Spooky Month (Patreon)

Hello everyone!

It's Spooky Month because this month has Halloween in it and that's spooky, right?  Or at least, that's what people keep telling me.

Seems like Patreon has changed how it looks... again. As always I can't really say that I'm a huge fan of it. Maybe it's nostalgia, but I really think that the website looked best when I first joined up like four years ago and every design iteration since has just made the website look progressively worse. Not that it looks awful or anything, but... well, anyway. I can't control it, so I'll just have to get used to it. Again. And then get used to it... again... when they change how everything looks in another few months.

Anyways. Let's talk about what's coming this month, shall we?

This month I will be uploading the final version of The Hungry House to Patreon. The final version will add a bunch of things, including new (and animated!) vore backgrounds, a couple of new areas, a final ending, and lots of other fun stuff that will make the game finally feel complete...

I'm planning on uploading this 'final version' to Patreon around the 20th, but I'd obviously like to get it done earlier than that. My plan is to just work as hard as possible on it and get everything done as soon as possible so that it's all ready for the launch on itch.io at the end of the month.

I say final update. I do have a mind to add more content and stuff to the game in the future, but it won't be happening this year. Maybe I could do a big update for the game next Halloween, though? Add a bunch of mysterious things... a few new scenes... but I'm getting ahead of myself. That's... over a whole year away, so we'll see what's happening then. Point is, though, I would like to add more to this game at some point. But it's the final update for now because I'm itching to get back to work on A Tiny Furry In A Huge World Plus v1.3 as well as... whatever the new game I'm making might be.

I've spoke about the game itself a lot over the past couple of months, so I don't really need to go into what it's about or what the point of the game is or anything at this point. Instead, since we're very close to the end of everything, I'm going to rattle off some closing thoughts.

Developing this game been a long road, though... far from the longest road. I first started work on this back in January, though I'd say that work didn't properly start until May... so, five months of putting stuff together followed by five months of concentrated development. This is a fairly long time, I think, but not an especially long time given that I was pretty much learning everything, brand new engine and brand new programming language, from scratch as I went... as well as writing stories and updating A Tiny Furry In A Huge World and everything else that I've done.

I am far from an experienced programmer. I have zero training or education on it. When I first started making A Tiny Furry In A Huge World I didn't even know what an if statement was for example. Really! And honestly, given that Quest is really good at holding your hand on stuff, I really barely had an idea on how to program when I first went over to Game Maker at the beginning of the year. And now, somehow, through a combination of late night screaming, YouTube tutorials, piles of documentation, and helpful forum threads, I have, somehow, put an entire game together.

I'm not saying that I'm an expert - far from, actually, I'm pretty sure any programmer worth a damn would scream at some of the code that makes The Hungry House tick - but I am very proud of myself regardless. Ever since I played Final Fantasy 7 as a little teenager person I wanted to try making a game. As the years went by and I grew older and older I kinda gave up on that dream because I took one look at programming as a teenager and was like nope, nope, that looks horrible, you hate math, nope and I moved onto other things, figuring that it was something that would never happen. But it did! It's happened a couple of times now, actually, somehow. The Hungry House is far from the first game I've made. A Tiny Furry In A Huge World and Macroville ... plus A Tiny Furry On A Huge Quest and Vorevival if you want to count those, but I don't.

Now we can add The Hungry House to that list. A game made in Game Maker, a brand new engine, a proper engine, an engine that's used for commercial products and is responsible for many, many games that I have personally adored over the years. It might not be my largest game in terms of overall content (A Tiny Furry In A Huge World will keep that crown for a while, I imagine) but The Hungry House is the one that I am the most proud of. Not because of the content, but just because it was made in an engine where I don't have to compromise. It has my best visuals yet, some of my funnest writing, an absolutely bizarre plot that's weirdly personal to me... plus some absolutely banging audio, but we can thank CuttleScuttle for that one.

The future is very exciting I think. I am still not a hundred percent sure what project I will be taking forward as my next big one, but... I am confident in saying that, whatever it ends up being, will be my best game to date.

If you want to make a game... or do anything, really... then don't tell yourself that you can't do it. I spent years and years of my life telling myself that I wasn't good enough... hell, some days I still tell myself that... but at the end of the day, you can do it, you really can, you just, as dumb as it sounds, need to believe in yourself a little.

Though that's a lot easier said than done. For example, I don't think I could have done it without the support of the wonderful community that I have here and elsewhere. Because of you guys, because you all believe in me and enjoy my content, I want to push myself and get better and better. The past four years have been an incredible journey for me, and whether you've been following me for that long or you only found out about me ten minutes ago... thank you!

Really, thank you isn't enough, but there aren't any words to properly communicate my gratitude here. So instead of wasting a ton of time trying, I'm just going to continue doing my damn best for everyone here.

I hope you're all excited for the future of my content. I know I am...

Last month there were no stories at all and that's because I was very busy working on The Hungry House for the most part. September just ended up being the month where that had to happen otherwise it might have never gotten done and then...

Anyway! This month there will be stories. I owe a couple of people in my vignette tier a juicy story, so those will be getting wrote and posted this month at the very least. They will probably be Halloween themed because trick or treat, smell my feet, yadada... anyways! Two vignettes, yes yes. One this week, one next week? That's the plan!

When I've gotten The Hungry House finished around the 20th, the rest of the month will be spent on finishing up a big commission that I have had in the works for a while. It's a story about a lady rat getting a little drunk... amongst other things. I'm hoping to get this done before the end of the month because then there will only be two things in my backlog for November and I can do them both that month. This would open me up for the dream end of the year... where I can go into 2024 with a clean slate and no commissions from 2023.

Polls!

There's one ongoing currently - quite the important one, actually. If you haven't voted in it yet, then I'd encourage you to go over there and, well, do that! It's about the future of my content and what brand new game I will be working on next year.

Bonus polls! Currently I am a little behind on the bonus polls - I have two bonus endings to write for A Tiny Furry In A Huge World still, plus that whole Aimee Mode thing - so instead of doing a traditional bonus poll this month I will be doing something a little different. What's a little different? You'll see, you'll see... it's a spooky month surprise.

In November, the traditional bonus polls will be returning as I'll be catching up on all of that bonus ending stuff that month. I might even write one of them this month, but I have quite a lot going on, so... we'll see! Either way, I'll be posting them up here as soon as possible... you won't need to wait for them to be in game to read them.

Normally I do a mental health bit, but I think it would just be stress stress stressing, programming can be stressful, finishing off a game is even more stressful, I'm pretty stressed about by it so I'll spare all of us here... me from writing it, and you from reading it. Yes, I'm stressed, but that's alright. It'll all be over soon and we all know that it'll be worth the stress in the end.

I have quite a lot I need to do this month, and I need to be getting on with it, so... that's it!

See you in a few days with a spooky story...