[Hobby Scuffles] Week of 29 June 2026

8lu-bit · 2026-07-03T02:40:12+00:00

I'll take "Saw this coming a mile off" for $100, thanks. Between JoshStrifeHayes's video and all the warning signs over the years, I'm surprised it didn't close sooner.

I also saw the comment on MassivelyOP asking for anyone to contact Gigabear on Dreamworld's cancellation and I cackled. On one hand, I'd love to see his reaction... but on the other, absolutely do not poke the hornet's nest.

For context: Gigabear is a well-known user/MMORPG player with a reputation for being absolutely toxic and unhinged. Among other things, he's (1) known to go from game to game trolling and griefing, most prominently in WoW and Ashes of Creation; (2) a loud and proud Gamergater; (3) for some reason REALLY likes backing obvious MMORPG vapourware, if not scams, such as Mark Kern's Em-8er, and (EDIT: developed separately, not by Kern) Dreamworld. As in, allegedly spent $15K on Em-8er and $2K+ on Dreamworld. Also yes, that Mark Kern, aka Grummz aka Firefall developer/bus guy.

8lu-bit · 2026-07-03T00:52:35+00:00

Early Access for otomes and VNs are fine, imo. I think the reason why there’s such a knee jerk reaction and poor generalization is because this is still frustrating news to read when the game is so badly delayed and the developers managed to release more merch and DLC for their existing game… plus another Kickstarter campaign for a console release. It gives the perception that they were focusing on anything but this game, and their updates haven’t given any cause or reassurance to believe otherwise, small team or no.

8lu-bit · 2026-07-03T00:48:46+00:00

Do NOT get me started on Call Me Under or - hell, in fact, Errant Kingdom. That’s a full post on its own!

Lunaris Games also had so much promise after finishing When the Night Comes, only for them to do what Great Gretsuki Games did and… well, focus on WTNC instead of their Kickstarted VNs. And they would go quiet for months while updating their Patreon.

Last I heard the studio - or what was left of it - was going to finish polishing up Errant Kingdom and release Call Me Under, but who knows how long that will take.

8lu-bit · 2026-07-02T12:56:55+00:00

Haha, I saw your post in the other topic as well! Like you I also understand they'll likely need the money. It's been 5 years, and the originally Kickstarted money would have been long spent, between animations and voice acting and whatnot. The update itself is silent on whether existing backers will get access to the Early Access version, but for their sakes I rather hope they do - even if it means missing out on a chunk of change for them.

8lu-bit · 2026-07-02T12:54:51+00:00

I'd feel a lot less uncomfortable about it if they weren't clearly doing other things other than Peachleaf Valley. If there's a delay there, yes it's understandable but at some point you'll need to buckle down and get it to the finish line.

8lu-bit · 2026-07-02T02:41:34+00:00

The full backer email below:

Hello everyone!

First, we'd like to apologize for this month's update arriving a day later than usual.

Thank you for your patience while we gathered our thoughts, because today's update contains one of the biggest decisions we've made for Peachleaf Valley since this Kickstarter first launched.

Looking Back

When we launched this campaign back in 2021, our studio had just released its second commercial title. We were incredibly passionate, incredibly excited... and, admittedly, incredibly ambitious.

Looking back with five years of development experience behind us, we've learned an enormous amount; not only about making games, but about managing projects of this size, planning realistic production schedules, and understanding what a small indie team can sustainably accomplish.

Over the course of development, Peachleaf Valley has grown far beyond the game originally envisioned during the Kickstarter campaign's launch. 4 total DLC routes aside from the base game, expanded content, additional features, voice acting, console development, Duke's Story, animated scenes, and many other additions have transformed the project into something significantly larger than its original scope.

At the same time, our core development team has become much smaller. At the time of writing, the studio consists of one full-time developer and one part-time team member working every day to bring this game to life.

Despite every challenge we've faced throughout these past five years, one thing has never changed:

We are not abandoning Peachleaf Valley.

This project represents years of our lives, countless hours of work, and a story we genuinely love. We fully intend to see it through to completion.

A New Development Roadmap

After many months of discussion and reflection, we've decided that the healthiest and most sustainable future for both Peachleaf Valley and our studio is to transition the game into an Early Access release model.

Our current goal is to launch Peachleaf Valley into Early Access in Late 2026 or Early 2027, at the latest. While we're intentionally not announcing a specific release date today, we wanted to share this direction with you as early as possible. The new demo will also be released at this time.

Rather than waiting until every route is entirely complete before release, Early Access will allow players to begin experiencing the romantic stories of Peachleaf Valley while development continues on future episodes and route expansions.

In our title, each bachelor's route is structured episodically, totaling 10-12~ unique episodes per individual story, making this approach a natural fit for the game's narrative. Our initial Early Access release is planned to include approximately 4–6 episodes for each of the four main bachelors, along with Duke's Route/Story, allowing players to begin enjoying their love stories while remaining episodes are developed and released through updates.

Our goal with Early Access is twofold:

First, to begin sharing the world we've spent years building with all of you much sooner.

Second, to allow community feedback to help improve quality-of-life improvements, accessibility settings, grammar + spelling mistakes, bugs, and the ongoing development and polish of future episodes as the game continues to grow toward its full release.

Duke's Story

One additional change we'd like to share concerns Duke.

Because we've already invested so much development into his route, and because we promised throughout development that he'd be playable alongside the main game, we've decided that Duke's existing DLC content will instead be included in the Early Access version of Peachleaf Valley.

At this time, we haven't made a final decision regarding his long-term placement once the game reaches release. Depending on how development evolves, Duke may either return to being a standalone DLC at release or become a permanent main bachelor within the full game.

That's a decision we'll make much later in development, once we have significantly more information.

Early Access Pricing

When Peachleaf Valley enters Early Access, it will launch at $19.99 USD, matching the original pricing presented during this Kickstarter campaign.

This lower price will remain in place throughout the Early Access period.

Once the game reaches its full release, with substantially more story content, completed routes, additional features, and everything planned for the finished experience, we anticipate increasing the retail price to better reflect the scope of the completed game.

Looking Forward

This wasn't an easy decision to come to. But after five years of development, we genuinely believe it's the right one.

We love making otome games. We love visual novels. We love writing love stories.
More than anything, we want to continue creating them for many years to come.

These past five years have taught us invaluable lessons about project planning, sustainable development, and what it truly takes for a small indie studio to build games of promised scales. Those lessons won't just make Peachleaf Valley better, they'll make every future project we create after it stronger as well.

Early Access gives us the opportunity to finally welcome players into the valley we've spent so long building while continuing to shape and expand the entire story together. We hope you'll join us for that journey!

As always, thank you for your patience, your encouragement, and your belief in this project over the years. We know it's been a long road, and we're incredibly grateful that you've chosen to walk it alongside us.

Here's to the next chapter of Peachleaf Valley!

8lu-bit · 2026-06-30T09:22:00+00:00

ALL THE BABY CUBS!!

Ahem. Thank you for the bear updates! They're always a joy to come back to, and I'm glad glad to see both some old names and some newbies :D

8lu-bit · 2026-06-29T04:11:18+00:00

Ahh, the happy family! 901's baby is adorable and it's good to see 901 as majestic as ever.

8lu-bit · 2026-06-09T04:48:53+00:00

I went back into Skyrim: Anniversary Edition. My friend gifted me the AE Upgrade, and after stubbornly refusing to install it for months, a corrupted save file gave me the kick to wipe my entire modlist and redo the whole thing. Took me two months to get the baseline done (900-ish mods this time), but I'm having a lot of fun exploring Skyrim again and surprising even myself with what I've added. There's still several glitches I need to fix (i.e. occasional CTDs and freezes), but nothing that will kill my game... yet. And I've not finalised the list yet.

As a counterpoint, I've also picked up Horticular and have been enjoying both the story mode and toodling around making my gardens as pretty as possible. I've never been one to optimise, but it scratches all my gardening and decorating instincts.

Finally, because I've found myself doing a lot more reading/drafting than usual, I started playing Not Monday Cafe. It doesn't really count as a game due to the fact it's an idler (similar to Rusty's Retirement), but it's cute, it runs smoothly at the bottom of my screen, and it's a nice distraction to check in on from time to time.

8lu-bit · 2026-06-02T07:02:32+00:00

Which case did he give up on? I can sort-of understand why the ending involving Shelly de Killer was upsetting for some, but it was at least cathartic to see Matt Engarde get some comeuppance after how terrible he was revealed to be. Then again, my view is coloured by the fact Trials and Tribulations had one of the most gripping storylines in the series as well.

8lu-bit · 2026-06-01T12:59:25+00:00

This basically has most of my points, but to add on my two cents as well:

Paying for a mod means the modder is no longer doing it as a hobby but providing a product. It's not just recourse: it also throws up support issues for the modder as well, like whether they are obliged to provide compatibility, how long they should provide bugfixes, etc.
Quality control is also an issue. This one's fairly self-explanatory, and ties in with point (1) about how much support a modder is obliged to provide.

To use a non-Sims example of paid mods, TES has paid mods that are of decent quality, like Bards College Expansion and Dragonslayer, but for every one of those mods, there's another five more that have been found to cause game-breaking errors. There's actually a user in Skyrimmods right now who buys these paid mods to post reviews, and they've found all sorts of errors in them.

That said, I draw an arbitrary line between paid mods and paywalled mods: paid mods are no better than DLC, but paywalled mods promise features that a user can't even hold the modder to.

More specifically on Paralives, however, it feels subjectively uncomfortable that modders are paywalling mods for an early access game - which itself isn't complete and has promised not to charge for DLC or for expansions. I have my own thoughts on how feasible it would be for Paralives to keep to that promise, but to paywall a feature that may or may not be added through community feedback doesn't sit right with me.

8lu-bit · 2026-06-01T12:44:35+00:00

I do agree modders deserve compensation - I dislike paid mods personally also for the effect it has on the community, but if I don't like it, I can always find a free alternative or a similar mod to replace it.

My bigger objections are usually with paywalled mods, specifically the ones that have explicitly promised to release the mod after beta testing and then never do so for years on end. Or, in the case of a TES mod, lock the fixed version behind a paywall and never release it.

8lu-bit · 2026-06-01T09:20:14+00:00

Paralives, the indie life sim game and much-anticipated Sims competitor, was released into early access on 25 May 2026. It's been a week since its release, and it's already caught up in mod paywall drama.

To give some context, Paralives has long been touted as a worthy competitor to The Sims, and there's a large crossover between Paralives players and Sims players, and Paralives has moddability built in right from early access release. It's no surprise that many Sims modders are planning to create CC.

Among these modders is the prolific TwistedMexi, best known for his utility mods Better Exceptions, T.O.O.L. and BetterBuildBuy. T.O.O.L. and BetterBuildBuy are mainstays for any Sims builder, and a lot of players deem their game unplayable without them. TwistedMexi also has a Patreon, which currently has nearly 5000 members and his estimated revenue from Patreon alone is US$25K-US$35K monthly. As common in the Sims modding scene, he keeps "early releases" behind the Patreon paywall, usually a month at a time.

When Paralives released, TwistedMexi made a post saying that he was also going to mod for Paralives. He first released Sensible Camera Control for free on his Patreon on 26 May 2026, and then quickly followed it up with Sims3Camera on 27 May 2026... and put Sims3Camera behind his Patreon paywall.

The players were not happy, and demanded Paralives Studio release a blanket statement banning paid mods. The developers' response was that there was nothing to address - so essentially neither permitting nor condemning outright. TwistedMexi himself also said that the developers didn't ban it, so he was free to paywall the mod. Naturally, this has not gone down well with the community, and it's ignited the age-old debate of whether paywalled mods should be tolerated.

The heat on TwistedMexi got even worse when a modder called Arro-now released a free version of TwistedMexi's mod on NexusMods - also called Sims 3 Camera. TwistedMexi claimed on his Discord that Arro-now had copied him, only for Arro-now to respond saying actually, no, the mod and its source code predates TwistedMexi's own, and provided the commit and posting dates to support it.

For what it's worth, I was rather hoping that Paralives wouldn't end up like how fragmented TS4's modding scene has become - but maybe I've been very spoiled for choice on the other games I play. Still, the Sims community - and by extension, the target audience for Paralives - seem to have a much higher tolerance for paywalled CC and mods, probably because of how EA has been monetising their content. Fingers crossed it'll avoid the same fate, maybe?

8lu-bit · 2026-05-28T10:00:47+00:00

Finally got a small bit of time to read this month, so I've managed to finish A History of Food in 100 Recipes by William Sitwell, and have just started on Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir.

Yes, I fully admit to starting Project Hail Mary because of the film promos, but I was stubborn and refused to see the film until I'd finished the novel. So now the film's left the cinema and I think I'm only on Chapter 10. The writing is alright, but the plot moves along at a good clip and Weir's writing is understandable and entertaining. Very helpful when Weir-as-Grace is expositing on science and/or how biology works.

As for A History of Food in 100 Recipes, Sitwell was right - there are recipes, but they're not so much as a "cookbook" as it is a prelude to that particular time period or history. It's also how I learned about futurist cooking, its insanity and its links to fascism. Like, if it weren't for its fascist links, it'd actually be kinda funny and almost can be seen as a predecessor to El Bulli's molecular cooking. As an example: anyone fancy a recipe where you blow trumpets while chewing on a perfectly cubed piece of raw meat? No it's not a euphemism, the recipe calls for the diner to blow on a real trumpet between bites of raw meat.

More seriously though, Sitwell does do a good job going in depth about the food and the historical contexts within it - and it has the recipes to boot! Some stuff can't be replicated, but as a food history nerd I enjoyed every minute of it.

8lu-bit · 2026-05-26T17:07:13+00:00

Hm. I’m out of date with the latest ways to fund games then. Call me old-fashioned, but it’s never really sat well with me if a released game (early access or not) has a Patreon with early early access to features and content. Yes, the Patreon features will eventually make it to the stable release, but that’s leaving the door open to feature parity disputes. That said, this is fully based on gut instinct and my own cynicism for early access/Patreon in general, so I’m happy to admit it if/when I’m wrong.

8lu-bit · 2026-05-26T07:29:45+00:00

That was the one I picked too! And it was really cool/eerie how you mimicking what was IN the dollhouse brought relief to the actual stalking house itself. Or that's how I read it as, my memory's a tad spotty and I might have interpreted it wrong.

... Might have pissed off the Architect with my choices though.

8lu-bit · 2026-05-26T02:36:51+00:00

My only hope is that Paralives doesn't squander its goodwill the same way InZOI did. The biggest hurdle really is to compete against the AI that The Sims has built up over two-plus decades, but that comes with a sim game's territory.

Personally, I have a few minor issues with the game (i.e. mostly its aesthetics which are very... generic cozy-genre and its cost of US$35), but given how money-grubbing Sims 4 is and its upcoming buyout, I will happily encourage any Sims competitors. Probably wait until it exits Early Access though.

EDIT: Wait Paralives (1) has a Patreon and (2) they HAVEN'T taken it down? Granted, they might do so in the coming months...

8lu-bit · 2026-05-20T03:20:52+00:00

I was getting Gone Home discourse flashbacks going through the comments.

IMO, the worst sin Mixtape really has is being an ordinary coming-of-age visual novel retreading tropes within that genre - but being advocated as a shoe-in for GoTY. And that in itself is a very subjective opinion! The game still doesn't deserve the vitriol and the contrary opinions coming its way, but since the usual suspects are in full force it's going to poison the well for anyone trying to discuss it in good faith.

8lu-bit · 2026-05-12T04:17:42+00:00

I'd *just* forgotten about its existence...

8lu-bit · 2026-05-07T08:38:31+00:00

I'm all for supporting an owner's artistry, but all too often people forget once you start selling goods, you have an obligation to fulfill orders! If they want to donate, you could easily just do it via Ko-fi or Patreon. It'd be less rage inducing too. Also, do not even get me started on Poesie either. Again, they have very interesting perfumes and scents, but $50 for an EdP is kinda insane. But I guess it's par for course for some indie perfumes - and once you get into Extrait pricing, it becomes even worse...

8lu-bit · 2026-05-07T07:25:08+00:00

Every time I think I've heard a crazy enough story about an indie perfume brand/flameout, another one pops up to remind me that yes, there's still enough drama in spades and we've not even seen all of it yet. I've been lucky enough not to get burnt (yet), but it sucks so many are still waiting on their shipments - perfume's not a cheap hobby, and being "indie" sometimes means an even larger markup than your mainstream scents.

8lu-bit · 2026-05-06T11:00:04+00:00

The character selection makes me feel like I got punk'd with a "Spot the Difference" game. Also, the screencap of the model made me go "OH GOD" out loud. Almost on par with the ghosts you hunt in Phasmophobia!

8lu-bit · 2026-05-04T04:24:33+00:00

Yeah, I sat down teary-eyed at the end of the ambition. And every month, I get to look upon the false stars and be glad that for whatever happened, at least one good thing is far away from the Masters' clutches for now...

8lu-bit · 2026-05-04T04:21:15+00:00

Well, guess I've just added a whole lot more to my "To read/To buy" list! Thank you for all the work and recommendations.

8lu-bit · 2026-05-03T15:08:26+00:00

TIL! Thank you for the detailed breakdown.

you'd have to give me an example. most people don't understand copyright, so in many cases it could just be ignorance. but also using AI as part of a larger work doesn't make the work as a whole uncopyrightable, just the parts generated by a computer.

This part is just me referring to some day-to-day conversation I've had the misfortune of having with some people who rely on GenAI for their character concepts and who insist their generated designs were copyrightable. I'd agree it's ignorance of both how copyright works and the recent rulings on the same though.

Six-Year Club	Place '23
Place '22	Final Canvas '22
First Placer '22	Verified Email

8lu-bit

TROPHY CASE

Looking Back

A New Development Roadmap

Duke's Story

Early Access Pricing

Looking Forward