Hey friends!

I hope you are having a very fun time during the holidays!

Today I wanted to talk a bit about all the stuff that happened during 2024. This is just a devlog post (and a bit of rambling).

It’s been an intense year…

The first important thing that happened this year is that I realized how much I misjudged the interest of people on kinky fight club 2. While there were a lot of people interested in a sequel to kinky fight club, I believe KYFC was still a niche game, and as such it kind of failed to make the studio grow. 

So I decided to speed up and ramp up the development of Deviance. At that point I was working on it for a few weeks only, and I was barely moving all the hundreds of meshes, textures and animations to Unreal. And here is when things start going downhill. I had hired Programmer #1 to work on unreal on November 2023, so I can start moving to the position I want to do: Creative director, so my challenge here was to learn to command others rather than just do it myself. For a bit it went decently, much slower than I expected, unsure if it was because he wasn’t as skilled as he said he was (which ended up being the truth) or if things just took that long to normal people. 

And here comes the “Fun” part. Due to personal reasons, I decided to take 2 weeks off at the end of May. During that time, literally on day 2, the Programmer #1 send me a message to say he found a client with a bigger project (so more money) and that he was dropping the project. Nice. After coming back and trying to figure out what to do, because I spent 3 months preparing and learning non-code stuff on unreal, and now I don’t have a programmer, and the motherfucker didn’t write any documentation…

However, this guy recommended me someone else that worked with him, since we were sort of “friends” I trusted him and tested Programmer #2…

Things started well with Programmer #2, and as usual the first thing she does is remake everything Programmer #1 done because he did a shit job (which was true). 

At this point I realized that there was no way in hell I could provide a decent first demo for August, as I intended. 

So I started a new project and crunched like a maniac to get a “small” first demo for August…

(First concept for Yaradiel's Crown, inside Kinky Fight Club 2) 

I couldn’t get it done in time, so I got it for September. At this point I was working like crazy on both games, and I also tested 3 other possible additions to the team: two writers and one level designer. Let’s just say none of them made the cut, one of them ended up being an activist and tried to weaponize the game against me…Without even having worked on it!

By the end of August I was exhausted, I basically remade RPGMaker on unity, by myself… and then added sex! 

My original plan for Yaradiel’s crown was to be a small prequel to develop while I were moving to Unreal, however, at the end of August (or around that time) Programmer #2 got an offer for a teaching job, and decided to drop the project. This person not only did not complete the task she said she would do, it left the project in a worse state than it was before. 

(Progress after 1 month, I do really like making the UI first)

At this point I found myself having wasted almost a year of development and a lot of money and time. I tested over 20 people, hired some, fired all of them, and all I had to show was a project that looked pretty but didn’t work. Unplayable. So I decided to cancel Deviance and abandon the Unreal engine.

(pre 0.1, now it almost looks like a game)

At the same time, the former CEO of Unity left and Unity canceled their stupid “install fee”, and started taking steps to improve as a company and regain our trust. With all the frustration I had I decided to stick to what I know and keep working on unity for some more time. This is when I started expanding on Yaradiel’s Crown and decided to make it a proper game rather than a small prologue.

(First version of Zantlaha, with only the major points of interest added)

After October I managed to slow down a bit. I was happy with the game’s overall reception. I know there is still much to improve, but I was happy with the progress. I started looking for level designers, as that is something that takes me a bunch of time and I feel I could hire someone else to do it. I posted an ad with simple instructions to test people, and at this time 22 people failed the test, 2 passed, one of them got intimidated by the game being an adult game (this info was in the ad tho) and the other wanted to pay him “senior level designer AAA rates”... (for someone with an almost empty, amateur level, portfolio)

(First demo!)

So here I am, still looking for level designers (and possibility writers). I have learned a lot this year, and realized that I could make really cool stuff. I found out that every year, I have been consistently increasing my skills and becoming able to make more complex stuff. I think the biggest challenge with Yaradiel’s Crown was making the ATB combat. 

I wanted to make something similar to all those RPGMaker games that I love, yet something different, something a bit more innovative. I definitely innovated there, but I’m still not sure if most players love it.

I think after the last update where I gave the player “absolute turn priority” is when the game started feeling better. I did post a google form so players could give me feedback, and reading that has been reassuring that while the game is in no way perfect, I’m going in a direction that most players are happy.

(0.3 Now with much better lighting)

On a systems level Yaradiel’s crown combines a lot of old systems that I had to remake, and a lot of new systems. It is the first “open world” game that I make, and integrating the whole moving + saving and loading wasn’t easy. I wanted players to have an immersive and constant experience, so if the last time they played they were in a hard situation and full of restraints, the next time they join they will still be in that situation, rather than starting “a new match”. This required a rework on both the buffs and bondage systems, so the data can be accessed and stored more easily, while also giving the player feedback on what is going on (the buff icons, the sounds, the visuals, etc).

Overall I’m happy with how things turned out on a personal level, I grew a lot and I created a lot of things that last year I didn’t think I would be able to make. I’m still annoyed at how everything related to Deviance went. I spent a lot of money and time there, and well, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose…

(The whole gang)

I’m happy that people like my games, that’s very important, because I’m not just making the game I want to play, but the game that I want everyone to enjoy!

So thanks to all of you who supported me this year… It’s been hard, but we survived!

I will come back in a few days with news of what is coming next year!

Have a wonderful day!

Cheers!