Vertikal rotierender Fisch (Patreon)

I'm checking in a little earlier than usual, just to give you a quick update.

First, the poll. I'm genuinely surprised by the result. In the last unofficial poll, where I had to go by comments alone because there was no other way to do it, Option B was ahead by a wide margin. This time Option A won, and not narrowly: it got more than twice as many votes as Option B.

What I find interesting is how clearly that shows the 80/20 rule at work. The idea is simple. Out of everyone who engages with a piece of media, only a small share ever engages with it on a deeper level. Say a hundred people play an MMO. Maybe twenty of them will ever go looking for a guide on a forum. And out of those twenty, only a handful will actually comment or take part in the discussion. The rest read the guide and move on.

That's exactly what happened here. The comment poll only reached the people active enough to leave a comment, which is a small and very specific slice of the audience. The official poll reached everyone else as well, and the result flipped completely.

Anyway, back to the update. The result was interesting, but as I've said before: whenever I have something that fits both categories, something that looks good and is also relevant to the story, I'm posting it either way. Today's image is a good example. It's atmospheric, but it also shows you something. It gives you a sense of the mood in the second half of Chapter 13. I really like this one, not because it's technically clean, high resolution or nicely balanced(There's still plenty of room for improvement.), but because of what it carries.

Now, the actual reason I'm posting. From now on, every time an NSFW scene is finished, Dark One tier members will get a preview clip in the Discord as an additional benefit.

If you're not on the Dark One tier, don't worry: you're not missing anything permanently. You'll see the full scene in the finished chapter like everyone else. This is just an early look.

I can't post those clips on Patreon. The video embedding there is genuinely awful, and I'd rather not test how fully explicit material sits with Patreon's rules. I have no interest in trouble with Big Boy Patreon.

So Discord it is. I know some of you don't use it. It's free and fairly simple to link up, but I completely understand that there are good reasons not to, and I don't have an alternative yet. Sorry to everyone this doesn't work for.

As for the why: I work on the animations in parallel with everything else. I make this game alone in theory, but not entirely in practice. Combat scenes and all the regular animations are mine. The NSFW animations are a different story. A lot of them, especially in the newer chapters, are done by dedicated animators I bring in for exactly that. Coordinating all of it runs alongside the rest of my work, which is also why you hear so little about it, even though it's the part a lot of you are here for.

Hence the previews: a short clip from every finished scene, posted in the Discord.

If you'd rather go in blind and don't want to know who gets some action in the new chapter, just don't open them. Everything sits behind a spoiler tag, so nothing jumps out at you. You have to click to see it. Only the people who actually want a taste in advance will get one.

Other than that, what's there to say? Work is going really well right now. Chapter 13, the second half especially, but the first half too, has a different feel to it in terms of mood and where the story goes, and so far I'm very happy with it. The work doesn't get monotonous for me and I'm having fun with it. That's the whole point, honestly. I just enjoying making this stuff and getting it out there. As long as that's the case, I think we're in good shape.

That's it from me. Thanks for reading, look after yourselves, don't do anything stupid, and stay safe.

Love,Berki