Prioritizing!

Hello!

This is less of an update in the sense of game development, but something sort of related to it. From here on out, I will have to adjust my workflow in relation to the interest of the project unless things change. FYI, this is a bit of a long read so you can skip the the TL DR if you like, which is I'll be streamlining various things about the project which may affect you as a patron.

As far as I can see (and also based on what I've been told by others), I do a lot more work than your average h-developer or even whole teams of developers -- yet I have much less success comparatively. That is, if you determine success based on # of patrons.

I'm not complaining about that, in fact I'm sure there are reasons I haven't recognized that contribute to this. It's a learning process for me, so I learn new things to apply everyday. However--

I've also come to the realization that this can't be sustained properly without it having a negative impact on my life. For example, if I had just 100 patrons, I'd be able to continue working 30-40 hours a week on this project and produce. That would allow me to develop comfortably and that was actually my goal. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, that simply did not pan out. I got thousands of followers in the past few months, but comparatively less actual patrons.

I often spend 30-40 hours or more in one week, sometimes within a 3-4 day time period developing this project. It may not seem apparent, since I write all the engines from scratch and test myself (which also takes a ton of time and energy). But that's actually what it amounts to with nearly every update I perform. And sometimes I work on the project more than that.

 For anyone who might be familiar with the process, this is a massive amount of effort, and as you can see from the active patrons the payoff isn't quite there to make this a sustainable way to work consistently until it does begin to pay off more.

Let me be clear here:

 I appreciate my current patrons. You all are amazing. You obviously see the potential of what I'm building, and I would be worse off without you. So thank you for your support!

However, I sense a need to prioritize / streamline how I use my efforts until such a time that it becomes a bit more worth it.  My intuition is telling me that in order to do that, I need to scale back on the amount of effort and energy I put into this until it becomes a bit more worth it.

In an ideal world, I'd be able to comfortably develop as I please and also have it pay off. The reality was a bit different, however! It seems I've been putting the cart before the horse so to speak.

In response to that, I've decided to do a few things which may affect your relation with my game. But before I mention that, let me give you an idea of what I currently do.

Each release I spend about 30-40 hours. At 2 releases per month, that's about 60-80 hours a week. That doesn't account for the time I spend developing SM presence, writing content, story boarding, creating characters, etc. Currently, just 25$ a week is what that effort nets me.

I think anyone would see what I mean when I put it in that perspective. On top of all that, I also write my web fic, work on a joint project (which I'm also paying for out of pocket), and somehow try to freelance enough money to feed myself and pay my bills each month.  I do not have a traditional job (nor can I take one at the moment), nor can I apply for unemployment like virtually 99% of the rest of the country right now. I work from home because I have 2 elderly parents (1 handicapped) I help  tend to, as well as trying to get my own affairs / life in order.

In short, my schedule is absolutely full to the brim on a good day. Yet I've still been managing to find time to do all of this because I felt / hoped it would pay off sooner rather than later. Unfortunately that was not the case, so I need to scale back as well. With that in mind, there are a few things I'm looking at:

First and foremost, I'm going to re-examine the reward tiers and streamline them. There are some things that I've been failing to deliver consistently, largely in part because the project isn't generating enough funds to cover producing them. Likewise, because I was spending a majority of my time and energy on the project, I wasn't able to take extra jobs to pay for them out of pocket either. An example of this is creating custom poses, backgrounds and new 3D levels for the project.

My focus here will be to offer things that don't require me to purchase services from others at this time.

Secondly, I will spend much less time on discord. Frankly, managing / maintaining a discord channel is a hassle for me. I don't mind lurkers, but I also don't like the appearance of a dead channel. I also don't feel inclined to spend a ton of time trying to get people to engage who obviously have no intention to do so.  I'll probably hop on there once or twice a day at most moving forward.

Lastly, and probably most importantly. I will be limiting the amount of time I work on this project by about 75%. This means about 10 hours a week max of my time and energy will go towards this until such a time that I can scale up without development feeling more like a labor of love. In reality, this won't affect you that much since I will focus on adding new story elements, events and similar content.  But it will cut down on some of the features being added (like the ones that have taken so long for 0.26).

Finally, if you have any insight to share regarding any of these things, such as what you'd like to see or be rewarded with let me know.

- Ren

Oh. P.S.
0.26 will be released no matter what state the game is in on Friday.  (6/18). Naturally I'll endeavor to make it as stable as possible and add some fun content before then.