Posted April 02, 2024 by Young & Naughty
#News #Overhaul
April Fools is over, time for the real news.
We weren't kidding yesterday: We are, in fact, working on the ULTIMATE version of our game. The thing is, ACADEMY34 has been in development for quite a while now, accumulating more content than we ever intended on adding. Back when we started, we knew nothing of game development, apart from the basics, which in turn led us to making countless mistakes while designing the foundation upon which the rest of the game was built. It wouldn't be a problem if not for the fact, that we have grown to absurd proportions and on a daily basis we encounter more and more roadblocks caused by our previous questionable decisions.
To counteract this problem, we started working on the Overhaul patch. Our intention was to completely rework the features that were performing below our players expectations, while also adding a convenient way to scale this game for ourselves. All that, along with countless improvements for the outdated visuals, such as locations, and new additions to go alongside with it.
That was the original plan, but similarly to anything we have ever done, it too grew out of proportion.
Around a year ago we came to realization that our current background images pale in comparison to any other content we have been releasing. Not that surprising, considering just how long ago they were drawn. So, for that reason we hired a professional environment designer, who has been tirelessly working on bringing them up to our current standards.
Now, after many months of work, we are happy to announce that the process has finally been complete. We have successfully updated every single one of our backgrounds, and more so, we added a lot of new ones. But these words mean nothing without at least some amount of context, so here you go:
Right now, the main Academy building consists of only 6 separate locations, but after the update we are bringing this amount to 11, and we plan to double this amount in the upcoming content patches. This would mean that we can finally accommodate each of in-game study subjects in their own classrooms, as well as add countless of new characters who would occupy every corner of the world. Some of those characters are already in development!
Additionally, we wanted to bring some life into the Academy ground, which led us to the idea of implementing a schedule system for most characters you will find around. During different times of day, you can find the same person doing their prefered activities in different places, which often leads to discovering unique location-based interactions and even hidden content.
Speaking plainly, we did a lot of work behind the scenes.
Among many other changes, we made sure to improve parts that really matter, UI being the prime example. Listing every single addition to it would require a whole separate post, so here's a few noticeable ones:
And those are just a few examples. We are planning to improve the user experience according to the feedback as we go on, and thankfully, the new system should be way easier to work with.
Before we continue, I want to emphasize that all of the aforementioned changes are guaranteed to make it into the game one way or another. But we can make it even better!
Do you remember how yesterday we announced our Kickstarter program? Well, we were only half-kidding. The thing is, this Overhaul Project is big. Like, a "whole new game" kind of big. We might as well be making a sequel at this point! This kind of challenge would require many months of development time to nail it just right, and maybe even a new engine.
While RenPy is great for what it is, it sucks for everything it isn't. Even then, we are incredibly proud of what we managed to achieve with it so far, considering that our lead developer doesn't even specialize in Python. Don't take it the wrong way though, we are not trying to blame the engine for our own shortcomings, but it isn't built around the possibility of making drastic changes so late into development. That, and certain limitations of its design makes the whole concept of "overhauling" the game a monumental task.
This is why we are considering the transition to Godot, remaking the foundation our game is built upon in the process, and using the experience we gained throughout the past six years to make it exactly the way we wanted to: Not just a Visual Novel, but a proper dating-sim.
While the Overhaul project will be in development, our core team of artists will continue bringing more and more content into the existing game. We have no plans of abandoning it until we are absolutely adamant that the Godot version is ready to be shipped.
The whole process would take a few months, and since we would need a bit of extra punch just to make sure our development power is on point, we'd like to start a Kickstarter campaign to fund it. That would allow us to ensure both development of the Overhaul Project, as well as the continuous support of the existing game for as long as it's needed. Our goals would be realistic, but modest. Just enough to make it a reality.
We also would like to clarify, that Patreon is here to stay! The Kickstarter campaign is only intended to fund the transition from one engine to another, and the labor costs associated with it. Once we implement all of the core features and ensure that it works as intended, Godot-based version will replace the existing one and continue receiving content updates on Patreon in the same fashion as our game does now. As we already pointed out, while the development of Godot version would be going on behind the scenes, we will continue releasing content updates for the existing RenPy-based version on the game for our Patreon supporters, so you shouldn't notice any real difference. Since implementing new content mostly requires attention of our art team and occasional input from our lead developer, development of both versions simultaneously won't be too much of a challenge, given we are provided with enough resources to support our developer on his coding endeavors.
But we won't proceed with this idea unless our community supports it.
Please, let us know your opinion on the matter, and be sure to join the discussion on our Discord server. We cannot understate how important it is for us!
No matter the choice you make, we promise to deliver the Overhaul changes exactly as described above, be that in the form of a whole new game on a different engine, or updates for the existing version. We expect to start implementing the changes this Summer.
A Kickstarter campaign would allow us to make these changes in a much shorter time span, as well as to ensure we won't be cutting any corners in terms of quality. Otherwise, we will simply devote our resources to updating the ACADEMY34 until we are finally satisfied with the result.
So, let us know whether we should proceed with the idea of doing a Kickstarter campaign, or should we stick to our current formula and update RenPy version of the game no matter the possible problems?
With love, Young & Naughty team.