An Apology and a Promise to Do Better.
over 7 years ago – Wed, Oct 31, 2018 at 02:02:56 AM

Hey guys!

LewdLogic here and-

HOLY FUCKING SHIT MAN!?? WHERE IN THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN!!??

I know I know... You guys have every reason to be angry.

I want to apologize for the lack of communication in regards to keeping you guys informed on the Kickstarter platform. Although sometimes things really just boils down to “I am working on the game guys things are just taking longer than initially planned.” While I have brought up discord as an option to talk to me directly (and for those of you that have thank you for doing so) it's apparent that some of you don’t like using the platform to keep in touch. And thats fine and I should respect that. I apologize.

After going over it with my colleagues (more like getting scolded by them and being reminded to practice what I preach to other developers), I will be a lot more open and attentive to you guys here on KS and will dedicate releasing something at least once a month. I have come to realize that a lot of this is projection on my part if I am to be honest. I’m not one to usually follow a project and other games from start to finish very intensely myself. If I see something interesting that I want to support and donate too (and has the intention of actually getting done to a point of being sold.) I keep it in the back of my mind until its release to have a nice surprise to look forward too. 

You know that not how everyone fucking operates right?

Yes yes… I know. And it's especially more embarrassing as usually I’m the one to tell others devs not to do this. As I've said above, to avoid this happening again from here on out even if there not really much to tell that doesn't go into massive spoiler territory, you I’ll be posting an update at least once every month until the final release for this project. It may be an update about the project, it may be an update on my current shift in fetishes. But you’ll get fucking something as a signal that I’m alive. I want to be a bit more intimate with you guys. If you don’t mind a hearing the uncomfortable sweet nothings for a mix raced dude. Considering you guys helped get this thing off the ground I think that's totally fair. Give me a few days as there a lot that I’m doing at the moment and I will explain in detail what's going on. Just be prepared for a lot of reading.

Let me lay out some bullet points real fast on what you guys should be expecting.

• A detailed explanation on why things have gotten delayed.

A lot of this is very reasonable, but If you guys don’t know then you end up having no choice but to think of the worst case scenario. This is understandable and I plan to rectify this. There have been some unfortunate things that have indeed set stuff back, but the core team is still pulling through. 

•  What's going on with the wallscrolls. 

Long story short on this one. The wallscrolls ended up being a tad more expensive to create and ship than I originally intended. There is good news so look forward to that.

•  Some more personal details that I’m willing to share.  

As I said before considering it was you guys that helped me even get this far when it comes to getting the game off the ground I’m going to share a bit more details with you guys in order for you to understand the whole picture. I been hesitant on doing this (I’m very stubborn and prideful individual and using anything that might stir a degree of sympathy usually irks me), but it's become necessary at this point. 

•  Due to massive changes on the Steam platform I’ll be publishing titles while I continue to work on WMNAD. 

Steam has a new policy now when it comes to adult content that has changed the landscape of the h-scene by a large margin. The platform now allows fully 100% uncensored content under a filter. This is a big fucking deal and is a game changer when it comes ot the landscape.

For those of you who don’t know I am the owner of a important website called LewdGamer.com. Due to this I have developed a lot of connections, trust and support from developers from not only from West, but also Japan. Due to Steam’s volatile nature they have requested that I help publish their material on the Steam platform. This has the added benefit of also providing funds to help improve the state of the project and get things taken care of faster. 

•  How these changes on Steam impact the project as whole.

 If am to be honest due to having a hard time finding a “home” for the project this has led me to be very careful of how things are worded in the game. But now that such a thing has happened there will be no need for it nor wasting time on making a “uncensoring” patch that would add extra frustrations. 

•  Guest character appearances from other artist and developers for the franchise.

Yup.

You’ll be seeing things pop up over the course of a two or three days. In the meantime I don’t think I ever showed off the finalized version of the of the game’s theme song so let's give that a listen!

This went through a lot of revisions before I was satisfied with it with Seakul. So give it listen. My favorite part is the ending period as things get rather “sassy” as the song closes out.

Oh and here is a scene from the game! Look at all that production value. It's almost like the wait might just pay off! (At least hope you think so.)

-LewdLogic 

Mini Update #1 - It's Been a Long, Long Time~
almost 8 years ago – Thu, May 17, 2018 at 01:02:22 AM

What!!? You Thought This Project Was Dead!!?

Hey guys! LewdLogic here! Just wanted to send you guys a quick message to let you know that me and the team are still working on the game quite diligently and nothing has exactly changed except for the project taking longer than we ever expected.

Most of it comes down to first time developer woes. A lot of these problems will be most definitely ironed out for our next “big” project, but for now it was important to go through these growing pains as a means to properly plan for the future. Getting it out the way just makes the process smoother for the future.

 Also big reminder to everyone that KS isn’t exactly the best place to have the discussions about the kind of content that is inside WMNAD. This is why we made a DISCORD channel so you backers can just talk to me directly about the project. If you truly have any worries then I am an open book for conversation. So head on to our Discord channel so you can talk to me yourself if you have any issues or questions.

I’ll be making a more detailed post explaining these growing pains, how we soved them, and how we are going to avoid them in the future. See you guys soon!

Update #16: This is that one update where we don't really have any updates, but give you updates anyway.
about 8 years ago – Wed, Feb 07, 2018 at 01:01:59 AM

Hello, everybody! Ryechu here. Apologies for the late post! I was accepted into Graduate School a couple days ago, and I have been handling a bunch of things on my end as a result of that. But now that I have a bit of time, let’s get some updates going out! It’s going to be a short update with no images, but this is one of those months where there are not any major updates. Instead, I decided to talk a bit about our miscellaneous items and their progress!

BackerKit is Locked Down

Okay, BackerKit is completely locked down, and the wallscrolls will be shipping around the release of Act 1 (more information below). They are still in my hands, and they still look wonderful. If you need to make any changes to your address, you need to get those to us ASAP!

Because everything is now locked down, any future purchases will have to be made through our official means, which... are not yet available! We do not have a pre-order strategy locked down yet, so the answer to that is soon™. In case you have any friends that might be interested, the game will be available for sale via all sorts of different means, so be sure to direct them to any of those when they become available!

OST Updates

I don’t have a ton of information to put here, I did want to mention that the OST will be released on BandCamp and possibly iTunes, and will also be streamable on Spotify. It will also be available for purchase through Steam and potentially other means, and we’re working toward some of those options. I think we'll have some exciting news about the OST next month, but we're still confirming some things, so if you love the music we've put up, you're gonna be in for a treat!

Artbook Updates

Here’s a fun update. So, we have not spoken much about the artbook and what it will contain. While the artbook will certainly contain all sorts of art and concepts from W!?MNAD!!?, we wanted to also use it as a sort of autobiography of Critical Bliss. For those who don’t know, Logic, myself, and the rest of the Critical Bliss staff are located all over the world, and handling such an international project can be incredibly difficult, especially when the real world hits you hard as hell. So this is not only our in-game journey, but also the real-life journey during the creation of this game from the perspective of a new developer and his talented staff. We really hope you’ll enjoy it if you picked it up during the Kickstarter! 

Test Builds

Okay, the news you’re actually waiting for. We will be sending our top-tier backers and Patreon supporters, as well as our internal testers, the beta build for Act 1 soon. Act 1 will release once that testing process finishes (ideally in a few weeks assuming nothing goes wrong!). We found some technical issues that required our attention before we could get that build out, so please excuse the delay! We’re working through those as quickly as possible, and we hope to get that out to our testers and higher-tier backers posthaste!

Well, that’s all for now! Keep an eye out later this month for the Act 1 release! Be sure to check out our Twitter and our Patreon, and be sure to join us on Discord for more updates!

Ciao for now~

~The Critical Bliss Team

(PS: Hi Vani~ I hope you read down this far :D )

Update #15: Wallscrolls and Release Schedules!
about 8 years ago – Tue, Jan 16, 2018 at 12:54:50 AM

Hello, everybody! Ryechu here, and we at Critical Bliss would like to wish you a Happy 2018!

Wallscrolls!

This post was delayed for a few reasons, mostly because I was out of town with family and/or dead for most of my Winter Break. I also presented a talk about nukige at the Visual;Conference on Saturday and had a ton of fun there. But most importantly, I got this box in the mail:

Now, there’s a story behind this box. For those who aren’t in the know, I am a university student majoring in English, and I live on campus. When our supplier shipped the wallscrolls, they used DHL. Nothing wrong with that. But when they delivered it to campus, they have some policy that they deliver it to our Residential Life office. Okay, no problem. Except they gave it to somebody else. Who gave it to somebody else. Who gave it to my housing manager, who forgot to put a note on my door. I ended up going around for five hours trying to figure out who had my box, but when I did get the box and finally opened it, I was greeted with 100 of these bad boys:

Okay, so we have the wallscrolls now. That means we have some BackerKit-related things we gotta finish up. Namely, finalizing addresses. I’ll be sending out a 48-hour notice here shortly, and I’ll finalize sometime after that. I am presently waiting on getting the shipping tubes, and we’ll ship those out once I get all of that handled. No exact ETA, but soon™.

Release Schedule

Okay, let’s talk releases. There are a ton of logistics involved here, so be sure to read it thoroughly. We made this announcement already in our live Sunday Discord chats, but let’s go through all of the details I can presently provide:

Act 1 Release

Act 1 will be releasing on Nutaku soon™. Here’s why I have to say soon™.

For those not in the know of Visual Novel development, there is a ton of work that goes in behind the scenes to make a “clicking game with choices” exciting and stimulating to read and experience. Lots of programming, writing and rewriting, art, updated art, music, updated music, even more programming to make sure all of this works in the final project... and on and on and on. This is by no means a cop-out. We want the experience to be elevated beyond any nukige that has been released in the OELVN market, and we have the right tools, the right people, and the right ideas to make that happen; however, what was originally underestimated was the time. I have been talking to Logic about the process, and we agree that a full release by our original estimate was incredibly ambitious and would have required us to cut too many corners in order to meet that expectation.

If you cut corners, your project suffers, and Logic wanted to challenge anybody who is disappointed with this: “Would you prefer a rushed project released on Steam that isn’t cohesive and unique, or would you prefer a project that isn’t rushed and, as a result, is incredibly polished and high quality?”

As part of our release schedule, we are preparing to release our test build to our team of in-house testers consisting of our high-tier Patreon backers, our top backers on Kickstarter, as well as our internal staff. My editing run will also take place during this time, so we are doing a little bit of multitasking to try to get the first act out sooner to you, our backers! This process will not happen overnight. We’re sitting at approximately the length of a standard nukige with just Act 1, and Act 1 is only half of the game (or even less!).

When Act 1 releases, all of our backers will have access to it. Details about that will be provided closer to release—there’s a few logistics there we’re still working out. Nutaku has paid for exclusivity-rights for Act 1 due to the quality of the project, so we will be releasing Act 1 on Nutaku only. Act 1 will not have a Steam release. Details below.

Full Release

As part of our exclusivity contract with Nutaku, the full release will be no sooner than three months after our release on Nutaku. Which is perfectly fine with us. We had already planned to use this time to finish up the rest of the game, so all’s well on that front. Once that is over, we will be releasing the full “Director’s Cut” on the following platforms: Nutaku (it will be provided as a free update, so tell your friends to buy it there if they want to see what all the hype is about!), Steam (with an 18+ patch to be freely hosted somewhere—still working out the logistics on that), MangaGamer, DLSite, and Fakku!.

Just in case there was any confusion, the “Director’s Cut” is the 100% full release, everything included. We mention DLC and the like, but the Director’s Cut will include all of that eventually. If you’re a backer, you get everything!

Well, that’s all for now! Be sure to make any changes you need to your address on BackerKit if you need to (you should see that email here shortly, if you ordered a Wallscroll), check out our Twitter and our Patreon, and be sure to join us on Discord for more updates!

Ciao for now~

~The Critical Bliss Team 

Update #14.5: Correction, We're Locking Down BackerKit on December 5, and Charging Cards Shortly After!
over 8 years ago – Sun, Dec 03, 2017 at 11:03:32 PM

Hello everybody, Ryechu here again!

This is a super quick update. We've had a few requests to extend the BackerKit by a couple of days, so that is precisely what we are going to do! We will be extending the deadline by 48 hours, to 11:59PM EST On December 5. Once that process is done (I think it takes like 20 minutes?), we will also be charging any cards that were added on the BackerKit. This is your courtesy notice that we are doing that!

At that time, we will also be sending the email to our printer to get that process for the wallscrolls going. If you still want a wallscroll, they are still available! It is a limited printing, so there's a good chance we won't be printing any more after this!

If you are one of the 26 people who have not filled out your survey (if you received an email from my personal Hotmail account, you know who you are), this is your last chance! You should have received a direct email from me, and if you've already spent your money, you should be filling out the survey to get all the work we're putting in for you to enjoy!

Have a good one, everybody~

~The Critical Bliss Team