Hard Calls
I'd just like to point out that this was a fun experience, making this game. For my first creation of this type, I would like to believe I did a pretty good job. However, since it was my first project, there were some issues. There were so many cool things I wanted to do in the game, but I didn't quite know how to implement them all in ways that would compliment each other. And with certain decisions that had to be made, like changing the game content completely and adding in new characters, it finalized this decision. For this project, the dev team has come to an agreement that it has to get canned. It just got too messy to handle, to fix, and it had features that were all over the place. I am sorry to everyone who found enjoyment in this project, but it's simply too much to try and fix at this point.
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However, I am not done making games. I truly did enjoy working on Collars up until the point where it kind of collapsed on itself. I did learn quite a bit on the mechanics and details that go into making the game. I would like to think I have more experience to make a more polished result, even more so on a fresh slate.
As somebody who has gotten into playing several games of her own, and gotten attached to many projects, I know it sucks to see this. I did try to fix it, given all the situations that went down, but it was beyond redemption. However, all is not lost. We are completely redoing this. The right way.
Paws and I have been heavily discussing and fine-tuning the story for the remake. All the features will be more useful and less out of place, there will be less holes in the game to have to patch up or tend to,and all the ideas are going to be implemented together to reduce the mess that was prominent last time. Not to mention the severe impact the images had on the game file size before. There will be a cleaner, more space efficient way of handling character profiles this time. Because there sure were a lot of parts.
The remake will have the same sexual appeal as the old game, but with a bit more story and playability this time. The Collars remake will not feature Izuna/Izu as the main character, but rather their grandchild [you will be able to select your gender and input your own name at the start up this time]. There will be more to the story posted later, but everything is currently still being designed for a demo. The game will be named to hold up reference to it's parent project, but that is also still being decided on.
I would also like to point out, that any characters and npcs from the fan suggestion event will still be in the game, as they had little to no screen time and will still be significant in the story.
Aside from those characters, there will be new ones and new skills as well.
I got really scared at first, but now I'm really excited to see a fined-tuned version of collars.
ReplyDeleteWe too, chuu! There are so many things we wanna do! We're smarter now, though, and are gonna implement one whole thing at a time.
Deletei cant wait to play the game. :)
DeleteWe're gonna release a demo once we outfit the core. ouo
DeleteSad to see this one go, but I'm hopeful for the remake. I hate to agree it but the game was messy, if I have anything to suggest for the remake it's "Focus on one thing at a time, and finish it before moving to the next project". I say this because that is what many games struggle with in their development, multiple side projects in the game that always need to be fixed or completed, it takes away from focusing on current plans for the game.
ReplyDeleteThat's what we figured. Almost 10 months ago. It took a while to let Collars go, but we are really excited about moving ahead and doing it again, but better, chuu. I'll be posting somewhere withing this week about the planned stuff, which may not be all that different from a player's point of view, but will be an oceans apart for us as the developers. The best thing is, if we pull this off, the updates will be more frequent, because much less messy to implement, and never partial. If we release an update, it will contain something in it's entirety. Like, new career tree, new character to be seduced, or a location added. There will no longer be empty maps, vague people who have no real or unfinished content, no job advancement denied because not implemented yet.
DeleteHold onto your butts, people.
Maybe you could also farm out some of the coloring work. If you put out the lineart and asked others to do digital inking and flats, it would save you a tiny bit of time?
ReplyDeleteI work in unity and unreal engines, and I don't know much about RPG maker, but maybe you could also reduce the image size with a constrained color color set of 16-32 colors and utilize a cell-shade or dithered art approach. The advantage of the latter is that dithering and cell shading can be relegated to a style sheet. Meaning you could also farm out art load to the public.
My final suggest would be using some source tree/ speed tree/ etc sort of system. It allows everyone in your project team to have the most up to date developer version of the game and resolves conflicts and file updates for you.
https://www.prepressure.com/library/file-formats/gif
DeleteIt looks like you can cut the file size in half, or to a tenth, if you plan the art around such a scheme... But this is assuming that RPG maker games can use gifs and transparent gifs.
The graphics will change a bit now. Because this time, we have two artists, who will cooperate on the art. We'll see about how we'll find our common grounds in those, but we do aim to largely limit the picture weight in the child project, so that downloading it will be easier on you folks. ouo
DeleteOh, and we'll look into the gif thing. Thanks for the tip!
DeleteAnd to further explain serialize, that would be like saying "Jane has her eyes at the eyeanchor+5x, 2y" Where as "Jake has it at 0x, 5y"
DeleteCreate a backend that allows an offset and a stretch to be set universally for any display of a given character. That way if "Jake" and "Jane" get displayed as different heights, the universal offset will make sure that the blindfold is eye level automatically.
Otherwise, if you code this as it comes up, that means having to code unique offsets for every character for every event.
But I am really assuming a lot of freedom in RPG maker's ability to display images.
Not as much as one may think, honestly, but we manage. I mean... Nekomama manages. She's doing that.
DeleteI'd love it if you all opened a forum, or got a forum section given to you from a forum that already exists. I never get a chance to talk with your team or yourself over on Ulmf because the singular thread is cluttered with various purposes, like asking for hints and reporting bugs.
DeleteI have been playing for ages, and I never really give feedback or praise. I guess it's sad that I'm only doing it now that the project has to reboot D=
I am really looking forward to future work.
One big thing I would suggest is that all characters belong to the game/project. If the character is so personal to someone that they have to take it with them, were they to quit, it doesn't belong in a team project.
So if you get outside help, it's with the understanding that someone can't yank out 40 hours of other people's work and art in the process.
( Not sure if this will double post or something, been fighting it all day to comment properly. )
Technically, right now the team consists only of me myself and Nekomama. To keep things neat we keep only one programmer (Nekomama herself) and both she and I do the artwork this time, to speed the process up. I do the mapping and a pig part of the lore comes from my end. I can do some minor programing on my own, like making areas functional (doors working, flavor text, containers and non-attached to other stuff quests), but most advanced stuff like new scripts and other advanced stuff is her doing. I'm gonna a be fairly active here on the blogspot, but we are yet to figure out a more direct way for the fans to contact us and maybe even show off their fanart. For now we're contemplating making a tumblr, but we'll see later when we have at least the demo ready.
DeleteSo much for not dead. Just rename the child and everything is fine, yes? I didn't know american logic is all over the internet but let's trump with that.
ReplyDeleteReally now? Man all those poor tryhard believers...i kinda want to shed a tear.^^
Well, admittedly, the blow that removal of two characters so deeply rooted into the concept proved to be too much. We fought for it, but the original concept is dead. The post title was about us, me and Nekomama not being dead, by the way.
DeleteI don't really know what do politics have to porn, but hey, you keep doing your thing, little dude. Fact is, Collars in it's original design was messy and inefficient, because it was made while we only learned to use the tools that the RPGMaker offered us. Still, it was a great learning experience, and this time we can make it work much better.
I'm not telling you to trust or believe me (we're all strangers on the internet, after all) but I'll be happy to show that this decision was right in the future.
Meanwhile, you probably have a lot of important stuff to do, so I'll leave you to that, and wish you a nice day~ ouo
Glad to hear back from you all. While I'm sad that Collars isn't going to be completed, the fact that there will be a similar game built from the ground up mitigates that.
ReplyDeleteI hope you let us know soon if there will be a new website for the game, or if you'll stick with this blog. I'm also excited to see where you all go from here, and wish you the best of luck in your future work.
While I wanted to move it, we decided that it would be troublesome for you fellows. So, instead, we are gonna clean this one up and spruce it up.
DeleteAs for the new game, it's still collars. We're building it from the ground up, but we are gonna stay true to the idea of the Original Collars when creating the better, neater Remake. There will still be people to romance or turn into pretty slaves, but there will also be a lot of new things to entice you fellers into trying the new thing out. Still, we are really happy to hear there are people who liked the original so much. Hopefully, you'll like the remake even more.
I'm sorry to hear that Collars is no more, but I'm really happy to know that your still making a game like it, and that Dominic is still going to be in it. X3
ReplyDeleteYep, Both Domi and Gabe were new, so very flexible compared to the others who were too deeply rooted in the old universe to be moved. Especially Miko... Both boys are gonna have jobs in town, one of them is even getting a pretty important shop to run.
DeleteI'm sorry to hear, I liked the old game, but from what I hear, the new version should have some rather fun twists. For one, being able to choose your, err, setup, rather than having to get a potion every couple of weeks... Also glad that y'all are still developing, rather than just hanging up the hat like so many have. Getting the demo now, can't wait to see what y'all can come up with!
ReplyDelete