ACT Patreon Abandoned [Zolvatory] Lost Case: Monster Girl Takeover

[Someone92]

1.2 is up

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Message from the developers:
"Also, please press f4 on the title screen to reset your saves. We dont know what it will do to the game if you dont and we dont care to find out"

 

[IAmAKi]

Man why'd they write that so ominous. Like some freaking spirit is gonna haunt the game if you don't delete the save. xD

 

[Someone92]

New update is up:

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Vampire Girl

 

[dazedanon19]

The pixel art in this game is just fantastic. Liking everything I'm seeing game wise as well. Nice to have some more metroidvania games to look forward to.

 

[dijitz]

Man why'd they write that so ominous. Like some freaking spirit is gonna haunt the game if you don't delete the save. xD

Wouldn't that be some assume easter egg. A ghost girl comes out and attacks the protagonist.

 

[IAmAKi]

According to the game's Patreon page this is being discontinued thanks to team discourse.

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Some small sliver of good news though. They plan on giving out refunds and serving out nsfw animations for all designed characters from their mastermind tier and also implementing some other stuff. Then the game will be uploaded somewhere outside of patreon.

Too bad. Sincerely loved the art style, atmosphere and animations of this project.

 

[Mikufanboy]

No surprise there given their pacing, at least the refunds help everyone sleep at night. Hopefully whoever was the workaholic in their group gets to work on another H game, this one had a lot of potential. An internal strife between members sounds juicy, I wonder what happened to make them give up losing so much future revenue? I wanna wager it on sloth, but it could also be politics with the current trends.

I swear artists and game devs these days are giving up hordes of cash just for petty disagreements left and right, not a soul has the backbone to argue without someone running away with their pearls clutched tightly, why back in my day, we used to hurl insults, laugh it off and blah blah blah...

I hope the artist opens up their social media discord/pixiv/baraag etc, and accepts commissions someday, great pixel art.

 

[GranTurboAutismo]

They had a $500 dollar patreon tier, holy fuck.
Another western shit team in the bin
It's literally always them
They have all the good ideas, but no know-how to execute them well and on time.

 

[Serifyn]

There was some talent there, particularly the one who made all the sprites, but the production was too slow. Balancing between quality and output are important especially when its community sponsored, you can never get a full sense of how good a development team is until they've shipped at least one title.

 

[IAmAKi]

They had a $500 dollar patreon tier, holy fuck.
Another western shit team in the bin
It's literally always them
They have all the good ideas, but no know-how to execute them well and on time.

Specifically for nsfw games, the west's work ethic is shit compared to that of Japan's. The lack of motivation and coordination makes no sense, we just need one good group to make a game which isn't garbage in gameplay and has good animations, and if they're smart enough to make the product steam friendly they will get purchases from so much of the English-speaking side of the H-game audience.

 

[Aesthetic]

Specifically for nsfw games, the west's work ethic is shit compared to that of Japan's. The lack of motivation and coordination makes no sense, we just need one good group to make a game which isn't garbage in gameplay and has good animations, and if they're smart enough to make the product steam friendly they will get purchases from so much of the English-speaking side of the H-game audience.

Japan has a big advantage in how they set up circles.

It's one of the reasons American comics and Japanese comics are so different.
In Japan, you have tons of circles, which are groups of people who meet in person to work on stuff. Usually University certified too, so you actually look good in University while being a part of one. These circles don't just... disband after the students graduate either.

Circle Teckua started like that.

___

That being said, that's an indie game thing. If we compare the west to Japan when it comes to indie games as a whole, than the US beats Japan by a million miles. Since coding is english, and there are more resources to learn it here. It's specifically a bunch of factors when it comes to adult games that makes the west decline behind Japan.

 

[Mikufanboy]

The thing is all of the tools a team needs to create an H game successfully is already here, have been for years. Even if we discount steam, which we should given their arbitrary policy on H games, community funded platforms like patreon/substar/fanbox/boasty already pay the H game themselves, if not more than whatever dlsite or steam could pay you. H Games like Breeding Seasons and future fragments for example hitting the 5 digit mark monthly. Publicity for H games is easy as hell now, from garbage sites like the reddit subreddits for H games, discord nukige servers, to pirate sites like here and F95, you can easily get everyone to know your brand/cricle if you bother to reach out. Sometimes the H games that do managed to get finished are trash themselves even like Huniepop being a bejeweled H gallery, but it still sold inexplicably well, proving you don't even need to have a good concept for people to sell their paychecks.

It really is a case of work ethic from low quality human upbringing and how easily people are willing to dump hundreds on a concept regardless of who's at the helm, perhaps even intentionally getting carrot on the stick tricked. Steam could create some R18 only version and allow any and every type of hentai with all the free publicity and software, and people would still flood it with EA titles that would be abandoned and impossible to refund by then.

 

[Aesthetic]

The thing is all of the tools a team needs to create an H game successfully is already here, have been for years. Even if we discount steam, which we should given their arbitrary policy on H games, community funded platforms like patreon/substar/fanbox/boasty already pay the H game themselves, if not more than whatever dlsite or steam could pay you. H Games like Breeding Seasons and future fragments for example hitting the 5 digit mark monthly. Publicity for H games is easy as hell now, from garbage sites like the reddit subreddits for H games, discord nukige servers, to pirate sites like here and F95, you can easily get everyone to know your brand/cricle if you bother to reach out. Sometimes the H games that do managed to get finished are trash themselves even like Huniepop being a bejeweled H gallery, but it still sold inexplicably well, proving you don't even need to have a good concept for people to sell their paychecks.

It really is a case of work ethic from low quality human upbringing and how easily people are willing to dump hundreds on a concept regardless of who's at the helm, perhaps even intentionally getting carrot on the stick tricked. Steam could create some R18 only version and allow any and every type of hentai with all the free publicity and software, and people would still flood it with EA titles that would be abandoned and impossible to refund by then.

Bro that's some peak level negativity.

You think Japan's some magical place where people are just better or something?

In creative works, fostering a sense of community is the biggest way to make stuff happen.
Again, when it comes to regular indie games the West (US specifically) blows Japan out of the water.

Regular indie games have that strong sense of community with game jams and people just generally pushing each other forward.
Eroge does not, in the west. It... it just doesn't. Outside of Ren'Py games people who make adult content in games aren't supported emotionally or financially for the most part.

Some are supported financially, I won't deny that, but most aren't.

Japan's got circles and comikets where creators can physically see people purchase their works. They have a strong sense of creative community EVEN in the adult space, which again the west doesn't have. We have it in the non-adult space tho.

I think you're looking at it too much from a technical standpoint and are forgetting the people involved.

 

[gedt]

TBH I'm actually not that surprised or disappointed on the whole.

A lot of projects fail in any small business environment - a lot of projects. There's various reasons back and forth, but there's a reason that many entrepreneurial business cultures (e.g. a lot of US small business) accept that your first business venture is usually a failure - or at least not a success relative to just going out and being an employee. What matters in that type of situation is what you do when you fail. By the looks of things, the team called it quits once they realised it was done rather than dragging it out, havent made excuses, and tried to find a way to cover at least part of what their supporters put into it (which is often emotional too, and matters). Plus it looks like they're using the close-up to at least shine some light on the best parts of the game like the animations.

Like as far as breakups go, this is a pretty 8-9/10 for maturity and managing it. They keep managing problems that can't be solved like that and they'll probably go on to do some good stuff in the future, even if the outcome sucks now.

(watch now as we get leaks and shit that undo all of the above, lmao)

 

[GranTurboAutismo]

Bro that's some peak level negativity.

You think Japan's some magical place where people are just better or something?

In creative works, fostering a sense of community is the biggest way to make stuff happen.
Again, when it comes to regular indie games the West (US specifically) blows Japan out of the water.

Regular indie games have that strong sense of community with game jams and people just generally pushing each other forward.
Eroge does not, in the west. It... it just doesn't. Outside of Ren'Py games people who make adult content in games aren't supported emotionally or financially for the most part.

Some are supported financially, I won't deny that, but most aren't.

Japan's got circles and comikets where creators can physically see people purchase their works. They have a strong sense of creative community EVEN in the adult space, which again the west doesn't have. We have it in the non-adult space tho.

I think you're looking at it too much from a technical standpoint and are forgetting the people involved.

Wow the west has such good indie titles like:
- Game about depression #569123651
- Game about depression but with jumping and spikes!
- Game about mental illness and lgbt garbage
- Game about diversity and inclusion with Token Black Character™ paired with strong white woman keween
I am missing out on so much....

You list out multiple reasons why western shit is garbage and Japanese isn't, quite contradictory to your overall point (or lack thereof)??

 

[super_slicer]

You forgot:
- Game that is shit joke after shit joke from a dev that isn't funny in the slightest

 

[Aesthetic]

Wow the west has such good indie titles like:
- Game about depression #569123651
- Game about depression but with jumping and spikes!
- Game about mental illness and lgbt garbage
- Game about diversity and inclusion with Token Black Character™ paired with strong white woman keween
I am missing out on so much....

You list out multiple reasons why western shit is garbage and Japanese isn't, quite contradictory to your overall point (or lack thereof)??

You forgot:
- Game that is shit joke after shit joke from a dev that isn't funny in the slightest

Are you guys really making fun of western indie games?

Undertale, Enter the Gungeon, Hades, Helltaker, Darkest Dungeon, Cuphead, Hollow Knight, Hotline Miami, Katana Zero, Superhot, etc etc...
I feel like I could go forever. There's just so fucking many.

Ah, just in case you think I'm biased and don't know about Japan's regular indie game scene.
Soft Circle French Bread was an indie group b4 they got picked up by ArcSys.
They created Glove on Fight and Gleam of Force and both games are fantastic.
Japan made Battle Moon Wars (Super Robot Wars style Type Moon fangame).
Touhou Hisoutensoku's Japanese as well.
Vanguard Princess as well.
and of course Touhou as a whole, and more.

That being said, the Japanese indie game scene is not even close to being on the same level as the western, hell the US specifically, indie-game scene. It's not comparable in the least.

You list out multiple reasons why western shit is garbage and Japanese isn't, quite contradictory to your overall point (or lack thereof)??

Specifically regarding erotic works.

 

[IAmAKi]

Both east and west have good titles, ultimately. But those good titles for both sides all sit above a mountain of samey garbage that is like 90-95% of the market.
For the west it's heaps of useless visual novels that really aren't games to begin with. Like really, we need to put them under an interactive stories category, it makes searching for actual games so tedious. For the east it's heaps of samey rpgmaker games with static CG of average to below average art bogged down with uninteresting fights vs stock monsters, which is a crying shame because it makes people forget you can make actually good games in rpgmaker.

Anyhow... I think it's just more noticeable for the west side because of steam and itch.io, Japanese devs don't really tend to use those unless they're very savvy with writing English. But if they did, they'd clutter up both places just as much as everybody else.

 

[dood]

I don't see the point of this comparison when the west is also responsible for loads upon loads of crowdfunded products that ate millions of dosh and then nothing came out of it. Technically star citizen is an indie production as well.

We also need to point out that logically the west includes most of english speaking world and covers way more landmass than Japan so we've got indie titles from eastern europe (superhot) which typically would not be associated with the west (simply due to be much different from American development conditions as most people think of North America or mainland Europe when they refer to the west). Obviously there's going to be more output when you are comparing one country to easily 75% of the game's industry output (in terms of relevance). Literally the only two major countries not being included would be China, Taiwan and Russia (and probably a few other Eastern devs, but I mostly play strategy games so really its just Russia that you left out imo).

 

[Serifyn]

I love Japanese media, but alot of it suffers from the exact same lack of creativity than the west has, albeit without heavy emphasis on certain politicized/ideological issues. Even some of the best anime has the same tired Isekai plot or 'stuck in an mmo' plotline.

I am a fervent consumer of Japanese femdom games and after a while you start to notice that devs are copying someone else entirely with slight variations to the interpretation of the girl or the combat system., then when a truly creative game like Estra's Labyrinth hits the scene, exactly no one follows it up with an equally creative vision for several years, there are exceptions ofcourse but i think that most of these games as a product of simple fans making games rather than truly creative people.

People want innovation (Be it in terms of art style or gameplay), not following a recipe. Most truly innovative devs do indeed get the recognition they deserve and the same can be said of devs in the west.