]Hello jurors!
It’s been a week since I nervously showed my creation to the world, and what a week it’s been!
The first episode has sold far better than I could have possibly dreamed! A huge thank you to every single one of you who took a chance on a brand-new developer launching his first solo game.
Episode 2 update:
Episode 2 is now under development. I just today, rendered Alice’s next few scenes, and my gosh, they have turned out so damn cute! I can’t wait to show you all! If you weren’t already an Alice fan, I think you will be after this…
Let me set some expectations for you all regarding future releases and content. For those of you who have tried developing one of these games before, they are not quick things to just pump out (without sacrificing quality). Every single image needs to be posed, sometimes down to the finger positioning, the scenes need to be lit consistently, and dforce clothing simulated for every pose. After rendering, the images often need to be color graded, renamed, resized (I render at 4k and resize to Full HD because it helps with the grain) and sometimes composited together.
Add to the above, the actual render time of the images is roughly 6-12 minutes per image. There are around 4000 images in Episode 1, so I’ll leave you to do the math on that. As mentioned before, I am looking into render farms to speed up this part of the process. I have already spoken to a few companies who provide this kind of service. Right now, the exact solution I am looking for does not appear to be available, meaning I might end up buying my own mini render farm (essentially a separate PC which has a super high-speed processor and a few high-powered graphics cards (3090’s or 40 series). Using that, I can just send my scenes from my work computer over the network to be rendered on that machine while I keep working on my primary (You can’t really render an image and keep using the 3D software at the same time. The render process is very resource heavy).
Until I work that situation out, I cannot even guess at a release date for Episode 2, but please know – It is coming (as will all the episodes after that). I have mentioned before, this is more than just a game for me. It’s something I have put 100’s of hours of love and effort into already, and it feels very close to my heart.
Recruitment:
I have already had quite a few enquiries from jurors asking to become part of the project (rendering, social media, testing etc).
From my previous experience, working on other titles, I think that both quality and direction can be easily lost as a small business grows into a medium sized one. I don’t want to go the route of having a large team and finding myself becoming distant from the project, purely to push out updates quicker and push prices higher. For the moment, I will be continuing to develop Jury on my own.
Perhaps closer to the time, I may be looking out for beta testers, as I don’t want to release the next episode in the state this one released in. It has been a bit embarrassing to be honest, and quite stressful! I’ve learned my lesson!
Episode 1 news:
- I will of course continue to monitor any bugs that are reported. It is important to me that the content that is currently available is of a good quality.
- 13GB… It’s too much – Making patching a nightmare for those not using M.2 drives. This is probably one of the higher priorities for me to sort out.
- I want to develop an in-game screen to keep track of points (raised by the community). This will release in wire-frame mode first but will be beautified for Episode 2.
- Steam Points store – I only learned about the points store recently when a juror requested it. I need to investigate the kind of content can be provided for this, and if my game even qualifies for it. Along with that, I want to investigate the possibility of trading cards also - I’ve always thought they were kind of fun but know there are some limitations with being eligible for this.
- Alternative routes – I want to create a few alternative routes in Episode 1. One player mentioned to me a specific scene which would benefit from choices. None of the edits will dramatically change the path of the game, but for new players, it should offer a more custom play through.
- Add in gallery items for Natalie.
- Depending on the success/demand in the discord, I might do some live sessions of posing/rendering with commentary. Perhaps if I feel brave enough, maybe some coding! While all of this is hard work, it’s also a lot of fun to create these novels, so if anyone is interested in making their own, I’m happy to run through the process at a high level.
I guess I’d better get cracking then, eh?
Thank you for your ongoing support.
Nickle3DArt