Hey, everybody! I just uploaded a new version of Harem Collector, with a bunch of fixed stuff in it and some changes to the opening of the game. Unfortunately, some of the changes are database and table changes, so it is not a good idea to import your old saves- you’ll have to start a new file from scratch.
Get the latest version here!
Plans for May Release
Update: March Public Version 3 is now available!
Okay, so March public release version 3 should be out later today- maybe around 12-3pm EST. It will contain a great many fixes- I just need a little time to work in all the little fixes. I think that most of the problems with the release are all nice and smoothed out now, so it should be good. I hope.
Anyway, release problems aside (I really should just get used to the fact that there are going to be problems no matter what I do). Starting tomorrow and going to the next two weeks or so, I’m going to be posting a Let’s Play of Harem Collector on the BKG forums. While I have played through individual parts to “spot check” them, it’s been quite awhile since I played through my own game front to back. I’m going to do so, taking notes to tune up the game a little and I’m also going to post observations and commentary on the forum, so feel free to follow along and share your perspective.
Wait, what was the title of this post again? Oh yeah.
So, May will hopefully see the triumphant implementation of either Diadira or Yeon. I also intend to throw in another quest, possibly Cannibal Corps. or the second quest in the Ancient Mysteries line. I also want to implement an event that has been sitting on the back burner for some time… and will remain mysterious. Not to mention I still have to go fill in some missing bits, like the alchemy system.
Unfortunately, it’s also tax time. So depending on how much that actually eats into my time, I might only get some of that done. Considering I managed three quests for this release and it wasn’t a complete disaster, I’m choosing to be optimistic.
Just to recap if you didn’t catch it on the website, next Backer Release is May 6th and the Public Release will be a week later on the 13th.
Harem Collector March 2015 Public Release
EDIT: PublicV2 is now available on the Harem Collector download page, fixed a couple of the more egregious problems, including the Stuck in the Middle with You infinite loop.
It’s finally done. You know where to grab, and if you don’t, try here. Happy fapping!
Note: I’ve taken care of all of the game breakers (I think) but there are a number of bugs I have yet to address in this version. Please keep that in mind as you explore the new content- everything will be straightened out for the May release if not sooner.
Also Note: I forgot to remove references to the Teamster’s Guild and setting up trade routes. This feature is not yet implemented. Sorry for giving you game mechanic blue balls.
Changes in this version:
-Three new quests! Check out the Southport Adventurer’s Guild and the Eastfort Adventurer’s Guild to kick two of them off. The third is the result of a wandering encounter, so you should run into it eventually.
-One new mini-quest, Slave Hunt Part II!
-Four new sex scenes!
-One brand new party member- Bronwyn, the Elven ranger!
-One temporary party member made permanent- Kyrie, the adventuring sorceress!
-Four total new harem girls!
-Two new villages!
-Raina’s “Beneath the Armour” scene now has placeholder CGs for your enjoyment- they just need a quick recolour.
-Randi’s Relationship now starts at 41.
-Weapon-enhancing items no long stack- only the one you applied last will be viable.
-The guy running the Money-Making Game will only put up with your save-scumming bullshit for so long.
No Moshing and the Case of the Cursed Release
Okay, so I am still wading through a veritable deluge of bug reports on the current release. The code for the new mechanic being introduced is being a beast. Nekochan and I are working on getting our very first house, which is a pretty involved process once an offer has been put down, and on top of that the current owner of the place we bought try to screw us twice (once by lying about when work was done on the house, once by delaying paperwork so that the offer would hit it’s deadline before Nekochan could sign). On top of that, I’m also shivering my way through a fever again. I’m seriously getting tired of being sick every couple months, got to get that checked out.
The upshot of all this is that Harem Collector’s public release will be delayed until March 13th while NoMoshing figures out his first-world problems. I’m sure everyone would prefer a (relatively) bug-free release than me rushing something out for today. Seriously, I have stacks and stacks of bugs to stomp before I can finish the new content I’ve already delayed (hint: it rhymes with Officer’s Loan). When it does release, I’ll do an extra post this week with the comprehensive list of changes.
I hope it’ll be worth the wait, and I thank you for your patience.
Progress and/or Life Update
Work continues on the game, which is really too bad because today I’m supposed to send stuff to the testers. Testers: I might be behind by a day or two. There’s not much else to do but program a couple encounters and write some dialogue, so hopefully I’ll be done tomorrow or Friday. I don’t expect many problems with the release (knock on wood!) because of how much I’ve had to test things myself, but we’ll see.
There are two reasons for my delay- one, last Thursday my back seized up to the point where menthocarbamol layered on top of extra-strength ibuprofen made be barely functional enough to lie on the couch without moving all day- otherwise I was in an incredible amount of pain. The earliest I could see a specialist was Friday afternoon- so I basically lost two days during “crunch time”.
Normally, a mere two days wouldn’t even be a delay- I’d just have to work double a couple days the following week. Except that Nekochan and I are officially house hunting right now, which is exciting but time consuming. You see, that vague “good thing” I mentioned a couple weeks ago was a monetary windfall that’s letting us get out of debt, purchase our first car and our first home, and letting me get some of the specialized medical attention I’ve needed for years but never could afford.
In the short term, HC development will probably slow down a little as a lot of my time will be eaten up by house-hunting and tax season. Long-term, I will be more productive because I’ll be happier and healthier, plus able to work from a brand new home office that I don’t have to share with moldy walls, puke green carpet and the cat’s litterbox. Once I get that set up, I’ll post a little photo-tour of Bad Kitty Games’ new digs.
Another great thing that happened this week: BKG’s Patreon page finally hit it’s second milestone goal! That draft table for Nekochan and (when she’s at the office) MagicWhiteLady might end up waiting until I’m getting the new office together, but it’s going to happen for sure. More importantly, between my recently zeroed debt and the Patreon increase I can finally start compensating MWL, Gurotaku and Kakurine for their time every month, something that they both deeply deserve.
In short, there might be a bit of a delay (I’m going to try to make sure that the delay on testing doesn’t impact the Backer release next week) but otherwise everything’s coming up Milhouse over here.
Oh, did I mention that Kyrie and Bronwyn are finally joining the party this release? Because they are. =)
Two Years, Gentle Reminder, Game Development Breakdown
Two years of game development on Harem Collector! Yeah, that is… not an achievement. Don’t get me wrong, I’m perfectly happy celebrating two years of getting to work on games, but I’m really hoping I can wrap-up HC by this time next year. I have lots of other projects I want to share with you all, so here’s hoping I can escalate my efforts accordingly.
Also, small reminder- if you want to get in on the Backer release on March 4th, you have to sign on to the Patreon campaign by the end of the month. If you’ve ever donated before the Patreon campaign, then don’t worry about it- you’ll still get the regular backer email.
So, lately I’ve been reflecting on why RPG Maker has such a terrible reputation in the gaming community. There are plenty of folks who avoid games made with the engine entirely, and now Unity is starting to get the same reputation. This makes my job significantly harder- it’s hard enough to get people to try your product in a crowded marketplace without potential players thinking “all games with your engine suck”. The truth, the only difference between Unity, RPG Maker and all other game engines out there is the barrier to entry.
Game development is tremendously complex, but it generally gets broken down into a handful of categories:
- Game design, or mechanical design, which covers how the game plays, the mechanics work, how the levels are laid out and the general “feel” of the experience.
- Sound design, which can be broken down further into music, acted dialogue, sound effects and audio engineering.
- Game “writing”, which covers everything from plot expression, character dialogue, and even something as mundane as menu or tutorial text.
- Art or visual design, which covers literally everything visual that appears on the screen, from animation to image stills to character design to font choice.
- Programming, or code. Most programming is “just” making all the other harmonize on a computer screen in such a way as the game does what it is designed to do, but there can be plenty of “art” rather than “science” to programming, especially when things like physics engines are involved.
I hope that short list really gives you a sense of the scope of things that need to get put into any one game, because there is a lot that needs to happen in order to create a good game experience.
My essential point is this- very few individuals are the kind of savants that can actually do all of these things together. I like to think my main strength is mechanical design- though everyone currently stuck on the Count Corgan battle will probably disagree with that assessment. Chibi’s primary strength is in visuals, and the “feel of the experience” parts of game design. Cypress’ biggest strength is his writing and dialogue. That doesn’t necessarily mean that any of us slouch in the other departments (we all work very hard at what we do), but it’s almost impossible to be an expert in all five. For every Phil Fish and Jasper Byrne there are hundreds of game designers who are weak in two or more areas.
Which brings us back to RPG Maker and Unity. The biggest strength of these engines is that they provide art, sound, code editors, and some rudimentary mechanics. This lower “barrier to entry” is attractive to anyone who isn’t some game dev Übermensch, but unfortunately it also means a lot of poorly thought out crap gets made available to the public.
So, I guess, don’t judge a game by it’s engine. There are lots of great (free!) RPG Maker games that absolutely deserve your time and attention. The same goes for Unity.
Quick Progress Update
I’ve been trying all day to put together a normal blog post, but I’m just not happy with my writing, so instead here’s a brief progress update:
-Working on the Huntervale quest, things are proceeding smoothly, hopefully I’ll have it completed by Friday.
-Added a new feature to the game, which will allow you to synergize your various investments.
-Something really good has happened to Nekochan and I, which changes our situation rather drastically. This will result in me having more resources to use making HC.
Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges
Before getting into this week’s blog topic, I first want to shout out to my new friend and fellow eroge creator BBBen, author of of a number of adult adventure games that are free to download from his site. Now, full disclosure, I was only introduced to BBBen so we could endorse each others’ Patreon campaign, but I wouldn’t be telling you about him if his games weren’t fun. Last night I was up late playing SuperPAC to completion- which I highly recommend, it’s like a 70’s-era sexploitation murder mystery that had sex with a text adventure- but I’m having a blast with his games. The project he’s raising money for is a new game about training a harem of sexy battlemaids, which sounds like everything I want to be a part of.
Now, lately several HC fans have been asking me about the legal system in HC and whether or not the Hero will have a “court scene” like the famous one in Chrono Trigger (with optional sexy lawyers, because of course you want that). After all, the Hero violates the law pretty frequently (and flagrantly), and those of you who read the notes I posted as part of “The Process” last month know that one of the next quests involves him attacking a legit government installation next release. So will the Hero see his day in court?
First of all, you have to understand that such a scene- taking into consideration every crime that the Hero may or may not have committed at the point in his adventures where he gets arrested is a lot of work. It’s the reason why Chrono Trigger does it early in the game- giving the player as little opportunity as possible to add to their potential crimes. Implementing such a thing would be roughly the same has having a second Manor Invasion- a game event I would be forced to update almost every release. I’m not really interested in getting bogged down with another event like that, especially not when I’m closing in on the 50% completion mark. So from a technical standpoint, I don’t think it’s feasible.
Second of all… would such an event even be appropriate? The Middle Kingdom is corrupt as fuck, and money would probably prove to be a more than adequate solution to any sort of legal trouble the Hero finds himself in. It would have to require a pretty powerful individual to be able to throw the Hero away for good.
And we all know that powerful people don’t become powerful because they throw useful things away….
Backer Topic #1: Recent Influence
How has a game you played recently influenced your dev work on current projects? -Glacier
Because there hasn’t really been a Harem Collector master plan, development has been somewhat unique in that I’ve been able to fit in so much user feedback and follow my own mercurial whim. It’s only very recently that I’m finally nailing down who all the characters are, what the various plot arcs are going to be like, and that sort of thing. However, as this process of the game organically taking shape continues, it means that not a lot of the games I’ve played very recently have had an influence on the project.
Fairy Side is a bit of an exception. Chibi doesn’t do a lot of game design for it- she focuses on plot and dialogue and characters and such- so I actually have a fair bit of freedom when it comes to figuring out the mechanics of the different characters. Very recently Chibi and I were discussing the next two party members that she was going to add to the game, and while she had a very strong idea of how one character would work, the other really didn’t get much more detailed than “cute boy who fights and uses magic too”. The basic idea was that the character would be some kind of spellblade or red mage kind of thing, but she didn’t really know specifically how it would function.
Well, considering that the game already has a tank and a debuffer and Chibi had this really strong idea for a buffer/healer, I knew this character had to be a damage dealer. So, I looked at Dragon Age: Inquisition, and was inspired by the Tempest specialization. So, this character (tentatively called a “tempest swordsman” but that’s not the final name) is an okay vanilla attacker, but is able to enchant himself with various elemental effects to hit for massive damage. Of course, there has to be a reason why you wouldn’t do it all the time, so I cooked up something- when enchanted in this way, the character constantly loses Mana, and when he hits zero he is actually stunned and unusable for several rounds, so you need to pay attention and cancel out before you hit bottom.
As for other projects, Harem Collector 2 is a lot more flexible than HC1 by virtue of being in the concept phase, and I’m letting what I’m playing affect that a lot more. I’ve been playing a lot of Kamidori Alchemy Meister lately and getting influenced by that. For example, I did a write-up and Nekochan did some art for a character that is sort of a mash-up of Kohakuren from that game and one of my favourite pokemon. I also have some ideas inspired by DA:I that I’m going to use for the more management sim side of gameplay.
But actual mainstay HC? Not so much, sorry.
Anyway, sorry for the late post today, I totally just forgot to do a blog post until now. See you next week, and happy fapping.
A Few Quick Reminders…
First off, progress update: The dungeon I’m currently working on ended up being quite a bit more complicated than I expected, so it’s taking a touch longer than I thought. Hopefully I’ll have a ribbon on it early next week. As of right now, the enemy behaviours have all been programmed, mapping is done, and the big puzzle of the dungeon is done. All I have to do is add encounters (always time-consuming, but relatively simply), connect the maps (the part that’s being unexpectedly complicated), and then the quest outro and wrap-up (which will be more involved than normal, as well). Yesterday I took the time to add a new shop (which you can also invest in) which sells an item which will probably prove to be a huge boon in this dungeon. Hmm, I’ll have to add another shop before release now, just to obfuscate which shop it is….
Anyway, just wanted to drop a couple reminders on you folks:
- If you’re registered for the forum but your account still hasn’t been activated, email me with your username so I can fix this. I evaluate all account activations myself, and occasionally individuals slip through the cracks, so let me know if you’re having trouble.
- Similarly, if you’re a backer (either from the current Patreon campaign or the previous Paypal one) and haven’t been acknowledged as a backer on the forums yet, please contact me immediately with your forum username and either your Paypal email or Patreon username.
- Same thing if you’re a backer and missing a credit from the game.
Anyway, thank you very much if you’re supported (or are going to support) through the Patreon campaign. Things are off to a great start- just yesterday we’ve passed $100, and I’m hoping we’re going to hit that first funding goal my the end of the month. Please keep in mind that I’m figuring out how best to do a Patreon as we go, so some of the funding levels and goals are subject to change- but I want you to know that it’s my policy to never take away something you’re already expecting. So, please be patient and remember even if I change things, you’re never going to lose anything unless I’m replacing it with something better.
If you’ve added me as comrade on LoV, sorry but that list filled up hella fast, so don’t wait on me for a response when you could fill that spot on your comrade list with a functioning player.
Anyway, that’s basically it for now. See you next week, and happy fapping!