Interesting to get a dev blog from the other shady character for a change. And while I’m not even enough of an artist to qualify as a hobby artist, I do the occasional (kinda crappy) digital artwork and I can definitely relate to workflows feeling overly cumbersome? Complex? Unoptimized? Not sure what the best word here is. But the point here is that when you’re learning by doing, the doing you do is quite often every bit as convoluted as the learning process and straightening out such a convoluted process is difficult. I’m certainly not efficient about a lot of things I taught myself instead of learning them from a professional. The ways of doing things I tend to come up with are messy, inefficient but they work for me (and often I eventually find out that I slept on some simple trick for ages that could have made my life sooooo much easier…)
neat little game, though it's very bare-bones (like no explanations at all ingame). Nvm, clicking the towers after building them gives some info. Red bomber displays a massive negative dmg number though (total dmg dealt: -2147483648). Oooh, just figured out I can upgrade my towers (not that it felt necessary at all, but I got tons of cash to spare, so... (11k+ rn))
Money comes too quick (like by wave 17/30 I had hardly any space left and all but the first few towers were the 800$ ones).
Game also doesn't seem particularly difficult since none of the waves made it far (like none even got paste the first third of the path). After upgrading my frontmost few towers, enemies didn't even make it on-screen anymore (Wave 22/30 and onward). By wave 28/30 I had maxed out all my towers.
Summary: Nice little game, but 1 star deducted for being awfully easy. --> 4/5 stars
(Don't get me wrong, I'm not the kind of guy looking for punishingly hard games, but none of the 30 waves were threatening at all. There was zero sense of danger and I mostly just kept adding and upgrading towers because I had nothing else to do. 40-50% of my towers never even got to do any damage, and another 10-20% only did dmg the first few rounds when I placed them in the middle of the map since I didn't know where the enemy would come from. Once I knew that and placed towers at the front, they never saw action again).
I definitely feel you there with the winter struggle, especially since it's so cloudy and thus dark so much lately. Daylight lamps definitely help a ton (even though they burn your eyes out the first week since you need to get used to them first).
And hey, you did get some work done and kept your community updated. That's already more than many indie devs can say they did. It's sadly a rare thing to have a dev do such consistent dev blogs and it does wonders for letting people know there's a point in waiting. Most players don't mind waiting for a nice update, if they know there's a point in waiting since the dev is taking their time to cook quality stuff instead of rushing things half-heartedly. So just popping up and saying "hey guys, things are slow, but I'm/we're still working on the game" goes a long way compared to just going radio-silent like many other devs so their players have no clue whether they're gone for good or will randomly pop back up after a few months.
Thanks for the heads-up! Cybercrime is worse than ever lately sadly, and pretty much nothing is safe due to bots/AI attacking pretty much everything to spread malware.
Just wanted to give a headsup that this download has been flagged by Itch.io. You might wanna look into that. Based on previous cases this kind of flag seems to come from accessing the page from different countries as a creator (f. i. due to a VPN).
I have no idea if itch.io has that kind of option, but since that warning specifically says the link gets flagged because it's not associated with the creator of the current page (aka you), maybe there is a way to flag it as an official cooperation. Never seen that warning before. (Also now I wonder if it also flags the links many adult game devs make to other games by other devs on the pages of their own games. Itch seems to have implemented a bunch of new warnings lately that don't all work to creators' benefits.)
EDIT: I just tested that and it seem linking a game of a different dev on your own game page doesn't get flagged. Tested with the link to From the Sin by Vorpal on the page of Succubus Kingdom by Cibbon. So maybe that warning only appears for links to other creators on your profile?
I totally understand the having to pick from two evils there, and yeah, I agree that there is no general best choice for it. Your approach of going with whichever of the two options seems best suited for the particular situation at hand seems most promising. I've played plenty of games who tried to stick to only option one or option two the entire way and neither worked too well imo. Option one (minimal changes depending on choice) does really feel massively low-effort and reduces replay value to almost nothing (from my experience it reduces a replay with different choices to skimming the text for those 1-2 lines that are different while ignoring the rest). Option 2 (doing vastly different scenes depending on past choices) is the great one in theory, but as you said it's a massive pile of work. It is amazing if a dev has enough manpower/time to pull it off and games that did that were among the best I played, but for smaller projects/solo devs it usually just ends with them being stretched too thin and the game never going anywhere because there is so much lateral expansion that horizontal (aka main story) progess is nil.
I both agree and disagree with this. One the one hand I agree with the dev's post above that he is making the game according to his own vision - it's his game after all. But at the same time I do agree that in many sandbox adult games the sandbox actually adds more hassle than it adds value. The sandbox system only really works out if most content is optional, but most adult games end up requiring the player to do the content for all the girls/characters anyways to progess the main story - which completely kills the point of a sandbox (which is freedom to do and NOT do whatever you want). Though in that regard the implementation of optional side quests in the latest update actually IS a step into a direction that justifies a sandbox system.
Ultimately this just boils down to a conflict of interest between developer and players, so there is no clear right or wrong. (GoodbyeHapiness, don't see this as a demand to change your approach, just stating my opinion for consideration).
P.S. Thanks for addressing your community's concerns, GH! It's always good if a dev ensures his players know their feedback has been heard - regardless of whether the feedback ends up bringing changes or not. And on that note, the above easy mode seems like a good compromise that allows players to choose how to experience the game while also allowing you to (mostly) stick to your vision for the game. Plus offering a choice is preferable over only doing option 1 or option 2 since there will always be people in favour of option 1 and others in favour of option 2.
now that this gets mentioned, I also have a multi-screen setup and had massive issues with the block mechanic. Just never thought of that being the problem.
Happy new year to you, Shady 1 and Shady 2! Been following the game for a few months now and I appreciate the regular devblogs. I wish you lots of fun and success with the game in 2026!
yeah, usually you just re-extract the game. Since saves are stored in the appdata directory, you can delete the previous install without issues and your saves will be available in the new version (unless there is some change in variables that breaks old saves)
Just popping in to say I'm awfully busy with my studies rn and thus haven't had time to play the game further. But my schedule should free up in a week, two at most, so expect more feedback then!
Ended up being way more busy than expected so I only managed to read a few lines here or there, but still got some typos and inconsistencies to point out (see below). Love the art though! -------------
would have to rewatch it to be sure, but I think there was no subtitle for "This peace lasted 5000 year" in the intro vid. Instead it jumped straight to "in the year 5222"
"Alone in this house I built with my own hands, A dull..." --> The "A" shouldn't be uppercase.
Is there no 'back to menu' or 'close game' button? EDIT: Seems there is, but only when on the map.
------------------------- Chapter 1
Wait, didn't it say where was peace ever since The Broken? Then why does the game mention right when you arrive in Yulav Town that the area once featured a conflict between the 10 kingdoms and before that the Broken? That implies that a war involving ten kindoms, which is a lot, happened during the era of peace after The Broken.
Also first the MC says Yulav Town hasn't changed much after five years... then a few lines later he mentiones new houses, new roads and even new races he's never seen before?
Late comment since I was on a trip, but what he said. Keep tinkering with stuff until you are satisfied. Oneself tends to be ones worst critic, so if you manage to reach the point where you are happy with your own creation, the effort will be well worth it. I never mind waiting for the sake of quality, the market is drowning in rushed low-quality games. And unlike many other devs out there, you do make an effort to make regular dev blogs. As a result I know the game is alive and that waiting is well worth it. Due to that I don't mind waiting for updates. It only ever bothers me when devs just go radio silent for months at a time so I have no clue whether there is still a point in looking forward to the next update or if the game has been abandoned without a word. So in short, take your time to deliver something you are satisfied with; but please also keep taking the time to keep your community updated.
And with the chaos on itch rn, the release taking a bit longer is probably even a good thing. Better to wait until this blows over to see where the site stands after the revisions than to release right into this mess and potentially get the project taken down for no good reason (not blaming itch.io here, they are also just victims).
Better to spend time refining it until you are satisfied than to settle onto something you don't like. I don't draw often, but I did it often enough to know that oneself is often one's most strict critique. The feeling of satisfaction once you arrive at something you like is worth the time and effort (and at times frustration) it takes to get there. Don't know jack shit about coding, but there is so much stuff interacting usually, that even one miniscule change can trigger a cascade of bugs. And even if you change nothing, an update for the engine used can cause bugs just fine. So don't worry about it, as long as you find the bugs, you know what to work on. There is a saying: Debugging your code is way harder than writing it. As such a developer who tries hard to write completely bug-free code is a bad programmer, since he is afraid of having to debug his code.
So if you can find and fix bugs in your code, it means you are on the right track.
Battle tutorial seems broken. The parry part doesn't end after 3 parries. It just keeps going until she clobbers me dead and then restarts.
EDIT: I even went and edited my hp stat so I could last longer just to see if it would end after a few more parries, but I'm at 7/3 now and it still keeps going.
agreed. The principal is generally the weakest part of the entire story. The other characters work well enough, especially if you cut some slack since most indie devs are inexperienced writers. But the principal creates more issues and plotholes than she solves. So I usually just skip all content involving her. Since the story isn't all that complex (yet imo still interesting enough to keep coming back), you can piece together things well enough even if you skip the content of a specific character or two.
Completely skipping everything concerning specific characters is actually something I do in many indie games/VNs nowadays since it makes a lot of them far more coherent. Surprisingly many games have a character or two who take away more from the story than they add.
Glad to see this is still alive! The immersive mode looks neat and I will never say no to a flowchart in a VN. Especially in a sandbox one. Looking forward to the next update! But take your time, the increase in quality is worth a longer wait. Edit: I personally don't care about a few extra MB if it adds a nice feature to the game. 40 MB are nothing nowadays tbh and the game is comparatively small (in terms of file size) anyways.
You are aware that devs can request for bigger uploads limits than 2GB if they can explain why their game is bigger? The biggest issue with going past 2GB is Andriod due to APK file size limits.
Good luck with whatever is left of the house buying and moving process!
Unlike many other indie devs out there you are still doing regular devlogs to let your community know the project is still alive, even in a busy time irl. So don't worry, as long as I know there is a point in waiting, I don't mind waiting. It would only really be an issue if you just disappeared for months at a time so nobody has a clue whether you are still working on Dungeon Days or whether you silently abandoned the project.
About the size and frequency of game updates: Personally I don't mind waiting longer for bigger releases if it serves the quality of the game. Regular progress reports (ideally weekly, as least byweekly) are a must in my opinion though to let people know the game is still alive. It's less the length and content of those progress reports/dev logs that matter than the frequency. The point it to make it clear that the project is still alive and being worked on and that some progress is being made. Actual game updates (as in release) of new content should happen every other month at the latest I think because otherwise players will forget what happened before and going back to reread older stuff becomes a pain after a few times, both because of repetitiveness and because of more and more old stuff to go through with each update. Though I guess you could counter that to some extent with small recaps at the beginning of a new update.
No time for cookies? Good if we are talking digital ones. But if you are talking sweats... Go make some right now :) What's a programmer without cookie crumbs on their keyboard?
Jokes aside though, take your time and rest well. You've proven that the wait is worth it by delivering quality you took time to create.
Nice to hear that someone got blindsided by life in a good way for once. Hope you find a nice house! And no worries about the delays, delivering quality takes time. And real life takes priority.
