Progress Report #85 - Almost there! (Patreon)

Hey lads!

I'm aiming to release Unaware in The City on November 30th, but I'll tag it as Closed Beta. What does it change? Literally nothing, but I want you all to be aware that this initial release will have a lot of bugs (mostly art/animation related) and might be quite unstable. I know you all have been waiting a really long time and I don't want to further delay it. Thus I have a small request, could you guys not share this version on other sites? I don't want new people to have bad first impression. As always, game will get a public release after around a month, so let me fix a game during this time in peace, please.

I believe that I already did like 99% of the stuff I wanted for the initial release, so until November 30th I'll be mostly fixing bugs and animations, and there's really a lot of animations to fix (over 400 files in total), since new character art and animation system won't work with old animations. Some are quick fix, some require me to re-make them from scratch. So, there's nothing really interesting to share, just playtesting and fixing, but here's a screenshot with all unique characters in one place. Don't mention their clothes, they are random.

As mentioned in the previous progress reports, on Friday I lost all my mobility, because hospital took away the device that allowed me to move freely in the last 3 years, and now I'm stuck at home forever. Though I'm quite mad, don't you worry, as I'm already working on trying to get a new one from a different source, but in the worst case I'll have to pay for it.

Funny thing about me is that, just like my dad, I'm a workaholic, so slacking is not an option for us, we need to be occupied all the time, we have crunching in our blood and we are pretty resistant to burnout, so don't worry about me too much, it's not like I have better things to do anyway. Yeah, it might sound like some super power, but it has its issues. Not being able to work on something that we enjoy drives us crazy, while doing anything non-work related usually feels like a wasted time. It's also really hard to force us to do things which we hate doing (UI in my case). Though to be really effective and protect myself from burning out, I need to occupy myself on multiple things, like for example working on 2-3 different projects like I did in the past, but it's impossible when you are a solo dev working on a huge project like Unaware in The City. Thus the trick I always use here is working on multiple features - new X-Ray, visible panties under skirt, hunger, traits, auto saves, camera, optimization, new tools to speed up whole dev process, and so on (my main role in other projects was usually a game designer). Some features are released, but also some of them get deleted in the end, or some of them are started and never finished. This time I also went quite crazy and overboard with the stuff I wanted to add for the initial UiTC release and it was dumb. I started working on UiTC in May, so it's already been 6 months. Don't want to blame artists for delays, since they had other projects, too, and they did a really great job and I'm proud of them, but I could release the game earlier and less bugged, if only I focused solely on new art and animations, ignoring everything else (but that's sadly not how I roll). So I wanted to apologize for that. But what's most important, I'm gonna disable and revert majority of new features coming to UiTC, because I want as smooth and issue-free launch as possible. I'll add them over time as I fix the problems with the game, to avoid getting crushed by work and bugs in the upcoming weeks. So for example, running Jane will be in the game (since it's done), but it won't deplete energy, because Hunger/Sleep Deprivation got temporary disabled etc., stuff like that. Sorry and thank you for understanding, but I believe it will be for the best.

From important stuff, I changed how billing works. Before, you would pay upfront upon pledging and then on 1st of each month again, so if you pledged on the 29th, you would still be charged again on the 1st. Pretty unfair, right? But recently Patreon gave us an option to change how it all works. Now, if you pledge, you will be charged again after 30 days, so if you pledged on the 29th, you will be charged again on the 29th next month. So no more overcharging! It will affect only new patrons, since existing ones will still be charged on the 1st day each month. Enjoy!

Also, as a small reminder, I'm increasing prices to 5 & 15 euro (Unaware & Aware tiers) for new patrons. Everyone who pledged before November 30th will keep their old prices, until they cancel pledges, and sadly there's nothing I can do once it's cancelled. This also applies to annual subscriptions which are 16% cheaper than monthly subs.

That's it. See you on November 30th!