Happy July all! Last month I mentioned that it was starting to get really hot here in Vancouver, but in truth the summer’s been shockingly reasonable so far. We’ve spent most of the past month with temperatures in the mid-20s, a far cry from the low-to-mid 30s I was worried about (and that are being exceeded further east). I’d be more stoked about this if I hadn’t tweaked my back getting my air conditioner installed. Ah well. Let’s get into the update!

Monstrous Liberation Work

As you can see above, Pacha’s completed work on art for the first of Prim’s sex scenes! This is a fun one involving a lot of praise-kink bodywriting, so if that’s your Thing then prepare to be well-fed. She’s soon going to be starting on the art for Prim’s second scene, which is a real doozy.

A bit of a frustrating month on my end. I wound up hitting a gnarly case of writer’s block and as such the update script is still only at about 5k so far. I’m hoping to pick up steam soon - it’s just been kind of a Month for a number of reasons (see below).

Money Talk

You might recall that in last month’s update I was considering starting a new project in order to address the state of BP Games’s finances. To give a bit more color to the problem: at our present income/spending ratio, we’re looking at running out of money in roughly a year, when at our present development rate Monstrous Liberation is going to take at least two more years to finish. After talking it over with our publisher I’ve decided to approach the problem from the other end, which is to say: cutting expenses. This is going to be done in two ways.

First of all, the remaining content planned for Monstrous Liberation is being trimmed-down significantly. In the old plan, after Prim there would have been five more monsters added, followed by a large finale update to close out the plot. Under the new plan, there will be one more monster after Prim, after which we’ll be going straight into the finale - in other words, we’re cutting four monsters’ worth of content. This will trim 12-16 months of development time. I’m not happy about this as we had some very cool monster designs that I was excited to realize, and it really doesn’t feel quite as good to think that the final game will have 11 monsters total (13 if you count all three Vulpeses as distinct, I suppose) instead of 15, but these are the realities of the situation.

The second lever I’m pulling is that I’ve decided to reduce the monthly compensation that Pacha and myself receive by 20%. This is another thing I’d really prefer to not have to do, as even prior to this reduction it would not be incorrect to say the amount we’re paying ourselves is “poverty-level”. However, I believe it’s necessary in order to ensure that we can continue to afford to pay ourselves SOME amount through the remainder of Monstrous Liberation’s development. This cut likely won’t stop the bleeding entirely, but it does add several more months of cushion.

These are stressful changes to have to make! I would be happier not having to make them! However I would rather make these changes now than run out of money in a year and have to leave everyone with an unfinished game. I do think that our next couple projects are going to be much smaller and self-contained before we do another large-scale early-access title.

Tourney of Tyranny

Blueparikeet is getting closer and closer to finishing the illustrations for the second part of Tourney of Tyranny! I can’t begin to describe how excited I am for this issue, his work’s been SO good. You’ll seriously be missing out if you don’t read this book when it’s completed.

From The Blog

Several more essays from the fourth issue of the Adult Analysis Anthology have gone live on the blog in the past month! Here they are, in case you haven’t been keeping current:

• You Can’t Just Do That: Talking About Subject-Tone Dissonance With Roksim by Hunter M

• An Interview With Amelie Doree by Kastel

• I Only Want To Fuck The Dice by Darling Demon Eclipse

• An Unenthusiastic Eclipse Knight Saga Review by yours truly!

• Sanctuary In Vulnerabilty: Hazelnut Latte & Creeping Censorship by Eternal_Savvy

The Consumption Stumption

Playing 1: Like much of the video gaming world, I dove the entire fuck in to the fifth chapter of Toby Fox’s Deltarune when it dropped a few weeks back. Deltarune is a tricky game to talk seriously about on account of being SO heavily spoiler-dependent. All I really trust myself to say on the matter is that it remains as good as it’s ever been (which is VERY good).

Playing 2: I picked up Atlus’s Metaphor: ReFantazio in the Steam Summer Sale and recently wrapped up the first proper dungeon. I’m not that far in yet so I’m not really qualified to comment on the ways in which it’s mechanically-distinct from the later Personas, but I will say that I kind of hate the design on the main character. I’m sorry he does just look like a thrown-together weenie baby. I named him “Freddy Ass” and I do not respect him.

Reading: After doing a rewatch of the Robert Rodriguez Battle Angel Alita with my roommate, I decided to give reading the manga a try for the first time ever. Hot diggety! This broad can really dismember a lot of robots! Also it turns out there’s WAY more Battle Angel Alita manga out there than I previously apprehended, because nobody on this Earth seems to possess the ability to stop Yukito Kishiro from making sequel after sequel. I’ve made it up to the start of Mars Chronicle so far and am loving every page of it.

Watching: I slammed the first three episodes of Science Saru’s Jaadugar: A Witch in Mongolia a few days ago and hot holy fuck y’all. Even by the incredibly-high standards that Science Saru have set for themselves with animated masterworks like Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! and Dandandan, Jaadugar stands in a league all its own. Unbelievable character acting. Immaculate colors. SO much flexing and business and attention to detail. The shot composition! The throat-singing stings in the soundtrack! Even the FOLEY work is jawdropping. If you watch ANY anime of the current crop, make sure it’s this one.

Wrapping Up

That does it for another update! I reckon we’re only a couple of months out from Prim being added to Monstrous Liberation, so look forward to that! If you find yourself moved by our tightening financial situation, please consider supporting us on Patreon or Subscribestar (and receive exclusive sneak peeks and artwork for your trouble!) Once again, thank you so much for following BP Games and enjoying the things we create!