Category: Patreon

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Status Report

Okay, so with the way things are I’ve decided to put off releasing the RELIC update until the end of the month. That’s the big news you’re all waiting to hear. If you want more more details, keep reading, but I also want to say that if this frustrates you, I understand completely. I don’t think anyone is happy with the situation as it’s unfolded. The schedule will be updated later today to reflect the new release date.

So, what went wrong? Last Tuesday evening I somehow injured my back and shoulder. Not sure exactly how it happened, but it did and it was so painful it’s been difficult to even think let alone type for more than a half hour or so at a time. I’ve been more or less couch-bound ever since. Not just the pain, but my ability to move around in general was severely impacted. Because of COVID restrictions, I was only able to get medical attention yesterday. I am feeling a lot better today, thankfully.

On top of that, sapping what little time I could stand to sit in front of a computer and type has been this issue with Patreon over Merch. When it comes to the Megafan tier collectibles, the posters that were supposed to sent in February, but as far as I know they still haven’t been shipped. I’ve managed to get to the bottom of why, though. Apparently, instead of just having the cost of the collectibles deducted from my Patreon total on the first of the month like they have every other time, they’ve since started a policy of waiting a few days and didn’t tell me. And when they did tell me what day it was supposed to happen, they made a mistake, so when I paid out the Patreon total so I could pay Conash, Hilent and Kumiho, it delayed the merch even further.

Adding to the utter nonsense of the situation, Patreon refused to entertain any other way of my resolving the situation. I offered to pay for the outstanding cost of the merch with Visa, Paypal, Venmo, anything and it was all refused. Nothing would work for them except for having a Patreon balance on the mystery day they choose to take money out of the Patreon account for this. I’ve since given money to a fan I trust for the express purpose of them increasing their donation so that I have a balance for whenever the merch people decide to finally do this thing, but I have no fucking idea when that will be.

If you can’t tell, I am fucking livid over this merch situation. It has absorbed way too much of my energy this past week.

Onto more important matters- with the game so heavily delayed, we’re doing our best to cram in every drop of content we can for the RELIC update. Kyrie’s last few scenes are being worked on, including her vacation and Sex a la Carte scenes. We’ve implemented all of the new Kellosian sprites and Kumiho is working on new sprites for the armed forces of the Middle Kingdom. Clara has produced a little something that I think will add some fun polish to the game- special leitmotifs for some of the characters in the game for when they level up their relationship. On top of that, I think we will be able to fit in the sequence that starts the endgame, so you’ll be able to get a little taste of what Harem Collector’s finale will be like.

Anyway, I hope this all serves to mollify you all about what’s going on with Harem Collector. Until next time, adios.

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Let’s Rock

So, uh, sorry for the lack of blog lately. I know it’s the primary way we try to communicate with you the progress on the game, but things have been a little hectic, and honestly, saying “We’re still behind but less behind than we were last week”, even if accurate, doesn’t feel great. But, something major did happen last week that is great news for all Harem Collector fans- a generous backer who wishes to remain anonymous stepped forward and gave us an absurd amount of money expressly to get the soundtrack finished.

To quote this incredible person: “I’ve been impressed with the quality of the game, the artwork is fantastic, and I feel you’ve been sincere in almost every interaction with you. I wouldn’t offer to throw money at you if I wasn’t impressed. … My only real regret is that I can’t offer more to help.”

Thank you, sir/madam. Everyone on the team is humbled by your donation, and we will do our best to make the most of what you’ve entrusted us with.

For now, we’ve sticking with Clara as our composer, as I can’t easily give up on the person who brought us “Rescue Me“. We’ve had an in-depth talk about what is expected of her and she is going to give it her all this year. Already she’s working on some new boss battle music, as well as a sex scene track that fits more emotional or sensitive scenes better than “TLR” and “Love and Mercy”.

So what does the future of music for Harem Collector look like so far? Here’s the list of “wants” we have:

Town Music- Lumberhill (nice), Huntervale, Elf Village, Southport University, Southport Docks, Orctown, Sunnyshore theme

Event Music- Triumphant trumpety music, Generic military music, Fancy castle music, Sensitive sex theme, Boss Music, Final Boss music, Anime-style opening

Dungeon Music- “Beast” dungeon theme, “Nature” dungeon theme, “Spooky” dungeon theme, “Mountain” dungeon theme, “Criminal” dungeon theme, “Arcane” dungeon theme, “Military” dungeon theme, “Swamp” dungeon theme, “Hell” dungeon theme, “Hot” dungeon theme, “Weird” dungeon theme, “Magitech” dungeon theme

You may notice a few things. First off, there’s no generic fight music. What we’re going to attempt is to have a battle remix of each dungeon variety’s theme song to be the combat music for that dungeon. This will take a little big of extra coding infrastructure, but shouldn’t be too onerous, as it can be arranged at the same time we go to fix the battle backgrounds.

Second, we’ve group dungeon tracks by theme. Rather than have unique themes for each of the dungeons in the game, we’ve separated them out by theme. For example, the third track of music I’ve asked Clara to start working on is the “Criminal” dungeon theme, for use in the Bitch’s Sixth Tit, Deliquent Hideout, Tartufo Manor, and a few other places. We’ll also work something out so that the random dungeons are themed according to the enemies you face. And of course, all music will be selectable in-game as manor music, so if the Hero chilling out as a criminal overlord appeals to you….

This is the plan we’re going with so far. As always, we may need to revise our expectations along the way. But we have the talent and, finally, we have the budget. It’s going to be an even more exciting year for Harem Collector, that’s for sure.

Our donor has already given the go-ahead to throw any money we have in excess at the art budget, so once the music is done we might also get some additional scenes finished. In terms of relevant Patreon campaign stuff, we’ll be making early music track access a benefit of the $5/month tier. For our goals, we will be changing our $2,500/mo. goal, just as soon as we get caught up on the SAVIOR release (I cringe even saying that) and get a good lead on the RICHES update.

Anyway, hope that’s enough Harem Collector news for you all to look forward to. I’m going to stop slacking off and hop-to. See you next Wednesday for the public release!

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SAVIOUR Version Update

Hey all, just NoMoshing here with a brief discussion on how the SAVIOUR update is coming along. Unfortunately, due to various reasons I’ll get into, I’ve had to call it and delay the SAVIOUR mini-release to next Monday, June 29th. The game is not at a place where I’d like it to be, and with the public release happening on a month that ends on a Tuesday, we’ve only had two weeks to get really deep into new content. I apologize deeply for letting everyone down who was waiting for this. But, there is some good news.

In terms of my work- The new dungeon is proceeding rather smoothly, but is going to require a surprising amount of new assets as there’s a shift in perspective that I failed to account for and we’re going to need some new art assets just for this one dungeon. So, when the mini-release does happen, it’s going to look a little weird in there, but please bear with it for now. It’s shaping up to be a fun little dungeon, with a lot of fun call backs to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night as well as original content to explore.

My sex scene writing has been held up, though. I have two sex scenes to write wholesale as well as some tweaks I need to make to several older scenes. The reason why is that a very generous donor who wishes to remain anonymous has commissioned new art for every existing scene with Meline including her Sex a la Carte menu. So, please comment with your thanks to him if you like and I’ll pass screenshots on.

The upswing of this is that while there won’t be very many brand new sex scenes in the next version, but it’s probably going to be the biggest update in terms of new art assets. So far, finished (and waiting on some degree of writing) are: Meline’s introductory sex scene, Chimei’s first sex scene, Meline and Larelle’s double blowjob, Diadira’s 4th Scenario Sex a la Carte scene, and Doll and Elaiya’s scene together. Currently getting worked on is Meline’s threesome with the Angel of Love and Peace, Meline’s vacation scene and one of Yeon’s Sex a la Carte scenes, not sure yet if I’m going to run it as her 4th Scenario or her “Be Nice” scenario. And before the end of next month we should also have the Alina + Therese threesome, Meline’s footjob scene, and some more Sex a la Carte for her. So yeah, that’s quite a bit, Hilent is getting a bit of a workout but so far she’s on top of everything.

Conash is currently working on a revamp to some of the chat options in the game. Now, if you want to discuss other harem girls with a harem girl, you’d be able to toggle between the current random system, or picking from a list. If you want chatting with your followers to be more natural and off the cuff, stick with “random”, but if you want to hear every last scrap of delicious dialogue in the game you’ll be able to cut out the RNG entirely.

So yeah, despite the delay SAVIOUR is shaping up to be one hell of an update. Please look forward to it!

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Testing Week Updates

Hey all, just a few quick things because it’s testing week, and I still have a ton of dialogue to write.

As of today, I’m temporarily removing the “Megafan” tier from Patreon. It will be back next month with a new poster featuring completely new art by Hilent, this time featuring everyone’s favourite necromancer, Larelle! The reason for this is that Patreon tracks Merch for Membership by how long someone has been supporting at a given tier, so in order to offer a new poster we effectively have to reset the Megafan tier entirely. But please check back in June for a brand new, awesome poster design!

Another Patreon-related note, please be aware that as of next month Patreon will also be charging sales tax for all tiers of membership in most areas. This sucks for everyone affected, I know. Please be aware this is in addition to you normal pledge amount- if you’re pledged at $2 and your sales tax rate is 13% you will be charged $2.26. If you want more information on what areas are affected and how much you will be charged, please consult this FAQ.

On our end, we’ve adjusted our settings so that the impact has been minimized. For example, in most places sales tax can’t be charged on having your name in the credits of the game, so I’ve indicated that a certain percentage of your pledges goes towards that benefit.

Development continues. Today we’ll be rolling out the newest build to testers, in preparation for the backer release next week. There’s still a lot of dialogue that I want to get done, but as of this moment the important stuff is all in there.

Finally, I’m happy to announce that we’re planning the new content for v0.47, and that will be an update that you won’t want to miss. Let’s just say, it’ll be a crowning moment for the Hero and friends, so there’s no way in hell you’re going to want to miss it!

Any please keep your eyes open for Harem Collector v0.46 CHILL, out next week to backers!

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The Epic Conclusion

If you’ve been following the Patreon and/or the forums really closely, you’ll know that this has been a dramatic half-week for Harem Collector artwork. Let me break it down for you. Please read until the end, as this story has some plot twists and turns and you’re not going to be able to fully appreciate the context for everything until you get to the bottom

Back in February, SacB0y said he was getting better job offers and had to move on from working on Harem Collector because he couldn’t fit it into his schedule. Fair enough, but at this point SacB0y had been paid for most of Larelle’s sex a la carte and dungeon scenes, eight images in total, and been paid for half of Shally’s sex scene which had been especially sponsored by a fan. SacB0y told me not to worry about it, Jingzy would finish the rest of the images and he’s do lineart for the Shally scene and have Jingzy finish it off with colour and background, at which point I’d pay Jingzy the remainder of the cost of the scene. I wasn’t super happy about this turn of events at the time, but this was acceptable. If it had to happen, I’d at least have my bases covered and be able to deliver to fans and patrons.

Over the next three months, things end up being tense and awkward. I find a new artist and start working with him, SacB0y and Jingzy occasionally send me roughs and lineart to approve, but both of them blow through multiple deadlines. I try to be patient, though, keeping in mind that playing nice is the best chance I have at getting my patrons their money’s worth and trying to be professional. To Jingzy’s credit, he did eventually produce some results- the three finished images that backers got to see a couple weeks back- and he was progressing fairly well on some other images and would occasionally update me.

Cue the start of June. I’m figuring out the art budget for the month, getting pricing from Hilent for the big Therese-and-nuns foursome scene, and also giving Sac and Jing their monthly prodding. SacB0y sends me the final linearts for the Shally scene, Jing says he’s out of the house but does have completed art to send me. Awesome!

When Jingzy gets home, though, he claims that his computer isn’t starting up. He even sends me a video of him trying and showing the computer plugged in and all. This is when I start losing my temper. This art has been four months in the making, and multiple times I had been promised “Oh just one more week”. Whether or not Jingzy’s computer was actually broken was totally immaterial to me- I wouldn’t be in this situation if the artwork had just been done months earlier, as promised. So, I told Jingzy to stop worrying about it, I’d get the art from elsewhere, and ended up in a fairly bitter conversation with SacB0y where I got to express my frustration. SacB0y promises to make it up to me someday, and I truthfully tell him that I can’t believe that at this point and just ask for all the completed work to date.

Now, image my surprise when I wake up the following morning and find that SacB0y pulled a pretty damn heroic all-nighter to get the Shally scene completed as a means of making it up to me.

So now, I’ve had a chance to calm down over the situation, do some math, and figure things out. SacB0y finished the Shally scene, without me having to hand over the other half of the payment, too, which did a lot towards mollifying me. I have four mostly completed Larelle images from Jingzy (an example heads this entire post) and I’ve spoken to an artist I trust about getting them finished. When you do the math on all the costs, the value of everything so far lands somewhere between the price SacB0y originally charged me and what it would cost to get replacement art from Hilent.

Considering how the cost of lewd art has risen between when SacB0y and I first struck our agreement almost two years ago, I am pretty satisfied with this outcome. I respect SacB0y a lot more now than I did a few weeks ago- he took responsibility for the situation and did what could to immediately resolve it. More importantly, the guy who sponsored the Shally scene was very happy with the outcome, and immediately offered to sponsor more art from Hilent.

As for Jingzy, in hindsight the impression that I got was that he had a lot of work dumped on him at a very inconvenient time, while he was realatively inexperienced at working for commission. He did apologize and give his blessing to have his work get finished elsewhere, and while I probably wouldn’t hire him again at this point, I don’t bear him any ill will.

So hopefully you read through all of this. It’s been a bit of a trip, with various up and downs. Again, I’d like to reiterate that I’m satisfied with how things wound up, so please don’t go making trouble for either Jingzy or SacB0y. The remaining Larelle art I’ll have to get done by someone else, in due time, but I’ll take that over the increasingly bitter situation we had before.

Anyway, if you have any questions on how things turned out, please feel free to ask away in the comments. Look forward to the backer stream this Saturday and the public release is on schedule for next week. I’ll see you then!

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Website Done, What Next?

Ah, so the website is finally finished and out there, and the old website safely packed away where it can do longer hurt anyone. And, as a bonus, there were no problems or bugs in how the site was put together- well, I suppose I should say, at least none that came back to me. I hope this new site will last us for many years.

Redesigning the website has been a major time sink for me in the last month and a half. While standalone WordPress is pretty easy to use, there was terminology to learn, visual deisgn to mull over, plugins to negotiate into cooperating. The last time I put together my own website, it was on Angelfire of all fucking things, so there was quite a bit to learn for myself, and I am also old enough that a lot of software isn’t intuitive for me anymore.

So, now that the new website isn’t taking up so much of my time, what’s next?

A high priority right now is working more on ILTSDK!! There is lots of writing to do, characters to make, mechanics to plan. While Harem Collector is the focus of my attention, I want to make good progress on ILTSDK so that when it comes time for primary production, the team and I can put in our full effort and work efficiently. The way that Harem Collector has gone, with me making things up as I go, hasn’t been the best and I’d like to do better.

The other thing I want to do is investigate how best to market Harem Collector and offer great incentives for existing backers to switch to higher tiers, without increasing the prices for the tiers that currently exist. I want to be able to afford a good composer to make more proprietary music for the game, I want to be able to get an animator for doing new battle animations and make all the special skills and spells really pop. I also want more and faster sex scene art. And, well, if I’m being honest, I’ve been feeling the pinch more and more at home and making a little more money for myself would be nice.

To that end, I’m going to be doing some more formal polls a bit later this month, but please let me know your own thoughts in the comments. If you’re a backer, let me know what sort of rewards you would find valuable, and don’t be afraid to show me ideas from other projects you support. If you’re not a backer, let me know what I could offer that might stoke your interest. Or just tell me that I’m a sell out or saint, or whatever else, I suppose.

Next week is the public release of v0.39, so please look forward to it!

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Orange Kid, Pandora, Motivation

Aw, man, I’ve felt such a writer’s block over the last few days. Well, here goes.

Orange Kid’s solo stuff is coming along, with her Love Quest happening this month. Still at the concept stage at this point, but we should have it done for the backer mini-release, even if the art/sex scene comes a little bit later. Also on deck for this month is the Orange Kid wallpaper… which also means that Alina’s wallpaper if going to become publicly available! So, look forward to that!

The following month will be the intro scene for Pandora, so unlocking the Southport manor and getting everything placed within it will be a significant chunk of content for the next release, though it’s a secondary priority to Orange Kid’s LQ.

Following that… We’re going to try to move into the next leg of the “Harem Drama” plotline, and it should be a doozy. Both in terms of work and in entertainment value.

I’ve felt really motivated lately to get work done on HC, and ironically enough it came in the form of someone being critical of the game. Someone somewhere said, “this game is dead, don’t fund it, it’s a failure”, and I was able to successfully transmute the resulting outrage into energy that I poured into Harem Collector. This isn’t an invitation for additional abuse, by the way- I’m more just commenting on the funny way things work sometimes.

By the way, thank you very much to all our supporters on Patreon. July 2018 was our strongest month ever, and because of that I can get an additional image done this month and can serious look at doing seven images a month permanently. Your continued support and patronage is very appreciated, and I hope you’ll continue enjoying the benefits as we go forward!

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Update on Mind Control Situation

Hey everyone. The game dev gnomes are hard at work getting a testable version of the dungeon for “Blow Job” up and running- you may recognize that as being the quest that unlocks when you get Gargan up to “Trust” rating- so while that’s going on I figured I’d update you all on how the Mind Control content situation is going.

Last we left off, Patrons of Harem Collector’s development have decided to have the harshest mind control content removed from the game. Since then, the determination was that the replacement scene (more on that in a second) would be from the “Others” group- not a new harem girl, old harem girl, anything like that.

Now, after having a sober second look at the schedule, it looks like we’re only to be able to squeeze in an additional month of work, with the rest of the time saved going towards moving up Iron Waifu 2019 (whoever that ends up being) into a reasonable time frame.

I may post a third poll to do with what scene it should be in particular, but as of right now what I’m looking at is:

A Private Drink (featuring Shally)
Getting What You Wish For (featuring the Genie)
Not So Chaste After All (featuring Mitzi)
Poor Maid (featuring Evanie’s Maid)
Set Fire to the Rain (featuring the River Nymph)
Spreading the Space-Time Continuum (the schoolgirl + succubus orgy from “Sacrifices for Algernon”)
The Wolf Below Us (featuring the werewolf girl from All’s Were That Ends Were)

The question I have right now is, is it worth making another poll, or should I just dictate it?
Decisions, decisions.

Well, I’ve got to get back to the code mines, I’ll see you all again next week for the backer release and all!

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Patreon, Schmatreon

So I *was* planning on writing about the mind control poll, what changes are going to be implemented, and go over the new art/sex scene schedule, but recently Patreon has chosen to place the Bad Kitty Games patreon page under review. The reason: the censored preview images on the front page.

I’m a little exasperated at the moment. I don’t mind playing by the rules to get the funding we need to make Harem Collector all that it can be, but I am not pleased by this “takedown first, review later” way of managing policy. Further, at this point, the porno mag section at my local convenience store is racier than the Patreon page for a adult game that already has an 18+ wrapper over it….

Blah, regardless, I have every confidence that use of our Patreon page will be restored soon, what is beginning to get questionable to me is how useful the page will be for selling the game to new patrons.

At this point, I’m ready for any alternative that doesn’t involve handing your money to nazis, which is the only alternative right now.

Regardless, we should be back up soon, and look forward to more awesome HC content soon!

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Did Not Expect That To Happen…

In case you’re also a follower of the Patreon page as well as a follower of the devblog, note that today the same information from this post was posted on the Patreon feed, so you really only need to read one.

Yesterday, a voice from Harem Collector’s past actually got in touch with me- Clara Middleton, formerly credited as PeaSea, who made most of the unique music tracks in HC, basically all the tracks you can collect on CD.

She didn’t come with her hat out or anything like that, but rather to make amends and explain why she worked so sporadically and then vanished way back when.

Turns out, back when Clara was operating as PeaSea, Clara was a man. And not just a man, but a married man. Whatever you may think about transgendered people or PeaSea specifically, I’m sure you’d agree that going through such a fundamental change in your life and then finding out that your wife isn’t suddenly going to be gay for you and then having what I’m sure was a spectacularly messy divorce isn’t exactly great for getting your largely self-motivated contract work done. For the simple reason that Clara doesn’t actually know me, was going through an obviously stressful period, and couldn’t handle it if I actually turned out to be a massive douchebag, she never worked up the nerve to actually contact me about it until most of the dust had settled.

So, for now, the only thing that this changes for now is how her work is going to be credited- she’s using her new meatspace name because all the people that would have have a problem with her working on a hentai game have already had a problem with her transitioning.

Clara might end up doing some work that ends up in the game. I know that having an official composer is a far-off Patreon goal, but for now, I’m giving her a wishlist of a few things I think HC ought to have, and if she produces something I like it’ll get put in the game and she’ll receive fair compensation for it. I’m under no obligation to pay her up front this way, so if things get hectic again and she can’t get things done for whatever reason, it’s not going to disrupt progress on the game.

Music acquired in this way is probably going to end up as some kind of tier preview but will probably be sporadic. It also will be low-key enough that it’s not going to disrupt other aspects of the art budget- if I don’t have the dosh at the time to buy a music track I’ll just wait until I do, eating only into my personal end of the Patreon take. This is all assuming she even produces anything, and while I’m hoping for the best I’m still planning for the worst.

Still, I’m feeling kind of optimistic. I was hoping to get another track or two like “Rescue Me” for the game’s opening and closing, and some of Clara’s other work like “To The Victor” and “Hard Like Diamonds” really help set the tone for the game. Hopefully this will all work out.

Let me know what you think, especially if you’re a patron- if you’ve got skin in the game I’m always happy to hear from you. If you have any good wishes to give, comment away and I’ll pass then on the Clara. I hope everyone’ enjoying Iron Waifu so far, and I’ll talk to you all later!