Apologies for not posting anything for almost 2 months. We usually post something every month but we were sure we would have a Beta ready by the end of the year. That deadline was missed and then it was "wait for a few more days" and so on. New deadlines were at the 15 and the 19th of January. Bad weather and other issues occurred. 23 days have gone by and I have no idea when the new Beta will be released. All I can say is "soon". This has happened before, many times perhaps. From now on, even if I can't control when the next Beta comes out, I will try my best not to lose another month's post. To make up for missing December's post, I will write a lot of things in this one!
So what happened in 2017?
Other programmers:
It was a shaky year. Titan didn't do much work during 2016 and I faced him, trying to find a solution to this, so that we won't sink this project. We had a lot of heat because Breading Season had similar problems. Titan swallowed his pride and accepted the fact that he can't do the entire programming and level editing on his own (this is a huge game after all). I spend almost 2 months searching for new people to help out. Since Titan had his own demons to face, I approached a few guys from a site that hires programmers.
The first one hated the game and cursed me, saying that "this game is what goes wrong with the world today and I hope it fails". The 2nd guy needed the money but he didnt like the adult nature of the game so he declined as well. I was very desperate at that point, thinking that I wont find anyone to help out.
Then 2 more replied to my ad. Jevar T took $50 and never replied again without delivering anything. MS Global was also shady, a huge company that even made several calls to me but they never delivered anything after they got their $25 for the test level, except random spam messages. The funny thing with the was that they gave me a total price for the game's cost without even knowing how many levels and characters we have in the game! I got even more desperate, thinking that people either hate the game or steal from us!
Then 2 more people replied. JR was very strict when he was programming SlimeGirl Red and was paid a huge sum without delivering what I wanted. Titan ended up reprogramming Red from scratch and she is still not completely ready. We won't be using JR again unless it's super important. And also AD, who did many levels for us, but he ended up being slow and finally abandoned working for us on November. It took him 4 months to complete the Tower level and yet, he fucked up. Titan had to redo a huge part of the Tower (AD got married, went on a honeymoon and then he was working on his own mobile games, without telling us about these things beforehand).
Titan release the only Beta of 2017 on August. Around that time, NR, a friend of mine from the Ucogi forums wanted to join in. NR did a great job but sadly he is taking a break now.
Furthermore, I attended a Videogame Con around December, and approached several companies and individuals. Most were busy, some didn't want to work on the game, others were super expensive. But from all that I found yet another 2 people. One is working for us right now and the other is in training mode. The good thing is that these guys live an hour away from me and I can check on them personally.
Music:
I contacted over 60 musicians via Facebook. Again, some were expensive, some rejected the project, many didnt reply and some were bad at what they did. I ended up with 5 musicians that did a great work. I cant wait to hear their pieces in the game! And this whole things wasnt like "do some music for me". I had to find music I like, give them samples and direct them. One of the things that stood out was this guy who wanted $500 for a track! He told me that he worked in Ubisoft and there he got paid $2500 for a track. Well that's fine, but Team Erogi doesn't get the 1/5 of what Ubisoft does!
Other stuff:
Well, on a personal level, I was on a pretty dark place too. My mom was sick for the past 3 or so years and I was even working on my sketchpad, while I was taking her to the hospital, a few times per month. She passed away 4 months ago and it was a tough time for me. I'm not saying that as an excuse for anything. I don't feel the need to excuse my self because I feel I did all I could. I'm proud I did all the above under the circumstances. As a side note, I got a card game published, and I finally finished making a flash Meet&Fuck game I took on a year ago (not published yet). I worked on my leisure time on these side projects, to keep my self motivated while dealing with everything else and waiting on the programmers and musicians to do their job. So I guess, despite any unfortunate events, this was a prolific year for me, even though I didn't paid much attention to myself, health-wise.
The actual art of the game:
We only had 1 beta this year but a lot of work has been done in the background. The sub-weapons and Energy poweups were designed and implemented. Cheat engine, map shortcuts and Red Queen exist in the game now. New menus and save system for every playable character is designed. New levels by several programmer have been completed (although not accessible yet). 7 new MoGi have been animated (except for their sex scenes): Cyclops, Alraune, Alraune Hostage scene, Troll, Vampire, Succubus and the new addition, ZombieGirl. To release them we just need new levels to be made and to be programmed of course. Many other seemingly minor things have also been made, like Voms dizzy animation, when he gets attacked by a certain kind of MoGi. Here's a taste of the things to come.
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| Yes, ZombieGirl is a recoloring of PumpinGirl. Please don't complain about this extra MoGi. |
2017 was a hard and tense year. I wish more could have been done. Right now I do feel exhausted. Kind of like Voms in that image. And I'm need to hear some positive words for all this hard work. Titan promised me he will do more this year (I've had glimpses of the new Beta and Succubus is a pretty cool Queen). I don't believe in hopes and wishes, only in good intentions and actual work. We can only move forward. And I want to thank you all for your patience and support on Patreon. I don't know where I would be right now without you guys.
You can view some Making-of videos in my MoGi playlist on YouTube, which show the making of non-released (yet) MoGi and they also play the new music that we made for the game. Enjoy them!
