2021 in Review
Added 2022-01-02 17:56:42 +0000 UTCThis year was crazy for me. It might seem like I was doing too much, but I said "No" more than I ever have in previous years. I still recall my years of struggling as a creator, so it feels strange to have opportunities thrown at me right and left.
THOUGHTS ON 2021
TLS: Unfortunately, this is the first year that I have to say I didn't meet my TLS goals. I wanted to finish the Incubus War, but only completed two out of the three updates. That was my target, and I'd secretly hoped to have both the war and the aftermath open world update done. Rather than discuss my thoughts on potential reasons, I'd rather defer that until after I have the next update out. Results over talk.
But hey, it's not like nothing was completed last year! We wrapped up the Gathering with a lot of aftermath events. Elleani also got her official membership with the conclusion of the New Givini plot thread, and we completed the first several harem quests. Then the Incubus War is the last really complicated event (whereas the final event will be less intertwined culminations). We're getting close to the end, I'm just struggling against increasing inertia as everything concludes.
OEA: It's been almost four years since I started working on OEA, but last year it finally got off the backburner. There were two large updates on this one, getting it nearly into shape for the release. This felt nice, after accomplishing so little on it in 2020.
DStP: For what was intended to be a brief little side project, this has really lingered. At least the build released last year was generally liked from a design perspective, with a far higher rating from a general audience than expected, despite a bugged launch.
The Brightest Shadow: TBS2 did pretty decently, while BFS underperformed but opened some doors in the publishing industry. In an ideal world, I would have been able to pursue this and submitted my first ever solicited manuscript, but this had to be placed lower priority.
The Weirkey Chronicles: The plan to kickstart the series may have gone weirdly, but it certainly took off in terms of the numbers. Fingers crossed that it doesn't crash with the release of the fourth book. I also took a non-trivial monetary risk with the audiobooks... and unfortunately it's too early for me to do a financial evaluation of that choice.
Tie-in Requests: I received multiple offers to write tie-in novels, which in theory could be good for my career, but I turned them down for reasons of priorities. Properties within my niche, not something like Star Wars... though honestly, from what I know about Disney contracts, I'd never dream of signing one.
Webtoon: By far the most unexpected thing I had to turn down, at least for now. I always thought a webcomic had to be either a labor of love or very expensive, but it turns out if you reach enough success, people will pay you for the rights. A webtoon version of TWC would be fascinating because I haven't worked on that kind of thing before, but I could see it eating up way too much time. It's a shame that I couldn't get a similar deal for TLS... maybe on one of those trashy manhwa sites, haha.
I think that covers the major issues, unless I forgot something. It doesn't touch on anything I dismissed more quickly, or all the random little inspirations I had to leave behind. T-T
PLANS FOR 2022
TLS: Hopefully, many updates. The end of the war is coming soon, then there's one last hurdle with the open world update. After that, there will be character-focused updates that I hope will be easier for me and come out more reliably. It would not be unreasonable to expect TLS to conclude in 2022, but I'm certain I won't get there. But I promise it will be clear how close we are.
OEA: My core work is done, but at least one more testing build, since the Thanksgiving release led to really scattered feedback. The plan is a late Q1 launch. More on this later, but these results will be critical to the direction I take my career.
TWC: I've written through the fifth book, but I need to write the sixth at some point this year. Shouldn't be too challenging or time-consuming.
Audiobooks: Two more TWC books from Travis Baldree when he has time for them. TBS3 via Podium. No other audiobook plans. Hopefully this year will not involve any audiobook negotiations or other time wasting stuff, but I'm curious how the numbers will come out.
TBS: The third book is completely written, it just needs a little more editing. Probably a release in the second half of the year. After this first trilogy is complete, this one will likely take a rest for a little while to keep my plate clearer.
DStP: It sure would be nice to make progress on this in 2022, but as you can tell from the aspirational tone of that statement, this side project is probably getting the short stick again. Not that it could complete anyway, given how slowly the artist is working.
Maybe A Book: I'm hoping this will be a year for wrapping up projects, but my creativity is guaranteed to go in various directions. It would be nice if I could write something different in regards to my overall publishing ambitions, but we'll see.
Okay, I believe that's everything. I hope that 2022 treats everyone well! I will be doing my best to improve it by providing my usual content, hopefully sooner than you think. ^-^
Comments
I appreciate that kind of support! TLS will have been a major part of my creative life, and I intend to polish it carefully, but I also don't intend to be the kind of creator who tinkers with one project their entire lives. Can't say if you'll like my future work better than TLS, but I'll be giving my all to a variety of stories!
Sierra Lee
2022-01-07 23:48:12 +0000 UTCHaha I like that! Its fine you shouldnt waste your time thinking about it. I kinda liked it at the beginning but its become a large steaming pile of disappointment lol. And im glad to hear there will be some additional TLS related content. But I like to think about it like this, since you created TLS it means you may very well create something thats even better in the future so I will continue to support you and eagerly await the arrival of that story.
Reddy Bread
2022-01-07 22:34:22 +0000 UTCIt would be great to see the conclusion of this war by this Friday or next Friday at the latest. And I had a crazy theory pop into my head just now. The incubus king armor pieces and sword are going to give Simon the power to stop the Anak. The shining swords we've so painstakingly collected will stop the woman holding Ivala captive. On a side note is there going to be any punishment for Ivala when we do reach her? At the very least have Carina angry with her in the same way Neranda was angry with Tertia.
JJS
2022-01-05 17:41:58 +0000 UTCIt's the Year of the Tiger, it's the thrill of the fight, rising up to the challenge of our rival... Sorry. Goes back to senile dribbling...
DukeLeto7
2022-01-05 11:22:44 +0000 UTCI expect a lot of people to have mixed feelings about the end of TLS, but I hope everyone will feel that it ends on a strong note instead of persisting too long. You can also look forward to some short stories and comics about the characters after the end! I did write the early parts of KoD. I'm not associated with the studio anymore and generally don't think about it much, so I don't have any comment on that.
Sierra Lee
2022-01-05 05:08:27 +0000 UTCIts kinda weird because im stuck between wanting to see the conclusion of TLS and not wanting it to ever end lol. A great story and fun memorable characters is what keeps me interested in a game, a story or an anime. Being able to relate with a character emotionally increases immersion exponentually. Im glad to hear you dont wanna stop doing games and I just wanted to say that there is a demand for more story-focused games. I have seen some do pretty well for example Star Knightess Aura used to be mainly text-based like TLS but recently started adding cg's and it is a heavily story-focused corruption style game. Its the dev's only project and it has a pretty decent amount of support. So dont stop making that type of content. (Especially since thats the type I prefer lol) A guy mentioned above that you were involved with Kingdom of Deception? I didnt even know that but it def explains why I liked the project in the beginning. Anyway Happy New Year and im looking forward to what you bring us this year.
Reddy Bread
2022-01-05 02:47:16 +0000 UTCThe first TBS3 should have said TBS2. Happy new year to you as well!
Sierra Lee
2022-01-05 00:52:48 +0000 UTCBit confused by the report on TBS; part of your post says "TBS3 did pretty decently" but another part says "TBS: The third book is completely written, it just needs a little more editing. Probably a release in the second half of the year." Are there pre-orders for TBS3 or something? Happy Year of the Tiger.
Decanter
2022-01-04 23:57:59 +0000 UTCI am happy then if you will not leave the games.I understand about OEA, but we will see when it is released. About TLS update, I will wait patiently then, maybe this week or the next, who knows
BleBle
2022-01-04 22:20:55 +0000 UTCHello! There's an upper limit on how much writing I'd ideally like to do, and I love games too much to leave them. If OEA does poorly, I would instead focus more on projects with a strong design element instead of trying to increase investment in production values. A TLS update should be coming soon. It was my top priority all December.
Sierra Lee
2022-01-03 23:02:01 +0000 UTCHello!! Hope you are having a nice week, it seems that you have a lot of on your plate, I am happy that you are being succesfull on your career. I hope this year would be good too!! About OEA i hope you succeeds, I am bit scareed that if the OEA doesnt'w rok you would turn off games to stay more on Books, but is something natural I think, everyone must go where it works more for them. It's interesting and wonderfull when the hard work finally gives some fruits, but sometimes the harvest rots, It happened to me a lot of times, so be carefull and don't despair!! I wonder how is the state of TLS too, maybe this month you have something!! Take care Buh bye.
BleBle
2022-01-03 19:57:42 +0000 UTCYeah, I'm not sure about this. I wonder about it, especially with my Amazon releases, since momentum is king there. But there are more successful authors who have a big Patreon without limiting their algorithmic success, so it must be possible to outpace this effect. A webcomic still sounds fun to do, I'll just have to reserve it for a time when I feel my schedule can handle it. Hopefully at that point I'll be in a stronger negotiating position.
Sierra Lee
2022-01-03 14:59:27 +0000 UTCI don't think I've tried either Venus Blood game, though the promotional material looks oddly familiar. I'll look into them, thanks!
Sierra Lee
2022-01-03 14:56:32 +0000 UTCNot to cut in on someone else's thread, but I've rarely seen anyone discuss Evenicle so I feel the need to add my opinion. XD I'd agree with your take on Evenicle. It has a weird tonal dissonance thing going on between the silly and the serious that I think some people would read as not coherent, but it actually does mostly work in context... Sadly you're completely right about the rape-y parts being basically tacked on, though, They felt very out of place there in a lot of ways, especially since some were very dark even compared to the darker parts of the story itself. I wish I could offer some recommendations myself, but sadly I don't have a lot either. One day I'd like to add an offering to the listing of my own, but life has thrown my creative endeavors for a loop over the past few years, haha. Well, actually, I guess I could suggest Venus Blood Frontier and Venus Blood: Hollow, if you haven't played them? They do tend toward rape-y on the sex, but not exclusively (and, especially in Frontier, if you take the Reign route, you get a sort of interesting reverse corruption where Loki--the protagonist--starts out trying to corrupt a heroine but then edges away from it toward an actual relationship). Also the plot at least has a reason for that--usually a reason that old Riala would approve of, heh. Hollow has a protagonist I like a lot less than Loki, but it's overall a very solid tactical rpg that I enjoyed as a game more than Frontier even if I enjoyed the plot a bit less.
Lord Forte
2022-01-03 10:34:02 +0000 UTCI wonder how much your (quite lively) Patreon account has skewed your sales numbers. It occurs to me that I haven't actually purchased any of your works directly, despite closely following the work of both Sierra Lee and Sarah Lin, because I have never needed to. Sometimes I even check on Kingdom of Deception, purely out of curiosity for how it has evolved since separating from you. As for the offers you received, I'd be very interested in reading any webcomic associated with you. I understand completely if there simply isn't the time or energy to make it happen. But any visual showcase of your imagination is a special delight; I have already fallen in love with the cute little strips you make with Annikath. I look forward to the new year's releases.
Quiet Stranger
2022-01-03 09:53:19 +0000 UTCI appreciate your support! I really hope we're getting past the heaviest point, but I guess that remains to be seen.
Sierra Lee
2022-01-03 04:33:06 +0000 UTCI've been directed to Price for Freedom before. They have a whole webcomic that actually has some emotional variation in the content, which was nice, but at the time the build didn't seem very stable to me. I actually beat Evenicle a while back. At least in part for the novelty of an AliceSoft game where the women seem to want to be there half the time. But while the majority of the content is highly vanilla (common positions like seated or woman on top variations are oddly rare), they threw in half a dozen rape scenes written with exactly their usual MO, and it makes the plot's attempts to address the issue tonally absurd. I didn't think the writing was awful so much as aggressively tropey. The characters are mostly familiar archetypes, then when the writers want to do a specific anime trope, they basically just run headlong into it. By the standards of the field it has some things going for it, but there are a lot of scenes that feel lifted out of something else as opposed to organic. Thanks for the recommendations! I'm always happy to look into genre hybrids.
Sierra Lee
2022-01-03 04:32:11 +0000 UTC>I know there are a lot of mid-sized developers out there making RPGs with a side of adult content, and some of them must be more interested in storytelling or characterization, but I haven't played enough of them. I'd take suggestions, actually. Last time I went looking, I honestly couldn't find anything worth sharing, at least in terms of complete games available for sale. There's one Patreon-supported isometric RPG in the style of Baldur's Gate, Price for Freedom, which has some very nice art, and I thought some fairly worthwhile writing (although it could have used some editing last I checked it out,) but the gameplay has been through a few iterations, and last time I checked it out I found it to border on "unplayable." At some point I'll probably check it out again and see if it's been polished up and is fit to play again, but right now I have no idea if it's in a decent state to try out. I was actually looking forward to the release of Evenicle, because I'd heard good things about the Rance series, but I also always thought it sounded like something I wouldn't actually want to play, but Evenicle was a game by the same company which ostensibly featured a protagonist having consensual sex with a collection of partners who actually want to be with him. But when it came out, I waited for early reviews to see if it was likely to live up to my expectations, and from the sound of it, the writing was just... really dumb? There was actually one indie dev who I used to spend a lot of time helping out with his own writing, who honestly wasn't at all good at it, but was at least self-aware about it, and he commented on Evenicle that "When even I think that the characterization seems weird and unbelievable, you have problems." Actually, come to think of it, if you're willing to stretch your definitions of "RPG" a bit, you might try out Yumina the Ethereal. It's a sort of VN/Dungeoncrawling RPG hybrid, and while the writing didn't amaze me or anything, I still legitimately enjoyed it, and it gave me some interesting ideas. Eien no Aselia is also a weird, very borderline example, a visual novel/tactical RPG, whose English translation is based on a release without sexual content, but which *did* have 18+ content in its original version. I found that one interesting and worthwhile, but I don't think I'd actually recommend it to you as such, because the gameplay is very time-consuming, but there are some elements of the game with a surprising degree of similarity to TLS, and not in ways that you'd be likely to guess early on in the game. The art is actually surprisingly bad for a commercial release of its scope, but it did well enough to fund the development of a much higher-budget sequel, which I haven't played because I've heard that its script did not live up to the rest of the budget.
Desertopa
2022-01-03 02:58:27 +0000 UTCAs a guy who has done a few creative projects of his own in the past, believe me, I get the whole "slowing down near the end" thing. It's easy to find a great mix of valid and not-so-valid reasons to panic and second guess your own work, when you reach the point where new plotthreads can no longer be spun, but rather have to be tied together in a neat way. Ask G.R.R.M if it's easier to create a bunch of cool story lines or to actually tie them all together at the end. Though ultimately, it doesn't matter if it's gonna be 2022 or 2023 to me, TLS as a game has earned crazy much goodwill and if a bit extra time in the oven is what it takes to perfect this particular brownie then I'm all for it. Either way, happy new year! To Sierra, to the patrons and to those who are just along for the ride. May your sales numbers be high and may your unavoidable marketing tasks be few!
DankPotatoes
2022-01-03 02:50:31 +0000 UTCYeah, my fingers are crossed. I've put out a number of different games, and there are more on the way no matter what, so hopefully I will have some decent data. We've discussed the Japanese HRPG genre in the past, so you know we're of the same mind there. I've started to mostly ignore all the DL Site stuff, since it feels like it's entirely the same single character corruption game. I know there are a lot of mid-sized developers out there making RPGs with a side of adult content, and some of them must be more interested in storytelling or characterization, but I haven't played enough of them. I'd take suggestions, actually.
Sierra Lee
2022-01-03 02:00:20 +0000 UTCThat's definitely a referendum whose results I'm interested in. I'm planning to return to working with RPGMaker myself after Complex Relations, and have a few ideas I think are worth trying, although ones which are less ambitious in budget than OEA, so I'd be interested to compare results. The Japanese HRPG field in particular is pretty populated, but also incredibly samey, and it's hard to chart out the types of content that people are interested in based on it, because it explores such a limited field. It's like walking into a dark room, turning on a flashlight and pointing it straight at one wall, and trying to guess the layout of the whole room based on what you can see under a single beam of light.
Desertopa
2022-01-03 00:16:24 +0000 UTCLess energy, more money. OEA will be my most expensive project by a fair margin, and I'm considering it a referendum on how much appetite there really is for adult RPGs that are interested in storytelling. I'm not confident it's strong, but I've given OEA my best. If it succeeds, I will continue trying to scale up my efforts. If not, I'll accept that I'm making a niche product and focus on projects that can best live up to that. Congrats on your strong midpoint position, by the way! With luck you'll be able to sweep in a lot of bandwagoners in the back end.
Sierra Lee
2022-01-02 22:34:10 +0000 UTCThe real issue with TLS is the number of sidequest updates there will be and how long they'll take. As I've mentioned at some point, every harem member is supposed to get their own unique quest, and we've only done a few. Some of these will be essential to plot threads (ie Lynine/Orilise) and others are just character-based (ie Qum), but I'm not sure how long it will take. Just considering the finale plot updates, I'd be done in just a few more. OEA hasn't been taking up a certain hour of every day or anything, more like it won't take up blocks of time in the future. I hope that the Steam release will be largely bug free thanks to all of the testing being done, but do predict some time for marketing. Overall, I'm anticipating it being a small part of my schedule for several months, as opposed to a central part for any length of time.
Sierra Lee
2022-01-02 22:23:40 +0000 UTCI appreciate your ongoing support, then! I'll be working on more stuff if you're ever hungry for more of my content. When I do conclude TLS I will hopefully have time to spend time elsewhere, perhaps including Crimson Gray sequels. Regarding tie-ins: nothing that big, but yeah, I don't think it would be professional to say.
Sierra Lee
2022-01-02 22:18:14 +0000 UTCI'm surprised to hear you say the results of OEA will be critical to the direction you take your career. I never realized much of your planning was hinging on its performance. Is this regarding how viable you consider it to stake much of your energy on selling complete games? It really casts into relief just how prolific you are when you note that writing a complete novel, in addition to numerous other projects you're juggling, "shouldn't be too challenging or time-consuming."
Desertopa
2022-01-02 21:21:02 +0000 UTCIt looks to me like you have a lot you should be proud of for 2021! I'm a bit surprised to hear that you think TLS might not finish in 2022 but I might have just thought it was closer to being done than it actually is. Less in terms of story (which is near the end as described) and more in terms of how much work it'll actually be for you to finish what you'd like to finish. I am, as always, excited for more TLS content though! With OEA releasing early 2022, where do you see yourself spending your OEA allocated time? Also, do you allocate a certain amount of time after a game launches for things like bug fixes, additional marketing, etc., and if so, how much of 2022 do you see that taking up? More curious if you would mentally dedicate something like 1 month vs. 6 months or perhaps longer. Regardless, thanks for your efforts in 2021 and I look forward to what you put out in 2022! =D
Grim8P
2022-01-02 20:36:59 +0000 UTCI feel that TLS will be a work in progress in that after your update its a matter of people playing the game noticing what's wrong and what's missing to help you figure out the content needed for the updates. I.E a lot of stuff from past content that could be added that you haven't touched that could help you overcome your inertia. The succubi sex ring in Yhilin you hinted at but didn't add. So maybe listening to your patreons perspectives will help you find yours.
JJS
2022-01-02 19:37:51 +0000 UTCI honestly haven't consumed any of your work in the past 3 or more years, even if I have been a patron the whole time. But I am still happy that you are doing so well and getting that much appreciation. I hope things continue to develop favourably for you. From my limited knowledge it seems you made the right decision on the Webtoon thing. Generally adaptations can be very draining, since they require your attention, but don't really cause you to create 'new' content, so to say. Writing tie-in novels would probably be a good call if you wanted to go shift your career more into writing. I (and probably everyone else) would be very curious to know what you ended up turning down. But I can imagine that revealing that kind of thing is frowned upon if you want to keep receiving offers. I hope you have a lot of success in the new year!
DuckTogo
2022-01-02 19:21:14 +0000 UTC
