Hi everyone!
Today is the project's 2nd year anniversary. It was started in 2022 when Friendly Favours was released! I didn't expect anything much would come out of it, but here we are!
Well, the VN did not explode in popularity or anything, and this project has never really taken off to the moon of popularity either, but hey we have:
...so that's good, right? Let's get to it!
So far, Friendly Favours has received warm reception, and as the dev, I won't lie, that makes me happy, knowing that something must had been done right in there. Here's what I gathered so far:
And by the way, Friendly Favours first 3 ratings on Itch-io were all 1-star! They were probably troll/review bomb accounts because if I remember correctly, about two weeks later they were gone. Regardless, positive reviews won't necessarily help a game gain more visibility or popularity, but at least they entice people to try it out, as opposed to negative reviews that deter people away.
That said, the VNs lie in a strange spot. Not many players stop by to check them out, but the ones that do, would say nice things. Players seem to enjoy the VNs, but other than that the VNs don't generate much discussion. Perhaps it's because of the nature of the stories; they lack the kinks and themes that invite discussion. If you check the list of kinks in the About page, they're mostly rather vanilla, aside from lactation and impregnation maybe.
There's no NTR, or harem, or any of the hot topics. There's no suspense of Yuka getting stolen, or no anticipation of Nanako getting blackmailed, and no excitement of the MC adding Nanako, Michelle, Yejin, and Mami to his harem. Comedic harem sounds fun though, maybe in the future... Jokes aside, I simply find writing relaxing and grounded stories more enjoyable.
Obviously I'm not going to do a complete change of direction just to attract more interest. Players who like reading doujinshi and manhwas with wholesome and vanilla tags would probably love the VNs, though. Friendly Favours and Office Rivals are the kind of VNs that you play on a relaxing weekend.
Art-wise, I'm getting the hang of things but lately I feel like my art has been quite rigid, if that makes sense? Friendly Favours is rough around the edges, and Office Rivals is an improvement. But as I use references and focus a lot on relatively-accurate anatomy, my art has become a little bit "by-the-book". For the time being, I often play safe to avoid over-stylizing the art, but in the next episode, I'll take more risky art approaches.
The theme of the anthology remains the same: grounded stories about love, life and friendship of people trying to get by and live their lives in Heart City. And as you've noticed in Office Rivals, cultural references and world-building have become more prevalent. They are not substantial, but giving names and personalities to the setting breathe some life into the characters and their stories.
The next episode will maintain the same mood. The plot of every episode in the anthology lies somewhere between slice-of-life and drama. Friendly Favours leans to the former, and Office Rivals is somewhere in the middle but leans a tiny bit more to the latter.
You won't find anything crazy in the anthology. A bit of drama here and there, but there won't be plot devices like saving the world, or mind-break, or anything too over the top.
We have a Discord server now! Recently I'm back to using Discord to frequent the Renpy server, so I thought why not create a server for this project. For now, I'm using the Patreon Discord integration, so if you have your Discord connected on Patreon, you'll be automatically added. It's a pretty simple and straightforward server, where I mainly post tiny updates every now and then.
Here's the breakdown (in Patreon/donation terms): The accumulative number of patrons over the period of 2 years is 17, accumulating the total patronage amount of USD224. Donation has been spent on digital art supplies, repairs/replacements, and recently USD20 on a Humble Bundle background music pack. Recently,
The most popular tiers are the Early Supporter/Friend tiers, followed by the Donor tier, and lastly the Supporter tier (which was subbed to by 1 former patron for a couple of months, achievement unlocked!) The longest patronage is 2 years (and ongoing!!), the second longest was 5 months, and the third 4 months.
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