Hey I wanted to comment with some love. Summer Scent was literally my first ever AVN. It created the genre in the universe of me. I have now played many dozens of others, but this one was really pivotal. The story, the emotions, the quality of images. It was made with care and it is a class above most others due to that care. I consider it exceptional quality, particularly the character development and expression of emotions. That is where you breath through into that top tier, where a titillating AVN becomes art.
I know you put a lot of pressure on yourself for progress in development and feel in that squeeze between quality and time. It's an impossible balance. So I want to pitch an idea that might be crazy, but maybe, hopefully would help. I wonder if you have people in your community that have some of the skills to help. I think the story, the character development, the final touches should always be yours to own 100%. But perhaps others would volunteer to help bug catch; or create storyboard positions for you to fine tune; or translations, etc. It would probably take some experimentation - throw out some labor-heavy, low-expertise tasks out there and figure our which types of things were helpful, and what weren't.
I haven't worked in this world and I don't know if this is a foolish idea or not, but wanted to throw it out there in case it helps. Keep up the good work man!
Thank you for your kind words.
There are several successful AVNs developed by teams, so it can work pretty well, and the idea isn't foolish at all. And it is, indeed more efficient than a solo dev. Sharing the workload allows for a faster development cycle, and having someone to share ideas with is always a great help in any creative work.
For me, however, it's a more personal adventure and I'm far too deep in the journey to change anything now.
I did think about it, though. Not for Summer Scent, but maybe on some other project on which I could work as a writer while someone else would handle the visuals. Maybe when I'm finished with Summer Scent.