-CookieMonster666-

Devoted Member
Nov 20, 2018
10,983
15,875
6 months before you get the abandoned tag anyway.
It's actually supposed to be more than 3 months, so a shorter time, but I don't know how strictly they enforce it generally. I think a lot of it depends on whether a site user reports a thread as being abandoned. But if you look at the rules for that, it's not been updated to a longer time period.
 

JohnnyFlex

Member
Jan 24, 2018
132
299
Unless it's for the absolute worst circumstance, like it was with Lexi, I don't understand how a game would end up abandoned. Are there really people out there who will start a project with no end goal? People are really writing these stories with no conclusion? (Rhetorical questions. Obviously people do, based on the amount of abandoned games on this site.)
 
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Oct 8, 2019
487
603
Unless it's for the absolute worst circumstance, like it was with Lexi, I don't understand how a game would end up abandoned. Are there really people out there who will start a project with no end goal? People are really writing these stories with no conclusion? (Rhetorical questions. Obviously people do, based on the amount of abandoned games on this site.)
I'm not familiar with that game or story, care to save me the search time and elaborate on what happened?
 
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JohnnyFlex

Member
Jan 24, 2018
132
299
I'm not familiar with that game or story, care to save me the search time and elaborate on what happened?
Game was in early stages, but had a great foundation to become something great, but the developer passed away. I don't remember how he passed, whether or not it was sudden, or if it were an illness he had been dealing with, but obviously it was extremely unfortunate.
 
Jul 4, 2021
20
3
Game was in early stages, but had a great foundation to become something great, but the developer passed away. I don't remember how he passed, whether or not it was sudden, or if it were an illness he had been dealing with, but obviously it was extremely unfortunate.
what!! he! passed!! evidence/source?
 

-CookieMonster666-

Devoted Member
Nov 20, 2018
10,983
15,875
Game was in early stages, but had a great foundation to become something great, but the developer passed away. I don't remember how he passed, whether or not it was sudden, or if it were an illness he had been dealing with, but obviously it was extremely unfortunate.
what!! he! passed!! evidence/source?
I would definitely like confirmation as well. This is news to me. I know of other developers who passed on, but I hadn't heard this about Undertow.
 

-CookieMonster666-

Devoted Member
Nov 20, 2018
10,983
15,875
Wasn't talking about Undertow. Was talking about Chatterbox, the dev of Lexi.
Oh, good. I mean, obviously Chatter's death was definitely not good, and he was one of the first that came to mind when mentioning other developers. But it's good that Undertow is hopefully fine.
 

ClockworkGnome

Active Member
Sep 18, 2021
737
1,950
Unless it's for the absolute worst circumstance, like it was with Lexi, I don't understand how a game would end up abandoned. Are there really people out there who will start a project with no end goal? People are really writing these stories with no conclusion? (Rhetorical questions. Obviously people do, based on the amount of abandoned games on this site.)
I'd say very few amateur indie VN devs start a game having a full idea in mind of where it's going. Many of them just start with a cool idea and assume they'll wing it as they go, not realizing just how painful that sort of development style can become as you get deeper into things. Even devs who know where/how they want a story to end don't necessarily plan out the path to get there in advance, and instead just sort of improvise the smaller story beats within the context of the larger arc.

It's probably really rare that a dev actually sits down and writes the entire script for a game out before they start to code.

Then you've got the problem of catering to Patreons or other supporters - you might have planned for that one character you introduced to be little more than a throwaway NPC in a single scene, but if tons of the people throwing money at you to make the game seem to love them and keep demanding more scenes, what do you do? Stick to your original vision and potentially lose money? Or rework the plot to give them a larger role, potentially causing other problems? It's easier to improv on the fly if you never really had an end-game in mind in the first place, but you can still make things confusing for yourself, or at worst even start to lose passion for the project because now you're incorporating characters or fetishes or other ideas the supporters want that you personally may not like.

Honestly, I think most abandoned games wind up that way because the dev starts out working on something they consider a passion project based on an idea or three that excites them, only to become incredibly overwhelmed when they realize just how much work it is (especially as the game grows bigger and coding gets more complicated). And that's not even getting into games where the dev is initially okay with the amount of effort, but then something happens in their life (relationship problems, job issues, health scare, etc) that suddenly make it much harder to put the same amount of effort in. So what once seemed like an accomplishable goal starts to look like something they'll never be able to finish, so they kind of just drop it out of helplessness and frustration.

I may be sad when a game that seems awesome gets dropped in the middle of development because the dev wound up overwhelmed by the whole mess, because they're only human, and for most of them, this isn't even their actual job. I think it only really becomes a problem when it starts to feel like a dev is deliberately stringing supporters along because they want to make tons of money off a project they have no intention of ever finishing.
 

bandyta80

Active Member
Mar 8, 2022
796
731
I am planning to start this game

I have two questions

1 I have had version 1.85 installed on my disk for some time, is it significantly different from v1.9

2 is there the sharing / NTR route? or is the girlfriend cheating
behind his back?
 

LowLevelLesser

Active Member
Feb 8, 2021
788
998
I like how it's not just a regular visual novel with choices and that you have to keep an eye on the scene because there are points where you can click on things or completely miss them (a good way of making players pay more attention as there are both benefits and consequences to these). I always appreciate when a developer puts a "twist" or extra features of some sort in their game to spice it up and attempt to make it stand out from the typical stuff around.
 
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ThaRealThiccShady

Active Member
Mar 16, 2020
588
1,361
Sad that it’s officially abandoned-had a lot of potential in renders/animations, gameplay and especially story, not many games with this much depth/reality-noticed on Undertow’s Patreon he hasn’t been in contact since August and he’s not been on his Discord since way before that so it’s likely dead for good. Hope dudes doing alright either way

R.I.P a possible future goat of a game
DA3ED2CB-ED3C-4B8E-AC09-53C8FCD2814F.gif
 

taekopan

Newbie
Game Developer
Jun 30, 2017
34
673
Author here:

Im just gonna start with an apology... It's been a rough time. Covid era killed our more than decade old family business. To be honest, I already came to terms with that as soon as the pandemic hit. I knew we wouldn't last. So were just hoping to rebuild after the pandemic. But we all know shit got worse... Mr. Putin decided, "Hey, what a great time to start a war!" FUCKING HELL! And it got even worse, trade sanctions!! WHO WERE THESE TRADE SANCTIONS for??? Russia didnt give a crap! Now the rest of the world are suffering 2x oil prices! OMG I am ranting! FUCK THIS WAR, FUCK THE USA AND NATO, FUCK ALL OF THIS SHIT! FUCK THEM ALL! If i had a genie, i would wish to be in a room with whoever started this shit so i can fucking kill them all.

So yeah, so so soooo sorry. Im rebuilding my life right now. I have stated before that this is a pet project, i hope you all understand that. I will work on it when i can. Feel free to unsub and spend your money elsewhere. God it's been a very rough couple of years. FUCK THEM ALL!

Here's a snippets of what i am still working on.... A branch path where you choose not to study but instead have sexy time with Elise.



 
4.10 star(s) 42 Votes