I've always wanted to do this.I don't know yet what the next year(s) will bring, so I felt now was the right time.
A long list of "did you know" facts, insider info and trivia, from 4 years of developing adult games.From my 18+ game beginnings, how TM came about, what projects and ideas, characters and features I abandoned or shelved along the way and for which reasons, and so on.Lots of it.Over 4500 words. More than some "major" TM and GoV updates had ^^'
Accessible for all patron tiers, but you can also buy* it in the shop to get permanent access as long as my patreon page is active.There's a downloadable PDF version at the end too, just in case.
* 3€+VAT is the minimum price Patreon forces me to set when selling posts, sorry.I would've gone lower if it was possible.
The beginnings
My very first released 18+ VN, Glow of Venus
Centered around Sarah, released in April 2022, it was based on a small 18+ story I had written for my portfolio in a (failed) attempt to get hired as writer for VNs through the Lemmasoft (Ren'Py) Forums.
Had a bit of a melancholic vibe originally.
I had already released 2 small SFW VNs, and mostly released this one to test the waters of the 18+ space......yeah, got like 10x as many views and downloads as the SFW ones, despite its small size and my newbie skills in KK.
If was also originally planned to be a kind of Prologue for the project below:
My first plan for a big 18+ VN
I won't reveal the title, on the off chance that I'll ever pick it up, but this one wasn't so much 18+ for lewd scenes, but rather violence.
It would've been a multi-choice, story-driven VN, with Mia as FMC, centered around saving her abducted boyfriend from his prison in an abondoned schoolbuilding... with Sarah as lead antagonist, and Julia, Elena, Anne and Olivia as her underlings (though some of them had different names back then).The idea was that all of them had a crush on Mia's boyfriend, but since he was loyal to her, Sarah and her underlings abducted him, going all yandere over him, and gave Mia a choice: "Give up on him or try to take him back... or die trying ^^"
Mia, being the hard-boiled type, would - naturally - choose war.
The game would've been... controversial, to say the least ^^'- FMC (Mia)- brutal at times- many bad endings, "featuring"...- lesbian raep- GxM raep- NTR (I didn't even know the tag back then, but it was)- suicide- lots of psychology and "grey area" under the hood, not all black & white / good & evil- multiple playthroughs and witnessing all bad endings required to get the true end- a true ending I don't want to spoil... but it would definitely have been controversial, too ^^
...Let's just say their Garden of Venus personalities are in some regards very different from their originals ^^I had to "softwash" in particular Sarah's and Julia's personalities quite a bit for later games, especially for Garden of Venus.
I mostly shelved the concept of this VN because- I'm a poor planner, and I understood it needed good planning to be good- it would've needed challenging riddles and QTEs to fit the idea and mood, which I didn't have the ideas and skills for- I was still VERY inexperienced in both KK and Ren'Py- I knew it probably wouldn't be all that popular, regardless of quality- by now, some tags would create even more problems than back then- Glow of Venus' relative success, and the themes of some very popular 18+ games, suggested I could make far more money with something much simpler and easier.
Sad, but true.
Their character models
(Very) loosely inspired by some free 2D sprites I originally planned to use.The sprites were too limited in terms of expressions for my needs though, and I needed CGs too, so when I learned of Koikatsu through some popular 18+ games on itch io, I switched over to that... before eventually giving up on this game, due to how challenging it would've been to pull off by a total newbie like me.
Next project idea after that
My next idea was the original concept of HHR, or a sandbox 18+ harem parody of F/GO, loosely based on its summer events. Not sure anymore which one was first.
I ended up shelving both, because I felt I wasn't good enough yet, neither as character designer nor regarding coding/scripting in RenPy.
Total Maidness Origins
The first maid was Leyla
The reason for that is simple: Her design was (loosely) inspired by "Rider" from Fate/stay night. Or more precisely: An official art depicting Rider in a maid outfit.Depending on how you pronounce it, "Leyla" sounds phonetically a bit similar to how the original japanese VAs pronounce "Rider", except I replaced the 'd' with an 'l', of course.Leyla is still her own character, of course, but that was the original inspiration.
Mary and Emily
Mary's starting point was a (horribly failed ^^) attempt at recreating Boudica from FGO.Only the curviness and motherly nature remained in the end, though.Emily was - no joke! - based on Elena's original character model, but of course heavily curved up and hair color changed to blonde.Elena's original name was actually... Emily. I think she was actually still called that in the bonus scene of the original version of Glow of Venus.Another random tidbit, let's just say TM Emily's hair color / eye color combo was also loosely inspired by FSN/FGO and leave it at that. Same for Emilia, the vampire in KKKA, aka Emily Alter :)
The origin of Total Maidness
After making Leyla, Mary and Emily, I eventually came up with Kate as well (with Mia's character card as starting point iirc, hence the red hair).And since I had no confidence in my RenPy skills yet, I thought to myself, "why not make a small and simple [haha...] practice project centered around some maids?"
Lesbian/bi content in TM was originally unavoidable
Yeah... my biggest blunder... but not to "bait and switch", as some people later accused me of, but because it didn't even occur to me that people would have a problem with it, let alone consider it "NTR" or at least sharing.For that matter, it was only through the backlash on a certain (in)famous forum that I even learned of the NTR tag and what it means.Or that some people can feel NTR'd by seeing women do it together, too.Alien concept to me, but I had no choice but to accept that.
While it's true that I didn't do my due diligence on this, in my defense I didn't play many AVNs (especially no western ones) before getting into making my own, and my own tolerance was shaped by japanese VNs like "Wonderful Everyday - Through the Rabbit Hole".If you ever play(ed) that.....you'll understand why I considered everything I did in TM absolutely harmless ^^'
TM was originally meant to end after "Chapter 1" and a smaller Christmas special
That's right.
My plan was always to end it with chapter 1, unless it took off and became successful.Which, at that time, it absolutely wasn't.
I was very close to announcing its end, and only doing 1-2 more small alibi updates and a small Xmas update to keep the few patrons happy until the next game.
If xtone and two Level 5 patrons hadn't shown up just at the right moment, TM would've ended MUCH earlier. No Iris, no Jenna, no sidegirls.The original interest in TM was horribly low ^^'I was still at like 20-50 bucks per month after the first 3 months and Chapter 1, and ready to give up and move on to greener pastures.
It was mostly xtone who pushed me to continue, to make a bigger Xmas special, and revamp the code during the first half of 2023, while I kept adding random sandbox content to bridge the wait for patrons.
KKKA was originally meant to be TM's 2022 Halloween Special
It was only after KKKA was so much fun to make that it took on a life of its own and turned into a stand-alone game (that turned out to be fairly unpopular...), that I ended up cobbling together another, smaller H'ween special within TM, too.That was probably my most productive month ever, KKKA with over 400 renders and TM's H'ween special within, dunno, 33 days?
Absolutely wild. No idea how I managed that. Wish my brain could still handle that kind of work mode... or that I could get back that kind of excitement, energy and motivation from back then... v.v
What I would've made if I had ended TM after Chapter 1
HHR? No. Still not skilled enough to do it justice.FGO parody? No (well, maybe as side-gig).
Glow of Venus 2.An episodic VN around the Mia/Sarah etc. cast....Let's just say most of you probably wouldn't be here if I had made that instead of TM ^^'
While not the central theme of it, it would've featured several episodes/storylines featuring NTR, MMF/sharing, pimping etc.Mostly from a 3rd-person perspective, mind you; no real MC, so it would not be the player getting NTR'd, you'd just have been watching people do those things to each other, like in porn.But yeah... not exactly material for harem enjoyers ^^'
Anyway, back to TM.
Melanie was originally the 5th maid
Yep.
It was only after I came up with Iris' design that Mel's addition as maid was delayed and ultimately cancelled, due to how wildly unpopular she was in all polls.
Dodged a bullet there, I guess ^^'Though I still think Mel looks fine. Just not what most people apparently want.
Cindy was originally meant to be Claire's daughter
Some of you might remember.
Her design came before Abby, that's why Cindy is seen with Claire in the background during the story scene when you "hire" Mel for the Chapter 2 gig surrounding Mary.
I just came up with Abby's design on a whim and found her cuter, so I put both up for vote for the role as Claire's daughter, and Abby won... so I made Cindy her best friend and added her too, as compensation to those 37% of voters who voted for Cindy.
The canonical explanation for the Mel scene CG showing Cindy instead of Abby is that Cindy was there with Claire and Abby, and Abby was visiting the toilet during that scene ;)
Cindy was originally called Sheryl
Some old variables in TM's script still reference her old name, I only changed the name a few weeks (or even days) before the update that added her to the game.
A certain very dirty TM scene...
Those of you who enabled and watched all lesbian/bi scenes in TM may remember that funny (but also dirty) scene with the MC, Kate and Emily in his bedroom, involving a strap-on.
Well, parts of that scene were literally among the first lewd scenes I ever set up for TM, before I even decided to go with TM as a game.The original, first scene file for that scene is from May 2022.More specifically, that part with Emily's mouth open and the MC holding up her hands ^^
The only reason I later even included that scene at all was because some patrons on discord encouraged me to do it. I was worried it would be too depraved and unpopular ^^'
The Carnal Crystal
...Objectively, not my best idea ever.
Subjectively, I would've liked to add far more dirty fantasies, and a few more memories... but the few I released were already so unpopular and got so much backlash that I (reluctantly) abandoned most plans I originally had for it.
The pains of your own tastes not aligning with your core audience...
TM - Bedtime Stories
The memories/fantasies special spin-off.Maybe I should re-upload it...Essentially the precursor of the Sharing spin-off, and ultimately the result of people not being more open towards the naughtier Carnal Crystal content :P
I don't regret making it... it was fun to make, for the most part, even if it delayed GoV and HHR progress by several weeks.
What I lament is more how unpopular it was (in terms of number of subscribers, most people who played it, liked it), in part because I was too scared to advertise it on itch (you know why)... and the fact that a special, even spicier "Director's Cut" version was only ever given to 2 or 3 people, because my fear of the backlash won over releasing it officially.
I wish people were more tolerant and able to treat separate projects and spin-offs as just that (aka ignore them if they don't like them), so I could release it without worry.Maybe towards the end of my career, when backlash doesn't matter anymore, I will.
My Naughty Neighbor and Mia's Bad Hair Day
Those little stand-alone games were effectively survivors of the "Glow of Venus 2" cancellation, they'd have been 2 of the GloV2 episodes.
MNN was also in part a test run in terms of engine, performance and animation style for Garden of Venus.
...Also, if Patreon's "Shop" feature had already existed back then, they'd definitely have been paid-only projects.
MBHD's lost content
It was originally meant to have optional MMF/DP.No need to explain why I ultimately left that out, I guess.Might still add that at some point.
Mia's buggy character card
...It has a weird bug. You can't change her lipstick color. Or rather, you can, but you can't save it. Always reverts back when you load her card. No idea why.
Bit of a bummer, she was originally meant to have a more "hard-boiled" look and black lipstick in MBHD (like Kate)... but I was too lazy to redo her character card from a non-buggy foundation, just to fix this one minor detail.
Garden of Venus
GoV's Origin
Around spring 2023, after cancelling both the big Mia story VN and Glow of Venus 2, I had all those character designs I still liked, but no game to use them in... and making all of them maids in TM would've been boring / too much work.I needed a simpler project to include them in.
Also, at that time I honestly still cared more about money, and TM was supposed to end by the end of 2023 at latest.I was honestly jealous of the financial success of another dev's games, "MSF" and "Free Use Planet", so I thought I could replicate the latter's concept, and just offer cleaner UI/navigation, more girls and more scenes, and would profit.
While I was already eyeing HHR as new main project, at that time I was still naive enough to think a game like GoV could be developed as side gig with just 3-5 days of work per month.I gravely misjudged the lack of (graphics) synergy between GoV and HHR though, which the MSF/FUP pair had. The latter was also paid-only, and I gravely underestimated the difference that apparently makes, too.
But, TM kept me occupied for far longer than planned, so GoV only saw the light of day 1 year later than planned, and never lived up to the (financial) expectations I once had for it... while being more boring, time-consuming and exhausting to make than I had anticipated.
Also, without xtone pushing me to go through with it, as to not throw away the work that we had already put into some systems and graphics, I would've gotten cold feet and abandoned it at the last minute, just a few days before the launch.
(Don't blame xtone though if you didn't like GoV that much; despite what some people seem to think, GoV was never the main reason for HHR's failure, nevermind that GoV was launched first, and slowed down in favor of HHR, not the other way round).
Gym sidegirls
They were originally meant to stay non-lewdable, just like the plaza tsundere and park slut.
The original idea was to focus more on the original 10 main girls, plus only a few special sidegirl encounters like Lina.
Sandbox
Originally, the game was meant to be more like "Free Use Planet", meaning less sandbox, more small 1-time events.
What GoV became was more a response to what people kept asking for, not what it was originally meant to be.
Sarah's true character
GoV Sarah isn't the "true" Sarah.I mellowed her down for the purpose of GoV.
Her original character is the one from Glow of Venus and MNN.
While she isn't the wicked antagonist from the Mia-focused VN anymore, canonical Sarah from MNN is, to be blunt:A slut. A hungry sex beast. A man eater. A human succubus.Smart, underhanded, cheeky and a big tease, but always with a smile.
The GoV MC is honestly lucky that he's the only hot guy around in the area in the GoV worldline, so GoV's Sarah is more loyal to him than what would be in her nature in a normal world.
I know that not everyone will like this fact, but that's how it is.
Connections between TM and the Mia/Sarah cast
As mentioned before, Garden of Venus is an "alternate worldline" spin-off, including the characters.
However, the original Sarah from "My Naughty Neighbor", Mia from "Mia's Bad Hair Day" etc. actually all live in the TM world.
You can seea slightly older Sarah and Mia in the Cafe during Kate's scene from the TM Xmas Special, actually.
Mia is Kate's sister, Grace is Kate's mom
In canon TM world, at least.Now you know.
Deep down, Kate is pretty bitter about not taking a bit more after her mom, btw.Don't point out the chest size difference in Kate's presence if you value your life (or your nuts) ^^
Heroic Harem Resort
Original title
It's original, internal title was actually Hero Recreation Resort, when it wasn't meant to be as story-focused yet and mostly a casual, lewd, sandboxy fun game at a resort, with more character- and feature variety than in TM.
Original main cast
The original main cast was just Nova, Krushna, Lianna and Felicia.And a curvy vampire girl with a somewhat "Harley Quinn"-like personality and looks.Oh, that was Jenna's prototype, btw (same twin tails).The vampire girl was cut, because of how unpopular the "bratty/slutty" girls in TM were (at least relative to the nicer girls and Kate).
Also, their original character models were all FAR WORSE than the ones you saw in HHR.Original Nova wouldn't have passed Rule 7, for instance ^^'And Felicia used to be tall and slender... until I realized how unpopular that would be (also, her original face was honestly kinda ugly, in hindsight).
TM characters appearing in HHR
The first TM-based character I added (for story reasons) was "Kait", due to a design I came up with while fooling around with Kate's character model for KKKA.Saying more would be a spoiler, and I don't want to give up on that 1% chance of a future HHR revival yet.
Originally, "Kait" and "Emilia" were supposed to be like a devil and angel sitting on the MC's shoulders, Pixie-from-CK-style.That would've been too much work, though.
Iris and some other characters were only added much later, although Iris' addition heavily upgraded the plot for the better. Only you might never get to see it...
The lost brothel
The resort was originally meant to have a brothel (with no customers though, until you).Got superseded by other plans, because HHR was already shooting waaaaaaay for the moon in terms of character count and game complexity.
HHR pre-release hold-ups and other reasons for its abandonment
HHR suffered from delays long before even its first announcement and release.
One reason was character model quality.
Bringing the old main character models from 2022 up to my own ever-increasing standards was really challenging; I was never really happy.
I always saw hotter or cuter-looking characters in other games, and my inferiority complex made me try again and again to get at least closer to that level... because once you start rendering scenes, you can't change models that much anymore, or you'll have to redo older scenes....But sometimes it felt like polishing a turd to me.Don't get me wrong, the end results weren't bad... just not as amazing as what other games had/have.
I cared much more about HHR than any other project (including TM), so I was genuinely a bit scared about not living up to my own expectations, so I guess maybe subconsciously I used the continuing TM updates as an excuse to push off starting to seriously work on HHR.
Speaking of TM, the other issue during HHR pre-production was...Total Maidness.
TM was supposed to end at the end on 2023, with the end of Mary's Chapter 2 story arc.
Everything that came after was basically just striking off a TODO checklist of things I had either stupidly promised on a whim, or which did well in polls... and some of it was so much against my own preferences (or complicated to implement), that I struggled to get it over with, so TM kept dragging on... and on... and on... you get the idea.Hello there, nightly room access, pregnancy and seduction (and Cindy, though I like Cindy)...
Anyway, had I managed to end TM in Dec 2023 or January 2024 and put GoV on hold before its launch, at least HHR Chapter 1 might've worked out... with worse character models, but more content.
But regardless of GoV, by the time HHR actually came out, it was in hindsight already too late.And I knew, I could feel it.
Because it was supposed to be a positive story about hope and not giving up... and the geopolitical developments since late 2023 made me gradually lose hope, a dissonance I wasn't able to overcome.
The final reason
When HHR also got some weird, negative feedback that honestly caught me off-guard (namely how many people took issue with TM-based girls appearing in HHR), it was basically already hanging by a thread, regardless of GoV.The lack of progress in Feb and March 2025 was already a result of my damaged motivation, resuming GoV was just band-aid to have at least some new content for the players.
All other reasons I've publicly mentioned before were true, too...
But the complaints about TM girls appearing in HHR somehow making the TM ending 'meaningless', and then on top of that some "are you planning bait and switch to NTR again, like in TM?" accusations, all just because TM 1.0 had added that one avoidable Iris dream and Abby/Cindy memory, kinda killed my motivation to keep catering to die-hard harem purists.
It gave me the feeling that my way of thinking is just too incompatible with parts of my audience, and it felt like HHR was a lost cause due to the TM baggage, plus not wanting to bow and kneel towards those people, on top of all other challenges HHR was already facing.
It took months until the above hard wormed its way to the surface of my mind, but I was honestly never able to shake it off.
Why I delay public releases so long sometimes
The by far biggest and best advertisement for this type of game is still to show up high on itch's Most Recent and New & Popular sections.
But to get back there with an existing game, you need (at minimum) to
do a devlog checked as "Major Release"
ideally have a new public release to attach to it
wait at least a month between posts
So, both announcing new patron releases 2 weeks before public releases, as well as uploading new public releases less than 4 weeks since the last devlog, is detrimental to getting back up there.
Sad, but true.
The most annoying kind of work in 18+ game dev
The posing and rendering, hands down.Especially anything fancier, custom poses, (semi-)custom animations etc.That's somewhere between 80-90% of the work, and also the most exhausting and annoying on top of that.
I wrote and scripted "I Got Isekai'd..." with over 10,000 words in 1 week, because all the graphics were ready.
In contrast, some 1,500 word updates for GoV took me over a month and sucked all life out of me.
Go figure.
Other abandoned game concepts
In addition to those already mentioned, I have a ton of other game concepts / ideas in my little project graveyard (actually some of them are still more shelved than truly dead, because I liked them enough that I don't want to give up on them completely just yet).
A wacky TM spin-off (well, more like completely different game) with a Space Kate in the role of a lesbo Darth Vader, conquering the universe (and lots of girls along the way).Goofy in a similar vein to KKKA, only even wackier and wilder....It would not have been popular, I think ^^'
An 18+ version with KK graphics of my SFW VN "I Got Isekai'd and f**in' hate it!"
A dark "Alternative" version of my very first VN, "Winter Memories" (not lewd, only dark).The idea was that you were caught in a time loop, and each repetition, your relationship with your GF would gradually get worse, scarier and more twisted, no matter what you tried, with some psychological horror elements, until the big story twist and eventually a "True End".
A sandbox game where you'd have been teacher at an elven scho-... academy.
A tongue-in-cheek, a bit self-ironic game where you'd have been the ultimate sigma omega President / Top Celebrity of the world, going around fucking idols, models, other people's wifes and girlfriends etc.Basically, kinda like GoV, only in the "normal" world, where your pull factor would've come from your sheer attractiveness, eloquence, riches and power.And more episodic with a bit more story per girl, and no real sandbox.
A "Producer" parody game, where you'd have been a photographer/cameraman/producer, corrupting popular anime/VN/game girls into making porn, making them cheat on their BFs/husbands (if they had one).Would've had an optional "Unholy Trinity" mode, where you'd actually do this with 2 pals, so there'd have been optional MMF, gangbang etc.
A dark story VN with HS2 graphics (would've featured Kate as an Assassin/Thief type character, though it would not have played in the TM worldline, so no, not the exact same Kate).Never put much thought into this concept, though.
A game called "Maid in Academy", maid training with optional/avoidable Netorase.A bit like "Academy - Live!", only with maids. Maaaybe would've featured Sarah and/or some TM girls ^^'Tempting, but would've needed too many characters to be credible, and as a result become too much work to develop at a pace satisfying for players.
An NTR FGO parody, where the (male) MC is all oblivious, while the servants + (adult) Mash fuck around, literally.
at least 3 Netorase game concepts of varying complexity and focus ^^'
How I lost my Maids. TM Hard NTR, ending exactly as the title says.I was considering this as my response to people accusing me of intentional "bait and switch", as well as calling the TM dreams/memories NTR and claiming I was not tagging my games correctly.Just to make a point and show them what it would look like if I did real, true NTR.And maybe as closure to my game dev career....Only it would've been way too much work for a mere fruitless revenge trip, and a bit too depressing of an ending for my career, so yeah.
Reservoir of amazing character cards
I got some really great girls in reserve that none of you have ever seen before (well, I just previewed 1 of them in early Feb 2026), who may never get used in a game, unless I make a completely fresh start with a completely new game.
I don't know what the future will bring, but I hope to find a suitable project for at least my 2-3 favs among them before my time is up.
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Anyway, I hope it was an interesting read.2025 and the beginning of 2026 have been very bumpy to say the least, so let's hope there's still enough time ahead I can do a Part 2 in a few years :)
~OnionCuttingNinja, Feb 08th 2026