Kyrie's all-encompassing list of things

Kyrie's all-encompassing list of things


People want a status update, so here it is.

I haven't released anything for a long time. Because I barely make enough money to live off of through residual sales (would help if I didn't have to support my family, too), I haven't paid taxes and student loans in full. Can anybody say "crippling debt"?

But hey, no problem. I have a patreon, and I can develop games pretty quickly.

Except, I suffer from insomnia, back-pain that inhibit's breathing during sleep, and find it difficult to find the will to even wake up in the morning. This, combined with lethargy from other health problems, and occasional symptoms that literally make it impossible to work at times, all might have something to do with the depression. There's nothing more frustrating than helplessly watching time slip away when you want to work, and then lacking the energy to do so when you finally can.

Yet, despite the solution to at least some of these problems being to simply release something so I have the time to deal with them properly, I find myself held back by standards, and even the smallest of projects have been delayed because I felt something wasn't good enough, or "should" be better. But then they just get caught up in the rest of my life's problems, and seem as unlikely a solution as anything else.

Promises in passing become obligations; more in the way before I can finally get back to finishing things that will make a difference. Porting Eroico and Kurovadis are examples of things that seemed simple at first, but simply take a lot of time.

List of Projects and Status.

Here's a list of all the stuff I've worked on, and their status.

Noaika: It's almost done in terms of %, but there's still a lot left to do in practice. I still need to do pretty much the whole soundtrack (at least 20 songs), fix all the bugs, do animation variations, a lot of the cutscenes and writing I've left to the end, and most importantly, I'm going to need to go through and change the way things work in order to lower the memory requirements.

Side projects: These are things I worked on whenever I was taking a break from Noaika early on, and later as potential quick projects to release so that I wouldn't be broke while working on Noaika. (Not that it ever worked out that way)

Collab-1 "Monster girls": I did a Kurovadis sized project with a sprite artist, involving mischief maker-like mechanics and monster girls. The majority of the backgrounds, H, and character animation were completed. What's left is to do around 5 songs, bosses, and some of the remaining level design. I set it aside at the time to "finish" Noaika. (This was more than a year ago)

Collab-2 "asteroids": Another collab with the same artist, but with the goal of finishing in a week. This one is an asteroids style game with some twists, and H content. Like with the other one, I'd need to finish some music, and program program some stuff. This one is the smallest of these side projects.

Side project 1 "Castlevania": This one began as a castlevania clone but kept changing, and is now in an uncertain state. In it's previous castlevania clone state, it's 50% done, but in it's current changed state it's less-so.

Side project 2 "Mario/sonic": This game was initially my project file for testing new code for the camera, controls, and various other things in Noaika. Eventually I added some animations for fun and it became a project on it's own, somewhat of a mix between Mario and Sonic (attempting to do sonic right), and with a monster girl protagonist.

Plans

So...plans. At the end of the day, despite my depression, and financial troubles, I've never really been too worried, and despite the comments from people saying I'm some scam artist, I've never really been all that concerned with my reputation, either. Money? I'll release stuff and pay it off. Players? All that matters is that I make good games, and people will be happy "eventually" when I release a string of good titles.

However, that can only go on for so long before I have to commit to something that will help my current situation, rather than repeating a self destructive cycle. I need to get out of debt, I need to start saving money for the future, and once everything is out of the way and I'm "free", I need to make sure I'm not in this situation again.

First of all, I need to release some stuff. Unfortunately, Noaika isn't the quickest solution given it's scale, and I can't scrape by until it's done the way I have been. Patreon works as a constant, temporary solution, but it's not going to make a lot of money all at once, the way a game would. The sooner I pay stuff off, the less I'm getting hit by interest in the long run.

So, from longest to shortest, I've put the previously worked on projects in this order, with the top being the shortest to complete.

Asteroids
Mario/Sonic
Monster Girls
Castlevania
Noaika

This month I need to release two Patreon animations in order to survive financially. As soon as those are finished, I'm begin finishing those previous side projects, until I'm in a financially stable again. Once I am (And given that released games contrinue to make money), I'll get back to Noaika, and potentially use some of the money to pay for help with the soundtrack.

As I've said in the past, anything I release until Noaika is done will be free for those who pre-ordered it. Less of a bonus at this point and more like a constant apology. As for Kurovadis and Eroico, given that it's taking too long, I'll probably release Eroico with the redone CGs, and leave the rest for when I have the time, though I might finish it amidst the Patreon stuff.

Anyhow, that's what's going on, and that's the plan.

Any Kurovadis and Eroico revison requests?

Manga Gamer and Nutaku want to sell Kurovadis and Eroico, so I took it as a chance to fix some of the game's long standing problems. Eroico's CGs have been revised, and Kurovadis is getting redone pixel art CGs. There are also some things I know I'll change for certain;

Both games:
Updated control code (The root of some keyboard problems)
Vibration function (and the ability to disable it)
Cheats/speed run tools (Such as restarting rooms)
Add at least 1-2 new instances of H-content.
Removal of overture interactive screen (Who the hell is that? I'm just Kyrieru)

Kurovadis:
Add options screen
Add CG and sprite gallery
Change the way starting a new game and loading works (it's easy to erase your game by mistake)
Fix a couple jumps
Gears.
Menu glitch (extra slot)
Add "level up" or "Press start to level up" text to teach player about menu screen.
Balance changes (Succubus boss)

Eroico:
Add powerup in first level (sword wave) to other levels (I forgot about it at the time.)
Make changes to final boss fight? (Add alternative damage methods, teach player about mechanic earlier in the level)
possibly add Infinite health in "animation viewer" rooms.
Give Hud eyebrows.
Make hud change expressions? (The sprites were always there, but un-implemented)


I'm going to be doing a short runthrough of each game to determine what else should be changed. However, if there are any mistakes in the game that you can think of, or things that annoyed you about the games, then now is the time to mention them. Some changes will take very little time, especially if I've already done it other games since then (such as Noaika), so feel free to mention something, even if you think it's unlikely.

Started a Twitter account

I started a Twitter account on a whim today, in order to respond to someone.
https://twitter.com/Kyrieru

So, I figure I may as well use it. Perhaps I'll use it for all the random small stuff that doesn't really fit in here. I'll have to check twitter's terms of service for adult content though..

Oh hey

Oh hey. Nah, not dead yet.

I more or less just took a break from the blog for the month while I worked on stuff (And played some Dark Souls). However I'll always be responding to emails, especially given that it's a part of the job.

Anyhow, as for what I've been up to, here's the Curly Brace animation. I may make a few changes here and their, especially once a day has passed and I'm seeing it differently, but for now here it is.
http://kyrierua.blogspot.ca/p/blog-page_66.html

The other thing that's been taking up my time is my attempt to redo Kurovadis's CGs, which are pretty awful, frankly. To give some examples. (click to view fullscreen)

Original / Redo

However, some of the CGs are sort of beyond saving through minor fixes, and so I decided to do them from scratch. (And I may do the others from scratch since some of them are just kind of boring.)
Also keep in mind that the difference in size is because the the new ones are the same resolution of the game, whereas the old ones weren't.

Still not done, though. I've been having a lot of trouble making stuff I'm satisfied with, mostly because I suck at perspective. That last WIP is a good example of one that's giving me a lot of trouble. Once I get to Noaika's CGs, I'll probably take a while to just study anatomy, before attempting them, so I don't run into the same lack of experience.

Anyhow, that's what I've been up to. I'm not dead. I want to finish redoing the CGs so I can stop feeling embarrassed over the old ones. As it is I'd rather there were none at all, instead of what's there.

Other than that, I've got a bunch of stuff I've gotta do this month. I'm back to reading and responding to comments, so feel free to vent all your belated frustrations now.