March 24th-April 7th, 2014: Waiting for pledges to be processed.
April 8th: Delivery of episode 1 Steam keys.
April 9th-30th: Work on development tools, Juniper’s Knot Sequel, and “backers area”.
May 1st: Serious development on episode 2 begins.
May 15th: “Backers area” usable.
August 15th: Beta complete. Testing begins.
August 31st: Episode 2 and prologue released and delivered to backers.
September 1st-21st: Marketing and promotion, bug fixes, post-release break.
September 22nd: Development of episode 3 begins.
February 15th, 2015: Beta complete. Testing begins.
March 1st: Episode 3 released and delivered to backers.
March 2nd-31st: Marketing and promotion, bug fixes, sending of physical rewards to backers.
Of course, we all have to keep in mind that this plan is tentative. Hopefully nothing will happen to the team that'll cause a delay. If all goes well and I can beg Jeremy well enough, you should start seeing some features on Episode 2 in July or August. Considering this is also around the time of a certain Texas-based convention, some members of Dischan might want to consider leaving Canada and making their way to the States. I'm just saying; could be good for business!
Either way, we are happy to have this and we will keep you guys posted on how the schedule looks from time to time.
Hell, let's table all of those questions and start with this one, 'Is this going to be a commercial project or not?' The Kickstarter page mentions several pieces of merchandise that will be available to certain contributors: t-shirts, etc. Does that means everyone else will have access down the road, hence making parts of this venture commercial even though the game itself will be free? Or will it be the other way around and only the people who either contribute or purchase the game will have access to the merchandise? So, what exactly is the money for if that is or is not the case?
My numerous, pedantic questions aside, the biggest donors will be the fan base for the comic. This has required a bit of research because I'm not familiar with the comic. So, I decided to read Chapter One to try and familiarize myself with the content. My ONE compliment is that it is clear that the artist has grown since they started this comic; so congrats on that. As for the actual content itself....well...HM is very clear this meant to be Not Safe For Work and it is a comic featuring homosexual characters.
NSFW IS PUTTING IT MILDLY.
Okay, so, I know we've had a lot of growth since I've last gone over the rules here on VNs Now so let me do that now for the new kids. I do not review visual novels with pornographic material. The reason for this is because my views on pornography are pretty much set in stone and I do not review pornography. So far, two games have come VERY close to the line of this rule: Katawa Shoujo and Hate Plus. While Katawa Shoujo had sex scenes in them, if you found any of it erotic I would just go ahead and check yourself into the nearest mental health facility. It was more about establishing the 'slice-of-life', infatuated teenagers vibe than feeding into anything sexual so it got a pass. Hate Plus slid through because, while there were some unquestionably erotic moments (DAMN YOU MIMI), like KS it was more about establishing certain relations rather than turning the reader on. Plus, nothing was visually depicted so whatever you saw was only in your heads you filthy, filthy bastards.
That brings us to Starfighter and that LOVELY scene in Chapter 1 where the black-haired douchebag is jerking off in the cockpit (no pun intended); which pretty much shut the door for me and that particular comic. If that is where something this proudly Not Safe For Work starts, I know my face won't make it to see where it goes from there. So this is the posture we're going to be in concerning this particular title. If the crowd-funding is successful and the game follows the DEFINITELY Not Safe For Work tone of the comic, I can't review it. I cannot be fair with something this graphic. I'm sorry guys: blame my Southern hard-wiring. However, because this could be another marker for us as a community as I have discussed in the podcast, I will keep track of its Kickstarter campaign here in the news section.
Something tells me though there won't be anyone demanding that I change my approach on this one as the Starfighter Kickstarter is getting plenty of attention and support. If the campaign is successful, the game is slated to launch Spring of 2015. Everyone at VNs Now wishes HamletMachine success so good luck guys! We're rooting for you despite being flustered by reading your work!
Oh, and if you any of you could answer ANY of my questions, just to satisfy my curiosity, that would be nice too!
That's all the news for now. This has been JP reporting for VNs Now!