Alright, I don't actually know how to really start this off so I'll simply begin with rambling a bit as always.
I will post somewhat of an abbreviated version over on Discord.
I will try marking everything important over here too, but if you're not into these kind of rants I'd recommend checking out the Dream Molder News Channel over there!
Upcoming Dream Molder Animation Release
Let's start this by going ahead and saying that I definitely won't be able to upload the animations/h-scene before end of the month as I planned to.
This was probably pretty obvious by now since progress kept getting slower over the last few days but I wanted to make it clear for everyone that isn't following the blog 24/7.
Not only does this mean that I have to push back animation releases but that also means that the first DM Episode will take a bit longer to release again aswell.
Now I know that there simply isn't much I can do, if it's too much work to get done in that amount of time that's pretty much how it is. I need the time that I need after all.
However since I've pretty much got no content for this month to upload AGAIN, I kind of got into thinking if I should change how I handle the whole Patreon situation...
Patreon Situation (rant)
I set up the patreon so that people that might want to help & support me with what I do have the option/ability to do so.
Not only is this a way of giving something back to or showing me that you've liked my work and I should keep going but it also helps me taking my mind of some things that I usually have to deal with, making it easier for me to focus on work/art for you guys.
However as the support increased I also increasingly worried about being unable to actually give back the amount of effort you guys deserve for it.
It's a bit stupid in a sense since everyone of you obviously knows for themselves if what I put out is worth supporting as you wouldn't support me if that wasn't the case.
But still.
I can't help but think someone might feel cheated on which I simply can't deal with it seems.
The split in support about some people being here for the animations and some for DM doesn't help either since I feel bad posting either without the other.
It's an easy thing to post an animation that I'm working on over a month or two as I have a finished "product" to post in the end, but with DM it isn't as easy.
It's gotten to the point that I avoid activity or posting on Patreon altogether, and that simply wasn't what I set it up for.
It's not the first time I'm ranting about this and a lot of the people following me for a while probably anway.
Me trying to avoid posting definitely has to stop and it's about time thatI change things up to make it work again though.
So for everyone having to deal with this, sorry for the chaotic mess and I hope it's not too much of a bother.
Patreon / Update Changes
But let's get to the important part of this rant, how I'm actually planning to change stuff up for now:
1. Random Patreon Animations will have to wait, Dream Molder releases come first
First off I need to make clear that I'm focusing work on DM right now and until I've finished Episode 1 there won't be any random animations.
This was probably clear from the get-go as I mentioned it a couple of times by now. I'm still planning on releasing the Lopunny Animation at some point, but not in April as planned in the roadmap since the Dream Molder Episode isn't out either.
2. Returning to Patreon
2nd, I will start posting on Patreon again to enable support for the few that want to do so or were actually waiting for it.
I won't change anything up about the way I did it before.
It's still going to be per post, and 1 post per month at most, but instead of forcing myself to get a certain patch out and posting every few months while having rushed through it the whole time I will post summaries/collections of what I actually got done without rushing/crunching.
This way quality stays up and I'm not burning myself out either.
These collections will pretty much contain everything I've got done in that time and will be shown off as progress gifs of colorations, different texture layers for animations, clips of finished scenes or features, etc, etc..
I even thought about some speed draw to show what I did in detail and have something like a tutorial for coloring at the same time.
(This would need a bit upgrading from my side though and that's only gonna be a thing if enough people want it since I'm way too messy.)
Since I'm unable to finish the animation till the end of the month anyway I would take the next couple days to collect everything I did over the last few months from Fia's model, the Braixen Creator, WIP-CG Art and Animation textures
and upload all of it to patreon instead.
I thought taking the model and making a small demo-clip of sorts to show how the model would be used in DM/dialogues.
Next month will include the animations that I weren't able to finish, a demo of the h-scene itself and hopefully some bigger DM stuff also...
But that will depend on the 3rd change in this list which is regular Dream Molder polls on Patreon.
3. Dream Molder Polls
There's is lot's of decisions and changes to make on Dream Molders progress and I feel like putting up polls on them would not only give more insight on what and how I'm working at the moment, but also make me feel more at ease, showing me that what I'm working on is actually what you guys are looking forward to.
Something I thought about already was that instead of releasing DM as an Episode, I could release the whole game without h-scenes and CG's, then add them one after the other.
This would get the full game out a lot faster, especially the censored version and give me the option to pull in other artists to help out creating the CG's making full release faster than ever.
However, this would also mean that spoilerfree gameplay with 100% of the content won't be possible as early since episodes might take longer but will be released as is.
This is just one of the thoughts and definitely independent of the work on the h-scene I'm doing right now, that's still going to be prority for now.
If people would like to see the full story/gameplay rather than the h-scenes+CG-art I would rather focus on that one next than finishing a short part of the game instead.
But that's the kind of opinion I will try getting from you guys with every release to be sure that where I'm heading is actually the right way to go.
A few more words...
There's probably more that I wanted to talk about but it's getting quite late over here and I still have to post the shorter version on discord as well.
This post probably isn't exactly what people were looking forward too for the end of the month but I will try collecting everything to show and share with you guys on patreon in a couple of days.
If this actually get's positiv feedback that is.
If this is a bad idea after all just let me know. I can always change stuff up and I do want you guys to be part of this after all.
Just something I thought was worth mentioning at the end-
I'm not good with this kind of stuff but I hope that all of you are doing fine in consideration of the ongoing virus situation.
Most people are probably not personally affected healthwise, but I guess we all have to deal with it in some way or form be it quarantine, lockdowns or forced vacations.
Let's hope this all grows over quickly and that everyone here stay's safe and healthy!