Hello fellow immortals,

I rarely do long form discussions, but it's time for a yap session!

Recently I've had a ton of people (well, really the same 4-5 people on different usernames,  probably) tell me something along the lines of.

"Stick to one game and perfect it!"
"Why are you working on all these other projects, just work on Heavenly Peaks!"

Good question, the quick answer is - I am. I always have.

I Am Working On HPC

I've explained on a dozen different occasions over the past few months to Patrons (yes, I checked that many times) but I realize that I didn't really mention it here.  Some of those posts may have  locked - so I'll explain in detail.

Everything I've done for the past, year and a half now has been to improve HPC. Quick recap:

Some of the features in Those Golden Days are actually for use in HPC. There, I focused on polish and event handling.

 Example:

This is an early version of event handling geared towards use in HPC.  I also based NPC scheduling for HPC on the work I did in Those Golden Days.

After that, I worked on several "seemingly" random things to get a feel for "casual game development". None were released as official projects. The main focus was to simplify things while still keeping them engaging. I learned a lot and applied that to HPC in many ways as well. 

I Always Have Been

Through those "seemingly random" projects that never saw the light of day, I was able to experiment with features for HPC and also get some stealth play testing done. In particular, the Materials, crafting and battle were overhauled. That all of that was implemented in the most recent version of HPC via the last update.

It just so happens that I made the testing grounds into a minor project of its own, Endless Eden.

Endless Eden is a game based 3 main features of HPC, in this case I focused on refining the Dual Cultivation System , Materials and Exploration.

This addition the game allows players to  avoid "lewd stuff" by making it a purposeful choice to engage with it. This is a valid concern amongst some players who  enjoy the other features of the game. In addition, I made a simple "quick train" feature that allows you to "skip" training montages entirely to get immediate results, this will also make an appearance in HPC.

Aside from that, another feature was experimented with, Spiritual Treasures. These are items that, when collected, will improve Bai Huan's strength permanently. 

I used the "exploration system" in Endless Eden to test  some aspects of this. 

The Difference Is

Many of you know about the series of major tech updates done this past year. During that time, I improved nearly every aspect of the game. In particular, Battle System, Materials and Crafting - along with adding some new features that play a prominent role later on.  This is a precursor to finishing up all of my programming duties (aside from minor bug fixes). I try to stay receptive to player feed back, but sometimes it actually works against the loud minority. Case in point - crafting.

The crafting system in HPC is actually "incomplete". In the future, Guobei offers you a unique item called a "Dragon Pearl". This allows you to strip traits from materials and apply them to your currently craft item to make "custom" crafts.

I originally planned to allow truly broken items via this method. The goal would be to give players complete freedom to do as they want.

This is the actual reason materials have traits attached to them and why, initially they had "quality" ranging from 1-999. It's also why materials used to spawn with traits pulled from pools of potential traits. 

The item effect and traits were to scale with quality (so, for example you could make an item with crazy traits, and the effect of that item could be multiplied by 999% ( theoretically) of the normal effect). Unfortunately, there was so much push back from players that I just removed that feature altogether and simplified things.

Rather than listen to my requests for patience some of them raged and argued, even accusing me of not being a good developer simply because I wouldn't do what they suggested.

To be fair, the handling of materials  criticism was valid. That's why I spent weeks creating a better way to manage materials - only to scrap it entirely due to player insistence.

Some players  at the time were so upset that they still continue to hurl hatred, insults and negative reviews 'til this very day. 

A few of those people rage quit the project, some turned into F.A.N.s  - aka , stalkers - who still send me cryptic messages like:

"I'Ll NeVeR FoRgiVe YoU" (for what, I have no clue)

I assume, because I wouldn't take every single "suggestion" they gave.

When I told them the game was  only 30% programmed - they flat out called me a liar. 

The reality is, I've never ignored a single critique of my work, not once - not even the "mean" ones that they think trigger me. 

I've seen every concern and gripe, compared them to what I have planned and choose to either implement them or not - it's that simple. Simplification of the Material System, handling of Materials and removing of some key features that I thought would be really fun for players is evidence of that. Don't get me wrong, using the "Dragon Pearl" will still be fun. But...can you create items that will completely raise your fitness modifiers to 9999% now? Well, that remains to be seen - but probably not.

Night & Day

The reality  is, I have been working with version 3 in mind for nearly 1.6 years at this point and every thing I've done since then has been either multi tasking or direct work on the game. Yes, two things can be true at the same time.

I knew that art would be the biggest obstacles from the start.  I was prepared to make sacrifices to make it happen. 

Before production  I found an artist and  I offered them 40% partnership plus their normal fee , paid out of my own pocket.

Looking back, I'm glad they didn't accept that deal.

I offered those terms knowing full well everything I would need to sacrifice - and what I bring to the table. Within two months and very little work done on the project they disappeared. It was probably for the best.  I moved on and started work myself.

I tried to find some early investors and one person answered the call. I repaid them 6 months ago now. Thank you very much, you know who you are!

Some of you came to stay and some of you watched with baited breath . Work continued.

Many things happened and now we are here. About a year ago, I realized the time to confront the game's biggest obstacle was drawing near. So, I began trying to increase funding for the project. In response, those same people who spread rumors speak against me and did everything within their power to sway opinion.

Their reasoning was this: 

"If Game A and Game B can make monthly releases without any issue, why can't you? Their games are just like yours!"

"They're not like us". It's not hubris or ego, it's just the truth. I made it clear to everyone who supported HPC at the start that I was building a game, not a visual novel. A game that, when it's done, will be something close to triple A quality if I have my way. Always, from day one.

Flash forward 2 years and that project currently has over 90,000 lines of hand written and tested original code. For context, it often takes small teams of developers years to do what I accomplish solo. It also takes them more time on average. One reference I like to point to is the original pokemon game:

This game was put together by a  team of about 100 people in the late 90's and it took almost 2 years to my knowledge. This is actually more comparable to HPC.

Most of my peers have 2 things to worry about - writing text/ dialog and visually appealing images.  The rest of their time and energy goes into making their games look presentable.  Yes, this is something that all developers should do, but generally speaking the "polish" phase comes at the end of development. And that's the reason I didn't invest too much time and energy into it. I just got done developing the engine for my game about 3-4 months ago. 

The following is an example of what your average "adult game", built in Ren'py, looks like on the inside:

This is an event taken from HPC but the general format is the same for all games being compared to HPC. These sorts of events are what other adult game devs use as "content" (at least if they make games with Ren'py).

My work has the added complexity of managing code. The game is written in Python, and Ren'py has a secondary language useful for "cool stuff".

The two are a pair, but their syntax is different. As such, there's 3 "languages" to learn if you use Ren'py to do anything more advanced than the image above. And, for context, most "adult game developers" do *not* do more than the image above.

Each feature I add requires playtesting to ensure it works properly. Without a doubt, this takes up 50-70% of my time with each release. Using the simpler method depicted above, you would never have to account for play testing. It's eliminated almost completely.

Eventually, I just started playtesting everything myself. The reason I didn't initially is actually related to a practice that game studios use even now.

If you have 10,000 people playing a video game who are passionate about reporting issues,  you just saved yourself 10,000x the time you'd spend (theoretically) playtesting. It's why many games have "day one patches". Unfortunately, that's not a benefit I can take advantage of.

P.S. I've tried several times to get reliable play testers. I've just decided it's quicker to do it myself.  

The issue is - the time I spend play testing increases exponentially for each feature in the game.

Heavenly Peaks currently has 14 (counting Dual Cultivation and Spirit Treasures) major features and many miscellaneous / minor ones. 

I'm about 95% done programming all the planned features .  This is possible due to my work on Those Golden Days and Endless Eden. On top of that, I did manage to get some "free play testing" which helped out immensely.

I've always been working on HPC and I never stopped. I just decided to try something different for once and make my "tech updates" into smaller games. This had many benefits like helping to fund *this* game. Yet, some took offense.

Pardon the fuck out of me.

I also bring this up to say that it's not fair to other games to compare them to HPC. 

It's not an exaggeration to say that I can spend anywhere from 1 full day to a week thoroughly playtesting just one feature at times.

I'm not complaining - I knew what I was getting into from the start.

This is normal for  "regular" game devs.  Ren'py and RPG Maker developers generally get a bad rap, specifically for how easy it is to put together "low effort" games. My work is proof that you can do far more with Ren'py, if you're inclined to do so.

What I've built is a game engine ,using Ren'py as support for 2 things -displaying images and displaying text. Ren'py also has some very easy customization features to take advantage of. Everything else is written by me and it does require significant work.

 I believe this is the main reason for the continued rumors and bad mouthing.

Other developers can't fathom the amount of work I actually do. .

Even assuming one did hear me out, the reality is that casual games - the kind they make, tend to easily average 1,000 to 3,000 per month in support via their followings (depending on content). We can also see that they have far more freedom when it comes to planning updates and making content because they simply have more free time. 50%-70% more. 

This is actually why I said it's unfair to compare our work. There is little incentive for them to take on my workload (if they even could)  when they get better results for less effort. 

 I'm not bragging or putting anyone down. That's just the reality of it.

There's no need to take my word for it, however.  As evidence, here is just 1 file from HPC.

3,000+ lines. 1 file. There are approximately 80  more files I personally created. Evidence:

Do all of these files have thousands of lines of code? No, not by a long shot. The average # is about 1,500. The accurate count is higher as these are estimates that I purposely rounded down.

Estimates that don't include what other Ren'py developers would usually classify as "code", aka the actual content files. 

As for my projected funding, the amount hasn't changed. I still estimate 30,000$ to complete all the project's art needs with commissioned assets. I'm moving ahead without it because I'm doing what I always do, putting my all into my work.  I'll make do with what I have and replace all the art at a later date, even though that creates even more work for me.

In Conclusion

To date, I have not met a single peer who has done a comparable amount of work as a solo developer that I currently do.

The only project I can think of is Summertime Saga, and it's developer Dark Cookie - but I've never personally met them.

HPC and Summertime Saga have very little in common. However, I take inspiration from that game nonetheless.

If you know the story behind that project, you might understand why. Dark Cookie was a solo developer who went largely unnoticed for years. He endlessly honed his craft until he gained recognition for his work.

10 years  of dedication and a passion project. It's just evidence that, eventually, all efforts are rewarded - if you stay the course and are willing to do what's necessary.

It's a nice story with a happy ending, one that I often think of as I make my own way. I can only hope for a fraction of that success in the future. But success isn't my immediate goal - quality is. I have my eyes on something more... but those are plans for another time. 

P.S. Summertime Saga is currently in the middle of a near 2 year "tech update".  It's a large project being worked on by multiple people. Some feel it's not justified, but I know better, from my own experiences.

Sometimes it does take months -even years when you have to go it alone. Unless, of course, all you have are words and pictures. Then, not so much...

~ My Big Little Brother