RPG Patreon Active RPG Maker [YummyTiger] Aylia's Story

[jondom]

Re: Aylia's Story - English H-Game Goodness!

Whilst I cannot wait for AS to come out, I can do nothing but commend YT for constantly communicating with this community. This thread is a 95% positive place, and that is uncommon among patreon projects! I've seen a few that are just swaths of arguments back and forth with the devs, or threads that look long dead with no posts for 2 months+ despite having an active Patreon in place.

Keep up the good work, we support you and we know that it's on the home stretch!

 

[YummyTiger]

Re: Aylia's Story - English H-Game Goodness!

@Jondom: The credit goes to all of you guys. I've been amazed at the support I've received, even as I missed release date after release date. So, thank you.

@Zarius: You're absolutely right. I do have an obligation to my patrons. In fact, I feel like I have an obligation to all three forums I've announced the game in as well. I feel like when I announce something, I should do my best to release it. I take everyone's comment seriously, unless they are simply trolling. I just won't let it lead to me releasing a subpar product. I set my Patreon up to only take pledges when a release came up for a reason. I want to take as much time as I need to finish each release.

@Aestral: Thanks! I appreciate the sentiment, and while I do overly stress when I miss these dates, I don't let it effect me long term. I just have to get better in my predictions.

@MasterQ2: I hear ya. I will definitely take that into consideration going forward. I promise that if I'm going to focus my efforts on a project that will take a significant amount of time from Aylia's Story, I'll let you guys in on the decision process. In this case, my time got limited this week, and I'm taking maybe 14-16 hours that would have been spent on Aylia's Story to get this out the door. It is really important to me that I release something. I need to cross the finish line for once.

 

[YllariusCroceus]

Re: Aylia's Story - English H-Game Goodness!

You know, YT, I'm not dissapointed in the slightest.

As long as you're actively working on making the game the best, (Which we all know you are, as your passion is readily apparent.) Then the wait is really a minor one. There are hundreds of h-games around, as well as thousands of other games to spend our time with.

I would much rather wait months and months for an amazing game, than have another mediocre h-game that I end up beating in a few hours anyways. (Or get bored with 1/2 way through, as is pretty common)

So don't be too hard on yourself, because we trust you to release a product that we would happily pay as much if not more for.

 

[MasterQ2]

Re: Aylia's Story - English H-Game Goodness!

@MasterQ2: I hear ya. I will definitely take that into consideration going forward. I promise that if I'm going to focus my efforts on a project that will take a significant amount of time from Aylia's Story, I'll let you guys in on the decision process. In this case, my time got limited this week, and I'm taking maybe 14-16 hours that would have been spent on Aylia's Story to get this out the door. It is really important to me that I release something. I need to cross the finish line for once.

I understand that, I really do. I'm not completely sure that (in your place) I would have done the same, but still...you're in charge (and I suck at pretty much everything you're good at, so... ). And since I still want to give you money through patreon (maybe not like my first pledge, but that's something I'll discuss when time comes), I think that you have my trust as well, so...keep up the good work, as always.
I'll MAYBE contact you in private IF a funny but still unlucky coincidence will happen when you'll release the beta for ch.1, but for now there's no need to worry about it.
Thanks for hearing me out, and sorry if this reply sounds too harsh or something, it isn't my intention.

 

[Aestral]

Re: Aylia's Story - English H-Game Goodness!

So people who pledge money to support the developer, don't even have right to complain? Man you know, you just saying fuck everybody, just do what you want, but he's the developer and he have some obligation before people, so that doesn't work like that, why people should give money with that kind of policy, i want to believe atleast YT himself does't think like you do.
P.S. sorry fo my bad english.

The thing is, people pledged for Hunter's Quest translation, Yummy is releasing Hunter's Quest translation, and people are complaining that he is releasing the thing people paid for before his game. See the problem in here?

 

[thswherizat]

Re: Aylia's Story - English H-Game Goodness!

The thing is, people pledged for Hunter's Quest translation, Yummy is releasing Hunter's Quest translation, and people are complaining that he is releasing the thing people paid for before his game. See the problem in here?

From the patreon:

This update is a PLEDGED update, meaning you will be charged your pledge amount in early May. This pledged update will cover the release of Aylia's Story Chapter 1 and Hunter's Quest translation and modification. I anticipate both of these will be released in May, and will post an updated release date in the coming weeks.

So no, he said both. If nothing else, the two were mentioned in the post as of an equal weight. I'm trying to avoid saying much right now because I'm frustrated, but you need to see the reality of the situation.

EDIT: To YT, I hate to sound like I'm turning into one of the patreon haters. I'm sure once I see something released my faith will be restored. The problem is that while you can see all of the progress made on the demo, all we've seen since the prologue last year is a single beach screenshot and a battle layout. As far as we actually know, there could have been literally nothing done. Nothing has been released yet when the pledge was run, meaning we're all sitting here so far with another setback wondering when we're actually going to see something get released. You know that I've been happy to follow the game for a long time, but the reason I typically don't use patreon is because as soon as my money is actually invested I don't feel like a very patient person.

 

[dumai12]

Re: Aylia's Story - English H-Game Goodness!

Fuck credibility. Fuck deadlines. Yeah, yeah...wait what? Is this the real world? Why shouldn't we have devs we can trust and happily follow? As a patreon supporter I'm still following, but I think a mistake was made in presenting Aylia's story as a release for May. Which by the way, as thswherizat pointed out, it was. From what it sounds like there is quite a bit left to go actually (unless I'm misreading the last patreon post). Maybe I lack the compassion of everyone else, but everyone has unpredictable lives and has to cope with unfortunate events. I really want Yummy to be one of the few devs I'll be able to trust on patreon, because there are next to none right now. That's my real beaf tbh.

 

[YummyTiger]

Re: Aylia's Story - English H-Game Goodness!

@Thswherizat: Yes, the pledge was for development, and was made with the intention to release both in May. Hunter's Quest has not gotten equal weight this month, the vast majority of development time has gone to Aylia's Story. The vast majority of my time will always go to my original content projects. As I said, I made a call Monday to get done Hunter's Quest, because it is close. That way, something gets released in May.

As for progress, I could post a new CG every couple weeks, but then what is the point of playing? I'm trying to keep things interesting, given the fact that there has been a year of development time. I've released an Aylia bathing character portrait, Triste and Kira flashing, New standing portraits, A battle shot of her dress being pulled down, new enemy graphics, and a few other things I'm sure I'm forgetting. Things are getting done, they always are. Things are getting done faster now than they were prior to April.

@Dumai12: I take both credibility and deadlines seriously. Just because I miss them, does not mean I don't care. It just means I'm a terrible fucking developer in terms of time management and prediction of the work involved. I'll never manage a development company, of that I can promise. As an individual developer, in light of these limitations, I feel a content-based pledge structure ensures that people do not get screwed over.

To both, I stand by my offer to refund your pledges. I don't know where in all this I'm not "trustworthy" as a developer. Definitely not trustworthy in my release predictions, I guess. Hopefully that will improve. There is almost no quality, indie h-game that was produced in a year or less. If I recall, Virgin Island took over 3 years, Virgin Protection Magic was pushed back over a year, ScaleGarden comes out with a new game every 3 years or so. On the English front, Future Fragments, Malise and the Machine, Last Sovereign, etc. have all been in development over a year. Have they released more content? Yes, but Future Fragments collected , Malise and the Machine have run 4 pledges, Last Sovereign has run at least 12 pledges. I've run ONE for a product that will be bigger than most complete h-games on dlsite.

In fact, I just played a recent release that had nice artwork on dlsite. 8 CGs and about 3 hours play time for the complete game. You'll just have to trust me that Aylia's Story will give you more than that. If you don't, then please, don't pledge until you do. If I have to earn back your trust, that's fine. I hope I can. Thank you for your support up til now! On a final note, if you did pledge, I won't be running any more pledges until Chapter 2, so it will not hurt to just leave your pledge in place to follow along. I'd absolutely like for you to get your money's worth eventually.

 

[Aestral]

Re: Aylia's Story - English H-Game Goodness!

Not trying to offend anyone, but seriously, thinking that YT is not going to release anything and that he's a scammer is idiocy. He already had his first pledge, if he was going to just take the first pledge and run he wouldn't be so active right now, there would be no point in that. If he wanted to get a second pledge without releasing anything, he would have to start a second pledge for CH2 without releasing CH1, which would be an obvious scam, and everyone would unpledge from him.

The fact that he's so active proves that he's working on both HQ and CH1, and we're going to see them both soon. Just wait and occupy yourselves with something else in the meantime, it's not like one single game, be it H-game or not, is the only thing that can save you from boredom, you're going to play it for like 10h or so, not 1000.

@YummyTiger: Don't forget about Breeding Season team. These fuckers have managed to bloat the game to the state in which they have almost 1500 possible pairings, from which around 30 are animated right now, and they are producing like 5 animations/month. I'll be damned if I'll see the game released before my death, and yet people are still giving them 35 000$/month.

 

[thswherizat]

Re: Aylia's Story - English H-Game Goodness!

As for progress, I could post a new CG every couple weeks, but then what is the point of playing? I'm trying to keep things interesting, given the fact that there has been a year of development time. I've released an Aylia bathing character portrait, Triste and Kira flashing, New standing portraits, A battle shot of her dress being pulled down, new enemy graphics, and a few other things I'm sure I'm forgetting. Things are getting done, they always are. Things are getting done faster now than they were prior to April.

To both, I stand by my offer to refund your pledges. I don't know where in all this I'm not "trustworthy" as a developer.

Ugh, which is why I was trying not to post anything at all. I still stand by the production as I have for over a year now! Don't worry about my loyalty, I think I'm just extra frustrated because I let myself get extra-excited about the release. I would hope we've interacted enough to know that I won't just turn around and jump ship, YT. These posts are made in frustration, and I normally attempt to avoid that.

 

[YummyTiger]

Re: Aylia's Story - English H-Game Goodness!

Ugh, which is why I was trying not to post anything at all. I still stand by the production as I have for over a year now! Don't worry about my loyalty, I think I'm just extra frustrated because I let myself get extra-excited about the release. I would hope we've interacted enough to know that I won't just turn around and jump ship, YT. These posts are made in frustration, and I normally attempt to avoid that.

I'd rather you post, let me know your view. I did not mean that prior post as an insult, simply that I understand where you are coming from, and will honor my refund statement if you felt things were no longer trustworthy. That said, I'd be very sad if you had decided enough was enough, since you have been around a long time. I hate to lose your support. Who else is willing to study Smasher-Masher-Flabber-Crashers? Wherzat Thys, that's who

All the drama aside, I do think you guys will enjoy Hunter's Quest. A finished English H game is always a plus in my mind.

 

[Sokali]

Re: Aylia's Story - English H-Game Goodness!

Just wanted to say that I'm excited for the Hunter's Quest translation release! Especially with the new things you said you were adding.

 

[dumai12]

Re: Aylia's Story - English H-Game Goodness!

@Thswherizat: Yes, the pledge was for development, and was made with the intention to release both in May. Hunter's Quest has not gotten equal weight this month, the vast majority of development time has gone to Aylia's Story. The vast majority of my time will always go to my original content projects. As I said, I made a call Monday to get done Hunter's Quest, because it is close. That way, something gets released in May.

As for progress, I could post a new CG every couple weeks, but then what is the point of playing? I'm trying to keep things interesting, given the fact that there has been a year of development time. I've released an Aylia bathing character portrait, Triste and Kira flashing, New standing portraits, A battle shot of her dress being pulled down, new enemy graphics, and a few other things I'm sure I'm forgetting. Things are getting done, they always are. Things are getting done faster now than they were prior to April.

@Dumai12: I take both credibility and deadlines seriously. Just because I miss them, does not mean I don't care. It just means I'm a terrible fucking developer in terms of time management and prediction of the work involved. I'll never manage a development company, of that I can promise. As an individual developer, in light of these limitations, I feel a content-based pledge structure ensures that people do not get screwed over.

To both, I stand by my offer to refund your pledges. I don't know where in all this I'm not "trustworthy" as a developer. Definitely not trustworthy in my release predictions, I guess. Hopefully that will improve. There is almost no quality, indie h-game that was produced in a year or less. If I recall, Virgin Island took over 3 years, Virgin Protection Magic was pushed back over a year, ScaleGarden comes out with a new game every 3 years or so. On the English front, Future Fragments, Malise and the Machine, Last Sovereign, etc. have all been in development over a year. Have they released more content? Yes, but Future Fragments collected , Malise and the Machine have run 4 pledges, Last Sovereign has run at least 12 pledges. I've run ONE for a product that will be bigger than most complete h-games on dlsite.

I think you misunderstood. I wasn't referring to you, as I can tell by your posts that you're getting stressed out by missing the deadlines. As long as you don't Akabur it up I'll continue supporting because of your patreon model. I'd suggest being way way closer to finishing your projects before charging on patreon, however. Like, I thought you were in final testing when you set the May release. As you said, what I don't trust are your release dates, and it's annoying reading post after post where something is pushed back for some reason or another, and I already see that on many projects on patreon (dang monthly models ). I do trust that you won't cheat your followers, ever. Just please try to not disappoint them as much .

Anyway, obviously this is your project, but I think your releases are too big for the content model. Separating you chapters into episodes or something would let you work on smaller projects that wouldn't be as daunting. From the sound of it, just chapter 1 is several times larger than many other H-games released...perhaps most? I mean, holy crap there are some games released that only have 30 minutes of play time at most! I honestly don't see how you will be able to live off of it if you don't produce content updates frequently enough.

Totally agree on the teasers btw, too many is a really bad idea.

Aestral, the Breeding Season team was the first time I supported a group on Patreon (I followed the project since its infancy on LoK), which is one of the reasons I'm plagued with doubt at any monthly project that pops up. It's also the reason Yummy is the only developer I seriously support.

 

[HentaiWriter]

Re: Aylia's Story - English H-Game Goodness!

As for progress, I could post a new CG every couple weeks, but then what is the point of playing?

The main reason you (and everyone running a Patreon, IMO) should do this is to dissuade anyone from possibly thinking that you are in fact sitting on your laurels.

You have to look at it from the Patron's perspective; imagine you were donating because you wanted to see this game done, but over the past year or so, you've only gotten bits and pieces visually or textually as to what was being updated, and not that often, either. Most people in this scenario would have to have an incredibly strong faith in someone (as most of the people in this topic do, of course) to continue pledging without any rock-solid confirmation that progress in the game was continuing, regardless of the actual money they'd spent pledging to the game. The average person though generally doesn't have that kind of faith in someone, and that's where a lot of the rumblings of people being upset start.

I get where you're coming from with the fear of having nothing surprising or new for people who get the demo, but take into account that seeing something visually or even plot-wise isn't going to reveal or spoil EVERYTHING; with the density of content this game is likely going to have come release, you could post new visuals every week and probably never run out.

If you're really worried about spoiling people, you could post links to imgurs or something of that sort that show the visuals, and then people can spoil themselves if they wish; even if they don't, they get affirmation that progress is steadily going on with the game.

Like with the FF Patreon and Small Games stuff, I try to post at least once a week showing ANYTHING visual, even if it's some un-seen powerups for FF and explanations of how they work, or backgrounds for Internal Interrogation and how they fit into the game, so that people get confirmation that we're still steadily creating new assets and progressing. It may not seem like much, but it does wonders for people's faith that the game is steadily reaching being finished. Heck, you could even do a poll about it in this topic to see if people would prefer you'd do weekly visual or lore updates, etc.

(Doing these kind of posts every week or so also quells most of the upset forum posts where people fear the worst, which thus means you have way less time spent trying to assure people things are fine, which means you have more time to work on the game. )

 

[PeanutGallery]

Re: Aylia's Story - English H-Game Goodness!

As my biology professor used to say, "Deep breath for oxygen!"

You have done nothing to shake my faith in you as a game developer. Speaking as somebody that develops games, believe me when I say I know where you are right now. Most indie projects fail horribly before they even get close to the milestone you passed by months ago. That you're closing in on a solid release with real content speaks a great deal to both your skill and your dedication, even if the scheduling is a little haphazard.

That said, from one developer to another, I'd like to offer a warning:

Watch the fuck out for this guy!

Seriously. I had a project go off the rails and end up canceled because the leadership couldn't decide what it would be. I mean, we saw the train wreck happening - when the decision to add a whole new gameplay element comes down from above at the end of pre-production you know there's a disaster in the making - but that doesn't mean it doesn't suck.

Keep your project scope big enough to keep your interest and small enough to be manageable, and then - and this is the hard part - do your level best to stick to the scope while you work. Playing fast and loose with your goals for the project is both your privilege as an indie developer and your curse, as you can expand the scope out to fill your available time but you always run the risk of biting off more than you can chew before a given (admittedly self-imposed) deadline.

And missing deadlines enacts a psychological toll - not just on the people that were looking forward to it, but on you, too. I don't like seeing people suffer (well... maybe fake people in stories, but only a little...), and stress is a form of suffering that I feel is best avoided wherever possible.

Anyway, good luck with your projects, and I look forward to playing your game as soon as it's released! And thank you so much for what is looking to be an amazing title!

 

[YummyTiger]

Re: Aylia's Story - English H-Game Goodness!

The main reason you (and everyone running a Patreon, IMO) should do this is to dissuade anyone from possibly thinking that you are in fact sitting on your laurels.

You have to look at it from the Patron's perspective; imagine you were donating because you wanted to see this game done, but over the past year or so, you've only gotten bits and pieces visually or textually as to what was being updated, and not that often, either. *Snip*

I concur, if I was running a monthly campaign. With your campaign, it is incumbent upon you to show your patrons that you're working regularly to justify their monthly pledge. I don't do that. I run a content-based pledge campaign, meaning, I don't believe the same requirements apply. I have the luxury of taking my time, because nobody is losing money. There is no risk of my purposely delaying development to garner more cash, because I wouldn't garner any extra cash.

The only reason there has been a significant response to this is that I actually did run my first pledged update. So, a good number of people have donated money to the development for the first time in over a year. I'll make sure that at least Hunter's Quest is ready to go to justify that pledge.

As for the "not that often," I post at least once per week on my Patreon. I disagree that it is not updated that often.

 

[HentaiWriter]

Re: Aylia's Story - English H-Game Goodness!

I run a content-based pledge campaign, meaning, I don't believe the same requirements apply. I have the luxury of taking my time, because nobody is losing money.

They aren't "losing" money (although no one really "loses" money donating to anything on Patreon unless the project never completes), IMO, but I wasn't really talking about money moreso than I was "faith that the project will complete", which has nothing to do with money spent, but more about what I was talking about.

As for the "not that often," I post at least once per week on my Patreon. I disagree that it is not updated that often.

That said, going back over your Patreon, you have indeed done this, which is really weird that Patreon hasn't shown me like 80% of your updates in my activity feed, so I'm gonna ask Patreon about this.

 

[Solarpants]

Re: Aylia's Story - English H-Game Goodness!

Just want to say, as a follower of Japanese content creators; random, context-less pictures of boobs is more than enough to keep my attention. ( '_')b

 

[xgkf]

Re: Aylia's Story - English H-Game Goodness!

The only reason there has been a significant response to this is that I actually did run my first pledged update. So, a good number of people have donated money to the development for the first time in over a year. I'll make sure that at least Hunter's Quest is ready to go to justify that pledge.

I think this is the key point right here. It seems to me that it's not that people are upset about more unforeseen delays, or that they might be getting Hunter Quest first instead of Aylia's Story. It's that they were "billed" for, as your Patreon is set up, a "content update"; the key problem being that it came without any actual content being ready to go along with it.

Ultimately I feel like this is all just because of some bad timing. Maybe you simply needed to run the pledges when you did (for whatever reason, I dunno, and don't mean to speculate or pry), but it feels like if you had waited until one of the projects was fully ready before running the pledges (even if you didn't actually release it immediately, maybe to make sure the pledges cleared or whatever), it just could have avoided the headaches.

That's just my 2 cents, though. I'm not a Patreon myself (yet at least), so I don't have a horse in the race nor am I trying to judge or pile on or anything, and I probably haven't said anything that hasn't already been said in one form or another. That's just the way I see it.

 

[YummyTiger]

Re: Aylia's Story - English H-Game Goodness!

I think this is the key point right here. It seems to me that it's not that people are upset about more unforeseen delays, or that they might be getting Hunter Quest first instead of Aylia's Story. It's that they were "billed" for, as your Patreon is set up, a "content update"; the key problem being that it came without any actual content being ready to go along with it.

Ultimately I feel like this is all just because of some bad timing. Maybe you simply needed to run the pledges when you did (for whatever reason, I dunno, and don't mean to speculate or pry), but it feels like if you had waited until one of the projects was fully ready before running the pledges (even if you didn't actually release it immediately, maybe to make sure the pledges cleared or whatever), it just could have avoided the headaches.

That's just my 2 cents, though. I'm not a Patreon myself (yet at least), so I don't have a horse in the race nor am I trying to judge or pile on or anything, and I probably haven't said anything that hasn't already been said in one form or another. That's just the way I see it.

Very true. Unfortunately, I ran the pledge prior to the content being ready for release because Patreon only runs pledges at the start of the month. Meaning, had I not ran the pledge, I'd have had to wait until June to release. Of course, now it is looking like June for the release anyways, but I did not realize that in April. I truly thought given my part time schedule, that I'd have Aylia's Story done mid-May. I will stress that when I ran the pledge, I also bolded and drew attention to the refund policy. Anyone who thinks I screwed them over, I'll gladly refund their pledge. I'm really not in this to anger people, I'm in it to deliver sex and titties, damn it.

Anyways, Darkfire cleared this thread out, so I won't belabor the point any further. Instead, I'll focus on delivering sex and titties.