Post by Renzii on Apr 25, 2015 4:49:59 GMT
If you wish to view the original text which was on this post, it can be found in the pastebin here: pastebin.com/zwgMvQ1w
Hello everyone! I figured it was about time I posted an update on Project Progeny, I never thought or dreamed I'd have an absence like this originally, let alone not let people know what was going on! I'm sorry about this, but I hope to at least apologise for everything with this post. I'll try to answer some of the most common questions I think people would have, or at least the ones I'd have for myself if I was in the position of the audience.
Where did you go? Why haven't you posted in a long time?
It's been a rough couple of months for me, to put it bluntly. The short break I said I'd be taking for a few weeks turned out to be a lot longer than I was expecting at the time. It started with just needing to do one thing, but once I had to go back to my education things started picking up again extremely quickly. I also moved houses during that time, and had to get suited to everything at the new place. It only felt like a fortnight that I hadn't been working, but quickly it had turned into over a month. I felt like it'd been far too long since I'd done any actual work, and with my free time being strangled I was losing motivation to do anything at home besides play video games or talk to friends. I'm sure a fair few of you have been in similar positions. I never really got back into working on the project because things were being thrown at me at a relentless pace for several months, until I pretty much forgot about the project.
What about the artist? Did they continue working? You did some work on the project in your spare time, right?
Well... This is where I should have made an update several months ago. It was another reason I ended up choosing to focus on work more than the project. I talked to the artist one night, we talked about the art and other stuff and it eventually lead to us both concluding we should just give up at the time. The artist didn't appear to be making an incredible amount of progress with the sprites, from what they were telling me. It was taking a really long time to even get one pose for Rebecca, never mind animations, enemies, backgrounds and everything else that would be required for the game. The periods I posted from around May til August 2015 only left me with one piece to work with, the background for the inventory screen. The rest of what I was doing on the programming side was using placeholder art assets, whether it be something I found online or just things I'd made myself. I myself wasn't making an incredible amount of progress either, to be fair. I posted frequently making it sound like I'd already done a lot, but more complex features were kind of beyond my skills and mindset at the time. I've became a better programmer since then, but now I'm rusty with GameMaker: Studio. AHHHHHH the tradeoffs.
Now you're back the project is going to continue, RIGHT??
I have a feeling a lot of you won't like this response but... I'm afraid not. I've only started to find myself with free time again fairly recently, and there's a million and one things I want to do, and sadly restarting this project isn't one of them. I'd have to find a new artist, brush up on GameMaker: Studio, attempt to find other people to work with... It's not something I really have the motivation to do. If I knew I had the time to pick everything back up, knew an artist or two who were willing to help, and didn't have other things to go back to in my personal life then I'd probably get back to work on it this very second. I loved the premise we'd made up, and really wanted to see where me and the artist would've ended up going with it. Hell, I still love the premise. But... I just can't bring myself to go back to working on it. It's been too long, and starting again from square one on my own feels like too daunting of a task.
Does this mean that Project Progeny is 100% dead?
I don't want to give it a firm death sentence, who knows, maybe me and the artist will pick it back up again someday... But for now, the project has been put to rest. I'd give it maybe a 5% chance of ever coming back in the future.
Overall, what went wrong?
There's two big things which I feel contributed to the demise of the project.
1) Announcing the project far too early - I guess I was way too excited to share what I wanted to start back when I originally started posting here. I posted about the project pretty much as soon as I had a character moving, which in hindsight was far too quick. If it had continued, it would've probably been months before we'd even have a demo to show off to the community.
2) The timing just wasn't right - You probably gathered this from some of the other information in this post, but if I'd started this around a time I didn't have much in my life going on, it probably would have went much better. I spent around five hours every day or so around the start of the project, down to zero when things started picking up again. The same thing goes for the artist, if they'd had a lot longer to practice before doing any kind of asset creation it may have went smoother for them.
Final words
Overall, I'm sorry it ended up this way. I never wanted to have the project die, but life just gets in the way of these kinds of things sadly. I wish I'd came back sooner to just drop some news, it was stupid to keep you all in the dark for so long, especially those who were hoping to have a playable demo at some point.
On the subject of demos, Z-Fied never ended up getting back to me, he said he'd send me the new version of the Resident Evil: Progeny demo one Sunday but it never came.
I have been working on something else for the past couple of weeks though, I'm not going to talk about it because it's far too early to mention things yet but... It's going to be another lewd project, not in the vein of Resident Evil but in the vein of something original. Who knows, maybe you'll stumble across it someday and not even realise it was made by me!
I'd like to thank each and every one of you who reached out over the duration of the project and afterwards, whether it be to talk to me or asking if you could pitch in here and there. It was really nice to see a few of you reach out and try to support a project like this, when at the time I assumed it'd get shunned because I was trying to take over Z-Fied or something along those lines. You were the ones who kept me working for as long as I did, and made me really agitated with myself when I chose to focus more on real life matters. Seriously, thank you.
Anyways, that's about as much as I have to say. I don't want to drag this on for another thousand words when I've probably got most of the key points across. Well, until next time! Goodbye everyone!
-Renzii
Ideas from the project
I figured since some of you may have been curious about some of the things relating to the project and things that were being planned, I'd drop a few of the documents/pictures here. If you want to use these for whatever reason, you're free to do so. I'll denote the pictures I do not own fully. (I would drop the .gmx project here so others could use the framework I was working on for the project, but looking back a lot of it is spaghetti code regardless of how well commented it is, it'd probably be more useful to start from scratch if you were to make a project similar to these ones)
Chapter Breakdown
A very barebones and general chapter breakdown, detailing the main events of things which happened in Resident Evil 4 and what would happen in our parody game in comparison. I didn't spend a lot of time going into details back when I was writing this because I hadn't thought of any major events which could occur. The biggest change would be the deckchair in Chapter 1-3, which would be the transition to the next chapter after a cutscene instead of fighting the lake monster. (Rebecca would've woken up in her bikini outfit variant after dark, maybe with some sticky stuff on her~)
Inventory Background
This was the background which was going to be used in the inventory for the game. The artist made it in the style of classical Resident Evil titles. This was the first and only version produced, so it may not have included space for everything we would've included in the final product.
Rebecca Outfit Concept - IMAGES NOT OWNED BY ME
This was the main outfit idea I had in mind for Rebecca. The general idea I had was to move her outfit forward from her appearances in Resident Evil 0 and 1, but to keep it familiar for fans of the series. This was the main concept I came up with, the most major change with the outfit being the inclusion of the bulletproof vest which would go over her jacket. I chose to make it more prominent on her design in this instance to not show she was frail, but to show she was still cautious from the events in the timeline pre-dating Resident Evil 4. The outfit was also designed to be conservative, since the starting Rebecca was mostly going to be a "good girl", regardless of whether or not you tried to make her as dirty as you could on the opening questions. (The questions being things which affected stats in a minor way before starting the game)
Rebecca Sporty Outfit Concept - IMAGES NOT OWNED BY ME
Of course, I was planning variant outfits at the time as well, because I love games with numerous outfits. This one was based on the picture found in Resident Evil 2, hidden in Wesker's desk in the police station. Not a lot really changed from the original design, except I would've probably made it a bit shorter to show off a bit more of her body.
Rebecca Bikini Concept - IMAGES NOT OWNED BY ME
I did mention a bikini further up, and here was the concept for the design. It's pretty simple, I know, but I wanted to keep with the style of Rebecca. I kept it skimpy (not just because it was going to be a lewd game) because I wanted it to be something Rebecca would've protested to wearing, but because she wouldn't have been able to find her normal outfit she would've been forced to wear it for at least a while.
Ashley Outfit Concept - IMAGES NOT OWNED BY ME (CENSORED)
This was the general outfit I planned for Ashley. It was going to be the most lewd default outfit in the game for a normal character, because I was hoping to paint Ashley as a ditz/bimbo/sex addict within the game. (Due to the virus/plagas variant we were going to feature) She was going to be incredibly outgoing, and probably cause lots of trouble for Rebecca along the way. We hadn't decided whether or not she was going to follow the player around at the point we were at during development, but we knew we wanted to have a bunch of "scenes" with her. (Scenes would be separate from the gameplay, featuring CG's and/or animations depending on what the player chose to do with the options provided. F/E one would feature Ashley going crazy with lust, allowing the player to volunteer to "help" her or refuse and let her run off, finding some monsters to "play" with)
Hello everyone! I figured it was about time I posted an update on Project Progeny, I never thought or dreamed I'd have an absence like this originally, let alone not let people know what was going on! I'm sorry about this, but I hope to at least apologise for everything with this post. I'll try to answer some of the most common questions I think people would have, or at least the ones I'd have for myself if I was in the position of the audience.
Where did you go? Why haven't you posted in a long time?
It's been a rough couple of months for me, to put it bluntly. The short break I said I'd be taking for a few weeks turned out to be a lot longer than I was expecting at the time. It started with just needing to do one thing, but once I had to go back to my education things started picking up again extremely quickly. I also moved houses during that time, and had to get suited to everything at the new place. It only felt like a fortnight that I hadn't been working, but quickly it had turned into over a month. I felt like it'd been far too long since I'd done any actual work, and with my free time being strangled I was losing motivation to do anything at home besides play video games or talk to friends. I'm sure a fair few of you have been in similar positions. I never really got back into working on the project because things were being thrown at me at a relentless pace for several months, until I pretty much forgot about the project.
What about the artist? Did they continue working? You did some work on the project in your spare time, right?
Well... This is where I should have made an update several months ago. It was another reason I ended up choosing to focus on work more than the project. I talked to the artist one night, we talked about the art and other stuff and it eventually lead to us both concluding we should just give up at the time. The artist didn't appear to be making an incredible amount of progress with the sprites, from what they were telling me. It was taking a really long time to even get one pose for Rebecca, never mind animations, enemies, backgrounds and everything else that would be required for the game. The periods I posted from around May til August 2015 only left me with one piece to work with, the background for the inventory screen. The rest of what I was doing on the programming side was using placeholder art assets, whether it be something I found online or just things I'd made myself. I myself wasn't making an incredible amount of progress either, to be fair. I posted frequently making it sound like I'd already done a lot, but more complex features were kind of beyond my skills and mindset at the time. I've became a better programmer since then, but now I'm rusty with GameMaker: Studio. AHHHHHH the tradeoffs.
Now you're back the project is going to continue, RIGHT??
I have a feeling a lot of you won't like this response but... I'm afraid not. I've only started to find myself with free time again fairly recently, and there's a million and one things I want to do, and sadly restarting this project isn't one of them. I'd have to find a new artist, brush up on GameMaker: Studio, attempt to find other people to work with... It's not something I really have the motivation to do. If I knew I had the time to pick everything back up, knew an artist or two who were willing to help, and didn't have other things to go back to in my personal life then I'd probably get back to work on it this very second. I loved the premise we'd made up, and really wanted to see where me and the artist would've ended up going with it. Hell, I still love the premise. But... I just can't bring myself to go back to working on it. It's been too long, and starting again from square one on my own feels like too daunting of a task.
Does this mean that Project Progeny is 100% dead?
I don't want to give it a firm death sentence, who knows, maybe me and the artist will pick it back up again someday... But for now, the project has been put to rest. I'd give it maybe a 5% chance of ever coming back in the future.
Overall, what went wrong?
There's two big things which I feel contributed to the demise of the project.
1) Announcing the project far too early - I guess I was way too excited to share what I wanted to start back when I originally started posting here. I posted about the project pretty much as soon as I had a character moving, which in hindsight was far too quick. If it had continued, it would've probably been months before we'd even have a demo to show off to the community.
2) The timing just wasn't right - You probably gathered this from some of the other information in this post, but if I'd started this around a time I didn't have much in my life going on, it probably would have went much better. I spent around five hours every day or so around the start of the project, down to zero when things started picking up again. The same thing goes for the artist, if they'd had a lot longer to practice before doing any kind of asset creation it may have went smoother for them.
Final words
Overall, I'm sorry it ended up this way. I never wanted to have the project die, but life just gets in the way of these kinds of things sadly. I wish I'd came back sooner to just drop some news, it was stupid to keep you all in the dark for so long, especially those who were hoping to have a playable demo at some point.
On the subject of demos, Z-Fied never ended up getting back to me, he said he'd send me the new version of the Resident Evil: Progeny demo one Sunday but it never came.
I have been working on something else for the past couple of weeks though, I'm not going to talk about it because it's far too early to mention things yet but... It's going to be another lewd project, not in the vein of Resident Evil but in the vein of something original. Who knows, maybe you'll stumble across it someday and not even realise it was made by me!
I'd like to thank each and every one of you who reached out over the duration of the project and afterwards, whether it be to talk to me or asking if you could pitch in here and there. It was really nice to see a few of you reach out and try to support a project like this, when at the time I assumed it'd get shunned because I was trying to take over Z-Fied or something along those lines. You were the ones who kept me working for as long as I did, and made me really agitated with myself when I chose to focus more on real life matters. Seriously, thank you.
Anyways, that's about as much as I have to say. I don't want to drag this on for another thousand words when I've probably got most of the key points across. Well, until next time! Goodbye everyone!
-Renzii
Ideas from the project
I figured since some of you may have been curious about some of the things relating to the project and things that were being planned, I'd drop a few of the documents/pictures here. If you want to use these for whatever reason, you're free to do so. I'll denote the pictures I do not own fully. (I would drop the .gmx project here so others could use the framework I was working on for the project, but looking back a lot of it is spaghetti code regardless of how well commented it is, it'd probably be more useful to start from scratch if you were to make a project similar to these ones)
Chapter Breakdown
A very barebones and general chapter breakdown, detailing the main events of things which happened in Resident Evil 4 and what would happen in our parody game in comparison. I didn't spend a lot of time going into details back when I was writing this because I hadn't thought of any major events which could occur. The biggest change would be the deckchair in Chapter 1-3, which would be the transition to the next chapter after a cutscene instead of fighting the lake monster. (Rebecca would've woken up in her bikini outfit variant after dark, maybe with some sticky stuff on her~)
Inventory Background
This was the background which was going to be used in the inventory for the game. The artist made it in the style of classical Resident Evil titles. This was the first and only version produced, so it may not have included space for everything we would've included in the final product.
Rebecca Outfit Concept - IMAGES NOT OWNED BY ME
This was the main outfit idea I had in mind for Rebecca. The general idea I had was to move her outfit forward from her appearances in Resident Evil 0 and 1, but to keep it familiar for fans of the series. This was the main concept I came up with, the most major change with the outfit being the inclusion of the bulletproof vest which would go over her jacket. I chose to make it more prominent on her design in this instance to not show she was frail, but to show she was still cautious from the events in the timeline pre-dating Resident Evil 4. The outfit was also designed to be conservative, since the starting Rebecca was mostly going to be a "good girl", regardless of whether or not you tried to make her as dirty as you could on the opening questions. (The questions being things which affected stats in a minor way before starting the game)
Rebecca Sporty Outfit Concept - IMAGES NOT OWNED BY ME
Of course, I was planning variant outfits at the time as well, because I love games with numerous outfits. This one was based on the picture found in Resident Evil 2, hidden in Wesker's desk in the police station. Not a lot really changed from the original design, except I would've probably made it a bit shorter to show off a bit more of her body.
Rebecca Bikini Concept - IMAGES NOT OWNED BY ME
I did mention a bikini further up, and here was the concept for the design. It's pretty simple, I know, but I wanted to keep with the style of Rebecca. I kept it skimpy (not just because it was going to be a lewd game) because I wanted it to be something Rebecca would've protested to wearing, but because she wouldn't have been able to find her normal outfit she would've been forced to wear it for at least a while.
Ashley Outfit Concept - IMAGES NOT OWNED BY ME (CENSORED)
This was the general outfit I planned for Ashley. It was going to be the most lewd default outfit in the game for a normal character, because I was hoping to paint Ashley as a ditz/bimbo/sex addict within the game. (Due to the virus/plagas variant we were going to feature) She was going to be incredibly outgoing, and probably cause lots of trouble for Rebecca along the way. We hadn't decided whether or not she was going to follow the player around at the point we were at during development, but we knew we wanted to have a bunch of "scenes" with her. (Scenes would be separate from the gameplay, featuring CG's and/or animations depending on what the player chose to do with the options provided. F/E one would feature Ashley going crazy with lust, allowing the player to volunteer to "help" her or refuse and let her run off, finding some monsters to "play" with)