baishuizhou
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2023.7.27Progress Report (Special Edition!)
🕑 Added 2023-07-28 07:28:19 +0000 UTCHello everyone, it's the end of the month again! I used to have the habit of reporting the progress of this month's work at the end of the month, but this time I want to say something different and tell some stories about myself.
Actually, most of the time I don't really want to talk about myself. After all, many setbacks I've encountered in interpersonal relationships have taught me a lesson, which is that my excessive desire to express myself can easily cause trouble for others...
But now the game has been released for some time, there are many friends have been concerned about and support me, if not because of your support, I can not stick to the present, so I also want to tell my story, let these friends know more about me.
The next thing I want to talk about is some of the things I have experienced since I made the game. If you are interested, please take a look!
I started to have the idea of making games in 2017. At that time, I accidentally came into contact with the software RPGMAKER. After a simple tutorial, I felt that this software made game making a very easy thing. Before that, I always thought it was a very professional programmer's job.
So I excitedly found a friend who can draw, told him my idea, and without thinking too much, we both thought it was cool, so we started.
At that time, I wanted to create a classic game where a hero defeats the demon king, and add adult content to it.
A friend helped me design the main characters and drew many pictures for me.
This knight is a character I really like.
Especially this sketch face, it was my profile picture for a long time.
Unfortunately, due to our impulsive desire to make this game, without any experience or long-term planning, the project ended in failure (sadly).
In addition, in this experience, I made a very serious mistake, which is that my ambition exceeded my ability. Clearly, at first, I just wanted to make a simple erotic story about a hero and a demon king, but during the production process, my ambition kept expanding, constantly adding things that I thought were "awesome" to the game, causing the content of the game to continuously expand, completely beyond my control.
What is even scarier is that I was not able to correct this mistake in time and started working on the next game.
This time I want to create a Japanese-style game, telling a story of how a human tames a man-eating ghost into a gentle domestic animal.
Actually, this idea is good, but unfortunately my ambition has once again expanded beyond my capabilities. I have spent a lot of energy creating the UI and maps for the game, wanting to make a "great" game.
Due to insufficient ability, I am sorry to have failed again. The cost of this failure is far more terrible than the last time, because I hired a professional artist, paid a lot of fees, to the extent that I have burdened myself with heavy debts, and also wasted a lot of precious time.
Fortunately, I finally realized my own problems and reflected on my mistakes after this heavy failure. This time, I am determined to make my own game within my abilities.
Because I was already out of money (or rather, I should say I had negative assets, as my debts had exceeded my savings), I decided not to look for a professional artist anymore, but instead found a student who pursued painting as a hobby. After negotiating, he was willing to paint for a lower price. (However, I didn't make too many demands regarding the accuracy of the artwork.)
After solving the artist's problem, I also adjusted my own goals and no longer tried to create something "amazing", but instead wanted to make an interesting and provocative game within my own abilities.
That's it, after a lot of effort, I finally made my own game - The Coming of Age Ceremony of the Demon Clan!
In this game, the demon race feeds on the life energy of humans, and the semen of adult males, which is used to reproduce the next generation of life, contains the most abundant life energy, making it the superior ingredient for the demon race. Therefore, after reaching adulthood, each demon must personally train an adult male to become a meat slave, proving that they have grown into a capable adult demon.
The content of the game is to let players play as a newly adult demon, training a captured human soldier in an abandoned mine.
This is my first work that I have completed by myself, and it has a very important meaning to me! If there is a chance in the future, I will translate this game into English and Japanese.
Although this is a game that looks simple and has very little content, I have learned a lot during the process of completing it. Although the game's sales are not high, due to the low production cost, I have also achieved my first profit since I started working in this industry.
Encouraged by this game, I feel that my ability to create games has matured to a preliminary level, so I decided to make a bigger and more fun game.
At that time, Stardew Valley was very popular, so I wanted to try making a game similar to Stardew Valley, where players live in a certain area, collect crops every day, defeat monsters, interact with different characters, and experience various stories, and then add adult elements...
This idea excites me very much, and I think it will definitely make a very interesting game, so I quickly started working on it!
Most of the adult games on the market at that time were turn-based combat games, because most of the adult games were made using RPG Maker, and this software supports turn-based combat by default. However, I think for games like Stardew Valley, turn-based combat seems unsuitable, and it should be made into an ARPG combat mode like Diablo.
Unfortunately, at that time there was no ready-made method to build an ARPG combat mode, and I had not yet found a programmer who could help me, so I had to rely on the mediocre programming knowledge I had accumulated from making games before to start trying to create the effect of an ARPG.
This is really an interesting thing because before this, whenever I wanted to implement a certain feature in the game, I had to rely on using mature plugins released by others. This is the first time I have been able to achieve the desired functionality on my own! It is really satisfying to see the characters in the game make attacking movements and inflict damage on the enemies, and to see damage numbers and health bars appear on the enemies.
In addition, I also hope that the character's portrait in the game can change costumes, so that players can dress the character in their favorite clothes, thereby making the game more playable. Because the existing portrait plugins on the market cannot meet the functions I want, so I also chose to rely on myself to achieve it.
That's it, with the implementation of one function after another, my new game gradually took shape - this is the current EMP!
For me, although I have already made the coming-of-age ceremony for the demon race before, it was more of an experimental creation for me. In comparison, in my heart, this EMP is truly the first game that belongs to me.
And it is precisely because of this game that I gradually gained everyone's attention.
Through this game, I now have 200 sponsors on fanbox and patreon, and have sold over 500 copies on itch and booth. Although this may not be a remarkable achievement for many famous creators, it is already very precious to me. At least these earnings can support me to continue making the game!
However, speaking of EMP, the production process was not smooth. First and foremost, the most direct pressure was the lack of funds. A few months after the production of EMP began, my savings were depleted. Despite my efforts to minimize the cost of the game, the difficulty of creating such a large-scale game still exceeded my imagination.
In this situation, I have no choice but to release the unfinished game and continue production by attracting supporters for sponsorship.
This indeed partially solved the problem of funding, but it also gave me a lot of pressure. I often feel very guilty because I couldn't update in time or the content of the update is too little. The pressure of this deadline also often makes me overwhelmed when facing some unexpected situations. Especially during the early stage of game release, many bugs that I couldn't figure out gave me a headache. I often tested on the computer for several days and still couldn't find where the problem was. It wasn't until later that I found reliable programmers that I finally managed to alleviate a lot of pressure.
The greater pressure comes from the external environment. The country I am in does not support adult games, especially in recent years, the government has become increasingly strict in cultural regulation.
The recent incident on H-site resulted in a large number of domestic authors being arrested. Although I managed to escape unscathed, I dare not sell games to domestic players anymore, which has almost caused me to lose all my income from China. Fortunately, I later received support from friends overseas, allowing my games to still generate some income and continue to be developed.
But on the whole, this game brings me far more happiness than pain. It allows me to earn more than a fixed salary through my own labor. It also makes me realize my own value. More importantly, it makes me know many friends.
In reality, I live in a very remote small city. My job is an ordinary clerk at the bottom of the municipal government. Without this sideline of making games, I think my life will be confined to this small city. The friends I can know and the things I can experience will be determined by the scope of this city.
But because of this job of making games, my life has exceeded the geographical limits of this city. In the process of making games, I have come to know various people, artists, programmers, and friends who enjoy my games. Among them are not only people from my own country, but also many friends from foreign countries - if it weren't for this game, perhaps we would never have crossed paths in our entire lives.
Whenever I think about these things, I feel very happy and satisfied. If there is a chance in the future, I hope to be able to travel around the world and meet friends from all over the world. I want to establish deeper and better relationships with those who like me and have helped me. I am looking forward to the arrival of that day!
Haha! That's it for now! If you guys like this kind of content, I will find opportunities in the future to introduce more stories about myself, so that you can get to know me better!
