This time improving performance, reducing GPU utilization and overall making the game run smoother
We've also made a minor change to healing units in armies, in that the army no longer needs to be near a town to get the option to heal when you click on the unit in the army on the world map
First of all, I will have to give all of you a very, very big apology for letting everything regarding King of Retail stay in the dark for so long. I know i have built up some expectations, and my intentions have always been to follow up on them, so i am truly sorry for the lack of engagement and communication over the last 1½ year.
I can fully understand those of you who have been greatly disappointed. So now it's time for me to give you all an explanation.
Up until and after the release of King of Retail i was completely burned out. The process during this period was unfortunately far from optimal, and at the same time a lot of stuff happened on a personal level, leading me to an insane level of stress. For 4 months i slept at max 2 hours pr. night, and those were the good nights where i managed to get some actual sleep. After that, every time i tried to open Unreal (the progeam used to make the game), tried do some planning, heard a ping on Discord, etc. i within seconds felt my pulse increase drastically, and simply could not do anything, even though i felt a huge obligation to serve the community and the players. And i am truly, truly sorry for not responding to you for all this time. It took me a very long time before I was able to do things relatively normal again, and when i could i needed to make a decision.
King of Retail was my first game, and my first experience of making a proper piece of software. It also had many other "firsts" along the way, and because of this the foundation of King of Retail is not as strong as i would like it to be, simply because it was built on the knowledge i had back then. This means that at the later stages, much time was spent on fixing this foundation to make it possible for new things to enter the game. And this problem will only intensify with continued work, as well as some things will be impossible to add. For instance, a simple thing like keeping multiple saves for a game is impossible without rebuilding everything. It is also made with an old version of Unreal Engine (v. 4.22, the latest UE4 version is 4.27, and they proceeded to UE5 being on version 5.3). Many of the external plugins used have not been updated to the newer versions, meaning bringing it up to date to use the latest features, would be an immenseamount of work. For me it was in the end more of a frustration to work with, because every little thing i wanted to make, required me to fix some of this foundation. However it would never be what i wanted it to be, unless i redid everything from scratch.
I have spent a lot of time thinking about what to do instead. Many ideas and many scenarios has been played through in my head. Should i continue King of Retail? Should i try a different type of game? Do i even have the desire to make games? Can i again climb this huge mountain it is to make a game as an indie developer? After a lot of thinking, i came to the conclusion that i still love my King of Retail. It has been my life for many years now. It has been my baby i brought form nothing to become a game that gave people thousands of hours of entertainment. But because of the things mentioned above, it gave more frustrantions than joy, and making a game based off of frustrations is futile when you are a solo developer, and i was also not sure how people would react if a game that was assumed dead would be brought back to revival over a year later.
I also believe that i can make something that is even better than i did before. I just need to adjust the way i did it, use the things that worked well, and discard the thigs that didn't so i don't let it go to this unhealthy level of working again. And that is why i decided to make a sequel.
I know many of you hoped for more content to be added to the original King of Retail after final release, and i can fully understand if you are angry or frustrated. Again i can only give you my biggest apologies, but i will not keep working on King of Retail.
But by getting a fresh and proper start on a new game, i can apply all my current knowledge from the beginning, and do everything more consistently, as well as avoiding many of the bad decisions i learned along the way. This will allow a foundation that supports a much better flow of work, and will allow many of the things that I would have liked to add in the first game, and hopefully this will make for a much much better game for you to play.
I know many will be pleased with the news, but i also know that a fair amount are disappointed or outright angry with it, which is why I dreaded making this post, and postponed it for too long.
I am truly sorry, and it was never my intention to leave it as is 1½ years ago, and i can understand your frustrations, disappointment and anger. But i still hope you will give a warm welcome to King of Retail 2.
Thanks to your invaluable playtesting, we've polished Akumi to perfection, and the game is now ready for the world to enjoy. Intergalactic bad guys may feel differently, though.
This full version of Akumi means a fresh game reset. We had to do a new save overwrite in order to fix some bugs that we just couldn’t fix otherwise.
Thank you for helping playtest Akumi and thank you for joining us in this fresh start of Akumi Wars.
Thanks to everyone for playing the demo and or watching the live stream during Next Fest! Ahro, the full game, will out be out sometime during the first half of this year! Keep up to date here on Steam or follow on social media!
Ughh, Senpai it seems like you got your hands full this week! From limited events, to unmissable deals, spicy rewards and a new sexy girl, looks like you’re in for quite the ride.(╯✧▽✧)╯
Join the QTverse and give the new girl, Julianna, a warm welcome. She’s super excited to meet you and she even has a ☆juicy scene☆ waiting just for you, Senpai. ❤︎
Buuut- don’t forget about Alberta! She’s also ready for kinky adventures, so make sure you show her the love her majesty deserves. ♡(>ᴗ•) Juliana New Girl Summon Event period: February 14th ~ 28th. Alberta Drop Rate Up Summon Event period: February 16th ~ 23rd.
Thought we’d forget about Vday?! No way!♡\( ̄▽ ̄)/♡ ⋆.˚⭒⋆.˚Swing by the Shop for Valentine’s Packs and spice up your Vday this year. There are loads of other special treats waiting for you, so don’t let them slip away!⋆.˚⭒⋆.˚ Surprise Pack period: February 13th ~ 15th. Valentine Pack period: February 14th ~ 26th. Flora Fragment & Awaken Pack period:: February 15th ~ 25th. Surprise Pack period: February 17th ~ 19th.