So, what else is there to report that I wouldn’t bore you with?
Perhaps we’ll risk a look at my battling windmills over the past few years. While karma has been screwing the world at large since the beginning of the Pandemic, my problems actually started much earlier. I don’t want to whine or be pitied; I just want to explain how it nearly came to my retreat from digital art.
Actually, I only joined an adult content creator, who later became my friend, as a writer back in the days when Patreon wasn’t ashamed of this clientele when it simply took our money without hesitation and just let us do our thing.
I am not condemning some regulation regarding intolerable, because clearly illegal content, but, what Patreon has done since those days, and continues to do, is clearly a kick in the guts for any adult content creator.
While adult content creators were already hidden behind a reasonable soft barrier (you had to confirm as a user that you wanted to see adult content first), additional mechanisms were later introduced or existing ones abolished (like the suggested creators). Unfortunately, ultimately those changes led to smaller adult content creators, like us, going completely unnoticed, as simply no one can find them on Patreon unless they have a direct link to them.
This alone makes it challenging to build a following, let alone one willing to pay for content.
And here we are, of course, already at the even bigger problem, the missing content. As you probably know, my friend Grabiobot was already thoroughly screwed by fate before the Pandemic. So I will not repeat this here.
Sure, it all sounds like whining, but it isn’t supposed to be. I’m actually trying to say that the Society of Lust couldn’t get content in the form of a game off the ground for a long time. Yes, I could have written and written and written. And, in fact, I did just that. But without artwork, no visual novel, or any other game! It’s just that simple.
I tried my best to acquire the necessary skills to create digital images myself in the little time I had available. However, since I started from scratch, this was quite a long and rocky road that I still tread.
Last year, after feeling empowered enough to do so, I was faced with the choice of either working on My Life with Laura, Night of our Graduation, or Books Make Dreams Come True to deliver that content for the Society of Lust.
In the end, I chose the latter because it was the shortest and, in my opinion, the most straightforward project I could do on my own while gaining more skills and experience for the other ones.
My Life with Laura was obviously skipped because we won’t be developing this game for Ren’Py, but for Caligine, our own game engine. However, I’m considering making the introduction a teaser for Ren’Py. In any case, the text has been ready for a long time.
Night of our Graduation seemed a bit too scary for me as the first visual novel to be done almost entirely on my own.
Books Make Dreams Come True progressed reasonably well, even though I faltered at one point or another and had to delve deeper into certain DAZ Studio features than I had before to solve problems that arose.
At the same time, I tried to keep the Society of Lust alive and posted more or less regular content on Patreon. Sadly, this is mostly only possible behind the enforced paywall for adult content and is almost impossible for anyone to see. And to be honest, I almost gave up because of the lack of enthusiastic reactions – or any at all. After all, we only had less than a handful of patrons left.
DeviantArt — and in a certain sense also Slushe — let me continue because I got encouragement for my artwork, at least from this side. Unfortunately, Slushe developed in hindsight into a poisonous sting that caused self-doubt. But I have already talked about that in the first part of this Activity Report series.
Books Make Dreams Come True is a kinetic visual novel in nine chapters (rather sense or scene divisions), out of which for six, the images are already completed. Chapters 8 and 9 are relatively short and do not contain all that many images. Chapter 7, however, is the chapter that provides the so-called main adult content and will require some serious work on my part.
But enough for today, I bored you enough, I fear.
I will keep you posted on the development.
Sincerely yours,
AbyssalEros