Adult gamedev is still incredibly hard

Looking back at three games in progress in Naughty List News #78

Jun 12, 2022

I’ve been writing this newsletter for almost two years now (!), so I thought it could be fun to look back at some of the projects I’ve covered in the past and see how they’re faring. Game development is an extremely precarious business, and many game projects burn out before they can even get a public demo out.

As you’ll soon discover, even the most promising projects can falter due to circumstances beyond their control. In this newsletter, I take a look at three projects in particular: Isekano, Wild Life, and Roshatsu.

One project seems to be stuck in limbo, unable to make much progress. Another will likely be completely rebooted, scrapping the public demo that was already available. The last project managed to bounce back from a failed Kickstarter campaign without so much as a scratch.

I suppose you’ll have to read on to find out which is which!

Isekano

Isekano is a Pokémon Go-like augmented reality (AR) game where you walk around town to find and collect virtual women in your area. After meeting up with them in the app, you then take them on virtual dates to real locations in your neighborhood to further their storylines.

💘 Isekano : Virtual girls. Real locations. 🇨🇦 @IsekanoGame

Hey #PitchYaGame! Come chill with some virtual friends in Isekano! ❤️ 🔹Real-time online interactions. 🔹Engaging interactive stories. 🔹Passionate characters. 🔹One-on-one personal encounters. #indiedev #gamedev #madewithunity

I originally covered Isekano in Naughty List News #3, posted on October 11th, 2020, when the game was still very early in its development. But since then, development on Isekano has slowed down significantly. Toma, the project’s sole developer, had to commit more time to their full-time job, which meant they couldn’t make much progress on the project as they would have liked.

In the latest public update on Patreon, posted on January 14th, 2022, Toma said the game is still moving forward:

I've been building and improving the game's functionality and features and the writers have completed a lot of story content for several of the characters which is sitting and waiting to be implemented into the game.

I still think the game looks very promising, and I hope the developer can focus more of their attention on the game’s development soon!

You can support the development of Isekano by joining their Patreon, where you can also find a few public demos.

Wild Life

Wild Life is an ambitious open-world adult RPG where you investigate Kerpal, an alien planet that houses a tribal society of crash-landed human colonizers from eons ago. Playing as either the Kerpali warrior Maya or rookie raider Max, the game features crafting, survival, stealth, and a large variety of sexual interactions.

When I wrote about Wild Life’s failed Kickstarter campaign in November last year, I knew the project would not be down for the count. Even though the campaign failed to reach its funding goal, Wild Life had already gathered an enormous fanbase on Patreon and was making regular updates.

Wild Life has even partnered up with adult toy maker Lovense and integrated its products into the game. To highlight this integration, the game was recently showcased at Dokomi 2022 in Düsseldorf, complete with cosplayers:

Since last November, the project has slipped in ranking a bit on Patreon, according to Graphtreon. While Wild Life previously ranked #37, the project now ranks #42. But if you keep in mind that that is the global ranking on Patreon, I think it’s safe to say that they do not have any problems with their monthly cash flow.

You can get the latest builds of Wild Life by joining their Patreon.

Roshutsu

Roshutsu is about a budding exhibitionist in Japan who wants to indulge in her fantasy of strolling around town in her birthday suit. She will get increasingly aroused while doing so, so you will have to find hiding spots to pleasure yourself.

In February, I called Roshutsu one of the 10 most intriguing adult games right now, and I stand by that distinction today. But that doesn’t mean that development has been smooth for the project. The game’s sole developer, Jaguar, has had a crisis of faith in recent months. While Roshutsu has had a public demo out for some time now, they were never quite happy with how it turned out, tweeting that the project was “largely a failure” and that they’re “ready to step away and get a real job.”

An unfortunate truth of game development is that it blends art and science. You can spend a lot of your time solving very difficult technical challenges, but it has to be in service of providing the audience with a nebulous feeling we like to call “fun.”

Jaguar took some much-needed time off from their project and realized they needed to drastically cut down the scope of their ambitions. Since then, they’ve talked about starting a new game where you play as a full-time nudist:

Jaguar🔞 @enf_dev

One thing I really like about this nudist game is how much more clearly defined it is than Roshutsu. Things are moving much more smoothly now that I know exactly what I want.

And it seems that they’ll have something exciting to share about their project soon, with a mysterious announcement for a big reveal next week.

What is amazing about Jaguar is that their Twitter feed reads almost like a diary, with their thoughts barely censored on the page. Scrolling down in history, you can really get a glimpse into the highs and lows of developing this game!

You can still find a demo for Roshutsu on Itch.io.

Conclusion

Whether due to creative tensions or purely financial ones, most game projects fail to come to market. It’s hard to find exact statistics, but I did find a well-reviewed book on Amazon about how to finish your indie game. The fact that there’s a market for a book like that shows that is a well-known problem in the games industry.

Game development is extremely hard, and seasoned developers know that every shipped game is a small miracle. But you can only stay down if you don’t pick yourself up after falling.

Please never stop pushing that rock up the hill!