On May 1st 2020, I was DM’d by my good friend “Nope” in Discord. At the time, I had spent a few months messing around and learning Honey Select (the first one) and had just installed AI Shoujo. But I was more a writer. Nope was brainstorming an idea for us to collaborate on a short VN where I would write the story and he would do the graphics (in AI). We tossed ideas back and forth that day until I pulled up the start of a story I had lying around. It was just an untitled text file with notes and a prologue written. We named the story Last Human. We chatted that entire day, both excited with the idea for the story. We hacked and patched the story until we made it into something cool. Then we set to work. I became an AVN developer on that day.

About one month later, for ‘real life’ reasons, Nope couldn’t continue and insisted that I go on and work on something on my own. So, I did that. Serenity was born. I had written Serenity probably 2 years before that day, so it wasn’t something I just came up with ‘on the fly’. Two months later, after being pressed by several of my followers at the time, I finally created a Patreon Developer account. I really didn’t think, at the time, that I would end up with the following I have now. I owe a LOT of that to Nope. If not for him asking me to come write for him, I may never have gotten on this roller coaster. And a roller coaster it has been! He also gave me a base understanding of working with HS and AI. As some may know, there just aren’t a lot of guides out there on how to use that stuff. You have to know people who are willing to take time out of their lives and teach you.

When the first release came out in August 2020, it had zero animations. My graphics were just terrible. I knew it, others knew it. But, for some reason, I picked up followers and even patrons right away. Well, I thought, I must be doing something right – I better spend more time learning to make better graphics. And also, animations. Cryoxxx, developer of Oppai Odyssey, became my teacher. He pointed me in the right direction with proper use of lighting. I hired him for several months to actually do some of my animations until I got comfortable enough to do them myself. He still helps me today as questions come up. But all my recent animations are my own tedious work.

Today, I just released the final update to Serenity Chapter 1. In the interest of keeping my games small enough to download, I will build them until they are 2.5 to 3 GB max, then make a new chapter. Some people don’t like that. I do. I appreciate those people out there who don’t have a paid MEGA account and have limited downloads; I was one of them once upon a time. It doesn’t matter whether they are paying me or not. From the beginning and still today, I do this because I have a story to tell, and I love to share that. But the money… that helps too. Especially in recent days with COVID and having to be off work. I reinvest most of the money I make back into my projects.

Anyway, so Chapter 1 came to a close today. Next project will be Last Human – the project I started with Nope almost 2 years ago. I have completely rewritten what I had originally written. It is now pretty much a completely different story with a similar plot. The two original characters that Nope designed will remain, albeit with some slight modifications to their appearance. My hope is that I’ll have the first release ready in 2 months’ time. And at that time, I’ll decide if I want to jump right to the next update for that game or get started on Serenity Chapter 2. I guess that will depend on how well the first release of LH is received. Time will tell.

For now, though… I will relax for a few days and take a much-needed break. Play some games myself and check out updates to the games my peers are working on. And then I’ll get cracking on LH. 🙂