake
It'd be great if there was a version of the game that had the higher-res artwork assets in it. Especially now that the game is gonna get locked behind a paywall one way or the other, the incentive for the $20+ tiers is not going to be lost. The game just doesn't look all that great on a 1440p monitor.
William Copping
is act one set to end with the fall of rastadel/how much longer do you expect the dev cycle for act I to be if its possible to make a prediction of that nature
Barkups
Yeah The only change now is that people who didnt support on patreon have a differnt kind of access. Nothing is changing besides deciding to sell the game when finished and restricting free players to a demo.
Lord Arioch
I'm not sure why you think there's no benefit, it doesn't really change that much. As a $25 backer you still get: - The dev build of Act I every two months until it is finished. - A free copy of Act I when it is released (as it won't cost more than $25) - The dev build of Act II every two months once Act I is finished.
Khaz
If you go to a pay for final version model then you might as well close the patreon, as there is no reason to stay here. I think this is the worst decision you have made in an otherwise brilliant game design. I wish you luck and I hope that you can survive not having the healthy monthly support that will be lost for a final version to one day be sold. There will undoubtably be those who stay on to receive backer versions, but someone like myself who gives 25$ a month to the project, there is no reason to continue doing so. I hope you will rethink this disastrous course of action, but if not, I still wish you well, I'd hate for you to not see enough money coming in to continue doing the work.
Lord Arioch
I can tell you now, Itch takes the lowest cut. :)
squarenuts
Could you let us know down the road, which purchase option puts the most money back in your hands?
Lord Arioch
1. Steam version will have nothing cut as nothing in the game is against their TOS currently. You will have to download a free DLC to add adult art though as vanilla release will have black screens to allow me to sell in the "mature" category (which more people will see than if I have to place it in "adult only"). 2. No, Steam's rules regarding content are less strict than Patreon's. 3. The Patreon will continue, backers will get releases for Act II, which will not be available for purchase until it is finished like Act I (no doubt in a few years time).
squarenuts
Will the Steam version content be "watered down" to comply with their standards? And do you see future adult / kink content not being added to the Steam version? (Not against a steam release, just not sure how far they will allow you to explore sexual content) Any chance for perks for continued support through Patreon or will this site be shutdown / redirected to POS sites?
VC
I totally understand the changes. Going to a bi-monthly makes sense as it give you more time for development. As far offering it thru Steam and Itch, it also makes sense since putting a game together of such scale and complexity requires a lot of time and resources.
Lostngone
Bye
*gets a job solely to pay for the $50 tier*
Sommelier
Thanks for the concern man. We'll do what we humanly can.:) Arioch will let you guys know first hand, should problems arise.
Well after the first release if it didn’t feel any better than the monthly releases why not do a pool to ask if backers are fine with it cause it still seems like a lot of work and stress
Sommelier
We're not lowering our content count. it's not fair for the backers who helped us along the way.
Honestly fine with the change but your giving yourself more time with bi-monthly why not also lower the amount going out just a bit like a month and a half’s release instead of two months worth cause then your just still doing the same amount of work just releasing on a different timeframe. Yeah
Audacious Manatee
in all honesty, it was long overdue. The project is good, maybe add some "to be continued" or closure to the current arc and then the change won't be as harsh. However, publishing can be rather costly, at least on steam! Anyways, looking forward to purchasing the game :)
Lord Arioch
Backers will continue to get updated versions during development, only the final version will be sold.
Kahuna382000
If you're selling it how will that affect your backers here?
Lovey The Fandom Boi
I respect this decision and I hope it has a good outcome on the game. I really do suggest looking for more websites to release on that way you get as much viewing as you can.
Voodoo Monkey
Those decisions make a lot of sense to me. And a smart move to split it up as you are planning.
Lord Arioch
Steam and Itch.
John
Where are you going to sell it? Steam, Itch, GOG?
Lord Arioch
We'll fold Act I into one of the tiers when it is released, where if you back at that level you get a copy.
Super Koi
Are you guys planning to make a certain tier that gains access to the different acts as they come out?
No matter what decisions you make, the main thing is that this game be completed sooner or later. I hope that the release in Steam will introduce many people to this masterpiece!
Vinick
Whatever you think will work best. It does seem like there's more benefit to a bi-monthly release than a monthly one, especially considering what you mention here. I'll keep supporting either way, as this game is content heavy and unique: in many ways. I don't think I've really seen anything like what you have going here, and I will do whatever I can to help it continue.
