F@FF 1 Retrospective and what's changing for F@FF 2

I thought it might be fun to take a look back at A Fortnight at Frenni Fazclaire's for the New Year and talk about what the team learned and what's changing for the second entry in the series coming later this year. If you haven't played the first game yet, I HIGHLY recommend you do before reading this post!

--LESSON 1: MULTIPLE PROTAGONISTS IS HARD

We really shot for the moon and tried to include multiple gender protagonists for our first ever Visual Novel. What we didn't fully anticipate was the sheer amount of work (coding, writing, drawing, animating, etc.) that came with having both a male and a female perspective on top of needing scenes with each of the girls. This additional workload was almost too much for us to handle, leading to us needing to cut scenes and pair down the animation drastically. For this reason, F@FF 2 will be limited to a Male POV. If you want a non-Male (or at least a non-cis one) perspective, you might enjoy the upcoming Hell in the Sheets Visual Novel!

--LESSON 2: PEOPLE REALLY WANT TO BE ABLE TO NAME THE MC

For joke reasons (as in literal jokes in the game), the name(s) for the MC in F@FF 1 were static. This caused a small uproar that we weren't expecting. The good news is that, ever since F@FF 1, all of our Visual Novels allow you to name yourself.

--LESSON 3: PEOPLE WILL WORK FOR THE 100% SAVE FILE

While it is the ultimate goal for any developer for the player to want to 100% their game(s), sometimes the barrier to that can be prohibitive. This is especially the case in the Adult games industry where many times the "good stuff" is locked behind tedious minigames, oddly complex systems, needlessly-added padding, and/or other barriers meant to make the player "work for their reward". There is some value in that, but our goal is always to provide a low to medium barrier in terms of completion. I anticipate that F@FF 2 will be on the higher end of the complexity scale, which leads into the next lesson...

--LESSON 4: COMPLEXITY IS KING WHEN IT COMES TO PLAYER CHOICE

Although MalOvent is well-regarded and well-received, it is admittedly far less complex than the inner workings and story branches contained with F@FF 1. This has led to some people calling MalOvent a "kinetic novel" instead of a "visual novel", even if player choice still matters in that story! For F@FF 2, we're going back deep into the same level of complexity and branch potential that F@FF 1. Which leads to...

--LESSON 5: PLAN AHEAD FOR ALL POTENTIAL STORY BRANCHES

Part of the reason we kept having to require players to start their F@FF 1 saves over between versions is because we didn't properly plan or anticipate when small, seemingly innocent choices would butterfly-effect their way somewhere down the line. All our games since then deliberately make it a point to save a variable or make some other kind of change that should (hopefully) mean less destruction of player saves.

--LESSON 6: NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE TRUE WAIFU

Anyone who's played F@FF 1 tends to view Zero in a positive light simply because of how helpful and caring she is in the main story. She started as an original one-off character, so the evolution into her becoming a waifu was a delight in terms of character development and player reception. I can't reveal who will "fill Zero's shoes" for F@FF 2 yet, but I do anticipate that one particular character will be adored by all who play it.

--LESSON 7: TRANSLATIONS NEED TO HAPPEN AT THE END OF A PROJECT

While being able to release updates with multiple languages is a boon, sometimes it can lead to major scheduling and delivery issues down the line. This has been especially notable in the Russian translation, where the original translators have gone quiet and every replacement has used some kind of machine translation that we cannot use. That has led to the point where players relying on that translation cannot fully enjoy the final parts of F@FF 1 because there's simply no translation there. For this reason, F@FF 2 will only begin to offer translations after the full English release is available.

--LESSON 8: TRANSPARENCY IS KEY

As with all new game development studios, there have been some growing pains both behind and in front of the scenes. What we've found works best for us is to be open and honest with each other and with our fanbase. Sure, that sometimes leads to not making everyone happy, but that's okay. You can't please everyone.

--LESSON 9: DON'T BE AFRAID TO SAY "NO"

One of the big differences between ourselves and many popular Adult game designers is that we're not out to "milk" our fanbase. We don't offer special tiers that affect the development process, nor do we take requests/commissions for specific scenes in our games. We're upfront about our development process and progress, even if it means losing some support in the process due to long gaps between releases. We're also not afraid to remove bad actors that are negatively affecting the development process or the fan community at large.

And finally...

--LESSON 10: IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL COME

I cannot understate how amazing it is that something starting as a simple Choose-Your-Own-Adventure story written for fun evolved into the NFW brand we have today. I personally never set out to make big bucks, but I can confirm that your support thus far has enabled our artists to make positive changes in their lives. And based on all the testimonials and reviews we've received, some of you have benefited from our works as well. To me, that makes this all worth it.

If you've read this far, thank you again for taking the time. We hope to continue to bring you quality content, and for F@FF 2 we're going to be doing all we can to upgrade and enhance the experience of the first game.