Stories that left you disappointed for a reason

[yourstalkeroutside]

XOXO Blood Droplets and her other discontinued projects stopped because people either retired or stopped responding to her. I didn't like XOXO Droplets in the first place, it is finished, and XOXO Blood Droplets which never finished also never interested me (thats what is behind a paywall, not XOXO Droplets). The only other abandoned product I can think of is that game with centaur people and I again wasn't very interested and from what I can remember she's never made people pay money for it. Also, Our Life's demo grew in popularity past the XOXO Droplets fandom's size and had a kickstarter so I doubt many of the funds from XOXO Droplets funded the game especially as it was never as popular as OLBA was and is.

I pointed out COVID boost, Our Life Demos and kickstarter happened around 2020 and lockdowns. It's the original popularity from XoXo Droplets (having an established fanbase of your work) that got Our Life it's foot in the door and Covid did the rest of the work. Had Our Life released now, it wouldn't even be half as popular and that's just a fact.

 

[yourstalkeroutside]

Another thing that annoys me in VNs is the episode by episode or day by day format that a lot of VN devs seems to be doing. Bloodlust exe charging you $14 dollars for the run time of a demo was my tipping point but waiting several months for less than 1 hour of playtime drives me crazy. Especially when I have to pay money for these updates.

That and a VN is in kickstarter/demo stages but all the information the devs seem to be handing out or even care about is physical merch sales. It's the VN equivalent of releasing the first chapter of your IF then opening a patron with nothing but side stories as content with no updates in sight.

 

[Ireth313]

I know it's a bit of a tangent, but could anyone explain the issues with Errant Kingdom? It's come up a couple of times.

I had purchases WTNC as looking the the review on Errant Kingdom were terrible.

Ok, so I will try to be brief and not go on an angry tangent lol
Basically:
- Their pervious game was somewhat popular and they capitalised on it promising EK will be bigger, better, more complex. Ran a successful kickstarter for it. Later on they also release a game through steam early access.
- Tried to appeal to many Dragon Age fans, promising not just romance role-play but potential stat\personality-based
- They release what, 1-2 chapters and DECIDE TO SWITCH THE ENGINE (I think that might be a cousin of IF writers going for rewrite tbh because after that ish hit the fan)
- They change the engines and it takes forever. Now they are late on all the promised release dates.
- They declare they will now do chapter-by-chapter releases.
- They miss all the chapter deadlines, too. The art looks rushed.
- They say they will ship the rest of the game in one sitting! No need to wait chapter by chapter, isn't it great? That way they will have more time to polish, yay!
- The final game ends up severely bugged on some routes, contains NUMEROUS noticeable typos and continuity errors, the choices that started off looking somewhat meaningful end up being non-choices, the promised stat system is nowhere to be found, the romances are extremely fast-paced, shallow and cliche, and the CGs look rushed. The main non-romance plot ending that is supposed to be branching makes sense only if you followed a very specific path, otherwise you end up seeing NPCs spawn out of nowhere and info thrown at you with the assumption that you have already read\experienced it (but in truth you did not).
- There is some rather understandable backlash.
- The devs publish a post revealing that they spent all the money halfway and basically can't be bothered. They promise to come back and address all the issues.
- They never come back to the game. It got zero updates.

 

[Ireth313]

intro where you're required to pick a guy to romance WITHOUT even having met them in game yet.

Okay, all your other points nonwithstanding, depending on the version of the demo, they warn that it's not how the game will work and it's for demo purposes. That being said, the writing felt so rushed to me. Which is a bummer because the game is super pretty (and how could it be not, when they have one of the Hades' artists working on art?)

 

[Mondy]

That and a VN is in kickstarter/demo stages but all the information the devs seem to be handing out or even care about is physical merch sales. It's the VN equivalent of releasing the first chapter of your IF then opening a patron with nothing but side stories as content with no updates in sight.

can't believe i came across this tweet which literally encapsulates the cash milking through side stories, that some IFs and VNs do instead of developing the actual story

 

[Grace5963]

That and a VN is in kickstarter/demo stages but all the information the devs seem to be handing out or even care about is physical merch sales. It's the VN equivalent of releasing the first chapter of your IF then opening a patron with nothing but side stories as content with no updates in sight.

That is true, but I do feel like the VN in Kickstarter stage is worse than the IF version, idk why. Like both are terrible, but to me there's more commitment in Kickstarter, if that makes sense.