Important Updates, a Preference Poll Announcement, and Some Real Talk (Patreon)

Hey everyone, I’m finally back in America and I’ve got some time to put a bunch of thoughts I’ve had into writing.

After May 16th, Patreon is going to remove the “Goals” feature from creator pages. This was where I was keeping track of progress towards out stretch goals like the bonus routes. I can understand the logic on Patreon’s side since I can say even for us this feature has been a double edged sword. While I’m sad to see it’s leaving, it’ll thankfully give me more space to adjust how I’m developing the game without feeling like I’m obligated to overpromise.

With that said, we’re still going to honor the goals we’ve already reached even if the Patreon feature is removed, those being the stretch goal routes and sprite expression expansion. After these, though, everything else that was on our Goals page is now up to my personal discretion as to whether or not we’ll be able to do them. I know this isn’t ideal for you guys, but it gives me some breathing room and flexibility in terms of planning.

Now, first major thing I want to talk about with you guys. The timing is a bit weird with the Goals feature being removed, but I’ve had to do some soul searching with regards to a particular goal that’s been reached. This is tough for me to admit, but I am at the point where I don’t think I can justify a Chris route anymore. Chris has grown and developed as a character way beyond where I had envisioned him from the project’s outset. Try as I might, there’s no feasible context I can see where route content for him is viable.

On the other hand, I have noticed players have really taken a liking to our side character Kane. He was originally written to act as a foil to Bryan, but he’s managed to take a life all his own and become a surprisingly popular addition to the cast. I’ve potentially laid the necessary groundwork to facilitate a Kane route that branches off of the Neutral route...but that’s where I need to pull you guys in to help me make a decision.

In the coming weeks, I’m likely going to present a poll to our Freshman and above patrons. What I’m interested in finding out is if you guys would be willing to let me swap out the Chris route for a Kane route. It would definitely make my life easier as a creator if I could, but I understand that sometimes development promises need to be kept.

The next major thing I want to talk about with you guys is going to take some explanation. I’ve noticed there’s a huge disconnect between patrons and public players when it comes to being able to discuss Santa Lucia openly. I can tell you guys really want to talk about the game with your friends, but it’s hard to do so when there’s never a time where you’re “playing the same game”, so to speak. Patrons are always one build ahead.

Looking at how other FVN pages are run, they tend to make their builds public around two weeks after their exclusive patron release. I suppose I never really thought about it, but the two weeks where patrons and the public are on the same page truly helps facilitate discussion about these projects. Initially when I planned the Santa Lucia Patreon page, I went in with the goal of streamlining the content delivery pipeline on my side. Since we’re one of the oldest FVNs, I didn’t have many examples to look at so I went with an experimental approach. Nowadays it seems pretty obvious to me that this approach probably stifled Santa Lucia’s reach by discouraging patrons from talking about the game in public.

Here’s what I’m planning to do going forward. In June, I am going to revamp the Patreon page to make things friendlier to the FVN community. What this means is I am going to formally end the Guest tier of patronage. Starting in June, the 15th of every month is when Santa Lucia builds will be made public on itch.io. We want to encourage more discussion about our game while still rewarding the people who want to support us. We believe that reducing the time gap between patron and public releases will allow players a window to discuss the game on equal footing.

In addition, I am considering whether or not I’m going to make the Short Stories section of the gallery public, too. Same idea, I want players to be able to discuss the game’s story on equal footing, and there’s critical content in there (both currently available and in the future pipeline) that players will need to read to have a full picture of what’s going on in Santa Lucia’s story. New stories might stay exclusive for a month or two, but they’ll eventually join the public build as well.

Convenience features like CG replays will still be exclusive to our Junior and Senior patrons, however. Have to keep something to reward our loyal supporters, y’know? X)

Now for some real talk.

I know Santa Lucia isn’t perfect, and I definitely dreamed a little to big for what I was capable of and ended up a bit out of my depth. However, I’ve also definitely learned a lot in the process of developing the game, both in terms of my capabilities as a writer and what the audience likes to see on the screen.

It’s one thing for the writer to know exactly where their story is going, but if they can’t communicate that properly to the readers then they have failed at their job, unfortunately. For the past few years I’ve been very sensitive to discussions about how slow paced and meandering Santa Lucia can be, particularly during the first few in-game days. I’ve tried many times to figure out how I could cut it back and streamline it, but it’s always to no avail. The early days are infused with so much important foreshadowing and character development, making cuts would do a harsh disservice to where everything is going to eventually end up. It’s one thing for me to know where I’m going with the writing, but I have always struggled communicating that to my readers.

And I genuinely don’t know how I can do better at this without spoiling the big reveal.

This same insecurity has found its way into how I perceive the way I write characters, too. It’s very jarring to me when I see discussions about Santa Lucia’s romance options and people point out that not a single one interests them. Or worse, they’re holding out for our stretch goal characters (I low key believe the stretch goal routes being publicly known goals has done more damage to Santa Lucia’s reputation than it helped, but I digress). The philosophy I went in with writing the romance options was to make characters who present themselves one way but grow into something else the more you get to know them. Theme of “masks” and such. Admittedly, this was probably a bit too “high concept” for me at my skill level, since this seems to be the thing that turns people away from the game quicker than anything else. One of the things I’ve learned by observing how other FVNs handle romance option writing is that if a character is not immediately likable, then they tend to have a bad reputation in their game’s fandom. Unfortunately for Santa Lucia, that ended up being the reality for all three of the options for a part of the player base. As the writer, I had the privilege of knowing exactly where they would end up, but again...I struggle with conveying that to my readers. I apologize for that, and I thank you all so so much for toughing it out up to this point. I promise even the romance options you don’t care for on first impression have a ton of depth to them if you give them a chance.

And therein lies what I feel is Santa Lucia’s biggest issue. I didn’t understand that too much depth can be a bad thing. With so many running plot threads, long form character progression, and vague hints about what’s really going on, Santa Lucia is a very difficult story to follow. In other words, what good is having the depth of an ocean if you can’t see the bottom? I know I certainly wouldn’t jump into a body of water like that, so I don’t know why I expected my readers to be down with it.

Ultimately, the best thing I can do at this point in the game (about 75% finished) is to stay the course and trust in my work. Alas, it can be tough sometimes. Good ol’ self esteem, am I right? X)

Santa Lucia has taught me a lot about what it actually means to write a story of this level, as well as how I can improve for my future projects.

I guess, in the end...I want to ask you all a favor.

If you love the game, then talk about it!

Share it with your friends, Discord servers, etc,. Make fan theories! Try to figure out all the little hints I’ve left throughout the game about where the narrative is going! Rate the game on itch.io! Leave comments! Hell, even join our public Discord server if you want to!

Seeing people talk about Santa Lucia is one of the things that makes me feel I’m not just shouting into the void, hoping that maybe somewhere along the line what I do actually matters to people.

Sorry to be such a downer today, but I really needed to get this off my chest.

Talk to you guys again soon!

~Dzahn