Hey folks,
It's been a few days since Valentine's Day, the release day of Act 2 of Her Last Piece, and first of all we would like to once more express our thanks for the warm reception, kind words and pro-active bug reports we've received.
We've been able to gain valuable feedback, criticism and statistics, and from that perspective, we'd like to share our thoughts for the future of Her Last Piece, primarily Act 3.
As it stands right now, and writing this with much sadness, Act 2 almost absolutely flopped. Your reception has been great, but our game has had very limited to no reach. For some context, we did assume Act 1 would not be quite successful, but it would allow you to get an early peek and offer suggestions, that have definitely helped shape Act 2. What we did however expect, was for Act 2 to at least make up for the losses we made for Act 1.
Sadly, as far as our statistics tell us, we're not going to be breaking even for a long time, even if we let the game rest and accrue some sales for a while. Mind you, this is before any form of profit is taken out, none of us have earned anything from this project thus far. Given that was a risk we took, it is ultimately saddening, and effectively has drained funds to a point where we're no longer certain about the future.
From that perspective, we've discussed the way forward for a while, and have concluded that despite the fact it's not going to make any profit, we also do not want to leave an unfinished game in the public. We do not want to disappoint those who have paid for a full experience, and we do not want to let down the fans we've made along the way. What this does mean, however, is that we'll need more time to get to that point, and potentially need to make concessions, such as leaving voice acting and translation for a later stage in the project. We simply need to acquire some more funding to continue, which we will be trying to do from here forth.
We do not want to ask you, the player, to fund our misconceptions of this project, and as such we have prepared a few fallback options that we'd like to extend, should you be willing - all of these options should be reached out over for us on Discord, or through our email mentioned on the store page. In no particular order;
- If you are a streamer, youtuber or other form of content creator, and would like to help us get the word out, please reach out to us, we'd love to hear from and work with you.
- If you enjoy the artstyle of Her Last Piece, but would like to see a character of your choice in the artstyle, our artist is going to be commissionable for such a piece. Of course, this can also extend to features for the game, should you be willing, for example an outfit for Arvenia or Fhaust.
- We're exploring the option of using existing assets to write some spin-off stories, which opens doors for other stories to intermingle with ours. This can include writing stories involving characters of games you enjoy or you are even working on. If that's the case, please reach out to us!
- If you enjoyed the music of Her Last Piece, it will become purchasable in the near future as a bundle, beside the game itself, most likely through Steam as well, but we're exploring options for this still.
- If you have ideas of your own, we would love to hear it. We consider ourselves to be very open :)
All of the income we can derive from the above will be put back into Her Last Piece, so that no matter what, you're always supporting the further development of the game.
We are terribly sorry to have had to make this post, and we hope for your understanding. We will be taking a short break over the weekend to settle some IRL matters and take the necessary measures to get us back into the driver's seat, so to speak.
Thank you for everything so far.
Yours,
- Spicemerchantsgames
You can find our Patreon here if you wish to support the game: https://www.patreon.com/HerLastPiece. All support is greatly appreciated!