I've done a lot of thinking about Nimin. I know there hasn't been an update in 3+ years now, I know a lot of people still comment on it and are interested in more, I know a lot of people still ask if it's just dead and isn't going anywhere. So, here's all the information to those questions.

Some history

First, here's some background. When I started Nimin, it was a passion project after seeing UTG (what would eventually become CoC). I saw UTG, I liked the idea behind it, and I thought "Gee, I really like the idea here, but it doesn't quite suit my tastes, and there's some ways I'd want to do things differently". That was that, I saw something I wanted more of and the only way to get more was to make it myself. So I did. I didn't plan it out too much at first, I mostly had fun just rolling out the concept, building it however I thought would be interesting.

I started Nimin after being unemployed for 2+ years (yay graduating into a recession!) and was living in the middle of nowhere with my parents in a place I didn't like with my only friends being online. That life situation continued for another 3-ish years. That meant I had basically no life outside of my computers and the internet. Nimin and my writing was an escape-mechanism for me, a purpose I gave myself to want to continue living. I'm sure you get the gist of what I'm saying there.

Then, after 5 years of unemployment, I finally caught a break thanks to a certain someone in the fandom and I actually got a job. I had to move somewhere that was the opposite of the middle of nowhere, I had to get used to the work I was doing, I had to get used to living alone, I had to get used to finally "living". I no longer had the necessity nor time to work on Nimin. But I still did; I had a small update a year after I started working. But when I did that, I had been working with code at my job for a while and the many glaring problems with continued support of Nimin started to show through. I was realizing more and more what Nimin -needed- to be better, and I was actually planning out the long-term goals with Nimin. While before I was doing things as they came, I was now thoroughly thinking it through. And there was so much that needed to be updated!

That left a bad taste in my mouth. I could no longer just haphazardly add stuff because it was becoming harder and harder to do it. So I took a break and worked on something else. The God's Lewd Labyrinth. That was proof to myself that I could build something out from beginning to end, even while my real life was going.

The problem

I now know what I'm doing with Nimin. I know what I want to change, what I need to change it to, what I need to fill out, all sorts of stuff that would make the game much better and more enjoyable to everybody. The list became -enormous-. I realized I needed help, I could no longer do it myself. Over 2 years ago, I started to legitimately look for help. At first I was really hesitant and had high standards. That pushed off a bunch of people. As I continued going, I realized that the standards didn't matter if nothing actually got done. Over the past year, I've made a much better effort in accepting and looking for help.

There are multiple people willing to help with the writing of new content. I really appreciate their efforts. It's nowhere near as fast as I used to be able to get content done, but people have lives just like I do and experience the same issues that I do. No matter what happens, I'm going to make sure their efforts come to fruition. Even if I don't get all the things done that I want to get done, I will still release a new version of the game with their updates because they are awesome.

The problem, however, comes down to all the other things that need to be updated... I'll get to the details in the next section, but essentially, doing things "right" takes a while. And as much as I say to myself "I'll do more when I'm off from work"... I don't. When I'm off from work, my desires are to play video games and watch TV so I can recharge so I can do even better at work because I like what I do and I get rewarded well for doing it. And even when I do have the impetus to do things, I'm focusing on my next step in life: finding a girlfriend! I had put off looking for relationships for years until I could be able to support myself, and now that I can support myself, I have long since realized how friggan lonely I am. A major life barrier has been removed and now I can be open to happiness (despite my positive and friendly demeanor, I have been significantly depressed for years, I just don't let it be detrimental to moving forward or affecting others), and now I'm basically wasting a lot of my motivation trying to find -somebody- that I can love and it's proving tremendously difficult, despite my numerous efforts in dating and self-upkeep and so on. It's like the job hunt all over again, but in regards to something I've wanted for even longer.

Basically, I'm saying that despite my goals with Nimin, and all the thoughts and plans and pretty clear paths to take with it, I just haven't had the time nor energy needed to do so.

So what's going on?

There are people currently helping writing out new content. A friend is also close to finishing up a new GUI for the game that looks way better than a bunch of boxes.

I have been redoing a lot of the "core" of the game. I spent 8+ hours just redoing -breasts-. And I mean on a root level. Breast growth is no longer just an "add an inch per growth" thing. Breast growth is now volumetric; you gain breast "weight" and that "weight" gets calculated into the girth of the boob. What does that mean? It's now slower to get to larger sizes of breasts, so it's harder for somebody to get huge "by accident"; you need to make a concerted effort to grow breasts. And that means there's more opportunity for items and leveling for people that want to get to ginormous sizes of breasts. This also meant better milk-production calculations so you can see significant swelling and limits to milk that actually makes sense. This also means better descriptions of breasts. "2 inches" of breast size on a 9-foot tall amazon is far less significant than a 3-inch tall fairy. One would be considered almost flat-chested, while the other would have tits nearly as large as themselves. Now the game can actually regard that. Breast descriptions are now in relation to the player's size, and I've almost doubled the number of descriptions. And I can actually provide chest, bust, waist measurements to help with that. Yes, that means a broad muscular chest affects how big your breasts are in comparison. Yes, that means I can track slim vs fat. Yes, I can provide actual numbers to the appearance box so people have an actual idea as to what this shit means, rather than some vague hand-wavy crap.

Those kinds of changes have happened with pregnancy and bellies. Cocks. Balls. Nipples. I still need to do hips and butts. And then after those changes have been made, I need to go through the game and add the support for the new system. And then I need to rewrite the appearance description.

And then I need to rewrite how variables are tracked so we can have better-tracked NPCs as well. And then I want to remove "violence" from "combat" because it makes no sense in a sex game; why the fuck are you slashing at someone with a sword when you're playing the game more for growing a giant dick to masturbate to? And then I want to remove prostitution, because easily accessible sex removes a great deal of potential gameplay. And then I need to rework how currency works so you wouldn't need something like prostitution to begin with. And then I need to rework being "over-burdened" with a system that is nicer to players so they don't feel the need to have as much currency, which is now way more possible thanks to the reworked sizing system. And then I want to add a system so a writer's name is clearly credited when you reach their scenes, and then I want a system to be able to overmouse items in your bag to get quick descriptions without needing to click on them, and then I want to make apk files so people can play the game on android devices, and then and then and then...

And that's not even close to what I want to do with the actual content of the game! All that shit is just stuff under the hood to make the game feel like a better game and not just a dating-sim. That's why I needed writing help. I spent 8+ hours on just TITS (not to be confused with TiTS). Imagine how long all the rest of what I just spouted out is going to take! And then all the content on top of that!

I do have a vision for the game. All that I spouted above is possible, I even know what the actual code is to do it so it's not just a bunch of empty bullshit. I just do not have the resources to get it done.

What I need for the game to be "alive"

Nimin is not a for-profit venture. I don't have a patreon set up to take money to support it. The only money I got for the game was a couple small chunks during donation drives when I was in a serious jam. I've avoided making Nimin a for-profit venture because all of my works have been free. Why? Because I understand what it means to not have money and needing some kind of entertainment. I understand what it means to want to feel accepted despite how shit the world is towards "weird tastes". I understand that there just isn't much of this out there. Could I make money off this? Seeing how CoC and TiTS goes, yeah, I'm sure I could, but then Nimin wouldn't be a passion project to fill roles that are missing in the world. It would be a job. And I've got a job already that pays better and looks better on my resume than "made porn game with horsecocks". This stuff is my hobby that I share, just like all the other artists and writers share.

And for Nimin to continue to grow, I need other people that feel the same way. I need writers that want to add content. I need coders to fill out the underlying mechanics. And I'm not looking to "hire" people to fill out my vision. What I'm saying is Nimin lives or dies by the interest others have in continuing it.

I can very easily move on from Nimin. I have other smaller projects in mind that I can work on by myself. While I enjoyed working on Nimin, and I'll still do tweaks here and there and I'll likely always have a "gameplan" on where to take it and I'll definitely support others that want to work on it, I have little personal investment in seeing it get finished. By that I mean I don't see it as some grand achievement to complete nor some semblance of myself that needs to be shared. Nimin is, and has always been, a project out of passion to just -do it-, not because -it needs to be done-.

Yes, I did have to specify that because when I have asked for assistance before, people brought up money - being paid to provide their "services". I don't give a shit about services. I just care about people being interested in working on a project that they feel they want to contribute to because they like it. It is a great way to gain experience in working on a coded project. It is a great way to gain experience in developing a game. It is a great way to get your own kinks and ideas into something that others will see. Heck, if you think putting "made porn game with horsecocks" on your resume will help you with getting other jobs, you're welcome to use this as an opportunity.

So yes, I can use coders. People that can go through the code and improve it, to do the things that I see as necessary and potentially add things they think can help.

I can use writers. People that can fill out the content to make the game more diverse and enjoyable to people. People that can understand what is required to write well and can follow through on using the mechanics employed in the game to write out scenes that have multiple dimensions and take into account they are for a game, as explained here.

I need people that understand how a project benefits from both new ideas and following somebody else's ideas. There is a game here that benefits from certain things, but if you're not wary, it can become a detriment. That's why I will most definitely shoot down certain ideas and push for particular ones. Yes, a whole new mechanic could be cool, but if it's completely unrelated to the themes of the game and you can't personally fill it out to make the mechanic have a legit purpose, then no, it's not worth putting into the game. Trust me, I've learned this myself the hard way. I'm sure some people remember the "fetishes" mechanic that once existed. And I've worked on other things that suffer from the same problem. So I will still act as a "project leader" that will guide Nimin, and while I encourage people to bring in new ideas and express themselves, I want people to understand I will have some restrictions to make the game better in the long run.


So... Now what?

People are working on the game currently. Not many, but a few whose work will come out well when they are finished. There's still lots of room for people to work on it, if there is interest.

So, this journal is to let people know what is going on and determine if they themselves are interested. A lot of the underlying work I've been doing on the game is to help support others in assisting with the game. I will continue do do that. If there is a significant interest in working on the game, in turning Nimin into more of a community project, then I will look into finding a place for a community to work together. I'm not going to pre-emptively do that though, because I generally avoid doing extra work if it's not going to be useful, lol.

Currently, I have the code base for the game here:

https://github.com/XaderaDiddle/Nim.....imin%20v1/code

The only thing not there is the Flash work-file that stores the visual objects (the buttons and text boxes and stuff). The Flash work-file has a single line of code to load in the code that you see in that link, that's all. That's just my way of retaining "ownership" over the project, but otherwise, yeah, that link is pretty much all that Nimin is. There's more details here.

So yeah, that's about all of what I've got to say. I'll respond to inquiries or whatnot, but now if anybody has questions about what's going on with Nimin, this is the most accurate journal currently :)