Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Years resolution and dev chaos

Veins here. And I feel the need to share a few things, even personal.

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.

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!



36 comments:

  1. Bearing in mind other Mogi have alt forms, I've no issue with Zombie Girl, looking forward to whatever spin she puts on Pumpkin's scene.

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    1. Not much really, it's just a minor addition. Even her scene scene would be the same but recolored.

      The idea comes from MoGi Cardfight: Vampire will be able to summon zombies who will have only 1hp. OF course we couldnt make all MoGi being zombie, so we picked the most generic of them, Pumpkin. I would like to have both Vamp and Zombie have sex with Voms in a 3way but that would depend on Vamps scene and the guy who pledged for it.

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  2. Damn. Sounds like dire times you had. Going from one programmer through another and none of them delivered anything substantial.

    Hope 2018 will turn out better for you guys!

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    1. Im sure there are a lot more details I left out. But you can see the work that has been done from our posts here, even if they dont exist in the game yet.

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  3. Thank you for this big post, it's really good to see that you guys are not giving up and keep on pushing despite all the problems you've faced the past year, hopefully things will go smoother this year, but I'll be sure to support regardless. Any idea on when the next beta will be released?

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    1. All I can say is 'soon'. I do wait the beta my self since december. I had a couple of glimpses but I gave titan a few things to correct. We added some new tutorial details at the docks where Voms learns to use the subweapons. That needed some tweaking for example.

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  4. scammers, you are just giving excuses and doing nothing.
    you posted 1 beta after 1 year of inactivity and now you are going to spam some stupid excuses like the normal life's problem of everybody to not work? seriously , just be professional and do your work guys.

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    1. Its not excuses but explanations. Its not doing nothing, its doing all that which I mentioned in that huge wall of text. The fact that the game doesnt have the art I made doesnt mean that Im sitting on my ass doing nothing. The art and animations can be seen here or in patreon. But for the art to be in the game... well someone has to put it there right?

      So instead of trolling how about providing some viable solutions? How about YOU learn gamemaker to help out and get paid for it? Titan can teach you. Thats what he did to several guys so far.

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    2. Also, the progress can be shown in a number of videos that I uploaded in YouTube. Search "MoGi Origins - making of FairyGirl Succubus 03" for example. That video was made 3 months ago.

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  5. I have a question, will there be any new sex scenes in the next update?? Because it says that there are 7 new mogi (except for their sex scenes), do any of them have completed scenes that will be in game next update

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    1. Yes, Alraunes hostage scene. Maybe even Succubus if I manage to finish that too.

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  6. Hey Veins, thanks for the update. It's nice hearing from you after a bit of inactivity on here. As an offbeatr pledge way back, I hope to see how the game continues to grow! Keep up the work, and don't feel ashamed to take a break. At the same time, be honest with yourself and put the work in that you need.

    Rooting for you guys.

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    1. Thanks for the positive comment. I'm struggling with just about everything right now. Trying to manage a team that keeps changing members is very hard and distracts me from doing what I'm supposed to be doing for this game.

      Taking about taking a break, I will attend the Global Game Jam this weekend in hopes of finding new guys to join the team. Some people may not realize this but I drink and eat MoGi every day. I never take a break from this game. Even when I go out I take photos of building or anything else that might help with the game. The way things go I might have to learn GM myself and take on the entire project, and have Titan to just program the enemies. I'm fucking desperate at this point and I feel that the only people caring about the game are the fans. So please keep rooting. I need to know that I'm not alone in this.

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    2. Hey man, don't worry. Once you've got a kick-ass game released a lot of the fans will return. As the first large-scale game from you guys, it will be a great learning experience for the future. Once I have a job of my own (soon, hopefully) I'll be able to chip in a bit. If you feel that you have to learn GM yourself, go for it. Building a game like this is no small feat, as I'm sure you have found out by now!

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    3. If you consider that this game has 7 playable characters, each one with their own gameplay, story and level progress.. we are actually making 7 games in one. Thanks again for your support, psychological or otherwise! :)

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    4. That's a great point, although I'm not sure everyone will see it that way - still sweet that you thought of different characters with entirely different movesets.

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  7. I added a link with some MoGi Making-of videos at the end of the post. You can see the animation work for MoGi that aren't in the game yet. I hope you all enjoy it.

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  8. Hopefully, they'll give enough money to Veins to help with the production of Mogi Origins.

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  9. That was the idea, to have a secondary source of income because this game takes too long to make and I have to pay all kinds of bills. That plan failed though, because their games needed a huge chunk of my time, and that's why it took me a whole year to finish just one of their games. The Patreon money can barely sustain both me and Titan, especially now that we have to pay level designers and musicians. We get by as it is, but I do need a plan B in case anything goes wrong.

    Dinkolish, I'm curious as to why you said that. If you want use to contact form to talk to me in private.

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  10. I'm sorry u guys have been having a rough time, I hope all the troubles are over for u now, there is no reason to give up hope now, bc now all of the bad things are over, and don't even worry about 1 release on 2017, fr. Behind the scenes u guys have accomplished so much despite all the troubles and problems you faced with both the game and in real life, 2 new ppl have joined ur team and i'm sure there will be more in the future if needed, you've got really awesome music now, and also we the fans are still here and always will be to support you through any rough times, like honestly this game is really really great and I along with many others would love to see it get finished, and u guys have done an amazing job so far and we are here for you if things end up getting bad again, just take it easy bc you guys have got a great game in the making and your team is seriously the best for sticking it out and never giving up no matter what so thank you for that from us the fans, we've always got your back :)

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    1. Thank you for your very warm text. We are still in a chaotic state. I will know more after I talk to Titan at the beginning of February. If he doesnt have a beta by then, something needs to change in our team, yet again.

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  11. Hey guys, been a while! Just wanted to let yall know i'm still here waiting for this awesome game to come out. I also wanted to ask if you could give us non beta buyers a new beta where we fight the first boss and maybe a new enemy. I still love Slime Girl Black!!

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    1. Slime Girl Black!!! xD

      I'm afraid we cant do that for many reasons. The free demo is already long enough. It will take a lot of time to do a new demo and I'd rather have Titan work in the actual game instead. Apart from the unfinished game, I gave him over 100 pages with corrections to do, so he is overwhelmed. These 100 pages are full of images, but still, he is too busy making the main game and the new Beta is already several months late.

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  12. Croyst, that... sounds horrible. Sucks that there are so many people that want to rip you off...

    Just keep your chin up and remember that there are more people that like the project than smug pricks that don't. I mean, tastes are one thing, but wanting it to fail goes beyond that.

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    1. When I first started this game with Titan, we decided that we dont want women to appear to be hurt, as much as possible. We didnt want to make a misogynistic game. Well, the MoGi are females (but not women) and they attack first. Also they don't get r@ped. So in many ways we created a good enough story, where you have enemies (as in all games) but it's as non-violent as it can be for an action platformer. Nobody really dies in this game. That said, there will always be ppl out there who will find something bad to say about pretty much anything. (That was the issue with Poison in the FinalFight series. Apparently it's better to commit a hatecrime to a transgender than to beat women up!)

      Sometimes I feel like my job is more like avoiding mines than do art. But that's life, we live and learn. We adapt and we carry on. And while at it, we need to ignore the trolling.

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  13. Is the Meet&Fuck game feature Ucogi or any of your other characters, or is the game its own unique thing?

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    1. It was a game with a story and characters that I was given. No Ucogi. I will tell you which game it is, once it's released.

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    2. I linked a "making-of" video of that MnF game in the main post, for those interested. I don't think it contains nudity, but you can see some of the art.

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  14. For anyone doubting the story here: I've worked with freelance programmers many many times and live with one.

    This is pretty much completely accurate to be honest. Freelance programmers are as a whole really fucking bad. Even the best ones who aren't scamming you are some flavor of fucked up and unemployable. That's what freelancers in projects like this are: bad programmers or bad people who have failed to get steady industry employment. It's vanishingly rare to find a good one, even if you have a large budget.

    They are as a rule failures at some major aspect of programming. There are exceptions, hopefully they've found some- but it takes s lot of tries and work.

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  15. How is it going now?

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    1. Titan seemingly fixed any new problems the game had and I finished the Succubus sex scene a week ago. That means that the new Beta will have 2 sex scenes but I cant predict when Titan will be able to release it. It was supposed to be released a week ago, so all I can say is "soon".

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    2. Is that finally Succogi/Succalice sex scene as Succubus? *praying*

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    3. Yes your prayers are answered! You will fight Succubus and have sex with her when titan releases the beta.uco and alice will have a scene based on succ. Just... less crazy!

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    4. Awesome! Thank you so much Veins!
      I can't wait for naked Succogi/Succalice sex!!!!
      Heard the fight is pretty great too!

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    5. Succogi and Succalice will happen in the future. I havent animated those characters yet and alice is not even programmed. But yes i played an early version of succ and she is promissing!

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  16. Dinkolish you were right. That dick won't pay me. So I will post the game on Patreon (next month) for the people who actually support me.

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