Dev Update #238


What a week.

As most, if not all, of you know, Patreon removed my account from their platform. I tried to appeal, but they barely answered me and I felt like they didn't even want to hear me out. There was never really a chance to get my page back. With it is gone most of the income Summer Scent was generating. Times were already difficult, they are now dire.

I have now to rely on Subscribe Star to fund and publish the game and my supporter's count is rather low. I have no doubt that it will improve in the coming weeks as more and more of my supporters will come to subscribe to this page. However, I also know that Subscribe Star isn't the most popular crowdfunding platform out there and some might be afraid or unwilling to support me here. I understand that perfectly. Subscribe Star is my only option.

So. What to do now? I'm not going to let go of Summer Scent, that is for sure. I haven't worked on that project for the last 4 years to abandon it now. So I'm going to keep going and hope for the situation to improve.

My first objective is to complete and publish the current update. Then I will have a build compatible with Steam policies. It will most likely take months before the game is actually on sale but it will get there eventually.

Fingers crossed.

Despite that fiasco, I made some progress.

All scenes are fully rendered and coded. Day 2 Scene 1 and 10 are fully post-processed. As always, post-processing is the most boring and painfully tiring part of the job. It's so repetitive that it hurts. It would be easier to post-process every image as I render them, but I prefer to do them all in one batch to ensure the consistency of the results.

Next week I should be able to completely finish the coding and the post-processing. This means I should have a functioning build before next weekend. I hope to have, at least the music selection completed as well. I have found a lot of interesting tracks, and I now have to make some difficult choices.

The quick sum up :

  • Day 6 Part 4 will contain 2 new scenes: scenes 26 and 27.
  • Day 6 Part 4 will contain 2 reworked scenes from Day 2, Scenes 1 and 10.
  • Day 2, Scene 1 and 10 have been rewritten, posed and rendered. 
  • Day 6, Scene 26 and 27 have been written, posed and rendered.
  • 9549 words of reworked content, and 12723 words of new content so far.
  • 4546 lines of code so far.
  • 698 shots are planned, 698 are posed, and 698 are rendered, 275 are post-processed.
  • I'm working on post-processing.

You can follow my progress on this Trello board.

Thank you for your support!

The Naughty Captain

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Comments

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And i did say over a year now, go to steam. I was hoping to see and wishlist your steam game page last summer and buy it at EA this last winter. I didn't see any issues with steam policies last time i played it (probably, music licensing). Life is correcting you now (no offense).

You have a really good game, Captain. And i hope you make it, despite all this recent patreon shit.

I wish you all the best and i hope to see your "everyone" ping at your discord soon, once you launch the page. Remember, you should make it ASAP, as it has to ripe some juice with wishlist count, before the launch (to make the launch sucsessfull).

Good luck, i will rooting for you.

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I know. I kept postponing the moment I would try to get on steam in order to have a better game to show. But it'll never be perfect.

Thank you!

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no one believes me til it happens to them.
ive been saying it for years - DONT SUPPORT PATREON.
it started with "if your characters have big eyes, they're children, no matter how big thier DD tits are".
the Itch problems have been payment processor related, with patreon, its always been pure left-wing fascism "oh, a woman was subjected to something we dont like? you're gone". the only thing patreon has not been taking down, is LGBTP adult content.

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I don't know where it comes from. But you are right. Patreon isn't a place where you can express yourself freely. That is for sure.

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Years ago there was a whole thing with various people being kicked off Patreon and other Crowd Funding Platforms, supposedly because of their political opinions/alignment. I dont know the exact truth of it all was but it was enough of a thing that I have not trusted Patreon since. Hence why I refuse to use that platform.

Between that and Patreon's habit of changing their rules without notice, same as Youtube, and I think you'll all agree that I have good reason not to trust them.

(+1)(-1)

just so you know if you sell your VN on steam you will have to sell it here on itch (Steam doesn't like competition)

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Selling on both Itch and Steam isn't an issue. The only stipulation would be that Steam requires any other sales platforms to have the same pricing. You can't sell at different price points than what you've set on Steam.

I heard about that kind of stuff. As 608 said, I will have to align my price across all the platforms. We're not there yet but yes, things will have to change before the end of this year.

(+1)

From what I've heard, the problem lies with Stripe and the other payment agencies. If they refuse to make payment for certain games and developers to Patreon, Itch and others , there is no appeal. Sucks, but that happens when companies are owned by those with certain agendas.

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Yeah. Somehow that's a warning shot. That's the world we live in. If we don't revolt against them, they will dictate what we can think and say. It's up to us to say no.

(+1)

I never reviewed your Patreon but I can't imagine your game violating any policies. I've seen much worse get approved - sometimes requiring changes but approved nevertheless. That sucks. Well, sorry about that but keep at it. Still want to see more of this game. Best wishes.

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They said I could appeal, but it was never really an option. They didn't even bother to reply to my last email. I wouldn't have made any change though. I don't like the idea of someone or something forcing his morality on me.

And I will keep working on Summer Scent. I refuse to give them the satisfaction of having taken me down.

(+1)

Good for you. Got my backing.

Thank you!