Dev Update! 5/1

Hey friends, how's everyone doing this week? People who follow the Discord (or are eligible to read the Sneak Peeks) will know that I've been sick all week, so my energy level's suffered a bit. But, the work never stops and neither do I!

Raaaaah!

[insert hacking cough sound here]

In all seriousness, I'm on the mend, mostly just dealing with a bit of congestion and a cough. So, today I hit the rendering side of things hard and brought the render total up to 140. Tomorrow I'm going to see if I can finish up Viola's scene. It's been a bit tricky so far, as most of it's taken place in a moving car. That means moving the background between stretches of dialogue, paying attention to continuity, and figuring out how best to position the camera in a tiny space. Still, I've gotten to play with a lot of cool lighting effects, so I call that a win.

The writing end of things is going well. I've got a good bit of Ashe's date done to keep me busy rendering for quite a while, and I've begun probing at a couple of scenes featuring Alex and Risa, framing them out. We haven't gotten a lot of one-on-one time with them, and I thought it'd be fun to get to know them better. 

Regarding Alex, I made a little tweak to her eyes - her old ones with the dark brown irises always looked a bit cartoony, so I found something that captured light a bit more. I also tried out a little undercut for her, but I think we probably have enough undercuts in the cast already, though my undercut lust remains unsatiated.

Risa, as ever, remains way too much fun to write and render. This scene brings to mind a quote I often think of..

And hey, who's this new redhead with the sassy attitude? She looks fun.

So yeah, not much new! Just pushing through the rendering part of things, slowly but surely. That and writing, writing, writing. Challenging stuff, but fun stuff!

Now for some not so fun stuff.

Recently Itchio, one of the most supportive purveyors of adult games began to crack down on a number of adult game devs. The reasoning has seemed to be all over the place, with a variety of games featuring a variety of content targeted. Basically, it ended with a bunch of people unable to feasibly sell their content, due to Itchio no longer collecting funds on their behalf. This left them at the mercy of Paypal, Payoneer, and Stripe, who are famous for banning anyone selling adult material from their platform, and then confiscating their held funds. 

It's a whole thing.

So, what does that have to do with me? It's not like my game's on Itchio. Well, that's right. But, the fact is I'm making an adult game, and I tend to toe the line when it comes to risque themes. I've always believed in the content I'm making, and I'd gladly stand behind it and defend it any day of the week - and twice on Tuesdays. But, the reality is that I'm at the mercy of payment processors, platforms, and politicians. That's just how it is.

It wasn't that long ago that OnlyFans nearly banned pornography from their platform, only reversing course days later. It was only in 2018 that Steam began allowing adult games on their platform. Today, politicians are pushing anti-porn legislation, which will inevitably put pressure on payment processors and the platforms that rely on them.

So, what I'm saying is that I exist in a tenuous space.

With that in mind, I've decided to take action to insulate the development of the game against potential harm, by making sure I'm fully in line with all of Patreon's content policies. In brief, that means that I'll be changing the focus of this Patreon to the development of Friends Indeed, a version of the existing game that is extra vanilla in terms of content. Meanwhile, my SubscribeStar account will be used to fund the development of Friends in Need, which will feature content that may push the envelope a bit.

Now, of course there's nothing I can do that would prevent someone from creating a patch that would restore full sexual content to the vanilla version of the game. That's out of my hands. But, officially the Patreon will only fund and distribute Friends Indeed. To that end, I've temporarily removed all links to the game from the Patreon, until such time I can edit the game files to reflect this change.

So, what does this mean for the Patreon? Functionally, nothing. I'll continue to update it as I always have with Dev Updates, Sneak Peeks, Wanton Weekends, polls, teases, and so on. But, come release day the version of the game that appears here will have any potentially objectionable content stripped out of it.

Now, the important thing - what does this mean for the story of Guy and the girls? Again, functionally nothing. I remain committed to telling the story I've been telling, and delivering the type of content I always have. This is solely about taking steps to ensure the longevity of the project, by avoiding any potential problems with Patreon.

If you want to continue supporting me here, fantastic! I'll do everything I can to ensure limited interruptions or complications to your experience.

If you'd like to support me on SubscribeStar, great! The blog updates will be basically identical, with the only difference being the final product.

I'll have more details later, but that's the long and short of it.

If you'd like to discuss this further, or would like more details, please feel free to hop on over to the Discord, where I'll do my best to answer any questions. I understand this isn't fun news, and it's potentially worrisome. But, you folks have always done right by me, and I remain committed to doing right by you.

As always, take care of yourselves, and thank you for your enduring support.