Dev Diary #118: New Beginning

So... huh. Get some snacks ready because the mother of all walls of text is coming.

But first: Don't forget that you can check all the work in progress on Trello. I update every day, well, not every day, but almost every day when I make some progress. I'll leave the link here: https://trello.com/b/Grmrg3Mx/lust-age-new-home

And for patrons (Aspirant tier and up), you have access to an exclusive WIP with a sneak peek of everything I do (every visual thing, obviously). I'm now focusing on doing ‘before VS after’ of everything I work on, and the truth is that I'm having a lot of fun doing that even though it's a bit of extra work. You can find the link in the patrons' chat here on Patreon.

That aside... here is a summary for those who have less crazy things to do and don't have time to read the crazy sht coming up:

• I'm going to make a ‘reborn’ of the game, although not literally.

• The game will be renamed ‘Lust Age: New Home’, as it should have been called from the beginning.

• The plot will remain the same, but the narrative will change slightly in some events. Some will be extended to provide more context, etc.

• The decision to make some of the main girls be secondary girls has been canceled (this has been a drama in my head for over a week).

• The story of Alina and Myra will be rewritten, although their curse will be kept as the main core.

• Natsuki's story will be almost completely rewritten, but her traditional personality will remain.

• From now on, Alina, Myra, and Natsuki won't move to the Manor. There will be a major change in their stories and, as explained on several occasions by Maria, they will decide not to live with you but to live in Gold Town.

• Despite the previous point, they will be main girls, and obviously, they will end up moving to the Manor, but that won't happen just when meeting them, other events will have to happen first.

• The most important thing of all, even though I feel bad about it, is that everyone is going to have to start the game from scratch. This will be the last time this happens, as from here on, the project will be in its final state and won't need any more ‘reworks’, ‘reborns’, or whatever.

• As the previous point is something that everyone has to do, I'm going to take the opportunity to change RPG aspects (or improve them) that I never wanted to look at because of everything that it involved, without forcing everyone to start from scratch.

• The game will have a content cap in each ‘reborn’ version, respecting the content cap it once had (similar to what WoW Classic has done in recent years, to give you an idea).

• These versions will not have a public version as such. These versions will be available to patrons with a cycle similar to the current one, but there will come a time when ‘free members’ will also have access to these versions. That will be the closest thing to a public version. I can't summarise this, so you can go to the post's end to learn more about this.

• I have made this decision because I am tired of the direction the project has been taking over the last two years. It's time for a change.

It's a bit of an extended summary, but despite that, it doesn't mention more than what is necessary or essential. I will omit things, such as adding more interactions with Patricia and Dany during the intro. Speaking of interactions, my idea with all this is to also introduce more interactions/inputs from you with the game/story—and a long, etc.

Well... there you have, the "summary". If you want all the details, join me.

I've been sighing for a while because I don't even know how to approach all this. And although it all looks pretty crazy or dramatic, I'm really hyped about everything that's coming (then I'll start complaining that it's a lot of work, but you know me). So... Let's imagine that the summary doesn't exist, okay? You haven't read that I was about to make Alina/Myra secondary girls... You haven't read anything.

I will make some bold titles in case someone wants to read only a specific point in the whole post.

Let's start at the beginning: I've realized something important. A change is necessary.

I know I've been doing my famous reworks and all that stuff for a couple of years now. It's been a pain. Everything is always half done, I never have time to do the things I want to do, I can't make the right decisions... Why? What's going on? What am I doing wrong? Maybe it's a bad routine, but it's weird because I work 12-16 hours a day without a day off... All of this happened before I fell ill, and although I know that what fcked up my health was the stomach virus and the car accident, I honestly believe that my bad lifestyle, bad habits, and extreme stress were very important factors.

During the last year, I have changed many things in my life, in my way of being, of thinking... everything. It has been a tough process, an even tougher year with quite a few personal/professional setbacks that have made it take longer for me to recover (I even had an almost instant relapse in September when I tried to return). Luckily, as I say, I have changed my life because I was reaching the limit of the limits, but thanks to the gods and the changes I have made, I'm getting my life back on track.

As I say, I've completely changed my life. You know that I even started working outside so that I would spend less time at home. However, I have been working from home since Christmas because it gets dark early here, and I don't like driving at night. I think all this was a necessary change for my own good and the good of my work/job.

As the years go by, we all grow up, we change the way we think, we see life differently... And although it's a meme, the Squidgames meme represents me (the one with the guy smiling in the first frame and the present self in the second). I used to be very innocent about being a dev, I wanted to please everyone, I wanted to do everything possible to reach the top and stand out... the list is long. And that brings me to the reason for all this explanation.

I've always said that I like to be transparent and explain everything as I feel it. I think that nowadays it is no longer necessary to justify wanting to talk about something that is not directly related to work because the bond created between a content creator and their community is quite usual nowadays. In any case... The origin of the problem.

The origin of the problem goes back a couple of years when I had an upturn in followers and patrons. It was something I wasn't prepared for, honestly. I don't like to talk about money, but I was earning almost triple what I was earning at that time for a few months in a row... I was younger and immature (it's only been about two years since that happened bruh) and I didn't know how to handle it. What happened then? Instead of thinking that the upturn could be a one-off, or that I should just keep doing what I had been doing up to that point, with the same work pace, etc., I thought I had to offer more content, much more, and more and more... Why? Because if I didn't offer/release more, people would lose interest. That was my thinking, and over the years I have realised that I was wrong.

And yeah, I was wrong... I don't know what happened, I guess some upturn as happens from time to time, what I do know is that since then nothing has been the same, in the worst possible sense. All the madness that has happened since then with the reworks, rewriting, more reworks, adding a bunch of unfinished features, etcetcetc... All of that is a consequence of something that happened a couple of years ago. And I regret it. That's why the only thing I do well is working on the main story because it's the only thing that has remained stable. And even so... huh, I'd change a few things there too. That's why every time I think about making content about practically any girl or whatever that's not the main story... I feel like giving up everything, motivation -9999, total boredom, this is just another job, I don't enjoy it, etc, etc... I've even considered turning the game into a normal VN, you imagine how fed up I am with all this. Burnout is called, I know, I know.

Luckily, thanks to all the changes I've made and am making in my life, now that I'm 95% recovered from my health problems, I've been able to take some time to see everything from a different perspective. There is still a long way to go for my full recovery and plenty of time to improve professionally, tho, so let's take it easy.

Changes, changes, decisions, decisions... Alina, Myra, Tali, Natsuki, you're out (not really).

As I said, seeing everything from a different perspective allowed me to see where all the mistakes were. My main mistake was thinking that sacrificing my health would increase interest in the game. If I'm not at my 100%, how will I give the best version of myself? Well, it's not possible to do that.

So I started thinking: What made me get hyped about my game? The answer is simple: Simplicity (heh).

Simple not only in terms of the content of the features but also in terms of the girls, the quests... that kind of content. It's cool when there are many girls in a game because there is more variety of content, but I never stopped to think about how big everything was getting. Sometimes, it isn't easy to handle a lot of girls, and if I'm honest, I wouldn't have added Alina, Myra, Tali, and Natsuki as main girls. Maybe Tali, because she's more relevant. And although I like working with Alina and Myra, I only like working on their fetishes. The problem with Natsuki is... a bit of everything, especially how we meet her, and how we unlock her, random af.

Another point to add is that I don't really like Alina's personality because of its similarity to Yuna/Lisapi's. Myra's personality is fine, but I don't know, they are two girls whose story I don't quite know how to approach. I don't think their progress is well-built.

On the other hand, with Natsuki, her personality and story are better introduced, but it's all very rushed, everything progresses too fast...

With Tali, everything is fine, really, but I think I need to make some adjustments to her story or try to make her relevance as an Alchemist more noticeable, not just in toys.

So... thinking, thinking, and more thinking... Why not rewrite their stories? But that would mean significant changes, including changes to the main storyline. Then, suddenly, something crossed my mind: According to Maria, a girl doesn't have to agree to live with you, she can live elsewhere in Gold Valley (just like Enya). But... huh, that would mean even more significant changes, although they could be good changes and they could even improve the course of the story, it would make the main plot make more sense as a future Champion. So that's what I decided. And so I decided that they would all be secondary girls now... The next day, after giving it a careful second thought, I changed my mind.

What's the final decision? Alina, Myra, Tali, Natsuki, you're in.

Summary:

• Tali: I will review her history and change parts of her progress to make her relevance in Gold Valley more noticeable.

• Alina/Myra: I will rewrite their entire history practically, keeping their curse as the main core. They will not move to the Manor as soon as you meet them; you will have to progress with them enough for them to want to.

• Natsuki: Practically the same as Alina/Myra. She won't move to the Manor as soon as you meet her. Additionally, I will try to make her progress slower due to her personality.

Right now, I can't give you exact details about how this will happen; it's a general idea, definitive but still general.

Haste makes waste... Let's work on one piece of content at a time.

Another mistake, doing things halfway. When there is not that much content it is easy, but when there is a lot of content and also more and more features... there comes a time when you can't work on everything at once and it all gets more and more overwhelming. I've been wanting to do more toy events for years, and instead of finishing what's already there (dldos) first, I decided to add plugs instead...

You have to bear in mind that there are a lot of girls, and to please everyone, they all like all the fetishes. That means that I have to do every single thing with all the girls. It's crazy. But don't worry, I won't make it, so only Myra likes feet now. I'm just going to approach it differently.

To create new levels, I've made the girls' levels include 100% optional fetishes, which I never liked. So, what are the other stats tasks for? That's a good question. They're there for just these cases, which I completely ignored.

So we add another important change to the list: Fetishes belong to another type of task and therefore the main levels will be girls' progress (with some exceptions), as they always have been. What about the secondary girls, then? Well, that's another matter I must decide since I don't mind so much about that mix in the secondary girls.

In any case, I will also change several things in the secondary girls so that there is a minimum of progress. I know it's fun to do fun things with them (duh), but I think there should be at least a bit more depth with them. Their levels don't need to include full scenes and all that, just a little depth in terms of getting to know them better.

And this whole point includes working on features, extra content, etc. I wanted to do so much that in the end, there was a lot of variety but little content of each thing, which drove me crazy. Luckily, we are at a point where I can work on all the features, but in the future, I have to make sure I have a different work dynamic, and all this will help me. Until relatively recently I felt bad if I took a day off, with time I have learned to change that ‘dynamic’ in my head and now I do the routine of a human person without feeling bad or whatever. Well, we'll do the same with the work dynamic.

It seems like there's a lot to change... What do we do?

I honestly don't even know how to explain it. We'll start the whole game over again, and that's it. It's as simple as that.

Those of you who have been here for a while will have heard me say that if it were up to me, I would rewrite the whole story in both languages and write all the code from scratch. Well... that's what I will do, although not literally. Hence, this will be a ‘reborn’, although not literally.

I'm not rewriting everything completely; I'll only rewrite what is strictly necessary, but if I have to rewrite the conversation with Maria when you first meet her, I'll do it. In fact, in Spanish, I'm going to rewrite almost half of the game, so a lot of text will need to be retranslated... There are many things I would like to change in the main story, not necessarily writing complete scenes from scratch, but changing the narrative of several things that are explained, even rethinking how abrupt Vanessa's disappearance is (or at least giving it better context)... the list is long because it includes changes to some of the girls (for example, some Mara's levels). So, let's take it step by step.

A new beginning, a new... home?

Yes. In fact, the game was originally going to be called Lust Age: New Home. It's even the name of the first quest, it's where it all begins.

As you can see, there are many significant changes. I don't even know how this is going to change internally in the code. Although I had decided that it would not affect current games and that replaying the game would be optional... it is evident that this would give me more headaches than if we start all over from scratch.

I know it can be a pain in the ass, and that's why I'll compensate you all:

• While we are in the ‘reborn’ phase, you will all have a save with everything completed at your disposal.

• Additionally, during the reborn phase and shortly after it ends, I will add an option in Lisapi so you can change your profession/specialisation (limited to once per game). This will be temporary because... SPOILER! IGNORE THIS SENTENCE: When Patricia moves in, she will have that option permanently (with context, obviously).

That said, I was going to list all the upcoming changes, but I think I'll write posts more often so there's no confusion or doubt. Of course, you'll see all the progress of this ‘reborn’.

All that aside... let's move on to the last point, which includes a brief summary.

Are you crazy? Yes. 

But I'm also unhappy, and I'm not happy with the result of the project, I'm not happy with the promises I made and didn't keep. Not only that, but years ago, I interacted more with you all, especially with the patrons, creating polls, exclusive posts, and that kind of thing. All that changed when I started to withdraw into myself and devote too many hours to work, work, work... I swear that all that's happening right now has got me hyped, and as I said at the beginning of the post, even working on the sneak peek for patrons has me hyped and happy with the results. Anyway... Let's get to the point.

As it is a very long post, I am going to make the most important points clear:

• We are all going to start from scratch. New game, the last game.

• I will rewrite the whole project, both the story and the code.

• The previous point is not literal. Although I want to change many points of the story and write clean code, I will not start a project from scratch.

• All the changes will be noticeable from the introduction to the current content. The problem is that I can't explain the whole thing in a single post.

• The most noticeable changes will be the rewritten stories of Alina, Myra, and Natsuki. However, I will surely try to keep some of their levels or part of their introductions.

• Tali is another girl who needs revision, although this doesn't mean that all her levels will change completely, as with her introduction.

• I would like to change or improve some parts of the story at the plot level. Although the plot will remain the same, it will help to have more context about different events. This mainly focuses on the mid/end-game of the current content.

• Half-finished features that will have their final version, more content, etc.

As you can see, there is a lot to do and a lot to change. This post is just the beginning of the end, finally.

What's coming next? From now on, we will be entering the reborn phase. 

In fact, we have been there for a few days now. We'll go step by step, starting at the beginning and gradually moving forward. You will all accompany me in the process, and you will even participate in some decisions. I will explain this in more detail in another post.

For now, I'll explain what this ‘reborn phase’ is all about:

The most important part: For a few months, the new versions of LA will only be available on Patreon. First, they will be available to the highest tiers, then to the lower tiers... until we get to the ‘free members’. Technically, the latter is a public version since anyone can join, but if you don't join, you won't have access... Why this way? I'm not sure how to explain it without sounding like a dckhead... But, in the past, before canceling ‘Lisapi's Adventures’ project, there was a demo. Apart from many people being confused about the project despite leaving an explanation even in-game, in some communities, I had very bad reviews for the demo being incomplete and having features that were not going to be in the final version (it was just a demo, I wanted feedback to improve it, I know it was incomplete wtf)... so I said, never again. You: Understandable, have a nice day.

Does that mean I don't want your feedback? On the contrary, even in each version, I will probably beg you to give me your feedback/input. Still, free members are free.

How are these versions going to work?  We will work on the content in the same way as before but in a more compressed way, so to speak. 

Instead of having 22 versions, there will be far fewer, and each version will have a lot of content as a general rule. That means I'll take my time for each thing I work on, as I used to do back in the day.

For example, this is what the first version (v0.1.0.R) is going to be like:

• Introduction.

• Main girls: Yuna, Anna, Mara.

• Secondary girls: Mabel, Mona, Glenda, Sara.

• Level 5 cap of all girls if possible.

• Main quest: The quest before Alina & Myra move out.

• Stats, Professions, Ranks, Duty, Achievements, etc., will be available.

Aaahhh... Yeah, back to the ol' days when everything was simpler.

And... that's all for the moment. I think this is the longest diary I've ever written, huh... So it's about time to call it a day.

In the next few days, I'll write another about the latest changes coming to Patreon/Itch. We'll talk about that soon!

Please feel free to share your thoughts, opinions, or anything. Now that we're slowing down, it's a good time to make cool suggestions.

In the next DD about this first reborn version, I'll talk in more detail about the content of that version. Still, if anyone has questions about any of this, ask.

Btw, the header image used for this DD is a quick remake of the header I used for the first versions of the game. Only the true OGs will remember it, but don't you worry, now you're also an OG 🧐

See you soon!