Hey, sorry about the late post- I was hoping to release this alongside the next episode of the Indecent Gaming Podcast but there was some kind of snafu there and it’ll be out later. Also, with a better blog post.
My Least Favourite Word Is….
Delayed, delayed, delayed. Just a real quick update on certain things.
The newly-christened Indecent Gaming Podcast will be released next week, as a download available on badkittygames.net. Sorry for the delay, but there has been some unexpected editing problems.
The next release of Harem Collector has been delayed by a week or two, but should be out soon. Similarly, the “special surprise” I had mentioned will be given the same release date.
Also happening next week, this blog will be moved to badkittygames.net.
Thanks for your patience!
TLDR: Whining and First World Problems
I know it’s not really classy to go into my own problems like this, but my situation has really had an impact on game development lately and I feel that everyone who follows Harem Collector development is owed an explanation.
Basically, my savings is running out and I’m going to be cut off from GA by the end of May. I was hoping by this time to have some kind of monetization in place so I could support myself and continue to work on HC and other projects full time. I was also looking to phase out donation support for the game, because technically I’m operating in violation of P-yp-l’s TOS and that doesn’t really sit right with me. However, that has not been the case- I have failed to meet minimum standards for most advertising companies, my bank considers this business too much of a risk to give me the support I need to run my own online store, etc. Basically, while these things might still happen in the future, for now time has run out and I need to get a second job.
In the middle of this whole thing (being depressed about having to flip burgers or something again, updating my resume, figuring out the future of the company, etc…), I also found out my aunt died. We weren’t particularly close, but due to my family situation things were… complicated, and my feelings on the issue have been similarly complicated. This is also the second family member I’ve lost to lung cancer, in case you needed additional incentive to quite smoking yourself.
So, for the last week and a half, work has basically stalled on HC and related projects. This is also why I haven’t been updating my Twitter- when you’re spending your days in a housecoat, obsessively playing PS2 games and trying to avoid thinking or feeling anything, you’re not gonna to have a lot to update people on.
But now, MWL is back in town from her week-long adventure in the middle of nowhere, and we’re going to try and get things done and back on track. Some changes are going to have to be made, though. To summarize:
Harem Collector: Progress will be slowed in the next few months. I’m hoping to get by with a part-time job, which will leave me half a week to work on HC, and evenings + weekends to work the administrative/business side of things, but we’ll have to see what happens.
Harem Collector: Fairy Side: Progress will continue as normal, or at least it won’t be affected by things to do with me. MWL is doing some great work, and I’m really excited to see how the new release is received.
Dungeon Assault: No Mercy and Project Norn: Unfortunately, these are the big victims here. Both projects are going to be shelved indefinitely. When I have more time and the business is more self-sustaining, I’ll get back to them, in some capacity.
Anyway, that’s basically it…. Just wanted to explain why things got really derailed these last couple weeks and why things are going to slow down in the future. For today though, I’m going to get back to work and hopefully overcome this inertia and make progress once again.
Games You Might Not Have Tried: RPG Maker Edition
Originally I wasn’t going to write anything today- have been feeling really unwell lately and today has been the worst of it. However, I saw today’s Extra Credits and was inspired. So, let’s all go on a meandering trip through my games collection to see my suggestions to you. Not all of them are recent, and not all of them are porn games, but here it is.
Despair Labyrinth
When people talk about the “greats” in the RPG Maker H-Game community, they mostly refer to Overwhored or Harem… but I don’t see DL come up too often. Despair Labyrinth is an excellent game combining a pseudo-roguelike kinda feel with game over rape and a morality system. Plus, all the starting characters have very different personalities and playstyles, making for a lot of replayability.
Embric of Wulfhammer’s Castle
I don’t even know how to describe this… it’s a romantic comedy open world puzzle game, I think? There’s a crazy amount of depth and things to do here. The ending can potentially go complete off the rails into Gainax territory though, so you’ve been warned.
Heartache 101
If you’re into dating sims and visual novels, give this a try. It’s a free visual novel/dating sim/board game, if you can believe it, with some fun, quirky characters and the ability to mod the game.
The Crooked Man
I haven’t finished playing this one, but it’s an excellent RPG Maker-style horror game (I think it’s actually created with some other editor….) The game itself dances on that fine line between melancholy and fear… it’s an excellent use of your time if you like horror.
Huh, I guess that’s it…. If you have any recommendations, put them in the comments.
Future Girls
So, I started this week having no idea what I wanted to write about on Blogsday, so I outsourced today’s topic to the first backer to get back to me. Courtesy of Omnibomb, I give you today a preview of the characters I’m considering for future games.
Harem Collector
Let’s see… where are we at? Sixteen girls with Female!Gargan? Eighteen after you count Diadira and [Elf Ranger Girl]. That leaves another twleve girls, minimum. Well, I really don’t want to go into it here, because at this point it might be a bit spoilery. Here’s what I can tell you:
The Bankrupt Noble Heiress
When you do receive your player housing in Westcastle, the Hero will find the house overseen by a particularly haughty and proud maid. Turns out, the “maid” is nothing of the sort, but the daughter of the now-bankrupt noble family that once owned the home. She was essentially squatting, but dressed up as a maid in order to not be arrested. But the Hero doesn’t care, of course, and slaps a collar on her regardless.
Slime Girl Familiar
Similarly, when the player acquires the housing in Southport, they discover the sanctum of a (now dead) wizard. However, the building is far from empty, and the wizard’s old familiar- a slime girl created through arcane experimentation. Sheltered and innocent.
Project Norn
While there will be about 6-8 characters you can have sex with, the main heroine duties are spread out between four different girls. The first two girls you meet on the other side of the well are Athena and Skuld. Athena appears as a lady of the war and the party’s main fighter, and is very intelligent and known for fighting smart. Skuld appears as the party’s resident black magician girl, mysterious and cruel.
As for other characters, a rule 63’d version of Houyi will appear as the party archer, though I have fewer specifics on her character she will probably be an energetic genki girl type. Kikuri-hime will appear as the party’s main healer. And even though they are dudes, Hades will appear as the accessory shop owner, Ptah as weapon crafting guy, and Gabriel as the party’s mage-knight.
Harem Collector II
Even though it’s at least a year or more away, I have given some thought to who is going to appear in the next Harem Collector game.
The Time Traveler’s Granddaughter
Since the Amazing Old Man ended up being unexpectedly popular, I thought it would awesome to incorporate him in the ongoing Harem Collector story. So, in the second game, you’ll run into his granddaughter, having taken up the family business of time adventuring. She’ll totally be rocking the pulp sci-fi look- free-floating rings and tinfoil skirt, etc. She’ll help out in battle by fighting with a raygun and calling down orbital strikes and such. Oh, and if you’re curious about how she’s going to look, she’s going to appear as an Ultra-Rare unlockable character in Dunegon Assault: No Mercy.
The Five Generals of Kellos
All of the five generals of Kellos will be recruit-able (capture-able?) characters in HC2, and they’re all sexy ladies to boot. Some of the generals are:
Fiona the Grave-Digger
Commander of the Second Legion, Fiona has mastered the art of fighting with a shovel, thus earning her nickname. She is also known as a great strategist, even among the ranks of the Five Generals. Confident and sassy, she likes to taunt her opponents before each battle in order to goad them into making mistakes.
Wolf the Sniper
A supernaturally skilled marksman, Wolf has revolutionized the use of black powder weapons in battle, and her Third Legion is renowned for the speed and accuracy of it’s rifle lines. I haven’t written much of her character into stone, yet, but that’s because I haven’t played any of the Metal Gear games and I will have to pick them up in order to get the parody right.
Red the Scout
The newest of the Five Generals commands the Fifth Legion. Although she lacks the experience of the other generals, she makes up for it with innovative tactics and a reckless disregard for the odds. She’s trained her legion to focus on maneuverability and travel speed, and makes use of more cavalry and mounted infantry than the other Legions. She uses a baseball bat in combat, of course, and like Wolf is a pretty blatant parody.
Anyway, that’s it for now. I have other plans, but they’re staying secret for now.
Free Civ V!
Hey everyone, I’d just to share that dedicated fan Capi Duffman had generously donated a copy of Sid Meier’s Civilization V for a little contest this weekend, open to backers only. So, if you happen to donate, this weekend ONLY, you’ll have a chance to win! That’s on top of all the usual perks of being a donor! Much excite!
Link’s on the right!
I’m a Twit!
In case you can’t get enough Harem Collector news (you know who you are) I’ll be posting daily updates on Twitter.
Important Stuff
When I first started working at a restaurant under a real, honest-to-goodness chef, he told me “Treat everything you make as being representative of yourself.” And I try, I really do. But with disastrous releases like last week’s and October’s, I can’t help but examine if what I’m producing is a what I want people associating with me.
I’m not talking content, here- while I agonize over what I’m eventually going to tell my mother, if the rest of the world doesn’t like what I do they can blow me- but quality. The number of bugs and problems in HC releases seems to be getting worse and worse, and every month of development time seems to end in a pell-mell hail mary rush to finish content, with a minimum of testing and, well, craft.
Part of this is that the complexity of the game has increased. At the very beginning of HC’s development, it was relatively easy to add a new character- design the character, her class, make some cool skills, place her in the manor, done. Nowadays the process of making a new character also involves art assets (sprite + face set), writing dialogue for and then coding the gift process, on-demand sex scene CGs, adding them to the scene replay script, adding them to the manor assault quest (if applicable), making unique(ish) relationship rewards, etc. And this is just an example of how the game has gotten bigger and more complicated and more time consuming to create.
On top of that, there are a ton of orphaned features in the game that need finishing. Lumberhill, party banter, the Seeker’s Stone, and others that I’ve been neglecting in a rush to just get more new stuff done. Things that I decided to get to when I could, and just hasn’t risen back to the top of the stack because the current design cycle prioritizes new content.
Now, I’m not complaining- I love working on Harem Collector and I don’t mind working hard to create a great game- but I do want to explain, publicly, the decisions I make. Because of all this, I’m making the difficult decision to lengthen the design cycle. From now on, updates will be done every two months instead of every month, with the next update being February 12th for backers and February 19th for the public. I’m hoping that the longer design cycle will be enough so that I can deliver on content, fix up orphaned features in the game, have no more new orphaned features, and do a decent level of QC and bug hunting before you receive the game.
That’s it. I hope we’re all in for a better and more exciting new year than the last.
Once More, With Feeling
Nekochan: The new quest is broken. I can’t get the key to work on the thing.
No Moshing: Oh, okay. I can check on that. Do you mind re-playing the quest again, or do you want me to skip you ahead to where you don’t need the key anymore?
Nekochan: Is it okay to skip ahead?
No Moshing: It’s 11PM on Christmas Eve. What could possibly go wrong with the one little room?
Version December_3:
Harem Collector December 2013
List of Changes:
-“Harem” Menu option re-enabled, but is probably buggy somehow. You have been warned.
-Westcastle Outer District has been re-designed to be less total shit and have a bunch of semi-interesting stuff to see.
-There is a new Adventurer’s Guild quest guest starring Gargan in Westcastle. Go check it out.
-Once you reach 15 Fame, you will now be invited to become a Journeyman of the Adventurer’s Guild! You even get another little party and everything!
-There have been some small bug fixes, but not nearly as much as I’d like there to be.
-Merry Christmas and happy fapping from me and the entire Harem Collector team!
Edit: Fixed the most pressing bugs and uploaded a new version. The opening, the Christmas present code, and new quest should all work properly now. Also, I only uploaded it to Zippyshare because I don’t have enough time to upload it three times.