So What's Next?

Hi, y'all. With the finale now finalied and the story over, it’s time to talk about the future. What’s next? Is there gonna be a season 2? Will there be a new episode this month? Is Eve in prison? Things I’m sure you’re all wondering. Most will be answered in this post (this is gonna be a long one)

TL;DR – There will be a Season 2, but I gotta go remake season 1 first.

What's Next?

First thing, there’s gonna be a “season 2”. I would be pretty stupid to kill this game now. There will be a continuation. I’m excited about it. I have a lot of ideas on where to take the story and new ways to build the game out. I have a much better understanding of what you guys all like and want. As well as an understanding of what I want the game to be. I want to make it feel like a whole new game. Do it bigger and cleaner than I did before. Season 1 walked so season 2 could run. However, that’s not what I’m going to talk about in this post. There’s something I need to deal with before I move on to season 2. And that’s the current state of season 1.

Season 1 is broken, messy, and embarrassing. Not the story, but the game itself needs to go. When I first made this project (Like literally the project file on my computer), it was called “Snowed In”. It was supposed to be a small feeder sim game where you’re stuck in your apartment during a snowstorm, meet your neighbor who happens to be a feedee, and feed them. The game would end after a couple of days when the storm let up. Sitting down and writing the dialogue, I thought, I really wanted to make this more than that. This happens a lot with game devs and writers. The growth of an idea can get out of hand, and it’s very hard to keep them small. I thought maybe it would be cool if I could make like an ongoing “show” around these two characters. Turning it into less of a quick gooner game and more of a normal love story that treated feederism like a normal part of the relationship, and well, you’ve played the rest. The Feedee Next Door was born. The problem with that is, I started building this new idea in the “Snowed In” project I’d already been building, instead of making a new one (if you’ve ever seen this written somewhere in the files, that’s why). I figured they were similar enough, and I didn’t want to throw it out. But the code I wrote wasn’t written with a monthly release schedule in mind. It wasn’t meant to be added onto after its release at all. I had also only switched to using the Godot game engine about a month prior and was still pretty new to writing GDScript. Over time, I started noticing my code’s shortcomings. New features didn’t get along with the old ones. The code was so delicate that a single typo could break the entire thing. There was no debugging tools put in place. I couldn’t choose which day to playtest. If I wanted to just test the last day, I’d have to click through the entire game until I got there. RIP my mouse. It also had features that I never actually ended up using as the project went from letting you choose what happens next to being a linear story (this is why the early episodes have a button you click to go to the next location. There were meant to be more options). Any attempt to remove or fix these problems resulted in other areas needing to be fixed. Then those would break another one. In developer world we call this spaghetti code. It’s like a ball of wires. It’s easier to pack up and start a new life than it is to organize it. So I just started putting band aids on everything and kept moving. I did consider around episode 4 or 5 that maybe I should just take the time to fix everything/build it from scratch. But this would break the monthly release thing I had gotten into. I feared people would leave and forget about it. I might even get so frustrated I never get back to it. So I decided against doing it now and to go back and fix it when I finished the story.

All this time later, I’m not sure that was the right call. It’s resulted in a project that doesn’t work for many people, and I can’t do much to fix for them. Not to mention the 25 download files people have to sift through to just to play the main story, making the Itch.io page look ridiculous. I think often about how many people have turned away from this series just because of how cheap or downright broken the game feels. People I’ve probably lost forever.

SO, I’m starting over! I’m going back and remaking all the episodes, fixing issues, and compiling them into one game. I’m doing this for the public releases, the Patreon releases, and the XL Editions. “The Feedee Next Door: Season 1 DVD Box Set”. (One of you came up with the name, but I can’t find the comment to give credit.) If you have questions about this, feel free to ask them in the comments. But here's a few I know you’ll have:

1.) Is this a physical product you’re gonna charge money for?

No, it’s just a funny name. It will replace the long list of files on each itch.io page. I’ll take the old ones down and put this one up.

2.) What are you improving?

Everything. A ground-up rebuild. Each episode will be contained in the same file with a Netflix-like menu to let you choose which episode you want to play. The screen and assets will resize properly (this was especially problematic on mobile). Sound will be properly implemented across the entire game. This was something I started doing, but really kind of half assed and kept forgetting about. Little bugs in the feeding scenes, glitching transitions, the phone, basically anything that made the game feel cheap and underdeveloped is something I want to weed out. Not to mention all the things you guys won’t even see, like making a debug menu for myself and easier scene/background/character changes. I’ll also be reusing much of the new version to build season 2 off of. I can’t stress enough how awful it has been to use the old code. I’m really excited to leave it behind and never have to see it again. It’s all going to make moving forward a lot easier. It should also be more stable than the current version, meaning more people will be able to download the real one and not have to use the HTML version (which will also be put on a single game, so I can remove the other 9 itch.io pages.

3.) Will there be new art?

No. I know you guys wanted more of that, but I’m building up for season 2. It will feature the same art.

4.) How long will this take?

I don’t know. I’ve already started, but getting the last XL episodes released took a lot of this month away (see above paragraphs to see why). I wanted to have it done by the end of this month, but I don’t want to rush it since that’s what got me here in the first place. Be patient, please.

5.) Will you still be posting on Patreon while you make it?

Yes. In fact, probably a lot. I want to show you what the new box set will look like, as well as get your feedback on new features I’m thinking of for season 2. I’ll be posting a lot of polls and showing you what I’ve made so far. I also have an idea for a sort of 3rd wall-breaking “behind the scenes” thing to release this month in lieu of an episode, but I don’t know.

6.) Will this be a rewrite of season 1?

No, it’s really just a quality of life improvement. The story will remain the same.

7.) Okay, but when will season 2 come out?

Not until after I finish this. I know you probably want a new episode this month, but I think you can also agree this needs to happen. Plus, this project is not just a way to make it easier and more appealing for new people to play the original, but it’s also going to be the new base for season 2, so it doesn’t have the same problems this one did. I don’t want to rush things this time. Give me a couple months now, and I guarantee it’ll be worth it later. … or fuck it, maybe I should have just made the thing in Ren'Py in the first place. I’ll post as much as I can and get your feedback on new ideas to make Season 2 the best it can be. For now, though, I just don’t have much else to say about it.

8.) Okay, but really, what can you tell us about season 2?

All I’ll say for now is, the finale to season 1 was a setup for 2, Eve is gone (I think she’s dead), Season 2 will open up the story to many new characters and experiences with more money put towards the artwork. Any other ideas I have for it are just that, ideas. I’ll tell you them when they’re more than that.

I think that’s all I have to tell you about right now. This was a very long post. I’m impressed if you cared enough to read the whole thing. If I was unclear on something, ask questions in the comments. Or talk on the Discord. Sometimes I forget I made that.

I really appreciate your support and am gonna get back to work now for ya.