Dev Log #7 - Development Journey: Learning From Our Past Titles

Greetings, and a thousand praises to you, Your Majesty!

It has been two and a half months since the launch of My Lovely Empress, and while we are very grateful for all the love and support you have shown for the game, that doesn’t mean these are the only messages we listen to.

Indeed, here at Gamechanger we firmly believe in the power of listening to all feedback, but especially towards constructive criticism. While the reality of game development’s difficulties as well as our limited resources means we can’t grant everyone’s wishes (as much as you deserve to have them granted, Your Majesty!), evolving from game to game to suit the needs of our players is something we’ve always strived to do from the very start of Gamechanger.

So today, we thought of showing you a little treat: a peek at how My Lovely Empress evolved from the constructive criticism our players left us on My Lovely Daughter and My Lovely Wife.

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In this review for My Lovely Daughter, the two major complaints were clear as day: the narrative was confusing, and the game was too simple for the grind to be engaging. We attempted to address these points in My Lovely Wife by having new events pop up as the player interacted with the map, where these events thrust choices onto the player that would impact their gameplay. Additionally, we attempted to create a simpler, more cohesive narrative that would not be lost on the player as they worked on improving their succubi.

However, it was during work on My Lovely Empress when we finally had the resources to go bigger.

From these messages were born Empress’ kingdom management features, such as the Crimson Empire’s internal factions who must be managed, as well as the neighboring nations whose rulers you must please. We hope you enjoy these additional gameplay systems during your time with My Lovely Empress!

For this review on the other hand, it was rather clear that for a game that relied on your emotional attachments to your Homunculi daughters, My Lovely Daughter had failed to make this player care about their relationship to the homunculi. My Lovely Wife iterated on this by giving the players far more time with its Succubi who were written to be more vibrant, lively, and likable, but for My Lovely Empress we went even further with the Yaoguai, hiding unique backstories for each one revealed through their dialogue choices, as well as continuing to improve on our art and animation to make them as memorable as can be.

Here's a little chart that we used during the development of Empress, collecting both positive and negative feedback for Daughter and Wife. This was used to determine the direction we wanted to go for when creating Hong’s reign of terror in the Ashuwa continent and is a chart we will almost certainly be adding to as we continue to create new games and collect more feedback from our players.

We are always out to improve and create the best versions of our games that they can be, and it is your feedback that lights the way. We truly appreciate all the love, support, and yes, even criticism that you have shared with us over the years. We hope our next title will be even better!

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