It Ends. It Begins. (State of the Union, April Edition)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PWdTellsEM

Hey ho all hey ho, long time no see, long time no talk. So what’s going on?

The Movement

Well, the CYOA is over! Took some time to get there, but get there we did. So how do I feel about how it all went?

From a technical perspective, I learned a lot about pacing and how long art pieces took and what to put in and take out, so from that angle I consider it a success. There were some hiccups on how to actually use the choices, and I was a little disappointed on the turnout for those choices, but then this was an OC creation and never expected huge turnout. It did make me appreciate not just putting a choice out there for the sake of making a choice though, and that if a choice is to be made it should be written into the narrative as a necessity rather than just rammed in there as an open piece of dialogue. So, good.

A greater success, I think, is in introducing ‘The Movement’ as a world. It seems that, certainly toward the end of Trying Empathy, people were starting to understand the strange dynamic between our two leading ladies, and the peculiar kind of mix of mysticism, ‘hypnosis’, fetish and power dynamics that they indulge in. Not all of you will know this, but originally all of this sprung out of a then-extended-universe to Avatar called Gaang Jr. on a forum over a decade ago, but me and a friend have worked on it since then until we managed to set it up into its own world to be used here. It felt a waste to have this whole innovative smutworld made and be unable to use it due to being tied to a product of a product, and I feel the right decision was made in sharing it now it’s out there.

This has been a great vehicle to motivate us to actually set some rules of the world down, how spirits and magic function and all the rest of it, and I feel very happy in moving ahead with more content for it- how Nikiru changes since this night in Trying Empathy, what she understands from it, how Yi Lin grows, etc. It feels like maybe in the future a CYOA might not be the path I’d take for it; maybe more of a visual novel, or some short comics. There is a lot- specifically about Yi Lin as a person- that has gone unsaid or unrevealed due to the CYOA’s focus on their sexual relationship. To be fair, I’ve no inclination to focus away from that, but it will be useful to move away from the lens that Nikiru sees everything through, as that is an inherently biased lens, and as one could gather from the CYOA finale, much of what happens to her are things she does to herself, in a manner of speaking. She’s a very untrustworthy narrator all told, even when discussing her own motivations. Too manipulative for her own good, her!

So yes. Good stuff. Only downside I can see is…well, profitability of the medium, which we’ll get to now, and how this isn’t well set up for the future.

Patreon Details

So, looking over the patreon stuff, I see a glaring problem in setting it per creation. Sure there is an advantage in that people need not be charged a thing if there’s no content created…but what if there’s too much content created? It feels disingenuine to set a cap for $1, and I get that people can be worried that if, like in March, there were 4 full updates, that’s more than they were planning on paying for if that’s $1, $2 or even $5 a time.

And given how infrequent the coming ‘official’ content updates will be, it simply doesn’t make any sense to keep it at per creation, so I’ll be moving back to a per-month payment plan that’ll be cheaper for y’all and better for me. The exact specs I’m not sure on, but I’m thinking of something akin to what most people making what I’m making do, in $1 giving access to things like art updates or whatever, $5 for the latest version of whatever, and…so on.

But what do you mean, updates becoming more infrequent? Well, that’s because- if you recall- the next project is:

Thrallworks VIDYA

MAKING GAEM

So I’ve already started plotting out the dialogue and progress flowcharts for the MVP of this game, which in its most basic, text-only form I’m wanting out by mid-may; it’d be sooner, but there’s just one more non-smut project I need to put to bed before I can focus all my energies into this. The version with the art I want to actually make public will be early June…or earlier.

I’ve a lot planned, and it’s fair to give you guys the skinny on it and get my thoughts on it. And yours!

· You play a tutor at the Thrallworks compound specializing in making ‘celebrity’ thralls.

· There’ll be at least 6 different thralls to work on- the starting thrall is Ty Lee but the others have yet to be determined. At this point, it is not avatar specific.

· Other girls from the same series may be available to drone. (Droning is a relatively straightforward process)

· The main focus will be on converting whoever you’re working on into a thrall of a particular designation. Ty Lee’s starting thrall-type is ‘Dancer’.

· In the end, each potential thrall should have 3 potential thrall-types they can become (plus a drone).

· There will be relationships with the other departments in TW, including the R&D department, the Drone department, the auction house, etc.

· Though there are going to be some options for it for sure, sex is not the focus of this game. This is not a typical trainer game where it’s all about escalating sexual favours. This is about relationships and fetish stuff; latex, mind-control, power dynamics…what you can normally expect from me I guess?

· There will be hair/no hair options, which will also affect stats when trying to tutor a new thrall. Sometimes good, sometimes bad- depends how you approach things!

So yeah, this is the current skinny. There’ll basically be a hubworld, and you can interact with the wider universe around doing your job. I personally hate having to redo scenes in order to progress, or to grind in games, so I’ll be trying to avoid that were possible.

I’ll want to update once a month, but given I’m just one man, I do see the problems with how big the updates can be. For instance, I can see myself writing up an entire droning scene or…conversation or what-have-you in around 3/4 days, depending. But doing all the CG/character art to make that worthwhile? Hoo! At two weeks to that! And then that’s most of the content for the month, dammit!

So I guess, if the MVP generates enough interest and the updates seem popular enough, I’ll be looking for other artists to help fill the gaps where I simply cannot spare the hours. The writing will absolutely always be mine, but I feel okay commissioning pieces from other people for niche areas/ Backgrounds, maybe? I do prefer a unified art direction were possible though. I guess we’ll see what the workload is.

If anyone has any additional questions about it, feel free to ask them- I am MOST interested in hearing what you people tend to like/dislike about ero-games in general; but I’m not talking about generic things like ‘I wish they had these fetishes’ or whatever, I’m talking about design stuff like ‘I don’t/do like this particular mechanic’.

And that’s where we are. I don’t doubt I’ll be putting up update artwork on my patreon, and…oh, that’s right!

Streeeeeem

I’m setting up a fixed time for me to stream doing art; 9pm-10.30pm BST on Thursdays; mainly so I can answer questions, maybe show off some WIP stuff and mmmmmmmmmmmaaaaaaaybe take a request or two. Or at least do some stuff that isn’t Thrallworks. I know people can get obsessed about doing just a one thing and then going crazy in feeling limited, so a vent feels necessary to me.

Anyway, if you want to come over and hang, my picarto is over at: https://picarto.tv/tdl and I’ll see you there!

Anyway, this is all I’ve got to say for the time being. The sketch ideas didn’t quite work out due to how complicated the situation turned out to be and it was too easy not to keep on top of…maybe if I had a discord for sketches or something then it’d be organized better and it would get more traction. We’ll see!

Comments below, let me know your thoughts on all the above. Be well, all!