Updates with Conash!

Hey everyone! Next week is going to be the start of Tester’s Week for the upcoming PRINCESS update, and since I’m more or less entering the home stretch with what I’m doing I thought that I’d get you all up to date on the various things that I’ve either been working on or keeping my eye on.

First and most importantly, I’ll have to tip my hat to RomeoPapa, lostone, and everyone else who’s been helping out with the new wiki (found here)! It was really disheartening when we were given the two week notice of being shut down, but thanks to their efforts the new wiki had finished a complete transfer with about a week to spare! Which we promptly decided to get it taken down early it seems.

See, turns out that even if you move somewhere new you’re not allowed to turn any pages (especially the main one) into just redirect links to the new wiki over at Fandom, so they weren’t too happy to wake up one day and find out that the entire wiki was replaced with redirect pages. I have no regrets, as there were still a few people visiting the old wiki and making changes or leaving comments even after there was nothing but redirect links left, so I think that even though it hastened the deletion of the old wiki, it was important to try to get as many people over to the new wiki that we could.

By the way, feel free to let us know what you think of it over there or in the discord, and if you’ve got some new things you’d like see added we might be able to accommodate since we now have full control over it!

Now in terms of game development stuff, let’s have a little talk about a new feature I’m excited to add- dual-elements! You see, there’s been several issues in Harem Collector that have irked the mini-perfectionist in me ranging from how the mages with various ‘Anti-‘ elements on their weapons had no effective use for that element to being able to being able to equip a demon slaying charge and all of a sudden even though you’re attacking an enemy with a shield, their piercing resistance isn’t reducing the damage on your arrows! Not to mention with how useless using magic with the Newts is due to how they only have good damage thanks to their unique ‘Newt’ element….

So, that’s why I thought to basically take our current ‘one element’ system, and turn it into a ‘dual-element’ system, where not only attacks but even magic can have both a ‘physical’ element and a ‘racial’ element. It’d work basically how the current system works, but if you say give Felix the Necronomicon and Manhunter Poison, his attacks will do both necrotic and anti-human damage, multiplying the effectiveness of both (so still be careful of immunities). I’m even going through and making a lot of attacks like Therese’s Smite with a hardset ‘physical’ element still able to take into account whatever her current ‘anti-‘ element would be!

As for the magic end of this system, it will only consider the element of your weapon, so even if you throw Manhunter Poison or the Beastslayer Ring on someone their magic will not gain the ‘Anti-human’ or ‘Anti-beast’ properties, and I think this is fair because if your mages didn’t use their weapons to help channel their magic in some way, then they wouldn’t have a reason to hold a weapon in their hand instead of a buckler or something and mechanically speaking this helps create a bit more uniqueness as now you can use, say, Chimei’s Anti-Demon element to it’s full effect! Newts during the ‘Send Newts’ quest will have their unique Newt element moved over to their weapons so that spell-casting newts can benefit from this too.

Oh, this will only apply to magic that targets enemies though, so you won’t be able to use Yeon’s Anti-Mage element to boost her healing!

Next, let’s see… Well we’re working on getting the 4th solo tournament into this release! The enemies are coming along quite nicely, and I’d like to take a moment to thank our testers for putting up with my nonsense with all the test releases I’ve been putting out this past month, hope you all have been enjoying it!

Oh, players should also expect hard mode in this release, the only real update that’s been made to it is that now when you are in the save menu, your save files will now put a bronze star on any saves in Easy Mode, silver for Normal Mode, and gold for Hard Mode, to help keep track of what mode each save file is in. Oh! Easy Mode! I’ve also added in a new item so that if you’re in Easy Mode you can change your party anywhere while you’re outside of battle! Don’t worry about starting a new game to get it, when you load your save file the game will automatically detect if you’re on Easy Mode and don’t have the item, and if that’s the case one will just show up in your item list!

Hmm… The only other thing that I really have to talk about would be the Yamamaya revamp, and while everything is looking good so far, I’d rather wait a few weeks and then give that it’s own blog post, no matter how much I like to talk I do like to keep secrets sometimes! So I’ll wrap things up here, see you all later!

A Royal Pain

Not very happy where progress on the game is right now.

As you might have been able to tell by the fact that blog posts the last three weeks have been two posts from Conash and one week of… Conash and I forgetting there had to be a blog post. Also, the schedule on the website never got updated. But, if we were to spend this blog post detailing my many small failures, we’d be here for awhile, so I’ll move on.

We’re behind, is the important thing. Conash seems confident that we’ll get the core stuff done, but the “Royal” update will, unfortunately, be going to go out without a lot of content for the “Royal” it was initially intended to celebrate.

Maybe I’m just being pessimistic. The real Iron Waifu reward is probably best celebrated with Quinta’s love quest, which will be part of v0.43, coming out in November. We’ll not have to rush our way through any preceding quests, just focus on the love quest, new art, dialogue, sex scenes, etc, and putting out a really great, um, “Princess” update or something.

I still think that the quest capping off the Kellos Invasion, where you finally get to recruit Quinta, will still be a nifty piece of content- similar in size to “Hell to Pay” but with a very different feel and direction. It has more of a “heist” vibe than the drama of finally hunting down Xaven, though, which has proven a challenge to express. Conash and I feel we sort of hit the apogee of what RPG Maker is capable of in terms of stealth mechanics in Shipping Disaster, and besides, sneaking around is not what the Hero is made for, anyway.

In some good news, we also made some progress on stuff for ILTSDK. Namely, a semi-finalized list of enemies. Er, heroes. Adventurers. The people invading your dungeon. Because the nature of ILTSDK is more strategic, it’s very important to our design that you, as a player, be able to figure out an attacker’s behaviours just by looking at them, and that means having a limited number of enemies.

Right now, ILTSDK is in a state where we’re laying plans still and feeling out the limits of what we’re going to need, including what we’ll require for art assets. I intend to fight hard against feature creep for our next project, So knowing in advance the extent of our plans , and what we can choose to expand on is very important.

Anyway, that’s it for now. I’ll get in touch next week with an update on how things have been getting the backer release ready!

We Live!

Hey, sorry for not updating for a couple weeks. I’ll try to get back on track this Wednesday.

There isn’t any dire reason why I haven’t updated the blog in a while. It’s just fuckass hot in my region right now, and while I have central air, it’s kind of jury-rigged into my 90 year old house, so the second floor has one intake, one outflow, and neither of which are actually in my office.

Because of the heat, I have been focusing on game development, and cutting hours I would otherwise spend on communication, marketing, and administration. So, I promise it only *looks* like I’m doing very little.

The quests for v0.41 are in their final stages, I only have a little bit of final dialogue, and some enemy placement and treasure drops to do. I’d like to tie off some new sex scenes and chat dialogue, that sort of thing, as well, but we’ll play it by ear on that one.

I just wanted to make this effort to reach out real quick, so I’ll leave it at that. Thank you for your support, as always, and I’ll see you in a week and a half for the backer release!

Depression and Community

So I’ve got to be just about the luckiest person alive among western adult game devs.

Earlier this month, I had a pretty gnarly bout of depression. As some of you may already know, I have a mental illness known as dysthymia (also known as persistent mood disorder). It is a form of depression that is usually more mild and easier to deal with. Usually it hits pretty bad about once a month, for only a few days, and I’m able to deal with it and move on. I’m pretty used to dealing with it, plus I have a great support network at home to help me get through when I am feeling down. I’ve been feeling this way ever since I was a child- although I was only diagnosed and able to fit a name to it a few years ago- so this really isn’t anything new.

For whatever reason, this month was pretty bad, and my “down” period lasted somewhere in the neighbourhood of about two weeks. When I enter into one of these depressive phases, I become unable to focus on things for very long, and being creative becomes particularly challenging. Failure is especially difficult to deal with, and finding myself unable to write anything of substance, figure out a bit of logic or code, or even failing to make progress playing video games can shut me down for hours.

“But NoMoshing,” you may find yourself wondering, “If you’re whining about being depressed, why did you start off this blog post saying how lucky you are?”

It’s because of you all. The Harem Collector community has to be one of the most welcoming, understanding, and supporting communities in the western adult game sphere. You’ve always been patient and understanding with me when these sorts of situations crop up, and I am constantly astounded and humbled by your continued trust and support every time.

When I solicited ideas of what to write for today’s blog post on Discord, and awesome fan Sad suggested writing something about the community, this is the first thing I thought of. It is a genuine privilege to have you all as fans, and I hope I continue to be worthy of your trust in the future. You’re all so amazing, and I look forward to entertaining you even more, like always. Thank you.

The Newest Member of the Team

Far, far ahead of schedule, she arrived, eager to work on providing awesome, free hentai games for everyone (18 years or older) to enjoy! Meet… Kaguya!

Kaguya is a Lenovo “Legion” gaming PC with an Intel i7 processor, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 graphics card, 8GB DDR RAM, and my heart <3. She is too thicc to sit on the PC shelf below my desk, so for the time being, at least, she’s hanging out up top where I can lovingly caress her….

Jokes aside, it’s been so long since I had a genuinely great computer that I’m seriously really excited about this. The PC that I’ve been using for most of Harem Collector’s development, Abyss, was a pure utility model, with no graphics card, a faulty internal wireless card, meant to just be a word processor and internet terminal. Streaming with it while having RPG Maker or an old game open was straining the poor thing to it’s limit.

Now hopefully Kaguya lasts for another eight years of hentai game design and crafting!

Some Good News, Finally

So, something good happened to me this past weekend.

A relative of mine sent me a cheque, for a large but not huge amount of money (I know this is super relative- it’s more than I make in a month but less than I make in a year, let me put it that way). Apparently, they sold some property that used to belong to my father, and felt I deserved to get a piece.

Now, of course, I did some dumb and not-so-dumb stuff with a bit of the money, as anyone would when they receive an unexpected windfall. Getting some work done on the house, bought a copy of Kirby Super Star for my retro game collecton, that sort of thing.

But I can’t with a clear conscience enjoy this windfall without contributing to the same project that you all are- that is, Harem Collector, and Bad Kitty Games in general.

Those of you who follow me when I stream will know that I’ve been having more and more frequent hardware problems. Abyss, my PC, and Meido, my laptop, have both been having more and more frequent issues. I’ve been reluctant to switch to new hardware up to this point, as doing so would require me siphoning out of the (already plenty disrupted) art budget. I was waiting for something in the formula to change- either the Patreon gets a big hike, or I save up enough bellmarks and Tim Hortons coupons, or Abyss finally becomes irrepairable and I have to do *something*.

Well, something happened- I got this windfall. So, without having to take any money from my awesome backers or HC development at all, I can replace at least my work PC and, if I can, also the lappy.

Also, I’m looking to accelerate some of my own art. It’ll depend on what costs how much and how everything shakes out, but there are a few sex scenes which I’d like to have finished that aren’t connected to any particular character but would be pretty pricey to have done, so it’s a hard thing to justify when there are so many main cast harem girls who are lacking in art.

So just thought I’d share what’s going on. Hopefully this doesn’t inspire anyone to leave- I’m not suddenly rich or something- I just wanted to share my good fortune and what this means for Bad Kitty Games.

Hope you’re enjoying Iron Waifu, and I’ll see you all later!

Website Done, What Next?

Ah, so the website is finally finished and out there, and the old website safely packed away where it can do longer hurt anyone. And, as a bonus, there were no problems or bugs in how the site was put together- well, I suppose I should say, at least none that came back to me. I hope this new site will last us for many years.

Redesigning the website has been a major time sink for me in the last month and a half. While standalone WordPress is pretty easy to use, there was terminology to learn, visual deisgn to mull over, plugins to negotiate into cooperating. The last time I put together my own website, it was on Angelfire of all fucking things, so there was quite a bit to learn for myself, and I am also old enough that a lot of software isn’t intuitive for me anymore.

So, now that the new website isn’t taking up so much of my time, what’s next?

A high priority right now is working more on ILTSDK!! There is lots of writing to do, characters to make, mechanics to plan. While Harem Collector is the focus of my attention, I want to make good progress on ILTSDK so that when it comes time for primary production, the team and I can put in our full effort and work efficiently. The way that Harem Collector has gone, with me making things up as I go, hasn’t been the best and I’d like to do better.

The other thing I want to do is investigate how best to market Harem Collector and offer great incentives for existing backers to switch to higher tiers, without increasing the prices for the tiers that currently exist. I want to be able to afford a good composer to make more proprietary music for the game, I want to be able to get an animator for doing new battle animations and make all the special skills and spells really pop. I also want more and faster sex scene art. And, well, if I’m being honest, I’ve been feeling the pinch more and more at home and making a little more money for myself would be nice.

To that end, I’m going to be doing some more formal polls a bit later this month, but please let me know your own thoughts in the comments. If you’re a backer, let me know what sort of rewards you would find valuable, and don’t be afraid to show me ideas from other projects you support. If you’re not a backer, let me know what I could offer that might stoke your interest. Or just tell me that I’m a sell out or saint, or whatever else, I suppose.

Next week is the public release of v0.39, so please look forward to it!

Artist Situation

Jeez, we’re just full of situations lately.

So I’ve been keeping it pretty low key, for various reasons, but just to let you all know, once the last few Larelle and Shally pics are done, SacB0y will no longer be contributing art to Harem Collector. He had encountered time management problems, which those of you who have been paying close attention probably picked up on, and has chosen to focus on his work for Outbreak Games and the occasional contractor

However, I’ve already been in talks with several artists. Next month we should be able to recover from the jumble and carry on with the Therese artwork without falling much further behind. For now, I am continuing to work with Hilent, the artist who did the Miri pics and face set that some of your have already seen in the backer mini-release.

I’m sorry for not being more transparent about this, but I didn’t want to say anything while SacB0y was still finishing up the last of his piecework. But with the public release just around the corner, it didn’t feel right to continue leaving Hilent off the credits list, and I didn’t want to go changing the credits list without some explanation as to why for our awesome supporters. It is by no means a dire situation.

As for the backer release! We’re looking good for it coming out by midnight, or just a shade after. Unfortunately, I was very depressed yesterday, and lost a lot of time as a result, and we’re paying for it now. I do feel as though this is a pretty strong update, though, so please look forward to it!

Forum Situation

So, the forum is still down. We’re getting pretty close to being finished on that end, and if the new, revamped forum with spinners and undercar lights is not up later tonight it will be before the end of the week. Getting the style and visual design of the forum might take a bit, but we’ll have all the functionality there- the progress trackers, wallpapers, short stories and everything will be ported over.

The reason why we’ve put all this fuss into a new forum is because we want a long-form space where the Bad Kitty Games can discuss the games and everything that we love in detail. Discord is great, but it’s ultimately a chat room, and all things there are transient. Patreon is a great way for me to communicate with you about discussions I lead, but it’s not ideal for back-and-forth dialogue.

But that said, especially with the advent of our Discord channel, the old forum ended up underutilized. We used it for weekly discussions, Iron Waifu and collecting bug reports, and that was basically it. Ultimately, this is a place for you, the fans and supporters of Harem Collector and Bad Kitty Games, to come together, discuss things, play, share and communicate. So we’d like input from you for determining what things we can use the new forum for.

If there are any features, events, discussions, bots, anything at all you’d like us to use in the new forum, please let us know here in the comments!

Despite all of this, we’re still looking on track for the backer release next week, so get hyped to meet your newest harem girl and go on even more awesome adventures with your favourite harem slaves!

So, General Update

Wow, what a month. I’m not going to lie, a lot of crap went down in my person life so far this past month. Yet, with the help of the team and a little bit of hard work and focus, not only did the public release go down alright, we’re making great progress on the next update.

One quest is already largely in the can (saying that now in case I’ve forgotten something), a new harem girl is on the way, and I have a good start on Violet and Lilac’s chat menus. Not entirely sure yet what specifically we’re going to be working on for the next four weeks, but we’ve tossed around a few ideas, including adding some random scenes as text-only and a few other things.

I am behind on the website redesign, which I am not happy about, but I do not regret prioritizing game development over that. Web design is something I’m sort of learning as I go (the current version of the website was designed by a previous staff member), so please excuse the final product if it looks very derivative of a template. I’m still hoping to have it ready for spring though.

Sorry that this is not much of an update, I just wanted to give a general idea of where Harem Collector is at for the next update. Please return next week as we’ll be doing the second monthly I Live To Serve, Dungeon King!! update. Until then, please continue enjoying the new content!