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December 4 Update (Patreon)

Published:
2016-12-04 22:49:51
Edited:
2016-12-05 01:22:49
Imported:
2026-06

Content

 First up, check out the piece of fan art I received. ^-^ Original here , feel free to give the artist clicks!

I feel confident that I'll have version 0.22.0 out on Friday (December 9). This update will be another stopover in Ari-Yhilina, but it includes the majority of the content that will be in all future visits. Some of that won't be accessible yet, depending on your exact decisions, but it will be uncovered over the course of the third chapter.

Now, since the 9th is a much more relaxed release date, I have time to write a little more here. Occasionally I've said that the week involved a lot of work that wasn't primary creative work. What kinds of things am I talking about? Here's some of the stuff that went on this week:

1) The DLsite version of Ouroboros is finally up... on the Japanese site only. English version coming later. This was a pain, but it's finally accepted. -_-

2) I had a meeting with all the Nutaku staff; they're quite serious about trying to engage creators (and potentially offering funding). Will anything come of this? Not necessarily, but I acquired some useful information.

3) More networking than usual. This includes talking with the guy behind Seeds of Chaos  as well as some of the creators behind Skyborn. Conversations like these are useful for generating creative energy.

4) Communication regarding maps for TLS. The Renthnor map is actually done, I was going to show it off today, but then received the fanart. I'll post it with a little commentary later, though!

5) Work on a side project. I can't help myself. >.>

But having said all that, most of my work was on core projects. Barring natural disaster or illness, you can count on getting TLS 0.22.0 this Friday!

Files

Comments

Even

looks awesome! :D

StalkerRoguen

Nice artwork... This Simon is pretty young.... : P

Ripe

Hm, Simon does look a bit too young (he is in late 50's after all!) but other than that, look great.

Darthjake

Could be a side effect of the shard affecting him too, Glad to hear you are able to talk to the other developers, I like the concept and art with Seeds of Chaos. Looking forward to the side project. :0

Ripe

Could be, but didn't we had a discussion about it between Yarra, Aka, Hilstara and Robin at one point? One where Yarra said that while shard could make Simon look young again that it won't happen because Simon sees himself as "old man"... or something along those lines?

sierralee

Haha, I'm glad to see so much support for old Simon. ^-^ For the record, the shard has reversed Simon's aging in subtle ways but hasn't changed his appearance because, as they state in that conversation, his mental image of himself is too strongly fixed as an old man. However, prior to the shard, he had achier joints and his strength had declined somewhat from his prime, that kind of thing. But this is all happening subconsciously because he needs that strength, so no matter how long he has the shard, he'll never look any younger.

Darthjake

I'm trying to recall at what point that conversation took place, and I'm not sure I want to start a new game to find it :D Can I get a section or something that I can load an old save to re-visit that discussion?

Argo The Ratfolk

His younger appearance is partially my fault in my apparent failure to communicate with her the aged features, she was working almost only off of his typical avatar and while I had mentioned to add some grey to his hair and such, it seems that minor detail wasn't too prominent. Nevertheless I will do my best to clarify the need for such details in the future to show my support for old Simon as well in my next commission (Likely involving Qum <3) and apologize for failing to communicate the minor details effectively in this art.

Decanter

Darthjake: It's one of the conversations with Hilstara in Devil's Pass, when Yarra is trying to get her to join the harem. Canonical Simon has always looked slightly older than I'd like, with the deep lines in his face - though he's actually well-preserved for his age and lifestyle. But the Simon in the fanart looks to be perhaps 30, and that's a bit much artistic license. That isn't to say I don't appreciate regardless the fact that someone commissioned fanart.

HarmlessArachnid

I don't know about the age, but Simon looks somewhat... meaner than I imagined him. Perhaps it's the eyebrows?

AJ_Dragon

I really like the art to bad there is not art in the game, this would really look good in one of the sex scenes.

Bladestorm

Interesting fan art personally I like it but he could have a bit of grey in the hair like it was said before by Jack grey. Now I got to count down the days until the update, nice to hear about the updates, networking, and of course the map! Anyway have a good day to any who reads this.

Darthjake

Jack, it's great art, we are just a nit picky bunch, don't stress over it, and yes, I'd like to see more of your work here! Thank You Decanter!

Ripe

Jack, don't worry about us... as Darthjake said, "we are just a nit picky bunch". The art is great and I'd gladly see more of it.

Ripe

I had to disagree with you on art in the game... personally, as someone who played both versions of Ouroboros, I can honestly say that art was the weakest point of Ouroboros 2.0 and didn't really brought anything to overall enjoyment of that game. So I don't think that art, no matter how great can in any way enhance TLS either.

Darthjake

I think that if Sierra is able to find an artist that can evoke TLS it will enhance the story, but the artist will have to be on par with Sierra's writing.

Ripe

It's not so much about finding an artist that can evoke TLS (even if that is a big portion of it) but about finding an artist willing to do Sierra's writing justice. You simply can't do that with one image (with several variations) per scene... due to the quality of Sierra's writing we'd need at least 3-4 different images (each with several variations!) to do justice to even the smallest scenes involving just one character! For huge orgy scenes we might be talking about 15-20 different images! And with all the variations of each image that could mean up to a 100 pictures per scene! I seriously doubt any artist would be willing to commit to a project of that size.

Thinkcork

Even if someone was to accept such a daunting task, the images would then compress the text to the bottom of the screen and kill the purpose of having it there in the first place, as it is now a distraction to the image. One of the strengths of pure writing in erotica is that it leaves your imagination to fill in the visual gap. Just picture Yarra, Hilstara or Megail as their bust figure shows them and let the scene run wild in your mind. This, in my opinion, can be so much more powerfully erotic than just having a picture to show, especially with writing like Sierra's. Probably one of the only true exceptions to the "show, don't tell" rule. I don't necessarily agree with AJ_Dragon that picture art didn't enhance Ouroboros (the scenes in it were both shorter and wilder, closer to what we got in Noxian Nights), but for TLS, pure text is the way to go!

Decanter

While I enjoy the scenes as they are, I disagree that adding art would have to ruin them. For one thing, just because they've been integrated with text using that particular caption-esque method in two games so far does not mean that TLS must use the same method. There are other ways this could be handled - for example, we might have a full page of text or two, then a picture, then another full page, etc. If you didn't entirely care for the art in Ouroboros, that needn't be discouraging either. It isn't as though Santystuff will be the artist for TLS. Nothing close to his style would feel right for TLS in any case, and I suspect SL perceives this. While I do not mean to imply that you should blindly fanboy (or fangirl) her decisions, I believe SL understands that this is an important component of her flagship project to get right, and have faith that she will show the same care in implementing it that we have come to expect. I'd encourage everyone not to be too pessimistic about change.

Ripe

I have no problem with the way art is incorporated in both Ouroboros and Noxian Nights, I just feel that no art can do Sierra's writing justice. I'm also slightly worried that no single artist would be "crazy" enough to take on a project this big which might lead to several artist working on it and that can end up in disaster due to clashing styles. I do trust Sierra to make best choice since, like you said, this is her flagship project.

sierralee

Discussions are great, of course, and I welcome criticism! However, at this point maybe it would be helpful if I made a few statements? I still intend to get more art for TLS. It would probably not take the same form as seen in Ouroboros or NN, instead trying to merge image and text without having the two running parallel. Attempting to represent every single movement artistically, much less the 15-20 images/scene mentioned, would lead to a total art budget of hundreds of thousands of dollars. I feel very fortunate to have found some success, but I do not have that kind of money. Obviously I love text, it's where I started and a medium I still want to do more with. But the truth is that for a very large percentage of my potential audience, lack of art is a reason to instantly disregard the game. I'd like to include images for personal artistic reasons, but also I don't want a large portion of my potential audience to be removed because of this. Having said all that, this is not a decision I would make lightly. Though the lack of artist searching these days has more to do with low energy, it's also something I'm taking seriously. You can rest assured I won't choose an artist until I have someone I feel would be completely appropriate for the project. I'm also committed to giving the project a relatively unified art style. I've put a lot of effort into it with the characters and everything else, after all, I wouldn't want to ruin that by having wildly disparate styles for the drawn scenes. Working with multiple artists would only happen if they could match a "house style" which would be similar to the character portraits we already have.

Ripe

It's a shame that people who disregard this game due to lack of art... and it also make me wonder if they'd like the game anyway. I mean, for a game that provide close to 30 hours of gameplay there really is not that many "sex scenes" you can get in single gameplay since some are mutually exclusive (we're talking 50-60 scenes, not counting those what are RP locked).

Decanter

Well, everyone seems to love Legend of Queen Opala, and I recall it being considerably worse at pacing the sex scenes. I'm not sure TLS is a 30-hour game by standard metrics, either - I have about 30 hours on my file, but I explore <i>everything</i>. Disregarding a game due to lack of art is not a decision I'd make, obviously, but not one I can readily condemn. Some people are simply more visual, while others simply don't want to spend time downloading and installing anything that doesn't sell them on the erotic aspect up front. In any case, the market of people for whom CGs are non-negotiable is too large to ignore lightly.

sierralee

Believe me, I know there are large groups of people who are, shall we say, not my target audience. But I think there's a sizable contingent that is tired of mediocre h-games and therefore uses CGs and non-RTP assets as a quick metric of effort put into the game, and those are people I don't necessarily want to turn away. As for sex scene pacing, I hope mine is about right for the sex/gameplay ratio I'm aiming for. TLS is a lot longer than many games, but it also has a lot more sex scenes - even a lot of the big Japanese RPG Maker titles have only 20-30 scenes total.

AJ_Dragon

DAMN, did not expect a small comment to blow up like an Atom Bomb. Now that I have said that let me say a few things, first off I love TLS if I did not I would not support it with my money and time. Second there is no way I would want Sierra to ruin this AWESOME game with Poor or Inadequate art work, the only way I would want Sierra to add art work/CG is if it fit TLS and if it elevated the game higher. Finally the only reason I made that comment was because I was excited about the Art image and I honestly thought that it would look good in the TLS.

Darthjake

As I told someone earlier this group is nit picky, but not really nit picky, but discriminating, and not in a bad way. We are focused in our likes and the immersion in the story that Sierra is weaving for us. Everyone has opinions, and I'm glad we have this forum where we can discuss them rationally and get honest, and constructive feedback at the same time.

Ripe

Well, Legend of Queen Opala did came out what... 6-7 years ago when there was a lot less adult games to choose from. I'm not sure how it would do if it was released today. But Sierra is right, there are people who look at what game had to offer and when they see there's no CG they skip it thinking it's low effort game.