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A Public Statement on Rapturous
2 years ago
Hey all! I realized I didn't communicate well enough previously on what's going on so I'll put everything into this quick post.
Rapturous is currently on an indefinite hiatus. I'm not calling it canceled because there are SO many assets and plotlines I never included, which are technically finished.
I know this isn't ideal, a lot of folks supported me to see more Rapturous, a lot of people enjoy it and want to see it properly concluded. I'm going to give my reasoning below.
In November I stopped taking all commission work in order to give full focus to developing Rapturous's unique card battle system. It was a challenge because it didn't agree very nicely with the visual novel aspect of the game. I'd notice that flags I'd set and plots I'd put in place would get really glitchy because of how the two systems played together. I decided to take a whole week to make the game stable.
This week of work was super successful. I ironed out all the progression bugs and made the cards feel really good to use. It was intensive but enjoyable work. I was so proud to put it out. When I exported the project, it functioned differently, however. The package I was using to help with visual novel scripting uses an event system that's generated on the build, it has strange functionality that makes even very simple code unpredictable because of how it buffers information and diverts raycasts.
Long story short, Rapturous works perfectly in Unity, but when exported it functions almost entirely randomly. I spent weeks trying to fix it and find the core of the bugs, but the writing was kinda on the wall. The game would need to be scaled back, weeks of work removed and reworked. It wasn't going to fit with my gameplay vision. I was heartbroken.
I'm a one-person team. I commission some assets and resources but I do the primary writing, programming, art, everything is me. I was getting miserable working on this project, being unable to locate the cause of these export issues. It's a project of passion, so being miserable on it was really bringing me down. I've also been wanting to work on something more gameplay-focused. For the last 3 months I've been developing a more traditional action rpg, I hope to make it play like a crossing of Vampire Survivors and Hades (with reasonable scope.) What's so great about this newer project is that it's all from the ground up. All original code aside from the unity engine's prebuilt functions. I understand this game very deeply because of this.
I really like working on this new game. The thought of booting up the Rapturous file to do weeks of work, just so it's stable again, really bums me out. I can't really collaborate or reach out for help because onboarding and paying a team to help fix the game would take about as long as the fixes themselves. I deeply love the work I've done for Rapturous but to move forward with it is both not temporally, financially, or emotionally viable for me at this time. I really do hope I can continue the story in some form, even if it's in a very simplistic way.
All that being said, I intend to continue using the characters in Rapturous, and I intend to produce new projects with all I learned. Hopefully, even if my development processes aren't perfect, I can keep tuning them and making unique stories for you all. Thanks for the continued support.
I welcome any questions or discussion in the comments. I always want to be transparent with my audience, even if it's about my limitations.
Rapturous is currently on an indefinite hiatus. I'm not calling it canceled because there are SO many assets and plotlines I never included, which are technically finished.
I know this isn't ideal, a lot of folks supported me to see more Rapturous, a lot of people enjoy it and want to see it properly concluded. I'm going to give my reasoning below.
In November I stopped taking all commission work in order to give full focus to developing Rapturous's unique card battle system. It was a challenge because it didn't agree very nicely with the visual novel aspect of the game. I'd notice that flags I'd set and plots I'd put in place would get really glitchy because of how the two systems played together. I decided to take a whole week to make the game stable.
This week of work was super successful. I ironed out all the progression bugs and made the cards feel really good to use. It was intensive but enjoyable work. I was so proud to put it out. When I exported the project, it functioned differently, however. The package I was using to help with visual novel scripting uses an event system that's generated on the build, it has strange functionality that makes even very simple code unpredictable because of how it buffers information and diverts raycasts.
Long story short, Rapturous works perfectly in Unity, but when exported it functions almost entirely randomly. I spent weeks trying to fix it and find the core of the bugs, but the writing was kinda on the wall. The game would need to be scaled back, weeks of work removed and reworked. It wasn't going to fit with my gameplay vision. I was heartbroken.
I'm a one-person team. I commission some assets and resources but I do the primary writing, programming, art, everything is me. I was getting miserable working on this project, being unable to locate the cause of these export issues. It's a project of passion, so being miserable on it was really bringing me down. I've also been wanting to work on something more gameplay-focused. For the last 3 months I've been developing a more traditional action rpg, I hope to make it play like a crossing of Vampire Survivors and Hades (with reasonable scope.) What's so great about this newer project is that it's all from the ground up. All original code aside from the unity engine's prebuilt functions. I understand this game very deeply because of this.
I really like working on this new game. The thought of booting up the Rapturous file to do weeks of work, just so it's stable again, really bums me out. I can't really collaborate or reach out for help because onboarding and paying a team to help fix the game would take about as long as the fixes themselves. I deeply love the work I've done for Rapturous but to move forward with it is both not temporally, financially, or emotionally viable for me at this time. I really do hope I can continue the story in some form, even if it's in a very simplistic way.
All that being said, I intend to continue using the characters in Rapturous, and I intend to produce new projects with all I learned. Hopefully, even if my development processes aren't perfect, I can keep tuning them and making unique stories for you all. Thanks for the continued support.
I welcome any questions or discussion in the comments. I always want to be transparent with my audience, even if it's about my limitations.
and if that time happens to be forever, that is fine.
Still happy to support ya and always excited to see/hear progress on your current comissions/projects.
I'm curious if you envision this new game to be an entirely solo project as well, or if you foresee yourself onboarding any writers, artists, coders, or anyone else to help work on it. 👀
But I'm hoping it'll be out someday!
At any rate, looking forward to seeing this new project of yours. Hoping it goes smoothly enough for you.