MEGA-UPDATE

There's no easy way to say this: DearEditor has left the project due to "health and personal issues." She was not more specific than that. I strongly urged her to reconsider, but she declined. Despite the tepid pace of development we were set at, I thought that we would eventually hit a tipping point where it would speed up dramatically. Even though the project was ambitious, I also thought that the money would be too good to pass up. Obviously, I was wrong.

The lesson to take away from all this is that an artist has to be committed to a project in order for it to succeed. It seems like common sense, but you have to consider the state of Western erotic art. Currently, it's dominated by amateurs of varying skill and style, who earn or supplement their living through donations, commissions, and streams. So that's the scene from which you have to field talent. In my experience, artists are ultimately more comfortable catering to their already existent fanbase with which they interact with more, rather than committing to any project they choose to associate with, which causes friction.

However, those are also the artists worth paying. There's no shortage of inexperienced (or simply untalented) artists who you can convince to join your project. Yet even then, it's probable that they will be overwhelmed by the amount of work required, especially for something as ambitious as World Hero Trainer. I had that problem with my first artist, which is why I resorted to tapping people who seemed more reliable. Instead, I found that my project simply didn't have the same allure as having a personal fanbase. That's just my perspective and I may be wrong about applying it to the whole field, but I don't imagine I am. It's quite a different case when the force driving game development is the artist, to be sure.

At this point, I would salvage what I could from World Hero Trainer, create the same kind of game with an original universe, and look for a professional, dedicated artist who would be comfortable with a game without any potential copyright infringement problems.  Luckily, I know a professional, dedicated artist who is comfortable working on a game despite potential copyright infringement problems. Auxiliary, the artist for Villain Trainer, will also be taking over for World Hero Trainer. Given that we already have more art for Villain Trainer than we ever did for World Hero Trainer, you can expect a new playable content preview soon, followed shortly by the demo version we're already in the process of writing, formatting, and coding.

What this means for our Patreon pages is that we'll be merging the two. Since the reasoning was that different artists meant different pages, now that Auxiliary is doing both, it makes sense to put them together. The $10 pledge level reward will be consolidated into the $5 one, so there will be one weekly article from now on (starting Nov 2nd). The new $10 pledge level reward will be access to playtesting for Villain Trainer, while the upper two will remain unchanged. World Hero Trainer is planned to be a much bigger game than Villain Trainer and the playtesting version will soon reflect its worth. In addition, everyone who donated to Villain Trainer will receive some kind of bonus, as well as everyone who's been a playtester for World Hero Trainer. I'm still figuring out what would be appropriate.

In regards to how the heck we plan to get so much work done in a reasonable time frame: watch us. A lot of art is done for Villain Trainer, so I'll be writing to catch up with that. Likewise, a lot of writing is done for World Hero Trainer, so Auxiliary will be drawing to catch up with that. While I was unsure if we would be able to produce, by year's end, the full demo I planned before Auxiliary joined the project, now I'm confident it will be done before Christmas. Based on his work for Villain Trainer, Auxiliary is clearly an extremely fast and competent artist. His dedication also affords us the opportunity to re-examine existing scenes to see if we can't pack in more unique content, rather than working around limitations.

Auxiliary has also made it clear that he wants to create unique base CGs for each private favor. For example, rather than re-using the same base CG across "Grope Breasts/Motorboat/Titfuck", there will instead be three base CGs. This will essentially triple the amount of art content in the game, at the very least. However, that will also necessitate a re-working of scenes to fit the different situations. Naturally, it's also highly dependent on how successful our work in the next two months will be. While it remains to be seen how much writing can be salvaged, it will ultimately make for a much more rewarding experience. Mo has also created a more effective way to code scenes, so we'll be using that as well.

It's unfortunate that it's taken this long to reach this point, and as captain of the ship, I take full responsibility. I'm an optimistic guy at heart, so I've always had the sense that success was always right around the corner. This has also given me a nasty habit of overpromising and underdelivering, which I apologize for. There are a lot of things I would have done differently since starting this project, but hopefully it's been as illuminating for others as it's been transformative for me. So, if you stick with us, that's great. If not, we hope to win you back soon. Either way, I'm not giving up.

Whew, that was dramatic. Anyway, back to it!