Remembrance Planning

Another huge post. TLDR highlights at the end.

I always knew Obsession would be a niche-within-a-niche genre, but I did overestimate the overall sales of the game. Regardless of that, I’m still extremely happy for all the support I have and that I will break even. Those who are into Obsession are REALLY into it, and that’s awesome. I love reading people chatting about it! And watching the two demo streamers was so much fun!

However, because of the lower sales, I have to re-strategize my original plan. The simple fact is not everyone who owns Obsession would buy the Remembrance DLC, so that would put it at high risk of break-even failure if it’s a DLC to Obsession… because owning & playing Obsession would be a requirement. And plenty of people aren’t into what Obsession offers. (And that’s totally okay!)

Obsession had so much horror and extreme scenarios and triggers that I always knew it would be a risk, but it was necessary for the story I wanted to tell. And I never wanted to compromise on that. So… I didn’t. And here we are! No regrets. 

Remembrance won’t be as trigger-extreme in its content (that’s always been the plan for the story). It will still be a mature game with a lot of crazy and sex, of course, but the elements that turn a lot of people off will not be present - child abuse, incest, graphic extreme to a nearly absurd degree of violence, a weak and oblivious MC, etc. Again, this was always the plan. Everyone who has played the game’s ending will understand why.

Also, the ‘crazy’ elements that are planned for Remembrance will be more supernatural in nature, therefore less realistic and generally more palatable/less triggering to the average person.

I spent a lot of time thinking my options over when I realized the limitations of the current situation.

I considered things like trying to ‘extract out’ the extremeness of Obsession as a content patch (similar to Brandon’s route), or making a less extreme version of the game available but… I just don’t want to do that. It would be too time consuming and I think the game would be worse off for it. The extremeness of the world is too important to the story and the horror/adult elements are too ingrained in every scene and conversation and ending.

So, if I can’t/won’t modify Obsession, that only leaves one other option. I need to remove Obsession as a prerequisite for Remembrance.

I know what you’re thinking! What?!! But the overarching story! How will players know wtf is going on?

So… here’s the new plan!

Part #1: Remembrance will be a sequel game to Obsession, not a DLC.

I think this makes sense for many reasons.

1. The content of Remembrance is expected to be equivalent to Obsession. Roughly 40 hours (at 200wpm). No DLC is ever equally as much playtime as a main game. (None that I know about anyway!)
2. Because of #1, I do intend to price it the same. Again, no single DLC is ever the same cost as the main game.
3. The concepts of ‘Worlds’ and how varied they will be can target very different audiences.
4. It’s going to be a year long development time and actually building a separate game will be safer (so I don’t break Obsession) and easier to distribute without having the players modifying game files manually every update. (As I will not distribute the base game anymore.)
5. It removes the requirement for future patreon members to own the base game, so could also help out on in development funding.
6. This grants me the option of restructuring back-end things if I need (like new features, new story structure/requirements, etc) without risking bugs in Obsession.

But the player still needs to know the overarching story to follow what’s going on in Remembrance!

Part #2: To address this issue, I’m currently planning to do either one of two things:

1. The game could have a “Last time on Particles of Reality…” type narrative summary. Lux/Quispe could give a talk about Obsession at the start of the game to catch up the players. This would be a short few new scenes with some conversation, maybe a couple small flashbacks to game scenes.
2. “Obsession - Abridged”. The player will have the option at the start of the game to play a very short & streamlined softcore version of all the critical story events and various critical existing scenes from the main game. This would probably be around an hour in length.

Currently, I’m leaning towards option #2 - Abridged.

I want to be clear that there would be NO new content in this abridged version, just a restructuring & minimizing of existing content with some loose editing to tie all the events in one narrative.

No side content, achievements, branches, choices, or endings would be included. It would be a single short streamlined story that centers around the glitch/Ethereal events as a narrative summary of the core plot points.

I’m leaning towards this option for a few reasons:

1 - I don’t want people who aren’t into what Obsession offers to feel like they’re starting Remembrance at a disadvantage, be confused by the plot, or feel pressured to play Obsession if they aren’t into it. Triggering stuff is real and I respect that. I went to great lengths to respect that! I don’t want people to play Obsession if they wouldn’t enjoy it.

2 - This is a visual novel game. It’s supposed to tell a full and complete story. Actually retelling the core critical plot events will give players what they expect in a visual novel experience.

3 - It’ll be a YEAR minimum before release! Seriously, I would need a recap too after that long of a time in between games. I wouldn’t remember!

4 - This streamlined story approach doesn’t discourage anyone from playing Obsession if they are into it and shouldn’t make any existing players feel like they got ripped off or anything. Obsession has TONS of content outside of the core over-arching narrative. An abridged version isn’t going to delve deeply into any of the characters, their histories, personalities, decisions, etc.

Given all of that information, I think that’s a fair and reasonable solution and workaround that everyone can understand and support.

So… that’s the business strategy. By retelling the core plot events, Remembrance can be a separate game, which gives the game a broader audience and a better chance of business-side success.

Now, onto content re-strategizing!

As mentioned, while Remembrance won’t be the same brutal beat-down that Obsession provided XD, I don’t want anyone to worry that it’s going to be a complete deviation into some fluffy softcore game either. There will still be violence, sex, and tragedy. But, there isn’t going to be the super-triggering minefield of risking-getting-my-game-banned content, which gives me a lot more flexibility and visibility on the storefronts.

I mentioned this ages ago, but… two teenagers having consensual missionary sex = banned! Stabbing a woman between her legs and then setting her on fire? Totally okay thumbs up have a good day. The world is a really strange place.

Because of all of that stuff, having the plan ahead of time to incorporate it correctly, and now having the code and knowledge of how to do it technically, I’m going to plan for Remembrance to be a non-adults-only game WITH an adult-content patch.

This will work exactly the same as Brandon did. All patreons will have the adult content in the game just like ya’ll had Brandon during development. On the stores, I can make the content DLC and mark the DLC store page as adults-only. Lots of games have done this.

I want to assure everyone this will not interrupt the story or create weird transitions or isolate all the sexy events into side content. I can easily weave in and out of adult scenes both technically and creatively when I’m planning to do that during the writing phase. This advanced planning part is the most important.

It’s doing it after-the-fact that makes it rough and weird, which is what happened in Obsession when I decided to introduce the settings late in the process.

By splitting the content up into an adult-DLC, this gives the game more visibility and opens up the audience even more.

I know I’m requesting a small leap of faith from you all in this. I would not even consider doing this if I thought it would impact the story negatively! And if I start finding out it is causing problems later on, I can easily dump the idea all-together.

Other tidbits -

Achievements:

Again, another one of those late-in-the-game additions. In Remembrance, I want to add an Achievements screen in-game so Itch.io players will have that feature available to them, too.

Voice Acting:

A possibility, not a promise. I am thinking about it and considering the cost and effort (finding voices that sound like the characters do in my head is going to be really hard!). I’m in chat with one voice actor currently to give this a test run.

The entire game will not be voiced, it’s just too costly. I’m thinking about implementing something similar to Project Eden’s Garden (example - https://youtu.be/G1Huv7djEdc?si=aPQpbNJsnD2dtEGT&t=628) where the characters have certain common lines they will say sprinkled in at relevant points.

The obvious ones would be for Sebastian, things like:

“My Darling, I love you.”

“But… we’re soulmates!”

Editor:

I do really want one and I’m still looking, but I don’t think this is going to happen. It would literally cost as much as all of the art in the game to have an editor for all of the writing (500k words). The few applications I’ve gotten of those who will do it for less are (unsurprisingly) not the quality I’m looking for and even some people clearly trying to scam me.

I know the typos and such suck, but I’m just not seeing any options here.

Routes & Locked Endings:

The story I’m planning to tell for Remembrance might be structured a bit differently. In Obsession, outside of about 3 endings or so, the player had complete freedom to do anything in any order they wanted.

Because of the plot advancement, this may not be the case in Remembrance. It won’t be fully linear and I still want to give as much freedom as I can, but there may be more of those locked choices.

But I do know those locked choices were confusing to some, and the player didn’t know why things were locked until they went hunting for it in the endings GUI, which was another late addition.

So I’m brainstorming ways to present that information on the choice screen itself…

And maybe even in the story? This is an idea right now in my mind, we’ll see if/how it plays out. But the idea of being presented a choice and having either the MC or the character you’re speaking to make a comment such as “Maybe you should talk to Julian first before you make a decision…” To give an in-game hint seems fun. It’s just a question of if it will fit the narrative.

I also need to clearly communicate during development which endings are locked due to choices and which are locked due to this-content-doesn’t-exist-yet. I might add a little symbol next to those choices similar to the dialog-only icon.

Alexander DLC / Future Obsession content

I am expecting to charge a small amount for Alexander’s DLC content. I’m estimating probably around ~$5 USD. The charge is simply to cover the new CGs.

After Alexander’s route, I’m not planning anything more for Obsession. However, I’m not against the idea of adding side content to Obsession in the future. I welcome any requests or suggestions. Any new content for Obsession after Alexander’s route will be limited to side content and would be completely free.

Patreon Game Keys

The keys for Alexander’s route and Remembrance will work exactly the same as Obsession. The system for Obsession worked very well, and outside of a few emails getting lost in spam, there were no issues and it was a quick process to get through.

If you pay the cumulative cost of all the keys you request/obtain through Patreon in membership fees, you’ll get a free key.

The amount for Remembrance is increasing to $30 USD to match the release price for Obsession. The original $20 was the price I first expected to sell Obsession for a year ago, and I didn’t want to make anyone feel slighted by increasing the amount (due to the unanticipated high cost of art and growth in anticipated scope).

So for example, if you got a key for Obsession (@ $20 USD) and you request one for Remembrance (@ $30 USD), you’ll need to have paid a minimum of $50 USD in membership fees. $55 if you also get Alexander’s DLC through Patreon.

Patreon resumes Nov 1st as planned.

TLDR highlights:

• Remembrance won’t be as trigger-happy as Obsession, this was always the plan. But don't get the wrong idea. It ain't gonna be a fluffy picnic either.
• Remembrance will be a sequel. Not a DLC. Equal length and release price as Obsession.
• Remembrance will be a non-adults base game with an adults-only patch. I know that’ll make people nervous but trust me, I wouldn’t do it if I thought it would cause problems. And if it does, I’ll scrap the idea.
• Because it’s a sequel now, Remembrance will likely contain a short ‘Obsession - Abridged’ to sum up and recap the over-arching story told in Obsession. This will be only around an hour of content (guesstimation), no side content, no choices, endings, achievements, character histories, etc. A single streamlined choice-less story that ONLY covers the overarching plot major events. This should be a fair and reasonable strategy to everyone.
• I want to add an achievements screen for Itch players.
• I want an editor but that’s probably not happening.
• Voice acting is a maybe still. It will be very light if it happens, not the full game.
• More choices may be locked in Remembrance. I know it’s annoying. I’m thinking about better ways to communicate lock requirements during play or better structure things.
• Alexander’s route will have a small charge, maybe around $5. Patreon key obtainment works the same for the DLC.
• Patreon keys will work the same as Obsession for the new release price point of $30 USD.
• Patreon resumes Nov 1st as planned.

And that's all from me until November when we start Alexander! 

As always, thank you all for your support and encouragement! None of this would have been possible without you all!