Update recap and next steps
Hey guys and girls!
It's been a week since public release, so it's time to get back to work ^^
Long post ahead, you know how I like to type my thoughts by now ๐
I always write transparently and write my heart out, so here it goes.
First of all, a big big thank you to each and every one of you. Regular players, patrons, commentators, whoever, thank you โค Before the release, I was extremely scared. It's been so long, will anyone even play it? Do people even remember the game? Before the Early access, I was worried if I'll even have 2 people voluntary play the beta without me begging people. And when the time for Beta came around, I saw multiple new faces that decided to support me in a big way. I was extremely grateful, but still worried. Will they even like it? Are they the only people left interested? If they waited for so long, justifiable with my uni or not, and then dislike the update...
It was hard to put out my worry, but as each new tier dropped and nobody was negative about the game, I started to have more and more hope. Maybe I am wrong, please, correct me if I am. But in the end, it genuinely seemed like players enjoyed the update.
The wait times have been long, and I really wanted to put a good update out, but my university wasn't letting me do so in a quick and reasonable timeframe. I really poured my all in Episode 4, and to everyone who enjoyed it an appreciated it, thank you. Thank you to both my amazing patrons that kept supporting last year, and thanks to all the new patrons joining this month just for the update. Thanks to all those public enjoyers too.
So what is the next step?
There should be no secret that I have some areas in the game that I wished to improve. Almost two years ago, I was already dissatisfied with my look of Episode 2, with that bad lightning, black/blue monochrome npcs in background... it looked terrible, but I had no real time to fix it with my uni. And I was ignoring it, why fix something if it's just visual, players can just push through it.
However, throughout the last year, and especially after ep4 release, I see so many other glaring issues I ignored till now. One of biggest being Eiko. When I was writing Episode 3, I wanted to have Eiko in it. She barely appeared before, so makes sense. But the more I thought how to add her, the more I realized how fucked I am with the cards I dealt myself before. As those very few OGs here might remember, my original Ep1 was quite different (will return to this point soon). Eiko's original personality was - a baddie and slutty. Yup, that's it. That's all I had before. In original Ep1, she drugged the mc in the club. Hell, I even back then had idea of her seducing outside the club and her being the first lewd. Yup, old Katana was dumb and wanted to be one of those vn games with a lewd scene first episode. Thank god I didn't do that. ๐คฆโโ๏ธ
Even if I slightly changed it, I never thought deeply about who she is. During ep3 work, I even considered of making her a side character instead. I mean, Falazio, Simon, hell, "Npc male character/s" have more dialogue lines than her. Thankfully, I decided against it, and told myself that I'll make her a deep character and think of everything about her. Her past, present, future, thoughts, ambitions, worries, all of it. And so I did. Now she is as deep and characterized as all other girls. And while she has some different personas (to be explained in future), none of those is "slutty". With that in mind, last 2 weeks I've been asking patrons/players to list all inconsistencies or bad areas from earlier episodes, to see how much there might be work if I decide to tackle it.
The areas of possible improvements was staggering.
Just some of the main ones:
- Unnecessary Covid talk
- Extremely long intro
- Bad Eiko/literally 3 different visual designs in 4 episodes
- cringeworthy "storm is coming" by that one unknown girl and then she never appears again nor does a storm come ๐
- who is Atlas? I guess we will never know
- wtf is scorpios?
- why do songs often stop after a sound plays
- if you don't drink with Eiko, Avis literally has 10 renders where she is in another dress... during same party
- and more but this post is giga long already
My initial script was quite different, and seems some elements I never fixed nor changed to the current timeline and narrative. So I decided, I want to fix it all, all in one fell swoop. And now is the perfect time. I am actually free from studying, and although I might move out, that's at worst 1 week of work. Before you 5 in the back get up and circle on your calendar "2027 ep5 release", no I am not letting long delays happen. I've given myself 3 months from this post to fix everything I can. I am extremely excited to continue the story, especially with how well received the new Avis/Serena part was, the bits with Eiko and others. However after thinking long and through the last 2 weeks, and with talking with some close people, I've realized that it's necessary to fix the past to be able to face the future.
See you all in Ep 4.5 in 3 months ๐
Thank you, and I hope you understand my thoughts. My Discord server is always open for disucssions.
Love you all,
Kat <3
Get Fates Collide
Fates Collide
Character-focused Adult Visual Novel
Status | In development |
Author | KatanaVN |
Genre | Visual Novel |
Tags | 3D, Adult, Dating Sim, Erotic, Male protagonist, Meaningful Choices, NSFW, Ren'Py, Romance, Slice Of Life |
More posts
- Progress Report19 hours ago
- Progress Report33 days ago
- Progress Report67 days ago
- Progress ReportJul 25, 2024
- Progress ReportJun 16, 2024
- Progress ReportApr 27, 2024
- Progress ReportMar 21, 2024
- Progress ReportFeb 10, 2024
- Merry Christmas and a small progress update!Dec 25, 2023
Comments
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still happy
Just to reiterate, episode 4 was amazing! Now, as for the points you raised...
"- Unnecessary Covid talk
- Extremely long intro"
Honestly, from a standpoint of being able to fully appreciate this piece of art, I don't feel the Covid talk is at all unnecesary. It signals the context on which this project was born, and I think that's really valuable, when people pick it up on 20, or 50 years, and do their graduate thesis on "the early yeard of the AVN industry" haha.
As for the extremely long intro, I feel that while it is in fact long, it has a good payoff. At the end of episode 3, when MC is about to throw the ball and has those flashbacks, the audience is left feeling "oh, so that intro had a point - to set up who this character was, wants to be, and why he acts like he is". It makes the moment hit.
So, both being important to setting up who MC is - the event that made him decide to change, and what he needed to change from -, both being part of the work done to make MC his own character rather than just a player self-insert, I'd leave them in.
Ultimately it's your decision though, best of lucks on whatever road you take!
I absolutely adore Raiko, Koko and have a soft spot for the others.
As someone who does creative writing, I'm very familiar with this process over the course of long projects. "Who wrote this crap? ...oh wait, that was me."
Good on you for sticking with it. And for setting a time limit on this round so you don't get stuck endlessly fixing. Just a bunch of good creative & life decisions being made here.
I am more than willing to wait for a quality product. And it's been real amazing up to the point I've played, the wait makes me more excited to play next release. ๐ฅณ
Take as long as you need to, all I ask is just drop a line to let us know how everything is going. Also; just because it has lewd, doesn't mean anything as long as the story stays great! IMHO. That's all, thanks Kat
I can't speak for others, but Take all the time you need to do what you want to do, I have no problem waiting for updates on this project because it is easily one of the best VN's out there, I love the characters, the story and will absolutely be around til the end of it and whatever else you may do in the future.
I'm really glad that you're not focused on NSFW like other devs. Very well!
I only recently found this so I didn't know about those problems with Eiko and her story. While I've already made it clear I like Avis the most if there were a number 2 for me it might just be Eiko because of how interestingly developed as a character she is. Like I want to learn more and it seems like she'll play an interesting role in the bigger story regardless of your choices regarding her (but probably even more so if you pick her so its an enticing option)
Yup! Well you can probably notice if you playthrough her parts again from previous updates, both her designs, random personality in ep1 and overall lack of existing anywhere on screen :D
Definitely waiting for your updates fam I'm always gonna be here :D
โค๏ธ
Will you post it on steam ?
๐