Developer's plans + info about next project

It’s time to discuss detailed plans for June -> July period and beyond. A fair warning – it will be a pretty big post but it’s necessary to create an understandable picture of my plans for Yorna and the interlude. Okay, let’s start with Yorna and immediate future.

Yorna’s future and updates

As I already mentioned in v1.0 changelog, Yorna will receive monthly updates until I can fully switch my attention to the new game. The next update will bring at least 3 new scenes aside from some game polishing.

At the same time, I’ll try to get some distribution platforms like Nutaku and Steam so more players could try my creations. Tell your friends if you liked the game, any help is greatly appreciated.

Thing is – these are shops and most likely new updates will be exclusive to Patreon and these platforms. Of course, patrons will receive all the new content, but free releases will stop at v1.0 as it will go public on July 7th. I’ll still support the free version logic-wise and fix the problems as they arise. Yorna’s exclusive version will receive EX name to avoid confusion.

EX will offer new H events, cutscenes with monster girls and possibly small optional activities. Yes, some of you may disapprove but let’s be honest – distributing platforms most likely won’t be interested in free content and you can play the entire game story-wise by downloading Yorna from Patreon.

Picking the new project

First of all, you, as players will decide which draft will be my next big thing. I’ll post info about 4 options during this week so everyone could pick their favorite among different settings and main character’s gender. The poll is scheduled for the weekend and most likely will take about 2 weeks.

The poll will be public with vote power scaling along with your support. It will use similar logic to “monster girl” polls which we held before. Patrons receive their regular power +1 and down to a minimum of 2 power at Magus tier. Non-patron votes count as 1. You can check reward tiers for more details or ask me directly if not sure about the system.

I’ll post drafts with ideas in separate posts and then link them all into the poll. This way you can check all the info without searching Patreon.

Interlude before switching to the new game

Alright, so how much time will I need to build prototype release for a new game? The whole period roughly divides into 3 game dev phases.

In the first phase, I’ll pick new features or improve existing ones to use in the next project. There’s a lot of ideas and 100% won’t be able to implement them all. I need to filter more important features and try them out to be sure they are working. This way I can be sure which option will be doable and how much time they consume for support.

In the second phase, I’ll be working on the detailed plot and implementing picked features in rough prototypes. This will happen after players pick the winner from my drafts during the poll. Then artists can start with the art, user interface and the game will enter pre-alpha state.

In the third phase, the new project will be approaching a playable version and conclude the interlude period. Polishing, pre-final tweaking and final touches before rolling the first release out. At this time, I’ll update the Patreon with new rewards specific to the new game and mark it as my main project.

I’ll provide details for each phase in weekly reports as I’ll work through the steps. These posts will include work in progress art, scenes and animations along with sketches and other stuff.

Okay, how much time will each phase take? Can’t say for sure but a rough estimate is about 1 month each. Perhaps a bit more. Wait, isn’t this pretty long? Depends on your point of view because I only described my own, developer’s goals for this period. There’s a second side.

Logistics and team correction

Players who followed Yorna for some time know there’s a delay between reaching goals and actually receiving the benefits from them. It’s the time where I search for suitable artists, modifying the code and do other preparations.

A good example is the art commissions. You can find different styles in Yorna. While not bad by itself, some players prefer a single art style across the whole game. This mishmash wasn’t my wish, but I had to get new people working on the game after some artists decided to cycle out. Personal preferences, other offers, real life – everything can happen during year-long game development.

Thus, the interlude will give me time to prepare the artist team which will (hopefully) stay the same until the finish.

The second big point is skill polishing. I want to use animated H scenes in the next project and doing so will require quite a bit of trial and error to present you juicy scenes. Since there’s no option to hire a pro animator, we’ll have to duke it out with artists. The animation is interesting yet can be rather hard to do properly.

Also, I plan to contact some local bands to create our own tracks for the new game. Using freebies is okay but they aren’t perfect quality-wise and sometimes it’s hard to get a fitting one for locations or events.

That’s about it for the general plan. Ask me anything either on Patreon or via yeehawgames@gmail.com