ACT Patreon Active [Anon42] Crisis Point: Extinction

[Anon42]

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Hey everyone, this is gonna be a pretty short weekly update. Development is progressing pretty well overall; I personally ended up not getting too much done this week, due to a combination of tax-related stresses and personal issues, BUT the updated gallery is nearly finished and I should have it out early next week, and now that taxes are done I'm going to be scheduling a doctor's visit to hopefully, finally, help take care of the other part.

The good news is I'm the only one taking it a bit slower right now; Orexius has been tearing through animations, and Puffernutter has finally had some free time to work on tilesets as well, so even though I'm struggling a bit we still have good progress happening.

I'll be posting a bunch of animations Orexius has worked on, but first, I wanted to ask for some additional info from anyone out there that's run into the H-scene crash bug in v0.44.1. If you've encountered that crash, can you provide me with any additional information about your crashes, other than the error log? To be a little more specific, I know the crash can happen as a result of H-scenes after you run out of health (and I'm working on fixing that), but has anyone had it occur during regular gameplay when you haven't died? I haven't been able to make that happen, and unfortunately the error log isn't very specific, so trying to find and fix all instances of the crash has been rough.

Anyway, with that out of the way, here's a bunch of animations Orex has worked on:

These golem animations in particular aren't quite complete, yet, and only have basic flat shading; I haven't been able to work on actually implementing the animations yet, and we want to get them ingame and make sure no changes need to be made before Orex fully details them.

There are a few NSFW animations, too, but they're still WIP so I'll save them for a later date

Alright, that's it for this week. Sorry that I don't have more to talk about in this weekly update; things should improve soon, once I get the gallery update out and can get back to working on the game proper. Thanks for your patience, everybody! My personal issues are holding me back right now and I'm sorry for that, but because of you all, I can finally afford to see a doctor to try and work through the things that have been plaguing me since.. well, before I even started CPE. This is certainly not the first time it's made me struggle with work, but with any luck (and thanks exclusively to all of your support), it WILL be the last.

 

[Anon42]

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Hey everyone. I won't beat around the bush, this week was a struggle for me again - I managed to get the Gallery update out, which I'm happy about, and I did some writing work as well, both for an upcoming CG and story scenes, but things were pretty slow on my end.

I'm still waiting on the doctor to get back to me about scheduling an appointment, but hopefully once that's done it won't be too long before I can get some help in dealing with some of my depression, ADD, and anxiety. I don't think I've ever specified what kind of mental issues I'm dealing with (even though some of it is probably obvious if you've been following me for a while), and I'm not sure why that is; there's not really any value in being private or secretive about it, and I guess Mental Health Awareness month is as good a time as any to talk about it. I'm not sure why my depression is flaring up so heavily right now, nothing is going wrong in my life at the moment - if anything, we're doing great now that Puffernutter's health issues have been clearing up.. but I suppose that's the nature of depression, isn't it? It doesn't always make sense; if it did, it might be easier to deal with. Anyway, I won't talk your ear off about it - it's not an excuse for not getting more work done, and I'm sorry for that. Thankfully, the rest of our team is helping to pick up the slack while I try to figure out how to work with my own brain.

I mentioned Orexius was working on some NSFW stuff last week, and one of those animations is the new Edovex BE scene!

There's still a little bit of work to be done here (like giving Alicia her regular clothes), but enjoy the preview! We're doing something special with the animation that I'm excited for you all to see, too; you won't know what it is just from the loop, though, so you'll have to wait and find out.

Puffernutter also had some time to work on tilesets this week; we posted a scene from this new area a while ago, and things might not look TOO different, but last time the scene was cobbled together from non-tile images that weren't actually possible to make levels with.

Now, this scene is made up of actual tiles prepped for use ingame, and there's been a lot of extra detail and polish too, so it's looking much nicer overall and I can start putting together rooms with it. Everything is still WIP, and the background still needs work, of course, but that'll come in due time. Oh, and ignore the fact that there's 2 Alicia's, Puffernutter just uses her sprite for scale reference when zoomed in

Anyway, that's about all I have this week. Sorry again for the mediocre weekly update; I'm really hoping next week's will be different, and I'm going to set myself some distinct work goals to try and make sure it happens. I can't thank you all enough for sticking with me even when this stuff happens; I hate letting you all down, but the stability you guys give us even in the tougher times means more than I can describe. So, thank you all so much, and I'll see you back here next week with a much better update.

 

[Anon42]

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Hey everyone. This'll be a pretty short update, but not for any bad reasons. Some good news this week, first; I managed to get most of the work I wanted done (not quite all of it, but it's a big step up from the previous few weeks), and I have a doctor's visit scheduled for early-mid June. I was hoping to have a visit sooner than that, but it was the soonest they could schedule me, and at least it's finally happening.

There's still not too much to post about this week; I spent my time implementing the various animations Orexius has been working on the past few weeks, doing some more writing, and planning out the new area Puffernutter is making tiles for. So, there's not really anything to show from my work, but it IS getting done slowly.

Orexius has been continuing work on the Edovex BE H-scene, and I have some previews of that for you today; first of all, the Duo H-scene loop:

Additionally, if you remember from last week, I mentioned we were doing something special with the animation.. so here's a still image preview of that!

The bad news (and you probably already realized this considering the last few weekly updates) is that the next version of CPE will almost definitely not be out on schedule. I don't know how much it will be delayed, but I've been feeling burnout of various degrees for.. a long time now, and now that I'm finally doing something about my mental health issues, I'm very hopeful that I'll come out of this better than ever. I've rarely been able to reach the level of productivity that I know I'm capable of, and I was never sure if it was the depression or the ADD (most likely a mixture of both), but with any luck I'll be able to figure it out and finally do something about it with the help of the doctors, instead of just trying to power through my mental issues like I've always done.


Alright, that's it for this weekly update. Sorry there wasn't too much to see, but the week did go overall well despite that! Sometimes we just don't have too much to show off visually, such is the nature of game development. Thank you all so much for supporting us; we'll see you again next week!

 

[Inspector_Whatsup]

@Anon42 Loving those Edovex animations, huge props to Orexius for the amazing work! And don't worry: I certainly don't speak for the community, much less the patrons, but we understand you have things to deal with, and being able to prioritize your owen well-being over meeting a deadline is one of the nice perks that come with a self-managed project.
You take the time to get better, and we bring the money to make sure rent and food is no concern, okay?

 

[GranTurboAutismo]

The expanded breast size seems really inconsistent across animations I have noticed. E.g. Tentacle/vine, slime, Futanari Soldier animations vs the later ones like that Edovex and the Blue Chad animations
Edit: Nevermind, i did not see last month's updates. I see the versions past 0.42 have considerably improved all animations. Noice

 

[Anon42]

@Anon42 Loving those Edovex animations, huge props to Orexius for the amazing work! And don't worry: I certainly don't speak for the community, much less the patrons, but we understand you have things to deal with, and being able to prioritize your owen well-being over meeting a deadline is one of the nice perks that come with a self-managed project.
You take the time to get better, and we bring the money to make sure rent and food is no concern, okay?

Sincerely, this kind of comment means more to me than I can even hope to describe. It's hard to overstate the guilt I feel when I don't deliver good updates, especially for so many in a row, but it's.. unbelievably rare that anybody is actually outright unkind about it. Sure, some people unpledge - and I sometimes (very rarely) get nasty anonymous unpledge surveys about being a scammer, whenever development slows down - but that's been the extent of it, and even those comments are few and far between. I try to remind myself of that, and it just furthers my resolve to find a way to fix or live with my mental issues so that I can come back stronger and deliver the game that all of you deserve.

Depression has been a major blight on my life since way before CPE, and CPE itself has been affected by my depression several times throughout its development, and I honestly can't believe that I've been blessed with so much support that I can finally see a doctor and do something about it now. I'm anxious about what the future holds for me, but I'm also more excited than ever to see how far I'll be able to go, and it's entirely thanks to every one of you that follows and supports the game.

The expanded breast size seems really inconsistent across animations I have noticed. E.g. Tentacle/vine, slime, Futanari Soldier animations vs the later ones like that Edovex and the Blue Chad animations
Edit: Nevermind, i did not see last month's updates. I see the versions past 0.42 have considerably improved all animations. Noice

Yeah, as you yourself figured out, many of the old animations are being redone gradually now that Orexius is working on the game full-time. CPE was a mostly-one-man project for the majority of development, so most of the old animations were done by me, and Orex is a much more talented sprite artist so we're having him redo the most outdated ones wherever it feels necessary.

 

[Anon42]

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Hey everyone. Not too much to write about this week on the development front; I've just about finished catching up on implementing all the animations Orex has been working on, and Orex is nearly done with the final Edovex BE animation, so fans of the Edovex have a lot to look forward to in v0.45. Red is making solid progress on the Azulisk CG, and I'm nearly done writing it, so we should hopefully have a preview to share on that CG soon.

This week wasn't super great for me, my sleep troubles have been flaring up on top of everything else, but I'm doing my best to keep things moving. I'm mostly working on writing, between the Azulisk CG and story scripts, rather than actual in-engine development. It's equally important work, but sometimes it doesn't feel like it matters nearly as much? I'm not sure why, maybe just because it's not directly creating content for you guys to play. Either way, it needs to get done, and I'm slowly making progress on it.

The good news is that my doctor's appointment is happening this week. I have no clue what exactly the appointment will entail, or what the results will be. I think it's very likely that this first visit will just be information gathering, so to speak, and I won't get any sort of treatment/medication until a followup visit, but it's been so long since I've seen a doctor of any kind that I'm just not sure. Either way, though, I'm equal parts anxious and excited to finally get the ball rolling.



Alright, this is all going to be personal stuff from here on out, and it's a bit of a read, so don't feel like you HAVE to read it, but I want to get some thoughts out. Don't worry, there's nothing bad here, but it's stuff that's been on my mind for years and I think writing it all out will do me some good.

I've been relatively secretive about my health and mental issues for most of this game's development, and to be honest it still feels a little weird to be open about it sometimes. There's always a worry in the back of my mind that it'll come across like I'm making excuses, or trying to pander for sympathy points, but the more I think about it.. honestly, I think I'm okay with it if some people think that's the case. I can't be likable or trustworthy to everybody, and I'll run myself ragged if I try to do that. I look around at all of my peers and friends in the NSFW game dev space, and seeing the kinds of struggles they're going through behind-the-scenes is such an odd experience. As friends, we share our struggles more openly and we support each other as best we can; but as creators, we often hide that away in favor of having a sparkly clean public image where we work tirelessly, 12+ hours a day, to create content. To both newcomers and veterans in game dev, myself included, it creates an immense pressure to "keep up" and probably contributes heavily to a lot of the mental issues and depression that people like me suffer from.

Chasing productivity can be valuable, but when it starts to come at the cost of your health - whether mental, physical, or otherwise - is that really worth it? Some people can work 12 hours a day and still have a healthy life outside of it; heck, some days even I can put in 14+ hours and feel great after.. but other days even getting 2 hours of solid work out of myself feels like pulling teeth. And the thing I keep needing to tell myself is, that's okay. If I look at my productivity on a daily basis, days like those feel like the end of the world, and it quickly devolves into a spiral of guilt and depression and just general awfulness. But looking back on the things I've created, with the help of so many other amazing and talented people, and the support of all of you unbelievably kind folks supporting us both on and off Patreon, how can I justify feeling anything but proud? CPE is an amazing game, and just because it's taking longer than I'd like doesn't take away from that. If anything, the fact that it exists despite all of my issues says so much. I could've just given up, during all of those depressive episodes, but no matter how much they try to take me down, I've always gotten back up, every single time, even if it took me a while to find the strength.

The point I really want to make is, if me being more open about my mental health and struggle to be productive can make even one other person understand that it's okay to struggle sometimes, and you can still make a successful game even if the productivity just.. won't come out some days, or weeks, or even months, then I think that's worth it, even if it makes me seem untrustworthy to some folks. Creating things is already hard, and we don't need to make it any harder on ourselves by being unrealistic about what we can accomplish; everyone works at their own pace, and someone who takes the time to understand and respect their own pace, rather than beating themselves over the head because they can't be faster, will ultimately come out ahead of someone who burns themselves out because of the pressure and ends up quitting.



That was kind of a long-winded tangent, and I thank you if you bothered to read any of it. I'll try not to apologize for not having a better weekly update than this; I do that a lot, and it's probably not a healthy mindset to have. So instead of being sorry, I'm going to be thankful instead; I cannot possibly overstate how much it means to us that you give us the time and support we need to not only work on the game, but to work on ourselves, so that we can become better people and better developers and deliver the game that you all deserve.

Thank you all, so much. <3 We'll see you in next week's update. Hopefully it will be an exciting one!

 

[Anon42]

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Hey everybody. Gonna be another small one this week, and not as exciting as I hoped it would be last week; BUT there is good news, with hopefully more coming on the horizon!

So first off, for work I continued to work on stuff outside of the game, mostly writing; I've been struggling most with opening the engine and actually programming/implementing things, but writing has been a little easier to get myself to do, so I'm letting my focus stay there for the time. The Azulisk CG script is nearly done, and I have a few cutscenes/gameplay dialogues written out for v0.45 as well. I'm going to try and have all the conversations I want for v0.45 finished by next weekend, so I can send them to our VAs and give them plenty of time to record.

Aside from me, Orex finished up the final Edovex BE H-scene and that's all ready for implementation now. He'll be starting work on more H-scenes now, since we still have plenty to update or improve. Red is waiting on me to finalize the Azulisk script so he can finish the related CG, so I'll be trying to finish that up first thing this next week.



For a more personal update: last week I mentioned I had a doctor's visit scheduled for this week, but I wasn't entirely sure what to expect out of it. Unfortunately, it did end up being a pretty basic visit; the doctor I saw wasn't one of their behavioral health specialists, so the visit ended up being more of a general thing and getting care started, since I also had some physical health concerns to bring up in addition to my mental health issues. I'll be getting an appointment scheduled with one of their mental health specialists soon, and they estimated 1-2 weeks for that, but I'll find out an exact day soon.

Despite the appointment being less of a decisive thing than I had hoped, I'm not surprised by it, and it was a positive experience overall; I've met with some doctors in the past who seemed in a hurry to get me out of the door and didn't really give a shit, and I didn't get that vibe this time. Everyone was very kind, and it seemed like they actually care about their patients, so I think we made a good choice. Despite the lack of forward movement from this one visit (which again was unsurprising, depression and anxiety can't be cured at the drop of a hat), I do honestly feel a little better already - knowing that something is finally happening helps, even if I have to wait a little bit longer. I've already dealt with crippling mental issues for at least half my life, so "a little bit longer" sounds pretty okay compared to the "indefinitely" I was looking at before now.

I'm excited for this next week, I'm still rocky at times but I feel overall more positive right now than I have in the past month at least, and I'm hoping to finally be able to get some good work done. In the meantime though, I know this is yet another low-content update, and I can't stress enough how grateful I am to you all for putting up with it; I hate delivering lackluster updates, but you've all been so overwhelmingly kind and understanding, and it really has helped me not beat myself up too much over this. As much as I wish I could flip a switch and be okay again, mental health doesn't work that way, and you've all given me the space to deal with what has been the worst depressive flareup I've had since my father passed a few years ago, and I truly cannot thank you enough for that. You're the best group of supporters a creator like me could ask for, and if I have any one dominant feeling right now, it's that I can't wait to get better so I can make you guys better stuff than ever before.

 

[Anon42]

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Hey everyone. This week was a mixture of both great, and ehh. The bad news, which I'll get out of the way first, is that the work side of things was the 'ehh' part; I didn't get as much writing as I wanted done, BUT I did have the most productive day I've had in over a month, so it wasn't a complete loss! I managed to take a script from about 50% to finished in a single day, which may not sound like much, but it feels like a lot right now, so I'm trying to stay positive.

Orex is also still banging out animations for me to implement once I'm fully back in action. This week he finished up a few things; a clothed version of Alicia's masturbation animation, a "death" transition into said scene for when Alicia runs out of HP in gameplay, and an update to the regular (non-BE) Edovex H-scene.



For this H-scene update, in addition to the obvious anatomy and shading improvements, Orexius went out of his way to update the animation from 4 to 6 frames total, so it's a huge improvement over the old scene if you ask me.


So, now for the GOOD news! I posted last week that it sounded like it would be 1-2 weeks before I could see a behavioral doctor to talk about my mental health, and that seemed to be the case more and more, because they didn't end up calling me back. They said that might happen and if they didn't I should call them back, so I was planning on doing that (and was putting it off because phone anxiety, bleh), but I got a call from them for a separate topic entirely regarding my physical health, and while I was already wrapped up in a phone call I asked them about scheduling an appointment with a behavioral doc.

Apparently, she was the correct person to ask about it, because she managed to get me scheduled for a telehealth call with someone just two days later. That call has already come and gone, and I have officially been diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and ADD - all of which I already pretty much knew I had, but, it's still a weird feeling to be officially diagnosed. Still, getting some confirmation is nice, and it's a good reminder that I'm not just lazy or insane, since my brain likes to try and convince me I am all the time.

So now that I've been officially diagnosed, a few things are happening. First, the doctor I spoke to is going to look into therapists and get me a list. I'll be meeting with her again in about a month, so I'll likely be starting weekly therapy in late July/early August. I also have an appointment scheduled for July 1st with someone who handles medications/prescriptions, and that's when I'll be getting medication to help counter all of this in the short-term, while the therapy helps to address the root of the problem. All this is to say, things are really looking up right now! I still have a bit of waiting to do (and by extension, I still have to ask for all of your patience for just a little while longer), but the ball has started rolling now, at long last.


I still haven't quite internalized that all of this is happening. I've been dealing with mental health issues for so long, it's just become a "normal" part of my life, something that never really went away even on the best of days. Heck, even now in the process of getting help, the ~24 hours leading up to all of these appointments always fills me with crippling anxiety and I can barely bring myself to do anything. It's such a big part of my existence that I can't imagine a life where I don't have all of these issues.. and yet, because of all of you, I can actually afford to take the steps necessary to make it happen. It's going to be a long road to fixing myself completely, but getting started is always the hardest part, so things can only get better from here. I don't know if I'll ever be able to truly thank you guys enough for this, and all the other things you've done for us, but as soon as I'm able, I'm gonna do my damn best to try!

 

[Anon42]

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Hey everyone. Gonna be another simple update this week (how many times have I said that by now), but things are proceeding as smoothly as we could hope right now, all things considered.

I got about the same amount of writing done this week as last week, so no major improvements on that front, but no backtracking either, so I'm happy with that. I'm nearly done with all of the scripts I wanted for v0.45, so I should be able to send them off to our VAs next week; I'm quickly running out of work I can do outside of the game engine, so fingers crossed I'll be able to get myself back to implementing stuff again soon.

I have my doctor's appointment this coming week where we'll be talking about medication (and presumably getting me on a prescription), so I'll finally be starting the road to improvement. It's not going to fix things right away, but it feels good to know that something is happening just around the corner. It doesn't feel like much has happened yet, since it's just been a few appointments and no actual therapy or medication yet, but the real starting point is just ahead and I have high hopes for the future.

Aside from me and my work, Orexius is nearly done with all of the Edovex's H-scenes; all of the new BE H-scenes have been done, and he updated the non-BE scene last week as well, which left him with the brand new Duo and Trio scenes this week. The Duo scene is done, and the Trio scene is well underway; after he's done with this, the Edovex's H-scene count will have risen from 1 scene to 6! Big day to be an Edovex fan After that, we have some gameplay QoL animations planned that I'm excited to talk about soon. They should make movement in CPE feel even smoother than before.

Red is also making great progress on the Azulisk CG. We had some issues with figuring parts of it out at first, but the rough edges have been smoothed over, and since v0.45 is delayed for an indeterminate amount of time (AKA until I get myself together), it should definitely be done in time. I'm really happy with the way it's turning out, and I hope you guys will like it too!


Alright, that's about all I have for this week. Sorry there's nothing to show; the Azulisk scene isn't quite ready for a preview yet, and I don't want to post yet another Edovex preview when we've already showed, what, 3 of them this update cycle? I have high hopes that I'll be able to get myself back to working in-engine soon, though, so the update can at least get closer to being completed.

Since this month is about to come to a close, and with it the "normal" deadline for v0.45 will be passing without an update coming out, I do want to remind everyone pledged that if you feel the need to stop pledging at any point, you WILL still get the next update once it releases! I always send the update out to anyone who pledged $10 USD at least once during the update's development, even if they're no longer pledged, so please don't feel like you have an obligation to stay so you can get your rewards, if you aren't comfortable with the speed of development right now! At the end of the day you guys are paying me to develop a game, and I harbor no ill will towards anyone who wishes to unpledge while I figure my mental health out and get things back on track.

That being said, to anyone who does stay pledged, you have my eternal gratitude - it's still blowing my mind that after all these years of dealing with depression, anxiety, impostor syndrome, self-doubt, and generally awful mental health, I can finally afford not only the money - but also the time - to see someone about it and try to figure myself out. It means more to me than I can possibly express that you guys have given me this chance, and I can't promise that I'll be able to fix things quickly, but I can promise I won't waste this chance; even if it takes some time, I'm gonna get through this and come out stronger than ever.

 

[Anon42]

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Hey everybody. Continuing the trend of short weekly updates, we have a short weekly update for you today.

To get it out of the way now, I didn't really get any work done this week. I spent a good amount of the week anxious as hell about my appointment, which is pretty much how all of the appointments have gone so far, and it makes it hard to get even regular around-the-house stuff done since my stomach is busy being figuratively twisted into a knot. I've always had anxiety problems with upcoming events, but I think COVID and the complete at-home isolation that came with it made it even worse, so that's fun. I'm so sorry I continuously have very little to deliver, as far as game news goes, but I'm trying my best to not feel too bad for it; you've all been so incredibly understanding and supportive that it's honestly helping me not feel like a complete piece of shit every waking moment like I usually do when updates are bad, so right now I'm just going to try and do what you've all been telling me to do, and focus on my mental health and getting better.

The good news on that front is that the appointment happened a few days ago, and I am now officially on an antidepressant. The medication they prescribed me is primarily an antidepressant, but it's often used to treat all 3 of my major mental health issues (depression, anxiety, ADD), so the doctor wanted to start here in the hopes that one medication + therapy would be enough and that I wouldn't need to worry about taking a veritable cocktail of pills every morning. I started taking it a few days ago, so obviously no effects yet, but the medication is known to start causing changes for some people in as little as a week, with on average 1.5-2 months for the full effects. No way to know yet if I'll feel the effects on the quicker side or if it'll take longer, but it's nice to know there's a possibility that I'll start to see some minor improvements soon. Even if it takes on the longer side, though, this is the first real, actionable change that's happened since I started pursuing mental health care, so it's honestly already a pretty big comfort to me. I'll probably be starting therapy late July/early August, and in the meantime I now have something real to do that could result in some positive change. I'm fully prepared for the possibility of this medication not being "the right one", but even if it's not, just knowing that things are finally in motion is already helping me out a bit.


Enough about me and my life, though; there's not too much game progress to talk about this week, but I do have one fun thing I want to show off that a few people have been asking for for a long time.

We're adding xrays/internal shots to CPE! Orexius has animated one for the Edovex H-scene (featuring double penetration in the trio scene), and we'll be using the base animation he created to go back and add them to all penetration H-scenes in the game. This will be a toggleable option, so if you don't like xrays in your porn then you'll be able to turn it off. We also do not plan on having oral xrays at the moment, just downstairs penetration. All of the xrays probably won't be done in time for v0.45, since there's plenty of other work for Orexius to do, so we'll be working on adding all of them over the next update or two.


Alright, that's it for this week. I've been saying thanks a lot lately, but it's because I truly mean it - not a lot of people in the USA are able to afford proper healthcare, and the only reason I'm able to finally start working on my life-long mental issues is because of all of you. It's not only the financial support, though, you've all been constantly cheering me on, giving advice, and reminding me that it's okay to take the time I need to figure all of this out. I probably won't ever have the words to thank you all properly, but I'll keep doing my best to work on my issues so we can keep on delivering you not only this game, but many more after it. Thanks again, everyone, and I'll see you with another update next week. <3

 

[MagiaErebia]

SNIP

So I've just become a recent patreon sub, after seeing clips and even a few playthrough snippets from I believe the free one and an earlier model with the game overs and old cgs, and decided to donate and get my hands on the current version, give it a shot.

So far I'm loving it. The gameplay is tricky and clever at times with the varying enemies and their difficulty as I proceed and while its a bit of a slog to get through some areas that's just Metroidvanias in a nutshell so not a big deal. I've just unlocked the hover boots and stuff and am using it to backtrack and whatnot but otherwise I think I've completed the story for what's out? might have to correct me on this one. I love the boots so much. zooming around back and forth is so much fun.

I love the interactions with Birch and the rest of the cast. They are a hilarious and motley crew with a lot of character. Though I do wish we get more of the Nurse, she sounds like an amusing character.
Really looking forward to what you add and cant wait for more.
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Bugs I've found:
-In the area where the deep soil meets the caves, the path straight east and down, I've found that Alicia could get stuck in an endless initial loop of the masturbation scene and I'd be forced to close the game/quit to menu to get out.
-tentacles would try to spawn in the walls and go shooting up as they appear.
-----------------------
Issues:
-ATM, I only got one main issue. I'm disappointed in the "game overs". Ngl I feel kind of disappointed to see her just get shot/hit and then its immediately follow by her masturbating and the local enemy interactions. Might be the lack of transition from her getting an attack to immediately masturbating or the lack of an "End". The old Game overs were something I thought were fitting to her fall and succumbing to her lust along with a small story to what happens to her, so just seeing her masturbate and get messed with by the local enemies is kind of... dull? not sure what the word I'm looking for is, but I hope what I mean clear.
-----------------------
Suggestions for things down the line (if I may) that I'd be interested in seeing:
-More sea/water based monsters would be nice to see for the water areas like tentacle anemonees or something, the bubble Edovex was a surprise but other than the kertalus and water alraunes I felt it could use a bit more... life? Its not something I'm gonna demand or the games bad or whatever but just something I figured I'd shout out.
-The H-scenes with enemies damages Alicia, either as a game mechanic at harder difficulties or even a toggleable option. I noticed in one of your update posts you want the HP to effectively represent her willpower and her losing all her hp means she succumbs to the influence of the planet so I find it odd that she's fine after having sex or getting assaulted. I've admittedly taken advantage of the H-scenes to get the enemies to freeze and deal some damage without them fighting back.
-Enemies can knock over Alicia and initiate the H-scenes. Not sure if I saw clips where this was a thing or not but for a planet where the enemies are eager to lewd, they don't do any unless the BE effect is added and they come into direct contact with her, Alicia loses all her Hp or you the player instigate the scenes deliberately.

I don't know what you have planned for the game in the long run for anything so I'm just spit balling things here and you can ignore my suggestions if you want. Its your game and I'm just a rando who like it.
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Overall I'm eager for more and I'm gonna be keeping an eye on the updates, this game has alot of potential.

 

[Anon42]

So I've just become a recent patreon sub, after seeing clips and even a few playthrough snippets from I believe the free one and an earlier model with the game overs and old cgs, and decided to donate and get my hands on the current version, give it a shot.

So far I'm loving it. The gameplay is tricky and clever at times with the varying enemies and their difficulty as I proceed and while its a bit of a slog to get through some areas that's just Metroidvanias in a nutshell so not a big deal. I've just unlocked the hover boots and stuff and am using it to backtrack and whatnot but otherwise I think I've completed the story for what's out? might have to correct me on this one. I love the boots so much. zooming around back and forth is so much fun.

Thank you for the kind words! And for the bug reports. There's not any more cutscenes, but you do have a bit more exploring to do, there's one more movement upgrade you can find and some more platforming challenges to go through.

Issues:
-Disappointed in the "game over"s. Ngl I feel kind of disappointed to see her just get shot/hit and then its immediately follow by her masturbating and the local enemy interactions. Might be the lack of transition from her getting an attack to immediately masturbating or the lack of an "End". The old Game overs were something I thought were fitting to her fall and succumbing to her lust, so just seeing her masturbate and get messed with by the local enemies is kind of... dull? not sure what the word I'm looking for is.

The reason for this is that we explicitly moved away from "game overs" years ago. I understand why it's appealing for some players, but I hate game over content as a designer because it forces the player to lose to see content, which is directly in opposition with progress through the game; I also do not enjoy rape content personally, and all of that game over/rape content in those old demos was added without much thought. I essentially just copied what other action games were doing early on before realizing how strongly I disliked it, and removed it from the game. It will not be added back to CPE, and it won't ever be in any of my future games either.

It sounds like you know about this already, but just in case you weren't aware, the CGs are still in the game, just different - you can talk to Birch back at camp to view them, but all of them have been edited/rewritten to not be "game over" scenarios anymore, and instead canonical things Alicia consents to doing for the purpose of research.

Also, just so you know we are adding a transition animation to enter her masturbation after running out of HP. The animation is already done, so it will be in the next update. That's all of the content we will be doing for game overs, though

 

[MagiaErebia]

Ah you responded before I fully edited my post. I posted too early and was editing it.

Thank you for the kind words! And for the bug reports. There's not any more cutscenes, but you do have a bit more exploring to do, there's one more movement upgrade you can find and some more platforming challenges to go through.

I see Thank you. and yeah I figured I was missing one and some area exploration

The reason for this is that we explicitly moved away from "game overs" years ago. I understand why it's appealing for some players, but I hate game over content as a designer because it forces the player to lose to see content, which is directly in opposition with progress through the game; I also do not enjoy rape content personally, and all of that game over/rape content in those old demos was added without much thought. I essentially just copied what other action games were doing early on before realizing how strongly I disliked it, and removed it from the game. It will not be added back to CPE, and it won't ever be in any of my future games either.

It sounds like you know about this already, but just in case you weren't aware, the CGs are still in the game, just different - you can talk to Birch back at camp to view them, but all of them have been edited/rewritten to not be "game over" scenarios anymore, and instead canonical things Alicia consents to doing for the purpose of research.

Also, just so you know we are adding a transition animation to enter her masturbation after running out of HP. The animation is already done, so it will be in the next update. That's all of the content we will be doing for game overs, though

That's fair enough. Honestly its not a big deal I had with it but just something of note I felt like was a flaw of sorts. Maybe in the future you can do some sort of game over screen where it cuts to black and just says she succumbed to her lust and was lost or something but I can see you aren't a fan of the forced aspect so I will respect your opinion on that regard. I kind of wish I new about this as I kind of asked in some stuff I was suggesting in the updated version of my initial post, with the enemies being a bit more eager to lewd Alicia but I can understand your sentiment on the topic so its not something I'm gonna ask about.

 

[Anon42]

Ah you responded before I fully edited my post. I posted too early and was editing it.

I see Thank you. and yeah I figured I was missing one and some area exploration


That's fair enough. Honestly its not a big deal I had with it but just something of note I felt like was a flaw of sorts. Maybe in the future you can do some sort of game over screen where it cuts to black and just says she succumbed to her lust and was lost or something but I can see you aren't a fan of the forced aspect so I will respect your opinion on that regard. I kind of wish I new about this as I kind of asked in some stuff I was suggesting in the updated version of my initial post, with the enemies being a bit more eager to lewd Alicia but I can understand your sentiment on the topic so its not something I'm gonna ask about.

Whoops, I didn't even realize your post was made that recently aha. Either way, no need to feel bad about your preferences; I'm not trying to shame anyone for what they like, it's just not the kind of content I want to create. If anything, you were infinitely more respectful than 98% of the comments I get about the game over/rape content, so I thank you for being so understanding and respectful! At the very least I do agree that the "game over" screen needs some more pizzazz, it just won't be with porn. It doesn't really feel like a game over right now, so the idea of having a screen with some text isn't a bad one.

 

[MagiaErebia]

Whoops, I didn't even realize your post was made that recently aha. Either way, no need to feel bad about your preferences; I'm not trying to shame anyone for what they like, it's just not the kind of content I want to create. If anything, you were infinitely more respectful than 98% of the comments I get about the game over/rape content, so I thank you for being so understanding and respectful! At the very least I do agree that the "game over" screen needs some more pizzazz, it just won't be with porn. It doesn't really feel like a game over right now, so the idea of having a screen with some text isn't a bad one.

Mhm, that's fine. I'm admittedly more interested in the game being good first and foremost, the Lewd stuff is just extra for me though if it fits in the games setting and stuff even better ahaha. I just figured I'd comment on how incomplete that aspect of the game is atm to me.

 

[Anon42]

Hey dudes, sorry about not posting last week's update here, I wasn't in a particularly good state at the time and I forgot to post anywhere but Patreon. I'm gonna go ahead and post both last week's and this week's updates at once here, so you can read them both if you missed either.


7-10-2021

Hey everyone. This weekly update is going to be very short, apologies to anyone who was hoping for more.

Orexius is nearly done with the Edovex trio and xray cumshot (we'll be posting something about this on Discord soon, to get feedback from our Patrons there), and Red is progressing smoothly on the Azulisk scene; we have a few changes left, but the character art is nearly done, and then it's just background and final tweaks and it'll be done.

For me, this week was... rough, to say the least. A combination of the depression and side effects from starting medication, probably. My sleep has been terrible, my mood is by far the worst it's been, sometimes even just feeding myself has been a struggle. I'm sorry there's not anything from me in terms of development this week, I'm just trying my best to get through these side effects right now. They said 2-4 weeks for side effects to subside and start feeling the benefits, so hopefully there will be some improvement next update, but we'll have to wait and see. Sorry again there's not a longer update, I really appreciate all of your patience while I'm dealing with this.





7-17-2021

Hey everyone, gonna be another quick update this week because I don't have too much to talk about. I took this week off again, and the good news is that it seems like I'm over the worst of the side effects. That first week was absolutely miserable, one of the worst mental/emotional states I've ever been in, but this last week I've been feeling pretty much neutral, which is a big step up. I'm not sure if I'm actually feeling the positive effects yet or if I just feel good because I'm no longer feeling terrible - "neutral" is fantastic after hitting such a low point, after all - but I guess it doesn't really matter which? I felt pretty good for the latter half of this week and that's what matters. Hopefully it only continues to get better from here.

I have a check-in with my mental health doc in a few days, and I believe that's when we'll be talking about therapy options, so I should be getting a therapy schedule going soon. I can't say I'm really excited about it, but not because I have anything against therapy, quite the opposite - my problem is that appointments of any kind (like my upcoming check-in, or something like a flight) give me horrific anxiety, especially the day before the appointment. It's bad enough that it feels physically painful sometimes, and the thought of having an appointment every single week sounds like my own personal brand of hell. On the other side of the coin, I've always wanted to go to therapy and I'm so glad I can finally afford to do it, so it's a weird conflicted mix of the two feelings. I brought this up with my doctor when I talked with them the first time, and they suggested the idea that it'll get easier the more often it happens, which is definitely true in my experience - I had frequent chiropractic appointments for a while after my car accident a few years ago, and I don't remember having issues with that - so I'm just going to have to power through the anxiety for the time being. If it doesn't get better (either on its own or with the medication I'm on now), then I can talk about it with them further and try to figure something out. For now it's just another hurdle to overcome.


Anyway, that's all I have to talk about regarding me right now. As far as CPE goes, there's not too much to say since I took the week off again - though I'm going to sincerely try to get at least SOME work done again this week, since my mental state is on the upswing at the moment. In the meantime, Orexius and Red are still hard at work; Red is continuing work on the Azulisk CG in his limited free time, and we've got a WIP background now, so one step closer to completion. Orex finished up all of the Edovex animations this week, including the xray and xray climax animations, so he'll be moving on to more xrays for other enemies, and some gameplay QoL animations I wanted to experiment with. I'll have more to share on that soon, once we get the chance to tinker with it a bit.

And that's about it for this week's update. Thank you for reading, and for continuing to overload me with kind and supportive messages; I don't respond to all of them and I'm sorry for that, I'm not great at socializing and putting myself out there, but every single one of your messages truly means the world to me. It's easy as a content creator to assume that people just care about the content and not the person behind it, but everything you've all done and said since I opened up about my depression has proven that that couldn't be further from the truth. It's yet another reason for me to want to get better, so I can make sure your kindness and encouragement isn't wasted!

 

[MagiaErebia]

Snip

Honestly I'm just glad things are going well for ya. It's good to see your taking care of yourself first before the game and stuff.

 

[Anon42]

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Hey everyone. Yet another pretty short update this week, though there is a pretty rad animation Orex made this week that I'll be sharing.

First off, my personal week. It was a pretty decent one. I didn't manage to get any work done like I was hoping, but I'm trying to be alright with that - even though I've had a lot of time "away from work", so to speak, most of it up until now has been spent in a depressive state, so it hasn't exactly been restful. This week I felt pretty decent (aside from the continued extreme anxiety when I have an appointment coming up), but once I tried to start working this week and was still struggling with it, I also realized that I only just started feeling decent again, so I figured giving myself a bit more of a break would be a good idea.

So aside from the lack of work, I had another meeting with my psychiatrist this week. We talked about how things have been going for me, what changes I want to try and work towards, and she gave me a list of therapists to look into. I'll be doing some research this week to try and decide who I want to work with out of the 5 options she gave me; I'm not sure how long it'll be after I decide who to go for before I actually start having therapy sessions, but in the meantime, my psychiatrist worked with me to set up a list of small goals for me to accomplish before I meet with her again in a month, to help me get out of the stagnation of my comfort zone in a healthy, sustainable way. She continues to be a wonderful person to work with; when we were figuring out those goals, I was a bit overambitious with some of the things I wanted to accomplish, and she was quick to pull me back from those when necessary. After she discussed that, and why she pulled me back from it, I'm starting to get the feeling that "expecting too much to quickly" has been one of my key struggles with making positive changes in my life; I expect a lot out of myself, and when I fail to meet those expectations, I struggle to find the motivation to keep trying.

I'm going to keep taking it easy for a little while longer; I plan on trying to do some small work on personal for-fun projects, and if that goes well and I'm feeling productive then I'll try working on CPE too, but I don't want to force myself just yet. It still hasn't been a full month since I started taking the antidepressants, so it's entirely possible the effects will become even more pronounced over the next week or two. I have another appointment with the doctor who prescribed my medication very early next month; this medicine definitely seems to be helping with my depression, but so far I don't feel like it's doing anything for my ADHD/anxiety, so if that continues I'll probably talk to her about trying out adding another medication on top of the one I'm taking. The one I'm on now is only approved for depression, it just also has the side effect of often helping people with ADHD/anxiety, so it was a 50/50 shot whether it would help me with those too, and not a big surprise if it doesn't.


Anyway, that's about all I have regarding myself this week. Before I end this post, though, Orexius has been working on learning some special effects animation (which was previously one of the few remaining animation/art things I still handled personally), and he took the time this week to go back and animate a new explosion effect for the Seeker Mines you encounter in the game's underwater sections.

For comparison's sake, I grabbed an older gif showing the OLD version of the mine's explosion animation:

And here's the NEW animation:

Obviously the new animation lacks the ingame context, but hopefully you're as big of a fan of it as I am! After seeing this, I'm pretty stoked to have Orex go back and update some of our other special effects to be fancier. Much like my character animation work from the early days of CPE, it wasn't bad per se, but my animations and effects tended to be pretty basic. I'm not an animator, and there's a level of quality and flair Orex brings to the presentation that I have a difficult time reaching when I do artwork. Basically what I'm saying is, Orexius is awesome.


Alright, that's it for me for this week. Thank you all for reading, and for continuing to be so supportive and kind! I've said it before, but all of your kind words and reassurances really do help me to not feel so guilt-ridden when things don't go according to plan. After talking to my psychatrist, I'm going to try and put a little less pressure on myself, and try to find victory in even the smaller things, so I can work towards a healthier relationship with my work and life. Thank you again for reading, and we'll see you again in next week's update!

 

[TouchFluffyTail]

I have to say that even though the original animation is a little "lacking" I prefer that one over the new one.
It resembles a more realistic underwater explosion in my eyes. would look amazing if you can combine both into one.