OnionCuttingNinja
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About the future (and a poll)
🕑 Added 2025-09-20 00:15:54 +0000 UTCAlright folks,
with GoV's development ending soon, I owe you some info about the time after, so let's cut right to the chase.
For a number of reasons, I've come to the conclusion that making HHR in its originally planned scope just won't work.
I either have to cut it down to the most important bits, or make something else (like TM2).
I don't know how many posts explaining it I've written and then discarded again over the past couple of weeks. At least a dozen, and they were all walls of text, because there's simply a number of factors that played a role.
But in short, bluntly put, I reluctantly have to accept that my feeble, slow, aging, ADHD(inattentive type)-ridden scatterbrain isn't cut out for making HHR the game I was originally envisioning, at least not in a timeframe that I myself would find acceptable.
I underestimated how much worse my brain has gotten over the past 3 years (and admittedly, it wasn't great before that, either).
Getting old sucks, mild-to-medium chronic burn-out doesn't help.
And you see, with everything going on in the world (plus my health also slowly getting worse), I don't think I have that much time left as game dev.
So taking 5-7 years to make HHR the game it's supposed to be isn't an option for me.
Other devs were luckier in their timing.
On top of that, there's a smaller project I absolutely want to make, and while it's more of side-project nature, I don't want to delay it.
You know, with the world heading where it seems to be heading.
It's just something I want to do before my game dev career might end, so I can't afford to just put it off by 2-3 years or something.
So for my main project, there's 2 options:
1) Scale down the sandbox scope of HHR dramatically, dropping most of the sandbox and even some sidegirls I had originally planned, and make it a mostly linear story VN.
It would still have some repeatable content, but no grind or gameplay in the traditional sandbox game sense.
What I can promise you is that the story would be quite decent... that's the part I'm most confident in, actually.
I just don't know how many of you actually care about story... ^^'
Plus, there's a risk I still wouldn't be able to finish it.
2) Let it go, and make Total Maidness 2 instead.
This would continue the TM1 story and be similar to TM1 in concept, but with more story- and character development focus, and many other improvements (including measures that make it easier for me to develop it at a solid pace), and of course a few cute and hot new maids, while keeping at minimum the most popular ones from TM1.
It just wouldn't be as epic as HHR in terms of story.
Though it would have more synergy with the side project I mentioned, since that is also TM-related. The benefit would be minor, but it's there.
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Option 1 is riskier, but might story-wise also be more rewarding (if we get to the endings).
Option 2 is safer, but might be a little less interesting.
I leave it up to you.
-OCN
P.S.: It's alright to be disappointed, I just want to mention that at least part of the blame is on those politicians and autocrats out there that make me feel like I'm living on borrowed time and have to perform "triage" on the projects I still want to do.
But please, NO political discussions here.
I don't want to deal with that.
Comments
OnionCuttingNinja
I understand that. But to avoid one misunderstanding: GoV / the "2 parallel projects issue" didn't have as much to do with this as it might seem. It didn't help, yes, but I've honestly already kinda been surfing the burn-out waves for 3 years, and been *very* close to ending TM much earlier multiple times, too. So it's honestly not a new problem, and wasn't much better with just 1 project in that regard, even if it might've looked better on the surface. If anything, how long it took me to "complete" TM, despite much more limited scope and even though I was in somewhat better mental shape back then, should've been a red flag for taking on a project as ambitious as HHR. I wasn't being realistic enough about anything with HHR, neither the amount of work ahead of me, nor my ability to get it done. And it kinda frustrates me that I didn't realize this sooner. Or rather: Deep down, I lowkey did, but launched it anyway, due to lack of alternatives* and sunk cost fallacy, plus some nostalgic attachedment to an unrealistic dream from my more naive 2022 self. The result is this mess... *I had already officially ended TM at that point, and GoV was always meant to be just a small side-gig and also on shaky legs at that point.
Padyshar
This is exactly what I was worried about in my previous post: that one or both projects would wind up dying on the vine. I cannot express how much it pains me that it turned out to be the one I had the most interest in. I don't blame you for your choice; but it does mean that I have to re evaluate whether or not I want to continue supporting projects I have no interest in. I stuck it out for GoV because of the promise of a light at the end of the tunnel for HHR, and now it appears there was no light. My only consolation there is that I didn't up my membership as I'd intended. Perhaps I saw this coming. I DO know that I don't want the *shadow* of potential, and the disappointment I feel at that being the only option available sours any enthusiasm I could have had over a TM2. I'll have to give careful thought over the next few days, to consider my course. Apologies.
OnionCuttingNinja
...yeah, makes sense. Maybe I'll do just that. Might lead to stronger patron fluctuations, but it's not that I *need* the money to survive, and if the alternatives would both burn me out, it might still be the lesser evil vs. both poll options.
Viridor
I would vote option number #3 : what the dev prefers to develop aka "a smaller project I absolutely want to make". From my long time as a dev myself (not games, mind you) I would say the the lowest burn is when I can devote my time to tasks I *want* to do rather than what others ask me to. This can even sometimes work as a cure to burn, since you do what you actually enjoy and have a passion for. if afterwards you find something else you want to do, maybe HHR or TM2, that's great. but if you feel burned, focus on projects that will heal your burn rather than things that you don't feel like doing, that will just burn you.
