Devlog 11: Version 0.2.0 - Next Week

Hey hey, it's Roanock.

First and foremost: good news, version 0.2.0 will be coming out next week!

It has certainly been a while since last update, does that mean that I've been working on version 0.2.0 all this time? No, sadly.

Life has been getting in the way.

This is something that I mentioned in previous devlogs. Not wanting to repeat the same old explanations, things eventually turned to silence. For that I apologise to anyone patiently waiting to hear from me. But in typical fashion, the last 20% of a project takes about as long as the first 80%

With this release, hopefully the mental constipation goes away for a bit.

I don't want to establish any promises or time commitments at this time beyond: I intend to finish this project eventually. The interesting parts of this story are still yet to come. I just need to get there. I just need to find better ways to overcome my mental delays that seems to happen before every release. As it's the delays that I'm not happy with.

What does Version 0.2.0 entail?

The 2 in 0.2.0 means that we've entered Chapter 2 of the story. As you hopefully know if you've played the game I'm structuring the Visual Novel in a similar fashion to regular novels, but with more sizeable chapters. Or at least fewer chapters comprising a story (something like 7 - 12 rather than 30+ chapters)

I'm also trying to find ways that people can engage and support this work.

I'm not saying that I think I'm entitled to money or that people should be paying to play this VN when there are many others out there they can play for free (Quite frankly I hate when other games do the thing where they chop out chunks of the game to get people to subscribe for the rest of it). Rather I want to find out what people want that they would be willing to donate/pay money for and provide them with more of that (Again, without substantially lobotomising the core product). Itch and newgrounds don't allow me to monetise the game, or even make it an optional "pay what you want" thing. Many sites that offer a "give one off donations" seem to also have stipulations that you can not use their services for adult content. Which kind of leaves me with this site and the other one (Not naming it in case a bot doesn't like me saying the name of its competition)

Stepping away from the concept of money: Discord server when?

Ok, so I've no idea if and where there's a community for this game. I can see the occasional blip of a download in itch's analytics page, and I've received a couple of nice comments. At one point in the past I found my game posted to a pirating website (It's a free game. There's no need to pirate it. I can't guarantee that none of those re-uploaders have changed the code to give you a virus. Probably not, but don't blame me). I saw that people were engaging in a much more active discussion over there, however it seemed like some people in the discussion there were much more willing to trash talk games thinking that the devs won't see it.

I didn't want to engage with people playing my game on a site for pirating games.

I should clarify: The whole point of me trying to find ways to encourage people to support the development of the game (Such as throwing a few dollars at me, giving positive and/or constructive comments, talking about it on reddit, etc) is to keep me motivated to work on the game and less like I'm singing into the void. So would a Discord server help build that community? Would a subreddit? Maybe. I don't know. I know that it would require community management, and I know that is a constant responsibility. I don't think I want to take on the role of community manager to that extent at this time and I don't know if I can get support in that regard.

These are my thoughts. I'm just using this as a diary tbh.

As always if you have any input you'd like to add, there are comment sections here, there and where I've distributed my game. I won't reliably read anything commented somewhere that the game has been re-uploaded. You might be able to DM me somehow, just please don't be a stalker about it.

Till next time,