The cheaper tier on Patreon is very cheap so if you cannot afford to support consistently, you can still pick it up for a month once there is more content.
It's still kinda crazy that there's other creators who put their stuff on here for free when they actually pay artists for their work or do all the work themselves, even if it is delayed by a few updates.
This VN is AI. And unlike others like Leather&Madness who both explicitly states it's made with AI and is free because it is made with AI, this person has the audacity to ask for patreon support when they themselves are stealing from artists.
Everyone's free to do what they want but just saying, there's a lot of other really good work out here that you can support who actually supports other people's art as well, instead of just stealing it for their own ends.
I appreciate your view on this. I do not share it.
First of all, it is explicitly stated that a lot of the graphical assets are partly or fully made with AI in the metadata of this game. In fact, there is no toggle for exactly how much is made with AI, so I just had to put it as entirely made with AI, which is not even remotely true.
Second, let me be transparent. When you say "this game is made with AI," it would imply a lot of things that I'm going to have to protest. I wrote this story myself with no AI. It's currently at 69,000 words. I designed the game mechanics of this game myself with no AI. I coded all the minigames present in chapter 2 and all the other narrative lanes myself (I used the integrated Copilot feature in my programming software to debug sometimes, so I suppose that's AI as well, but other than that, it was all me). I even composed some of the music myself with no AI.
And then even when it comes to visual art, I am actually pretty good (I think) and have years of experience in illustration and image editing, which I am using to transform and animate the vast, vast majority of all image assets present in the game. Working in Photoshop is about 50% of the development process for me. So while I do start with generated images in many cases, they are worked on extensively after the fact.
And finally, on just a human level: I work on this game 4-5 hours a day and have been for the last 6 months. I have a full-time, corporate, soul-sucking job in addition to that, which means most of my free time is dedicated to the game. Don't get me wrong: it's a passion project and I love doing it. The tools available to me allow me to make it. If I had the money to pay artists to make everything I want them to make, I would do it. I would shower artists and composers with whatever money I had. I don't have that money. Not even close. The truth is that, were it not for the help I am getting by using AI tools, I wouldn't be filling an artist's pockets; instead, the game just wouldn't exist. As it is, I am feeling creatively fulfilled, and I have a community of people who enjoy the game and allow me to make it.
I share your distaste for certain usages of AI. Generated images that are used commercially that haven't been improved upon or added to a larger artistic work and are just sold somehow or monetized without any real added value are what I too would consider slop. But that is not what the finished product of this game is. And I am 100% confident of that.
I'd still encourage you to try out the game. And if not, good luck somewhere else. <3
I also appreciate your viewpoint, and similarly I also do not share it. Like I said, everyone is free to do as they please. I don't and shouldn't have the right to tell you what to do, even though I deeply disagree with your position. However, I feel it is important to have transparent discussions about these issues.
My question for you is this: Why isn't your game free? Why are you paywalling further updates through your patreon, instead of sharing everything?
I've seen lots of popular VNs start with sparse art and placeholder backgrounds that became really successful, and afterwards had the funds to hire artists to flesh out their visuals. To this day, all of them remain free on itch and still provide free updates. Why isn't your game free for everyone?
Now, you're probably thinking it's insanely entitled of a stranger to ask you to put all your hard work, that you spent so much of your precious free time on, up for free on the internet. It's yours so you should get to decide what you do with it, right? You have a right to profit off your own work, right?
I agree. The people whose art got stolen for you to use, didn't get to profit off their own work though. If the idea of me demanding you give me and everyone on the internet all your hard work for free bothers you, I encourage you to ask yourself why it doesn't bother you that you're using the free, stolen, scraped art of millions of artists who, unlike you, never got a choice in getting paid or not. They just got their hard work ripped from their hands to watch someone else profit off it. Right now, that someone else is you.
You are supporting corporations who are getting rich off of art they thoughtlessly stole. You are using their product for free (or worse, paying them) to have free access to, essentially, the art of so many people like you, who got unceremoniously robbed of their own art. And, considering you are a writer and creative, and claim to also be a visual artist, I find it really sad that you would sink to this level because I feel like people who create things should have solidarity with each other.
That's all.
It is a problem. I have been intentionally not buying games that use AI assets. --But a lot of those games are low effort too. Like the dozens of AI pinball tables Zaccaria pinball has been spewing out over the last couple of months.
I can definitely see the effort put into your story and the gameplay and they really draw me in. I wish you didn't need art at all really, but though I personally have bought a number of interaction fiction games that have little or no art, I know most people expect that, and some of your minigames require art.
You seem to be quite good with photoshop. What do you think about starting with public domain pictures kind of like Four Last Things and The Procession to Calvary, which are very visually striking and fit the time period you're going for?