Progress Report: What Support Does for a Game


Hey all! 

Right, so I have a bit of an irking confession to make. I have been stuck on the same goddamn scene for two whole weeks. And it's not for lack of trying; the age-old writer's cycle of write, delete, write, delete, write, delete... I just kept writing myself into a corner.  I did come to a solution, but it's not... as realistic as it could be. Then again, one could argue that this is a game, and a story, and a certain suspension of disbelief is required. 

Here's where the support you all have given comes into play. Because this game is now at the point where it's paying my rent monthly, I have some freedom. I took extra days off this week and was able to power through this scene and get the difficult part done. I've also been able to commission two people with some of the money, one as a consultant to help me brainstorm and bounce ideas around to shatter the writer's block, which works WONDERS, let me tell you (there are some AMAZING future ideas planned now, and some of them are HILARIOUS). The other one is Rimulex, the guy who built the original framework for the game. He's gonna help me get the Character Book working correctly, and perhaps assist with some ideas for the side characters. I may even have him help with other features you request later on down the line.

We're getting to the part of the story where we're about to discover the gimmick that makes the optional content accessible. That framework also has to be built to set up for how it's going to be used in Story Arc 2 (Security) and onward. So unfortunately it's more than just "write story 4head" lol


So, while there hasn't been a TON of progress on the actual writing of the scenes, there has been a LOT of behind-the-scenes development of both the systems and the world. These foundations are going to set up for some amazing experiences for everyone, and faster delivery of new content.

This, in turn, paves the way for me to have TONS of new characters for you to interact with, while also developing the classic characters you've come to know and love. The goal is to have mountains of good content that give you hours of playtime in the story quality that you've come to know and love. We're still kind of nailing down the flow and everything, but once this gets going, content delivery should ramp up a bit. No more 4 month waits for new in-game days. And definitely no more 8 month waits. 


All the support has been enormous throughout the months of June and July. The Patreon income has DOUBLED from what it was in November, and I'll take that as a huge complement. I've been taking a lot of the time recently to design and deliver on our T5 Creator patrons' creations, and they've been coming up with some AMAZING monster girls for you all to interact with. There are a lot of story ideas being tossed around right now, and there's some epic stuff being written. Not to mention some of these designs are absolute fire. I will be doing reveal posts on each of them at some point to introduce you to these character concepts. Just... good lord, you have NO idea what these people have in store for you. Good god. I can't wait to show you.

The current plan is to get Thursday and Friday completely finished and ship it as 0.1.5.8. Then, when Saturday and Sunday are finished, I'll ship that as 0.1.6 and the completion of Chapter 6 and the first story arc. The first update beyond this would be 0.2, as we're beginning the second story arc. 0.2.1 would be Second Arc, completed Chapter 1, etc. 

Patrons have an amazing Patron-only content package coming soon, most likely week-by-week, with T5 Patrons receiving special uncensored versions. I'm not obscuring it real well, I realize, but the nature of the package is still a secret at least, and the Patrons, I think, will be VERY happy with what I'm delivering.

It'll take a lot more Patreon support to make everything I want for this game happen, but thanks to y'all, we are getting there. Together, you can finally make Wither happy!

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Comments

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Love the story and your style! But why you changed the text on the phone? White with a thin black border. I have problems to read the text. Please can you change to black or an other dark color. 

You have the newest version? 0.1.5.61 with the placeholder scenes filled in? If so, the previous text style with thicker borders was having some issues with the text boxes. I'll see if I can put an option in the Options menu that lets you change the color of the text to black. Thank you for your feedback!

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Thank you! It's only the text at the phone in the game.  I have the newest version. 

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One option is to put a font selector in the options menu specifically related to texting. I don't know how difficult it would be to do this, but it is an option that I have seen in other games, and think it might just be the trick you need to increase accessibility for more people.

I know this is basically what you were alluding to with your reply, but font style selection between a few of the most common fonts along with an option to change text color itself might also make it easier for colorblind people as well. Maybe even add in the ability to make font bold or italic would increase accessibility even further.

Just my two cents on the subject.

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Looking forward to the updates! As ive said before, i completely love this VN! Will we be getting some choices to influence the story?

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Absolutely. As we go, more and more choices on how you spend your free time will open up, especially once we get this upcoming gimmick I'm creating. The Security Arc will be a fresher feeling experience with a little bit more player agency than in the Janitor Arc. We're not quite there yet, and there will be a couple more content drops before we get there, but we ARE getting there. 

There are some MAJOR, game-changing choices coming up in the Security arc, and one fairly major choice coming up in the second half of Chapter 6 with one of the characters. It's still a very linear story as opposed to a choice-heavy game, but I do want to start giving players more ability to influence their playthrough.