Hello everyone! Happy New Year! New year comes new news! I'm here to announce some pretty big news for the future of both Barachoda Bloom and By Your Hands. So if you're a patron or you're considering becoming a patron, you better listen up. First, take this survey. When you're done go back to this devlog.

I decided to put make Barachoda Bloom a side project, and make By Your Hands my main project. This means that By Your Hands will be one to get monthly updates and Patreon-exclusive builds while Barachoda Bloom will get updates sporadically. Let me explain my decision. When I created Barachoda Bloom, I always thought that it would become pretty successful. That it would gather a lot of attention from the bara crowd at large. This is why I put a lot of extra things into the game, such as voice acting, social stats, and a unique calendar system. I was pretty certain that I would become the next big thing. Not mainstream levels of exposure, but it would carve out a sizable niche in the gay internet. Now that didn't really happen. In the time span of just under six months, BB managed to get over 5k downloads, 41 ratings (averaging out at 4.5), and 14 patrons (give or take a few). That doesn't sound bad, but keep in mind that the game had put out four builds during that time. Each of them following the first added about 10k words of new content. Even though the game did above average, I still kept getting underwhelmed by the performance of the game, time and time again. It made developing the game feel a little lonely like I was making this game for little return. It's my passion project, and I should have made it just for myself. But I still wanted the game to be as successful as possible, and I didn't want to disappoint the few patrons I had. I thought that if I just kept working on the game, I would eventually reach the success I always thought the game would have.

Then we have By Your Hands, a game I wanted to do but waited until BaraJam 2022 came up. I wasn't concerned with adding any bells and whistles that BB had and I wasn't concerned with giving it custom GUI or custom-made music (aside from the title screen). I was more interested in creating good art and getting a good story from Nemo. While working on the game, I thought of two outcomes of the game, and both of them made me feel afraid. The first outcome was that the VN wouldn't receive that much attention. It wouldn't have many people reading it and it would end up being a very niche VN I have in my repertoire. The second outcome was that it would become so much more successful than BB that it just wouldn't make sense to not make BYH my main focus. Now, what actually happened? Well, By Your Hands got over 4.7k downloads, 79 ratings (averaging out at 4.7), and 15 new patrons, doubling my patron count plus 1. Keep in mind, not only has BYH been out for one month compared to BB's six months, but there was also just one build (aside from a bug-fixing build I silently added). The's no Patreon-exclusive build, the only BYH-related things you get from being a patron currently are naked sketches of the characters, commentary of the game that's barely even finished, and PSDs of the game's art for the $6 tier. I'll be frank with you when I say I'm overwhelmed by the attention BYH has gotten thus far. I didn't even finish the art or put in music for most of it. And then there are the results from both the game survey and the Future of ChellayTiger survey.

I thought most people would be like "Do whatever you want, it's your decision, and we're okay with whatever you choose" but no most people say I should focus on By Your Hands. All the signs are pointing to me focusing on By Your Hands.

I want to talk a little about what made By Your Hands a hit, and Barachoda Bloom not so much.

I don't have a definite answer, but here's what I observed:

• The most obvious was that BYH is a furry game, and furry bara VNs have a bigger and more dedicated following than non-furry bara games.
• MinoAnon made a tweet about the game as well as rated it five stars on itch.io and put it in several collections. That really boosted the game.
• The game was submitted to BaraJam 2022, which gave it exposure to everyone who was following that jam.
• The first build is tighter overall, with a clear hook and five routes already laid out by the end, making people want to know what happens next. Compare that to BB, which doesn't have a clear hook due to being a slice of life and it takes a while before clear routes are established. BYH's more familiar formatting of a VN (Introduction, then a route split that divides the game into separate routes) was also easier for readers to get into than the sandbox I gave BB.
• The genre of the VN might have been more attractive to potential readers, as Mystery is a genre that's sought in the FVN community.
• There's a wide variety of guys to choose from with Kamil and Brendan having attractive bodies whose attributes are much more exaggerated than any guy in BB. There's also more erotic content in its first build compared to all of BB.
• This one's more of a stretch, but the setting of a Western college with a fish-out-of-water college freshman would be a lot more related to a typical reader than a thirty-something second-generation American visiting his country of heritage. The protagonist is also somewhat more relatable, having more freedom in what type of character he is, compared to BB's absolute horndog loser of a protagonist (We still love him though).

I have specific reasons why I made BB the way it is, and I don't regret making it the way it is, but I do know it's not a game that's out to earn a big following easily.

I also want to let you know that I am not making BYH my main project solely because it's the more popular game. I love working on BYH and seeing Nemo write the game's script. It was certainly what I needed after working on BB for months. I do want to see the story unfold and work more on making the game better than it currently is. It's just that, it's a lot easier to want to work on something when you have dozens of people to continue working on it. And for those of you who are disappointed that I'm making BB a side project, I understand. However, I think this is the best thing for both me and BB. I now feel like I have more freedom to work on the VN whenever I want to and do things with the VN I was afraid to do when I was concerned with meeting the expectations of my patrons. It's funny considering the original reason for creating a Patreon for the game was to make sure that I would always have a reason to work on the game, but it had the opposite effect where it slowly sapped my motivation to work on it and made it less fun to work on. Now BB doesn't have to suffer from that.

The creator of 20 Minutes Till Dawn was working on a turn-based strategy game called Spiritlink Tactics before he made 20MTD. As mentioned here, the amount of wishlists 20MTD received in just a month completely surpassed the amount Spiritlink got in several years. As much as he liked Spiritlink he wanted to work on more games, and he decided to work on 20MTD more because it just made too much sense for him financially after the explosive sales the game had. Obviously, my situation isn't as extreme as his, but the point is that if the universe is telling you to go through with something, don't ignore it.

So what's the plan? Patrons will get the next build on February 2nd. This build will have 10k words of new content continuing from the end of the first build and will continue Brendan's path. Yes, I hear you guys loud and clear, you guys really want the naughty professor. For this game, we have three acts for each of the routes planned. Right now, we will be focusing on developing Brendan's route until Act 1 for his route is finished. After that, we will then focus on working on another route's Act 1, and then another route's Act 1, and then another route's Act 1, and then another route's Act 1. Once that's done, we'll work on Act 2 again and so on and so forth. Hope this all makes sense to you guys! This build will be out for the public in March. I'm not sure if I could get a smaller public build out for February, but I'll see what I can do. And don't worry if you haven't played Brendan's route yet. There's a section that plays out regardless of whatever route you're on, and there's a few extra lines for each route. If you're not on Brendan's route, you'll be given the option to go right to Brendan's route, along with how lustful you want to be with him, after that section is over.

One last thing. So far only one person has mentioned that they've been reading the commentary I've been sharing with patrons. It's been a lot of work making the commentary and I'm thinking about stopping at the end of the first build and just making a more general notes and Q & A session. I'm also considering removing the script preview as a patron bonus. This is Nemo's writing and it feels weird if I'm getting money for what he's doing. I've been thinking about replacing it with voting for the subject of a monthly pin up as well as access to test builds. If you guys are interested in reading the commentary let me know. If you don't really care for it, tell me what I can do to replace it. Also tell me if you're interested in monthly pin-ups.

If you haven't already, please take the survey. I want to see what my audience is thinking at this point in development and I want to compare it to future survey results. 

And that's it everyone! Happy new year and let's hope 2023 is a better year for all of us. My New Year's resolution is to get By Your Hands into the top 50 rated furry VNs on itch.io. Let's see if it can climb up there.