Yeah >.< I can't cope with it really if I'm honest x3 I'm just about managing to make a couple of tweets a week and that's me at my limit, haha. Heck knows how I'm ever supposed to try and get stuff on Steam or possibly make any Kickstarter without paying someone to handle all that for me cos I'm just hopeless!
I used to play some of the free ones with tickets and stuff, but man, it did my head in waiting, so I wound up mainly playing the pay-per-route ones like the ones Voltage released. Even back before they changed everything with the big merge, I couldn't keep up with the sheer amount of content they were spitting out. I used to ask if I could get a Google Play card for Christmas, and then try to spend the credit as wisely as possible on whatever was on sale, haha. I think Enchanted in the Moonlight was one of the first ones I played from them cos I loved the look of Miyabi x3 I did have a blast with em at the time, but as soon as I discovered there were VNs on PC that you could just buy as a one-off purchase and get the whole game, I never went back to mobile ones, and it was then that I realised how shallow the stories were that I'd been reading on mobile in comparison to some of the longer, more in-depth PC VNs I'd downloaded. I did, of course, make an exception for Mystic Messenger, haha. I wasn't a fan of the premise for Dandelion or Nameless, but I still wound up loving both games just because the characters were so cool!
But yeah, boy did the cost add up for pay-per-route stuff when I calculated compared to just buying PC VNs >.< I was horrified xD It would've cost me like over £70 in total to play all the Enchanted in the Moonlight content that I played back in the day! Not really acceptable >.<"
My backlog is so ridiculous at this point that even if I sat and read every single day, I don't think I'd clear it in a year x3 and that's just my VN backlog not even including all the other kinds of games I wanna play xD
Hehe, pantsing party for life x3 I'm glad it's not just me, haha.
"I've resigned myself to it now and just patch the holes afterwards, not sure if that's the best way of doing things though ^^;"
That is basically now my life xD Makes me feel much better about it knowing you're the same! I can just about stick to bullet points, and that's it. But I mean, I have fun, and that's the main thing xD
I adore the TV series, Inside No.9 cos there's almost always a twist of some sort in each episode. Usually, it's a pretty decent twist as well, which is quite incredible considering the number of episodes x3 They're not always mind-blowing reveals, but usually pretty amusing and satisfying. If I had the time, I'd love to make a VN version of every single episode xD And one of my favourite films/theatre shows of all time is Ghost Stories cos the reveal in that is beautiful and makes you see everything differently when you rewatch it after knowing the ending :3
I'm glad you had fun with what little there is of DD ^-^ It should play out somewhat differently in the update cos I've added so many choices and variations to scenes that I've wound up writing roughly 100 extra lines of dialogue for Castor/ia to go in the segment of the story that already exists for them, haha. I certainly wouldn't wanna put any more than I have because I'm at my limit for keeping track of stuff now, haha.
Most of the choices are impactful later on, but some have a more immediate effect. The reason I've gone with so many more choices though is because a fair few people said they wished they had more control over MC's responses cos they feel like MC is a bit too much of an asshole, which I totally understand xD So I've given players more control of MC's personality but made sure that the cumulative effects of their personality type help to determine what choices are available later on + what ending they're steered towards :3
I really wish I could work faster cos I'm dying to show the new version of the game x3 but it's gonna take me a while to actually add all the brand new stuff now I'm done with the revamp T_T and I've wound up deciding to add 2 new characters instead of just 1 because of the way I want to implement one of them >.< I need many clones x3
Viewing post in Solipsism Reigns Otome/GxB Version comments
I tried the whole building a twitter following once, for future marketing, managed to stick with it for about two months, haven't touched it now in a couple of years xD Anything marketing related makes my head hurt, I suppose there is the otome subreddit, which is somewhere to start, do Steam and Kickstarter not have marketing help?
I managed to get through quite a few of the ticket ones, but waiting was a massive pain, I think I played one pay-per-route game, and I remember really liking it, but I can't remember the name and it disappeared years ago :( Haven't played the Moonlight one, but googling Miyabi I can understand why you'd pick it up, love a good kitsune :3 The first full game VN I bought was Amnesia (which I still need to finish, I'm terrible for playing one route and then leaving), I was so hesitant cause it was like, £40 or something, and I had all these free ones I could play, but like you said, the quality was so much better and ultimately, they do work out cheaper than the pay-per-route, or the ticket ones if you do spend money, cause both of those really add up fast and you don't even notice until oops, money's all gone! I keep hearing about Mystic Messenger, I really need to play that, Nameless is also on my list but I've been distracted by Rune Factory 5 and Genshin recently >>
I've been on holiday the past week and haven't even made a dent in my backlog ;-; I've got so many games and tv shows and anime and books to get through, but it's never going to happen xD
Nothing wrong with pantsing! Don't let the planners fool you, this is definitely the cooler way to live >:3 As long as you can patch everything together and go, 'ah yes, totally my plan all along' is all good!
Ooh, haven't seen Inside No.9 but I see that it's black comedy, so it shall go on my list of things to watch, especially if it's got fun twists in it. Ghost Stories sounds good to, I enjoy stuff that suddenly makes sense/ seems different on a rwatch. I'm currently working my way through the Expanse, which is setting up lots of questions and mysteries, so I'm curious to see if those will pay off. I remember the book Runemarks had a really good twist, cause I was so sure I had it all figured out, only for them to reveal more, I was so impressed at the time xD Danganronpa does the same thing, gives you enough to figure out 'the twist' only to reveal more twists.
Yeah, sinister MC goes a bit extreme, but it is a freaky situation and I like an MC that's got some fight in them. Still, I very much look forward to seeing the new content and the personality system, I will definitely be playing around with it! Personality systems are fun, difficult to implement, but they really do make such a big difference. Sounds like you've written it well, with good variation but not so much that you'll get completely swamped.
Ah, piling more work onto an already big pile of work, classic writer move :3 I'm excited for new characters as well! I'm super curious but I'll resist the urge to ask questions and just wait patiently instead x3 And that feeling of nearly finished but actually got a bajillion things left to do is the worst! Still, it'll be worth the wait :) Also, I'm noticing that we're starting to take up a big chunk of the comment section with these replies, is that ok?
Yeah, I dunno how much longer I'm gonna manage to stick with it, to be honest x3 It's just really not me, haha.
I know this probably sounds a bit silly, but I'm actually anxious about ever trying to post to the otome subreddit ever again xD I've stayed away from it ever since a mod declined my DD release post over a year ago, haha. I spent ages working out how to word it and stuff, only to be told that it wasn't allowed in the subreddit because of the fact that it contained gender-neutral references to MC rather than there being a set female MC and the option to pick a female LI as well as a male one meant it wasn't otome, and so it should be posted to the Joseimuke subreddit instead. Which I did do, but the community there is significantly smaller than the otome one >.< That little experience just made me feel kinda alienated from the otome community on Reddit, so I just don't participate in it at all x3 I do see the mod's point, but I also think it's being a bit too nitpicky since the game can technically be played as an otome game if that's how the player wants to play it >.<"
I have no idea if Steam and KS have marketing help x3 I've never looked into it enough to find out. I just know that when I've read articles and stuff by indie devs who've had successful KS campaigns or Steam releases, they've always talked about the immense time and effort they've had to put into marketing and promotion in order to get to the point they did x3 And I just stare at that and think, yeeeeeah, I don't stand a chance then xD Some spoke of posting to social media every single day, across different platforms, and having a schedule for it. My brain just went, uhm O.O how?! I can't handle THAT much social media, haha. But then a lot of those accounts were from small indie teams, so they had one person who ended up with the job of dedicated social media person while the others continued to actually work on development.
Actually, that's another thing that always bothered me about the mobile otome I played! Some of them did just disappear after I'd spent money on them >.< And sometimes it would be before I'd even managed to play all the content I'd purchased. My phone sucked, so I would have to uninstall apps, I'd decide to go back and get them, only to discover they no longer existed x3 Felt kinda robbed, haha.
Wooo! High five! Amnesia was the first proper non-mobile otome I bought as well :D I absolutely fell in love with it, haha. I couldn't believe how much better it was than the mobile stuff I'd been playing. I think I got Hakuoki after that. I did finish Amnesia, haha. It surprised me cos I played Ikki's route first, thinking he'd be my favourite purely based on the character art. Nope. Actually wound up not liking him very much, haha. And characters who I thought would be boring turned out to be anything but that xD It was a real rollercoaster for me, haha. And even inspired SR a little bit!
Hehe, yeah, Mystic Messenger is a gooden :P I was so in love with Cheritz's games by the time it was announced that I pre-ordered the physical edition with some money I saved up from Christmas and my birthday, haha. It came with enough hourglasses to complete the base game content as well as a bunch of cool collectors bits and bobs :3 The problem was, because my phone sucked, when they began updating the game with new content, I couldn't play it anymore cos the updates were too big for the app to fit on my phone x3
If I hadn't vowed to never touch a single MMO in my life again after beating MMO addiction years ago, I too would probably have gotten caught up in Genshin, haha. But I've stayed well away from it x3 And I've always been intrigued by the Rune Factory and Harvest Moon games cos they look so cute! But I don't know if I would actually enjoy them cos they seem a bit sandboxy? I don't know if they are or not, haha. I just get the impression from what I've seen of them that they are, and I always get bored quickly with things that don't have a deep story for me to sink my teeth into.
That's nice that you've been on holiday though :D Did you get up to much, or at least manage to get some relaxation time in? :3 I've been on sort of holiday these past few days since we've had the 4-day Easter weekend here. Been staying off my PC and just going out for walks with my dad :3 We've seen a lot of cute little creatures since it's spring, haha. I told myself I'd play some Pokemon at some point and charged my switch, but that still hasn't happened xD And I'm supposed to be getting my butt back to working on DD, haha.
Hehe, I guess I'll just keep pantsing away then x3
Ooo! I just finished the final season of The Expanse with my family the other week :D Don't worry, I won't mention any spoilers, haha. It's definitely an incredible show overall. I don't remember ever being bored for a single episode :3 It's one of those shows where I weirdly prefer most of the side characters to the main characters, haha. But they don't seem like side characters so much anyhow cos the whole universe is so well put together and everyone plays an important part in the story! We ended up moving on to the latest season of Snowpiercer once we finished The Expanse. I wish they would've carried on with The Expanse though :(
I'll have to look into that book sometime! And the Danganronpa series has long been on my backlog, but I still haven't gotten to any of them x3
Don't look forward to the personality system too much since it's pretty basic x3 It might feel like a disaster while playing xD I've done as much as I can with it though without confusing the crap outta myself too much, haha. I was feeling fairly happy with its implementation within the revamp, I'm just not so sure how I feel about it in the brand new story stuff >.< But then I'm not particularly happy with any of the new story stuff I've written recently x3 I blame the sunshine, haha. As soon as the sun shines bright and hot weather rolls in, it's like it melts my brain T_T Productivity + brainpower just drops for me during spring/summer xD
Hehe, yeah, and I sweeeear that even when I manage to make a bit of progress on stuff, rather than the list of things I need to finish decreasing, it always just seems to get bigger and bigger, haha. Sometimes I feel like I'm being buried by a mountain of invisible 'to do' notes x3
Ooops! I hadn't realised, haha. Well, I don't really mind, but if you wanted to continue chatting over email or discord instead then that's fine with me :3 Please don't feel pressured to reply to any of this anyhow. If you do want to, you're welcome to do it here or feel free to drop me an email instead to melancholicmarionette@gmail.com
I can always give you my discord thingy from there if you prefer to use that for messaging :3
Hope you had a lovely Easter + are having a great week so far ^-^