FML

I've realized a while ago but now I had to admit it. This update was a mistake in this shape and form. It's clear to me that I won't make it in time for the 19th either. I'd rather not mark another day as the release date so as not to let this fucking clown show happen again. I'm going to drop it when it's ready, which is exactly what I should've told you last time.

The art is practically done, only CG backgrounds and Mia's faces and Riley's outfits are left. I also started writing the dialogue last week and that's what got me to write this post. Because it was hot garbage.

I've played so many H games with shit endings yet despite knowing plenty bad examples of what it's like when you overdo the thing I planned my game to have 9 endings. A game that's been mostly linear suddenly having 9 endings, which to be fair do overlap but still, it's 9 routes written by someone with little experience. What could go wrong.
I wanted the update to be bigger, better than the previous ones and to serve as a memorable finale. A textbook example of how less would be more because less equals fewer opportunities to fuck up.
The next big mistake was that deep down I also wanted to please everyone. So many comments about how great it is that there's a choice to not be a cuck in a ntr game and boom I was fully on board with doing those routes because the more routes there are the better the game is, right? I think the first storyboard for the update was almost a 50-50 between the overall length of good and bad endings when my original plans back in the day only had the Riley GF route as a good ending.
Don't get me wrong, I still think ntr games can have good endings but they should only be complements, adding a different flavour, a slight refreshing note amidst the degeneracy.

Let me also address that CG in the post. The reveal of the final teaser was supposed to be a glorious moment where upon seeing the image you'll correctly assume that Mia will be subject to a big bang theory and thus get hyped af. This post is anything but glorious yet I wanted to show  that pic because I obviously promised to but more so because it's one of the best examples of where my time sinks.
I drew her face 3 times. The first took about 3 hours, pretty bad, right? No matter how I edited it it looked trash.
Couple of days later attempt 2:

I spent about 3 hours on it again and would you believe it? I fucking hated it. Nice! The stuff that looks good as a sketch doesn't always work out as lineart.
Thankfully third time's the charm and another 2-3 hours later she had a presentable face. Might be a bit too anime but I don't care.
The point is, stuff like this happens all the time, maybe not to this extreme but there's always something to fix or improve and I only give up on fixing everything once it gets stupidly time consuming.

But all of the above was just related to development time. What I'm actually sorry for is the delays and frustrating you all. It would've been easily avoidable if I just shut up about release dates. Instead I always just set time frames I can't possibly keep, thinking that I would just finesse it somehow and then getting hit by reality that crunching is not a sustainable way of getting shit done quicker.
I thought about why I'm like this and I think it's the fear of not making it. Due to the structure and long dev time of the updates my game only gets exposure for a limited time every once in a while. There's always an influx of patrons then but otherwise the number has remained mostly stagnant. I don't care about making big bucks, only enough to let me go all in on this as a job. But I often feel like the window for that is closing. Most of the successful devs have been successful from the get go. Surely, there's a chance my second game will be well received too but what if it instead only proves further that I'm not cut out for this?
I'm slowly building up my skill but as of now I definitely lack competence. Only having one of those is not enough.

Anyway, this rambling went on for too long. At the end of the day it's yet another delay and me trying to explain shit to seem more sympathetic. Like a freaking youtube apology. Good therapy for me tho. Life's been overwhelming for a while and it just keeps handing me L's.
If I can't drop the game until the end of the month I'll turn off payments.

I'll be back.
BP