October Update

Trick or treat! This place is a real hole-in-the-wall. I wonder what Noire will get? ;)

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This month has seen a lot of behind-the-scenes business that needed to be done, but has left me drained both emotionally and financially, and given my lack of recent updates, I feel I should talk about them.

Firstly, I have officially finished my business relationship with Kronifer, the character artist of all my currently-released games.  We decided to part ways because of creative differences that hindered the development of Elf Enchanter, and even though the game did release, I plan to find other artists for my future games.

Until now, I paid Kronifer a share of the revenue from game sales. I paid 40% for DKD and Magebuster, and 25% for Elf Enchanter. Now that the release period for Elf Enchanter is over, we negotiated a deal. I no longer have to pay Kronifer's share, and have complete ownership over the games and their profits. In return, I paid Kronifer a one-time sum of over $7,600. I'm confident that I will eventually make enough sales to return that investment, but it will take many months to do so, and it relies on me releasing more games so that my library doesn't disappear from the public eye.

Steamy Sextet has been going through some troubles. The game's writing, voice acting, GUI, and music are virtually complete, and many aspects are coming along well... But art has constantly been a problem. Recently, the artist for the project admitted they were in a situation where they couldn't work on the game any more. It happens to the best of us, so I understand. I paid for the sketches they managed to complete, but I am now at a point where I have to start again from scratch for all artwork. Fortunately, thanks to my friends at Critical Bliss, I managed to quickly find a substitute.

I am now working with Studio Tai-XI for Steamy Sextet's art. It will be more expensive than I originally hoped for this game, with an estimated cost of $6000+ for the assets, but I hope that this studio will help finish the game promptly, so the game doesn't go through an eternal development hell. If all goes well, I'll have a Steam page for the game in November, a Demo in December, and the full game in Q1 2020. No guarantees though. I will delay the hell out of a game if it needs more time and work.

Mahou Mating is still being developed at a steady rate, and I'm turning ever more of my focus onto it recently. I now have 11 of the game's story CG finished by the artist, as well as all of the needed sprites and promotional assets. The script for the demo is almost complete, and I will be calling for voice actress auditions soon. I'm also working with someone to get an OP music track with vocals.

Exciting stuff, but it all costs time and money. Everything comes down to money, money, money.

Yes, I have three games released for sale. I make profit from them that far overshadows the donations I get from Patreon supporters. I will not deny that. But this month more than any other, I'm feeling the pressure as I essentially gamble a year's salary on future sales.

I want to make and release quality games with good art, good voice acting, and put in the effort required to make my games deserve the notoriety and sales they have. I want to build a name for myself, so that customers feel they can trust me to publish only enjoyable experiences.

But the financial details, the small teams I work with, and everything else needed to make the games are causing setbacks, as well as impacting my mental state at times.

I apologize for having little to share this month, and I hope to have better news soon.