Hey everybody! I was trying to do one of these every year, but I guess I missed last year? I believe it coincided with the death of my wife’s aunt, which was pretty traumatic and draining, so I guess I just forgot to do it.
But June 3rd was the four-year anniversary of the first release of Come Home. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long. But then, when I go back and read my previous state of the games, it also feels like so long ago.
If you’re curious to read the first and the second year state of the game, they are available here.
Goals from Two Years Ago
Two years ago, my goals were - steady releases of new content and to learn and improve my skills. There’s also some vague talk about a UI improvement. Let’s talk about that stuff.
New Content
Releases have slowed down a bit in the last two years. And I think I’m okay with that. When I first started this game, I wanted to do monthly updates (LOL). I thought I’d finish the game in two years.
But over time, the quality of the renders, the complexity of the coding, and the size of the updates has increased so much that not only can I not get it done in one month, but I’m struggling to get it done in four. I’ve gotten faster at a lot of things, but I’ve gotten slower at others. If I were still making the game at the quality that it was at two years ago, I have no doubt I could pop out an update in a month or two. But now, each image and animation takes much longer than it used to, despite my skills and hardware improving.
I’m also working a bit less hours than I used to. When I started the game, I was a hungry new developer. This game was sort of my last grasp at making money writing. I needed it, or else I didn’t know what I was going to do. So I spent an unhealthy amount of hours every day working on the game.
Over the last couple of years, I’ve gotten more comfortable. I’m living in a nice place, I’m able to afford food and healthcare, and I don’t feel like I might be homeless at any moment. It’s allowed me to slow down a little bit and work at a more sustainable pace.
During those first two years I was making the game, I believe I gained 25 lbs. I also developed a Vitamin D deficiency. Because I spent much of my time sitting at the computer, and didn’t go outside. The last two years, I’ve been reversing that. I’m much healthier than I was then. I’ve lost all those 25 lbs, plus some, and now weigh less than I have in 10 years. And my Vitamin D deficiency is gone. I just feel so much better now.
So, that’s why the releases have slowed down a bit. This schedule is much more sustainable for me and I’m much happier than I was two years ago.
Improve my Skills
In the older State of the Game, I talked about spending time learning Blender and Unreal. I’ve done that in the last couple of years. I’m not an expert in either of these things, but I feel comfortable enough with both programs that I know what I’m doing. I also feel comfortable enough to know that Blender and Unreal are likely not going to be part of my development pipeline going forward, as long as I remain a solo developer.
I’ve been learning other software too in the last couple of years. I learned DaVinci Resolve, which I use to make the trailers that I’ve been releasing with every update. And I have been learning Godot, which could definitely be used in future development.
And I feel like I’ve improved my skills in Daz3D and Photoshop as well.
UI Improvements
I did this! I switched from the old UI to the new “Polaroid” UI. Some people didn’t like it, but I do. And I think most players do. For me, it was a huge shift to the way the game was played. It made everything a little more simple and streamlined. It reduces the number of unnecessary clicks to get to the scenes you want to see. And I think it looks pretty good.
It’s not the best. I’m still learning a lot of this stuff. But I think it’s an improvement and I’m happy with the way it turned out.
I’m still working on UI improvements going forward and the UI will continue to be improved until the final version of the game is released.
My Personal Life Over the Last Two Years
I released Come Home in June of 2020. The year before that release was a pretty bad year.
But every year since then has been better and better.
The last year was probably the best year of my life. It started off pretty rough. My mom became disabled. The place we were living was quickly becoming unlivable. We attempted to buy a house, but all of that fell through. And then, my partner’s aunt suddenly passed away. It was a really hard few months.
But then, we found a really nice rent house with an amazing landlady. My partner and I got married after being together for 10 years. We went camping in some incredible places. We got more into fitness and have gotten so much more healthy. The Premium Edition DLC has continued to sell very well, allowing us to live much more comfortably than we’ve ever been able to in the past.
I honestly have no complaints. My life has been great over the last two years. There’s been some difficult moments, but compared to where we were, we are in an incredible place right now.
If everything stayed the way it is right now forever, I’d be happy.
The Future
But things can never stay the same. Change is inevitable and it’s been on my mind a lot lately. By this time next year, I expect the final update for Come Home to be out. That’s both awesome and terrifying for me. My life has revolved around this game for some time now, so leaving that behind and starting something new is going to be very difficult for me and I can see the edge approaching, like stepping up to a cliff before diving off.
So, what are my plans and goals for the next year?
Three More Updates
Come Home has three more updates left. Those are my top priorities right now. Right now, I’m expecting 18 to be released in September, 19 sometime around January, and then 20 around May. It’s a little slower than I was expecting a few months ago. I wanted to get three updates out this year. But Updates 18 and 19 are enormous, and I just don’t see that happening now.
Update 18 will be sort of the conclusion to the sandbox portion of the game and the beginning of the endgame.
Update 19 is going to be very different. I plan on keeping that under wraps completely. Don’t expect to see many previews for Update 19 before release.
Then, Update 20 is going to be the conclusion and will be basically all the different endings of the game (around 17 or so).
No More Come Home?
After those three updates, I plan on adding a little more content to Come Home. I plan on doing a cleanup run, with some rewrites and hitting all the minor fixes that I’ve been putting off. I plan on adding a few more things to the game as premium/patron-only content. I’ll likely take some requests on Patreon for more content as well.
After I get all of that in the game and cleaned up, which will hopefully be by the end of next year, the Premium Edition will become the Complete Edition. After that, I will work on things like translations, or possibly adding more voicework to the game, but at that point the game will be finished.
At this point, I’m not sure if I’ll ever come back to these characters or not. I have some ideas, but I plan on putting them on the backburner and working on other projects for a while.
Future Games
I’ve been tossing around ideas for future games in my head for a while. I have three or four that I’m very passionate and excited about. A couple of them would be difficult for me to do as a solo developer. Right now, I’m not sure exactly which one I will jump into first.
Part of me wants to write a more straightforward narrative story next. Focus entirely on the story and the characters and just make a classic adult visual novel. Another part of me wants to make a more game-like game. I have ideas for both that I’ve developed pretty extensively over the last few years, in the background, but I haven’t decided which I’m going to do next quite yet. It will depend on how I feel after Come Home is finished, what the marketplace looks like, and if technology has changed any by then. We’ll see.
I do have games planned though. I will be making a game after Come Home. Whichever way I go, I think you’ll like it.
Conclusion
I think that’s all I have to talk about right now. I did a Q&A, where I pulled questions from Discord, Patreon, Subscribestar, and Steam. I’ve included the answers to some of those questions below, so feel free to read more of me rambling there.
As always, thank you all so much for all the support you’ve given to me and my silly porn game. It’s turned my life around completely. I know that your support is the reason why I’ve been able to achieve all these goals and enjoy my life so much more than I used to. Thank you so much.
I love you all. <3
Q&A
I had to put the Q&A answers over on Patreon, because it is too long to post here. It is public though, so everybody should be able to see the answers over there. Thanks so much for all the good questions!