Sequelitis

Okay, first things first- Harem Collector is now hosted at Mega.

Now, as some of you might have understood from my forum posts here and there. you won’t be able to capture all 151 girls in Harem Collector. The reason being is my original design document outlined a game that was too much game for one game. This being my first large-scale RPG Maker project, I had no idea of the limitations of the engine and my own limitations, and it seems to mean that the best thing for the game would not be creating a bloated, confused mess that runs the length of the entire plot. So Harem Collector is being broken down into five discrete parts.

Harem Collector
-Takes place in the Middle Kingdom, a very literally named place which appears to be a more-or-less productive, happy kingdom.
-Will involve recruiting about 30 girls total. For those of you keeping score at home, the current version of the game contains 16.
-There are four main questlines, which will include the Adventurer’s Guild, playing the game of houses and becoming a proper noble, saving the elven race from extinction, and participating in magical research on a fallen empire that used to exist where the Middle Kingdom is now.

Harem Collector Part 2: Electric Boogaloo
-Takes place in Kellos, a heavily militarized empire that exists to the east of the Middle Kingdom.
-Again, will involve about 30 new girls. The Hero will take with him a portion of his own household, including Meline for certain but at an appropriate time I’ll run polls to see who else will be going.
-There are, again, four main questlines. One will involve joining a resistance group to overthrown the current power structure. One will involve joining a cult that worships Dragons as opposed to the Angels. The others are still up in the air at this point.

Harem Collector Part 3: Collect Harder
 -Takes place in the frigid, lawless country to the north of the Middle Kingdom.
-Again, will involve about 30 girls. The Hero will take with him a portion of his own household again, including Yamamaya for certain.
-Main questlines will include: ruling over Yamamaya’s tribe as her mate, bringing law to the lawless and founding your own kingdom, as well as other things.

Harem Collector 4: Goblet of Fanservice
-Takes place on a tropical archipelago to the far south of the Middle Kingdom, across the ocean, where the Hero will be placed in charge of his own colony by the rulers of the Middle Kingdom.
– Again, about 30 new girls. The Hero will take with him a portion of his existing harem, will will be determined at an appropriate time.
-The primary conflict in this game will involve a case of colonists versus natives. The archipelago will be inhabited by a civilization of alleged “savages” that the Middle Kingdom looks down on but who in fact have a perfectly good civilization already, and the Hero will have to balance the demands of his backers in the Middle Kingdom versus the political realities of deal with the native society. Of course, this whole thing will be played for laughs.

Harem Collector 5: The Fifth One (I’ve run out of subtitle jokes)
-Takes place partially in the dwarf-inhabited, magitek-powered country to the west of the Middle Kingdom, and partially in another dimension entirely.
-This game will involve batting cleanup. I’m sure that very few of the other games will involve exactly 30 girls, and are more likely to go over than under. This game will involve however many are left.
-The primary conflict in this game will involve an attempt to colonize the setting’s analogue to “heaven”, which by this point the Hero will have extensive dealings with to the point that the invading country hires him as an consultant.

In terms of the series in general:
-The sequels are spaced apart in time, there being about two years between each. Yes, the Hero will engage in a bit of Wife (Slave?) Husbandry, attempting to win the hearts of girls that will join the harem “officially” in one of the sequels.
-There won’t be a lot in terms of importing saves. The games don’t involve any moral choices of real significance, and each sequel will assume that you’ve completed 95% of the content in previous games. IE, questlines and harem girls will be considered to be “fully completed”, but things like hidden bosses and bonus dungeons won’t be referred to.
-The Hero will keep that shitty, rusty greatsword from beginning to end, and by the time you close out the series it will be a weapon of truly immense power.
-Similarly, while the hero will “let himself go” a little between games, he will start each sequel a little stronger and with a full complement of skills that will get added to.

While the original Harem Collector will take longer, I’m hoping to keep the development cycle for each game to about a year. Game development involves a lot of of what us business types like to call “cumulative advantage”. That is, the longer I keep at this, the greater my skills and resources will become, and the better and more-quickly-produced future games will be.

I’ve also mentioned before wanting to take “time off” between installments of Harem Collector to work on different projects. This is true, and I intend at least to do something slightly different after finishing up Harem Collector 1. This thing, let’s call it Project Norn, is a hentai parody game (of course) inspired by the SMT: Persona series. So you have that to one day look forward to.

If you think I’m getting ahead of myself, fear not. Most of what I’ve outlined is from the original HC design plan, just getting properly spaced out and formed into discrete games. My focus remains on Harem Collector part one, and I intend to make tthat the best game it can be with my current abilities.