Hey everyone! Get out the party hats because Conway turns 3 years old today. And to celebrate we do have some neat special offers available at the end of the post!
What started as a bit of a test to combat burnout by now has managed to survive three full years, and has seen us, by this point, reach the half-way point of it all. I don't know if timeline wise we're at the halfway point, the second half could well go quicker, since at least for now we're settled into a pretty good rhythm I feel. But we'll see. It's game development. Everything always blows past the estimated timeline.
Case in point, today is the 8th of February.Back then I took off January to spend a month trying out oil painting and VN development. Even the very first build took longer than expected. Honestly in an ideal world it would have taken even longer to be fleshed out and refined properly. But we do not live in an ideal world, and so it began how it began.But yes, I want to thank all of you.
The biggest and most special thanks, of course, go to those among you who monetarily support what we do. Whether that is through Patreon/Substar, through merch sales, through digital downloads, or even the occasional person finding my ko-fi page or donating through itch.You are quite literally the ones making this possible. Again, in a perfect world that wouldn't be necessary, but in our imperfect one this project just either has to be able to pay the bills, or it would be discontinued for something that does.
Now onto all you FREELOADERS, how D A R E you- I'm just kidding of course, it brings such joy hearing about people playing it, talking about what they enjoy, the characters they like and all that stuff. That's why we make it in the end. To give you all something you can enjoy. Something made by members of the fandom for the fandom. And yeah, those intangibles of people simply playing it, telling others about it etc. are oh so wonderful as well, and thank you as well. You're part of what makes this thing go and inspire us just as much.
And I want to give a special thanks to Mando, Sandy and Televassi
All in all it's been a successful year I'd say. We have grown pretty steadily throughout. I'm now at least able to pay writers around the top-end of the furry writer pay scale (from what i gather, looking at writing commission rates). Which... ideally I'd like to kick off the whole "furry writer" off of that sentence in the future, hell fuck it why think small? Ideally I'd like to just hire them full time.
But of course FVNs are pretty niche, and we can only work with the budget we have. But I'm already proud with what I can offer them thanks to you. And they deserve it too. The writing, and of course the ideas they bring to the table are just amazing and add so much beyond what I alone could bring to the table. So Sandy, Mando and Televassi at this point are absolutely instrumental to just how good Conway has become, and I'd very much like to be able to show my appreciation for that more in the future by shoving more of our budget their way.So yes, thank you you three. Love you <3
And of course, what would be an anniversary without a look back to how things started?
3 years of development is a long time, so ideally you'd want something to show for it, right?Well, boy do we have that! Thankfully i barely ever delete anything, so here are some of the screenshots that were uploaded along with the very first version of the game:
Compared to some recent ones:
Insert "Make it first, You can make it good later"-meme here.Not too bad is it? Certainly made some progress there, and technically it's not even the latest look, given that Sam doesn't have the new icon there. Gotta get the screenshots updated these days again.
But enough of the past, what about our 4th year then?
Well, if all goes well then we'll manage to get the Morocco storylines done, or at least close to. It's a section that, in hindsight, we probably scaled up too much, with essentially providing over half a dozen completely exclusive paths through it. But we viewed Morocco as a bit of a "reward" section where, after having spend some time with the characters, you can pick your buddy and just have a storyline that focuses on them for Morocco. I think it'll be fucking awesome when played in the context of the finished game and it's just this moment of "wait... you can go with ANYONE?!" And how it'll feel as a finished game is of course where out main priority lies. Though it's not ideal in the moment with our ongoing development model, given for how long we're treading the same ground essentially.But I hope you understand the thinking behind and are patient as we try to get it done. :)Outside of that, after the typical January dip in our funding, we have been creeping upward a bit again, and will slowly phase our extra budget back into being. So we might have some guest artists here and there to contribute a few things, for example side-stories or artworks. To what extend will depend on how our funding progresses throughout the year, but yeh. We are at least back to the point where we can consider it again after the January dip.
And then, a little gift for you all.I mentioned above that down here we'd have some special offers available. And there are!Both of these will ONLY BE AVAILABLE TODAY, on the 8th of February.(This might be a bit wonky given timezones and whatnot, but I hope the scheduling posts works as intended.)
If you're not yet a supporter on Patreon, you can get your first month for 80% off by using the code 3YEARS Just head over to https://www.patreon.com/cw/Nomax/membership
For orders over 20$, you can get a free 11oz mug from our merch store with the code 3YEARSJust head over to https://conwayship.storeAdd the 11oz mug design of your choice to your cart (the 20$ minimum order excludes the mug ofc.)And enter the code during checkout.
Thank you for reading. Love you all <3