Lewd Town Adventures
The final update post of Lewd Town Adventures.
The final update post of Lewd Town Adventures. (Also the 4th and last anniversary post.)
It's so hard to say goodbye to this world, these characters... But after four years, we feel like we've made one of the largest adult games ever. Those who enjoy living vicariously in this fantasy world know how much love and dedication we have poured into every aspect of the characters, environments, and dialogue.
Have we stumbled? Yes, but we always got back up, tightened our shoe strings, and learned so much from every mistake. Four years ago, we knew so little about writing, rendering, and coding a sandbox visual novel. Today, we step back and look at what has come from our efforts.
Lewd Town Adventures may not appear - at first - to be something special, but once players get to know the MC and his love interests... Once you get those "feels" and either choke up or sneer at our attempts to trigger your emotions... That moment you are going along and suddenly everything changes... you're hooked.
We know from countless conversations with our thousands of fans how beloved certain women are, how eager you are to spend more time with one in particular... Even if the concept of LTA is to "catch 'em all"... To form a massive loving family harem or drug, seduce, and subdue a dozen or more sluts... Or even to lose everything to one of the most demented antagonists ever imagined.
The world of Lewd Town Adventures is filled with boundless little moments, unforgettable experiences, and we appreciate every single person who plays, whether they enjoy or despise the game. Thank you for 4 years of faith in us - or 4 years of constructive criticism that pushed us to make everything better.
TL;DR:
We made the largest adult game out there in a time span of 4 years.
4 years of work on our first game is more than enough.
We've made plenty of mistakes, learning from every instance, which turned us into better developers. The game is currently upgraded to the best state it has ever been before. It could be better though but it's time to move forward…
Why Stop Now?
First of all, Lewd Town Adventures can't be put on steam or the likes. If we kept going, we would be putting more energy and time into a legacy project that gains us just about enough financially, though not enough to validate the amount of time/work/energy it takes.
We want to start something completely different with all the knowledge gained. Starting over with a new story, new characters, with original artwork and animations we can monetize is key to our future as developers. It's not all about the money, but - in the end - it's about the money.
A message from Xo Mo:
I've always loved the written word. My mother taught me to read at a young age. I was writing my own name before my 4th birthday. Head start and kindergarten were a breeze for me. Over the years, I have collected and read loads of books.
When puberty hit, the groundskeeper for the projects we were living in handed me a book that I am dying to recall the name of even now. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced. It told the tale of a young woman who had the same feelings, fears, and worries as I did. I was drawn in, enraptured, and then... It happened. In that book, her father took her to bed and showed her 'the facts of life'. By the end of the book, she was throwing up and gaining weight, which I did not understand at the time, but now I know...
In my lifetime, I have written as many words as I have read. Poetry, research projects, term papers, editorials for the newspaper, and I have edited countless reporters' articles. My love for etymology knows no limit. (Etymology: The branch of philological science which deals with the history of words, tracing out their origin, primitive significance, and changes of form and meaning.)
Like Jamleng, life was going along, day by day, when rumor of a global virus arrived, followed by a tidal wave that wiped out my job, my hopes and dreams for a future of financial stability. COVID sent us all packing, straight to our bedrooms, our computers, our phones... For years, I had been trying to find time to write, and motivation to complete my epic novel. By September 2020, it was complete. By January 2021, two sequels were published alongside it online.
All through that time, I was in 'the zone' mentally and emotionally. Writing, reading, and playing countless AVNs. Then a game called "Lewd Town Adventures" ended its prologue with something that triggered me...
You see, when I was 9 years old, I was hit by a car. Much of my youth, I was a pencil-thin, pimple-faced outcast. I felt a connection to the MC of this game like none before. The only problem was the incessant annoying engrish. So I contacted the developer and... the rest is history.
Now - for me - three years later, we have wrapped up the story. Together, we expanded the cast of love interests and side characters from 24 to over 60. Inspired by the similarity of MC's prologue-ending experience to my own, we drew from our own childhood and life experiences to build backstories for many characters. To add depth, relatability, and to inspire joy/compassion in our players.
Jamleng:
I've always had a huge passion for games and had always been tinkering with the idea of making my own games. When I started out, I tried building something using Unity and other programs.
Somewhere along the way I stumbled upon AVN's and started playing those for quite a while. When the COVID pandemic hit, I got laid off from my job and had not much to do.
Suddenly facing a future of isolation, I started the journey of making my own adult visual novel with not that much experience. It took about 6 months of some serious work before I released the first version of Lewd Town Adventures.
I've talked about that experience in the past in my weekly posts. If you're interested in reading more, here are direct links to the Anniversary public posts:
1-year Anniversary post: https://jamleng.itch.io/lewd-town-adventures/devlog/291696/lewd-town-adventures-...
2-year Anniversary post: https://jamleng.itch.io/lewd-town-adventures/devlog/424478/lewd-town-adventures-...
3-year Anniversary post: https://jamleng.itch.io/lewd-town-adventures/devlog/586812/lewd-town-adventures-3rd-year-anniversary-post
Long story short, Everything I made at the time looked great in my eyes... Even if it was full of bad engrish, glitchy, poorly made images/animations and overall it kinda sucked.
Luckily for me (and the game) we received quite the backing on here and the other site that's been purging adult game devs recently... This pleasant surprise told me I must be doing something right. It motivated me to continue working on the game, to disregard the controversy happening over NTR, the trolls harassing me online, because for every negative comment, I received many more supportive encouragements.
I paid very close attention to all the bugs, inconsistencies, and constructive criticisms, then I went about fixing everything mentioned. This included making certain things more obviously optional, even though they kinda already were.
Being cooped up during a global pandemic, I worked on the game for 10 hours a day, every day and did monthly updates. Not being a native-English speaker, I always hoped to find someone who was to fix the grammar and spelling in the script. In my quest to seek someone that could fix my Engrish, I received a private message from someone named Xo Mo about a year into development. He gave examples of things that would improve the readability of the dialogue.
I went out on a limb with this unknown quantity, trying not to get my hopes up. To my surprise, Xo Mo agreed to help me out - without any mention of compensation! Unbelievable... From the moment he sent me a list of revisions, the whole game changed quite a lot. The writing and engrish disappeared in a single update.
After a surge in player downloads, positive feedback, and donations, I offered him a job to polish the script and even write new scenes. He took it. For the following year or so he wrote quite a lot of the game; I also wrote a lot and provided feedback and direction while doing all the renders and code for the rest of the game.
For the Christmas 2021 special, he made his own first scene (Chad's Holiday) which turned out pretty good at the time; from then on out he started working on the game full time: writing, rendering, and photoshopping.
I still couldn't believe my luck because I was getting pretty damn burned out from the crazy hours I was putting in with code, renders, and file management. Going from a one-man show to having a partner who has your back makes everything and anything possible.
What's In The Box?!
In some ways, I wanted Lewd Town Adventures to become bigger and better... but in other ways I was kind of okay with what it was at that time. That's true even now. Both of us feel we could do so much more with the world, these characters, and everything...
But the reality of it is that we need a true vacation from Lewd Town. We need to step away and start fresh with a new world, new characters, and a new art engine that will allow us to monetize the next game. We have many bills piling up. We made purchases that need to be paid off, and continuing to work on a game that can not be monetized is unrealistic.
This was the first game I ever started, the first game I put out to the public for play, for judgement, but mostly for fun... Mistakes were made and that's all perfectly natural.
We've both learned a lot from everything during the past 4 years. We would have loved to keep working on this game and keep perfecting it but it's not really worth the investment of time from this point onward.
The goal was never to get stuck for many years of my life working on the first game I ever made. In the life of every creative person, at some point it's smarter to leave the first project in a state they can be happy with and move on to the next project.
Reflecting on everything we have endured, put up with, and enjoyed during the development of LTA, it's important to recognize the critics. Some people think we are trying to milk our subscribers. Every time we have taken time off, we have disabled collection of member fees.
Atop that, our regular updates we're quite large with between 3-4k images/animations and hundreds of pages or written content. Compared to most developers who released updates at the same pace we have, the quality and quantity of work in LTA is significantly more. In fact, the latest release was one of the biggest adult visual novel releases to ever come out.
So yeah, work-ethic wise, we've been pretty nuts putting in way too many hours each week. Doubters will question efficiency, but every still image takes between a few minutes to 2 hours to set up and render depending on the amount of custom work, editing and so forth. Every animation is easily double that amount of time, doubled again for any additional characters within the field of view... Not to mention how many takes it requires to ensure the animation is glitch/clip-free, timing is just right, and it all flows smoothly.
It all comes down to how many hours with lots of sacrifice - versus - the potential to break even or even save up for a rainy day. In the end it's just not worth it: No monetization. No Patreon. So we've been kind of doing this as a work of passion. Passionate for the stories, the characters, and the fans who keep us motivated.
But passion doesn't buy groceries or keep the wifi on.
That's really as simple as it is.
Punch The Clock:
A little-known fact: I recently went back to my old job. With COVID more or less under control, working again is WAY more relaxed than game development. Still, game development is a passion. I'm not quitting. Just refocusing my life around financial stability.
I have to say this though, I never really felt that working on this game was a worthy job. Despite the near-fanatic devotion many players have for adult games, the "entitlement" from some players can be quite insane.
Disregarding the societal taboo of doing so, creating a fetish-based game guarantees the developer a lot of harassment. Seriously, some of the biggest nutters I've ever seen online are thanks to this game. The slightest hint of questioning their love for a fetish that some people either do not know exist or have never experienced triggers their ire. They take it deadly seriously and go out of their way to ensure everyone knows just how much it pisses them off.
And yet I must emphasize the fact that the vast majority of the players have been happy even when some scenes were outdated and whatnot. Most of you reading this now, nodding in agreement, can probably envision a moment when something felt off during a playthrough... Yet overall, you were not offended or distracted from the game's story or character arc. Imperfections are inherent in every creative project. Even the most astute, perceptive perfectionist looks back at what they thought was absolute flawlessness, only to notice the tiniest flaw...
I might be partially to blame for the controversy, having chosen to focus the game controversial subjects and on certain sexual 'flavors': using tags that some players just blacklist without any further consideration.
Then there's the "controversial" prologue (what the MC looked like) which got us loads of 1 star reviews. We have even offered to change the prologue several times, but every player poll we have taken results in keeping it the way it is.
It's all so confusing. Perplexing... I don't know. A part of me feels like I'm overlooking something so obvious... I kinda get it but I also always thought there's something different we're doing compared to similar games.
And yet, I've personally always found it hilarious that some people get all wound up over our insignificant free game... They take stuff way too seriously.
Sure, LTA isn't the best AVN out there. The prologue was created 4 years ago by some dude that was literally just starting out, tinkering around to see what worked and what didn't... The early game has been upgraded more and more over time, so what started out looking like amateur hour has become much better.
Patreon: "Change it all!"
We've covered this in the past and in the in-game computer scene "Whatever happened to Patreon?"
Losing our primary (and most recognizable) source of donor financial support hurt a lot, but we switched over very quickly to this site. Growing pains aside, we have done okay. Nowhere near what we would likely have retained if we were still on that other site, but enough to keep us going...
Looking Back:
When reflecting on the past 4 years, our hearts ache from all the difficulties inherent in the life of an adult content producer. The long working hours and the stress that came with pleasing our supporters, feeling the need to deliver quantity and quality, pushing ourselves when we were exhausted or uninspired.
One thing people tend to majorly overestimate is how much work, time and effort it takes to create things like this. The mental drain, the fatigue, the reluctance to even press the power button on the work computer... I lived it full time and more. In the future I'll definitely be doing things differently.
Nonetheless, it has been pretty fun overall. I'm very proud of what we've made.
When I play Lewd Town Adventures myself, I'm still surprised how much really original stuff and very funny moments are wrapped up inside this thing that we created. The drama, the tears, the surprising twists, the Easter eggs, and all the nuances in every scene... I find myself smiling and laughing with a deep feeling of nostalgia.
Xo and I have literally made what we feel to be the largest adult game within that four year stretch, which is a crazy performance.
I feel like this final update is something to be proud of: the whole game, the characters, the stories, and the endings... Though some of them may feel abbreviated, a few of them will likely be controversial... But with multiple paths and 50+ characters, we also have to be realistic about it.
The update.... The game itself is absolutely massive. It's awesome but also a curse at the same time. Live and learn.
Knowing now what I did not know 4 years ago, would I have done things differently? Absolutely.
A LOT of things would have been completely different if I were to start fresh now. That's why I want to give it another go with a completely new game.
What's a bit different now though is that - thanks to our supporters - I've been able to build a small team out of the whole journey. But that also means I can't chill for too long as the bills are continuous.
It's a dream that came true and I'm truly thankful. I hope that the next game will be interesting enough.
Our Community:
We've met so many amazing people who made all this work a lot more fun. Every time someone wrote a nice comment or donated anything, it made me truly happy. Your feedback has always been a huge motivator to continue working on the game.
From the beginning of the game we've kept a close eye on comments, feedback, bug reports, and even complaints. We've literally fixed all of them as soon as they were pointed out in record times. While we have a solid bug-testing team, the only way the game can be perfect is to have everyone who encounters something strange, something wrong, or a game-breaking error to let us know so we can track it down and fix it.
If you find something out of order, a bug, something glitchy or anything else that's out of the ordinary, please send a screenshot or a small summary through a comment, message or Discord.
Sometimes we are instantly aware of such an issue, but if there is not enough detail in how it happened, we can't solve the problem. Knowledge is power. Sharing is caring.
Without all of you, we would not be here, 4 years later, releasing the final update.
Almost There:
Anyway, my almost final message is this:
Please be nice to small time game developers. Especially those who make content for free, just for your entertainment.
I mean, none of us are major game companies making scummy microtransaction games or charging $40+ a pop to play something you may not even like.
Lewd Town Adventures is a free game made by 2 people. Many games are made by solo devs working long hours for almost no recognition. It baffles us why someone would spend their time writing solely negative garbage out of anger or spite.
My Final Message:
Thank you very much everyone for playing the game. Thank you for all of the support you've given us, for the feedback, bug reports... We are so appreciative of being able to connect with you, sharing jokes, fixing problems, and enjoying the time we have spent together... and everything else.
It's all been quite the experience.
During this final release, the game is in a better state than it ever was. Basically everything I personally wasn't happy about has been visually upgraded, fixed, or improved.
I can now proudly say - for the first time ever - after all this time in development: Enjoy the game that Xo Mo and I fully stand behind.
Could the game be better? It can always be better, it can always be improved.
Will we ever come back to Lewd Town? Who knows? The future is always in motion. Plans change. Life is unpredictable.
Perhaps we'll expand on a few character stories in the game sometime in the future...
Nobody knows what the future holds. We can only hope it will be awesome so we can keep expanding and making games.
Thank you for everything, everyone. See you when we see you.
Lastly v1.0.1 will come out within a few days solving the following issues:
Bug fixes among others:
- Fixed a crash on one of the Good Path endings.
- The Madame du Barry scene was not working properly making her endings skip.
- A Good Path Sophia event could trigger on the Dark Path.
- An early game Sophia showed incorrect images, fixed.
- Dr. Charlotte showed an incorrect ending.
- The gallery now displays the correct name that the player chose.
Dozens of inconsistency fixes, typos, and other small stuff like missing music, photoshop etc.
So long, farewell, take care, and stay lewd!
P.S. the next post will be an announcement for the new game.
One spoiler though; the MC will never ever have a controversial look or start ever again.
Stay tuned!
Jam & Xo
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
Honestly as a inconsistent player... I am proud of the fact that you have managed to finish your game even if it isnt fully perfect. You have taken strides to make this a success and while im only one comment, I believe that you have.
Great work!!
"Stay lewd"😂 Nice game though 10/10, devs wish you good health.
Part 1/2
A moving post, but also very, how to put it... perplexing.
I admit that I was not and am not a huge fan of this game.
When I saw the main character at the very beginning, it was like a punch in the guts, from which I have not recovered and it is still in the back of my mind. Even knowing that his appearance changes later, I was not able to get it out of my mind. It was simply not the main character I could insert myself when playing an adult game. For some, it was a plus, a very cool element, for others an unpalatable lump.
Despite this, I visited this page from time to time, whether because of nostalgia or routinely reviewing the progress of games marked in my itch.io library.
Now, reading this last post, the feelings and emotions of the authors intertwined with something that very strong comes to the forefront - Money.
It seems that money is the main factor in many decisions, no matter how much ambition or feeling was put into the game.
This is not bad in itself, many projects supported even with the best intentions end up with insufficient financial resources. Personally, however, I think that this is not the point when we undertake to create something as large as a game.
It is primarily about answering a certain elementary question, which often authors realize either too late or answer too early before they even understand the amount of work that has to be put into creating a game.
The question is - what is your project for you and what do you want to achieve with it?
There are several ways to answer this question:
1) You want to fulfill your ambition/dream and as a result, apart from the recognition of fans, achieve material profits that will allow you to further develop or even live from your games - in this case, creating games evolves from a hobby or passion to the rank of work, but work that is your passion.
2) It is your passion/hobby that you like to do in your free time outside of work and family life, which allows you not only to develop but also to fulfill your own ambitions - in such a case, you devote the time that you have free outside of any other duties, during which you could do something else, this may result in slower work on the project, little progress and a long time to create new content. On the other hand, giving the project practically for free, no one expects regular updates from you (only signs of life), and some may even support themselves with donations, appreciating your hard work, or at least supporting you with a kind word.
3) It is a kind of escape, a casual adventure that does not affect your private and professional life, does not have a big influence on you - just another adventure and fun in life, in which you do not owe anyone anything, not even yourself. You do not accept donations or anything else, you just have fun with graphics, words and stories, if something comes out of it, great, if not - that's also great, you had a good time.
4) You are not able to answer this question - and here begins a certain problem that I see in you. - I have the impression that no one has sat down in front of the mirror and said to their own self "what the hell do I want to do with this" on the one hand you have put an incredible amount of energy into it, on the other hand there is the prospect of small monetization and the necessity of professional work. The project has become a burden, it has started to steal hours that you would normally spend on something else, maybe work, rest, family? And this without the expected remuneration. In that case, isn't it worth sitting down and thinking about whether we are taking a step back or a step forward? Anything is better than standing in a straddle.
Unfortunately, this is a problem that you have to answer for yourselves.
As for monetization, I haven't had the opportunity to play long enough to reach the event described in the game that explained what happened to your Patreon.
Normally I would guess that there was some problem with using the Koikatsu engine (just like Steam does not allow publishing such games on its platform) but there are too many games based on HS, HS2 or Koikatsu on Patreon for that to be the reason.
In this case it is not very important. However, I am wondering about your indication of how big a blow the loss of Patreon was.
There are projects that have never used Patreon, apart from that there is a whole host of alternative monetization of their projects, e.g.:
- Ko-Fi
- Buy Me a Coffee
- Subscribestar (I see you use this)
- Kickstarter etc.
You can always use a few of them, which I think can successfully replace Patreon.
To sum up, I think that before the next project you simply have to sit down, talk and prepare for what you want to do and for what purpose the project will be created, already knowing after this game project what can await you
Part 2/2
if you accept the assumption - we want to be appreciated and be able to earn money from it or the assumption we want to share our passion and not take even a little money for it, this will help you develop a strategy on how to properly approach the new project and what to focus on.
So that this time it doesn't start to absorb something valuable that you didn't sign up for before.
P.S. Sorry I had to make post in two parts because it didn't fit in the comments.
Hi, in the replays I can only see the one scene with mayor petunia. I could have sworn there more and would like to replay them. Any help?
**Spoilers for Chapter 3 Good Path**
On day 130, while Angelica is giving birth, it cuts to the black screen and then the whole encounter ends and it puts me back at the map.
When I reentered the cathedral, Mother Teresa was back on the altar, crucified, and all the names were back to their demoness names. I don't know what kind of effect this will have on the game going forward, but I suspect it to be potentially route ending, specifically for the cathedral quests.
I can't roll back farther than this, unless I reload my last save in Chapter 2.
Thanks for the report! The first one is intended because we thought another birth scene would be too much.
Teresa being back where she was is not. I've added it to my notes. You can continue the game as normal and the Cathedral will change after the coming Mother Teresa event.
So, the scene is supposed to end right there? No offense, but I would've at least expected for there to be a bit after the birth with some interaction, at least...
Thanks for the kind words everyone!
Lewd Town Adventures 1.0.1 just came out as promised.
It's solves the following issues and more:
Bug fixes:
The best game I've played so far
Mannn, thank you soooo much for this amazing work. You're a legend! Thank you so much for everything!
best game i've ever played! hands-down!
One story ends :,3
one of my favorite games , my only qualm was the severe lack of futa , but I loved the story, both routes were well flushed out and actually made you feel like you were either an up and coming tyrant or the do gooder who was trying his best to make good out of a ln inherently fucked situation.
The characters felt real and were quite endearing even the personalities I hated felt like they were meant to be disliked which is also I sign of good character design
I’m gonna miss this game but I wholeheartedly look forward to what you’re gonna do next.
Godspeed jam & xo
Loved every second of watching this games development. You guy's have been amazing and the way this game grew and improved just goes to show that fact. I truly can't wait to see what you do next, and thanks for making a fantastic VN. Cheers to you guy's! And good luck with your next project.
*wipes tears* Incredible
Thank you for this incredible game, it was something quite unexpected compared to other games in the same field, I really liked it, your work was fantastic
thank you for the game and your time. i hope you dont completely give up on darker content in the future, because it seems like it brought a lot of negative interactions that you had to endure. i really liked what you guys did with the game (especially the darker contents in a game that appears to be a purely happy one on the surface)
I wish you all the best for your endeavors in your everyday jobs and on future games and i hope to see more from you soon.