I haven’t posted on here in a while, because I generally only post when I’m releasing a new update for Night Games. As you can see, there’s still no update. Instead of having extra time in the summer months, I ended up working full time through the summer and had less time for game development. This doesn’t mean I’ve been idle however. As I mentioned in the comments, I was experimenting with some other game ideas. The ones I mentioned are all currently shelved and I’ve been working on Night Games for the past few months.
I decided to take this long break to finish writing the scenes I had been putting off for several updates. My writing is a lot slower than my coding, so it’s taken a while, but I’m pretty close to a major update. Approximately 3 more scenes to hit the minimum target for the update, at which point I’ll announce a date for the update, then another week to test and try to squeeze in some extra content.
However, I am slightly sidetracked again. A couple days ago I was struck by an idea for a small new game. I’m writing it in twine and should be able to publish it directly to the blog. As you may be able to guess from the engine, it’s mechanically light and writing heavy. Since I’m much better at mechanics than writing, I’m not sure why I thought this would be a good idea. Fortunately, it’s small enough in scope that I should be able to have a playable version written within a week or so. If it takes too long, I promise I’ll jump back to Night Games. Right now, I won’t be able to concentrate on it. Either way, I’ll be back to finishing up the update pretty soon. If nothing else, It’ll at least be good writing practice.
It’ll try to have more news in a week or so, either that I’m pulling the trigger on the Night Games update or that the new game is ready for initial release.
While I am eager to see an update for Night Games, even an “I am still working on it” is good. Just please do not get burned out and leave NG forever…
(And, at the risk of using a meme, “A twine game is fine, too.”)
It’s good to hear from you; I always check in daily out of habit and lately I’ve been feeling like you were chased away by the popularity of the mod. Night Games is my favorite porn game, so I’d love to see it continued.
If you don’t mind me asking, did your experimenting with those other games turn out any useful results? Refreshing your coding enthusiasm, giving you ideas, etc? Are any of them in a playable state? I remember thinking the spirit clothing one sounded really interesting.
The mod has been a great sounding board. It’d full of ideas that are often dramatically different from the vanilla version with an audience of fresh eyes. I can see these ideas in action and judge what I want to implement into the vanilla version or completely avoid.
For example: the bodymods require that every skill has an attacking body part and a target body part. While I’m not likely to implement bodymods in a significant way, a simplified version of the body part system has made implementing some traits much easier.
As far as the other games go, I don’t think I can point to any concrete benefits from those other designs, except for giving me a reason to research other game engines. Of that batch, only the spirit clothing RPG is still on the table, but I’ll need a full time artist for that game, so I’m unlikely to do anything with it in the near future.
Ideas for new mechanics aren’t what I need now anyway. I’ve been writing code to put off writing content since March. This long break is the cost of all that piled up writing work. I’ve been slowly churning out scenes that I planned out ages ago.
In related news, the new game is going well. At this rate, I expect to have a playable version with two available girls pretty soon. Hopefully this will also help me become a faster writer and improve my productivity on Night Games
Make a patreon so you can get money for working on the game instead of part time job. People get lots of $ for stuff that’s much worse than this so you should do pretty good.
I’m currently looking into that, but I want to make sure I have something extra to offer to subscribers first.