Three Routes out of Four Complete!

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Hi Everyone!

Today we sent out the beta game of the Vald route to relevant backers of the Kickstarter and people who bought the chance to play the betas on our Buy Me a Coffee page.

This is our 3rd beta.  The Devi, Harsi, and Vald routes of the game are mostly done, leaving only the Saji route left to go!  We are adding voices and finishing the after ending scenes for the people who bought the right to marry an incubus.  Everything is going on schedule for us to release the game in November!

For Kickstarter backers who got physical rewards we have been ordering them!  Check out the mouse pad:

And we have line art done for the dakimakura.  Backers are getting Vald on the front and Saji on the back!

We also have the Incubus Key Chains in hand!  All four designs were delivered to us in June.

Sorry to everyone who missed a chance to get the physical rewards during the Kickstarter.  We still thought you might enjoy the artwork.  🙂

We are determined to have To Trust an Incubus on Itch by November!!  The we’ll have all the physical rewards of our game delivered to Kickstarter backers in  December.  This is what we promised.  We want to be known as the game company who always delivers our games on time.  🙂  Our first game, My Magical Demon Lover was promised to the Indiegogo backers in May of 2018.  We delivered it right on time!!  We’ll do the same for To Trust an Incubus, too.  🙂

Being the one company who always delivers their Kickstarter rewards on time might just make us famous.  😉

Seeking Art Team for Otome Visual Novel

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Hi Everyone!

Our next game is a PG-rated fantasy otome (one woman picks from multiple men to date) with work starting on September 13th, 2018.

We would like to create a demo that comprises 1/3rd of the total game. The demo will be used in a crowdfunding campaign launching in January or February of 2019.

We’re looking for sophisticated, elegant, manga/anime style art that appeals to women.

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Example by Ero Pinku. We own the rights to this image. While the game is not yaoi, the artist will still need to create several beautiful men.

We have the money in hand now to pay for the demo graphics. The remainder of the game will be funded by the crowd funding, if successful. Interested creators should plan on remaining on the project through it’s completion. We are usually successful with our crowd funding.

Please submit via email yabraham[at]yaoipress.com Include a link to your online portfolio, a summary of your past projects, and one reference you’ve worked for in the past if possible. Answer this question: if you have committed to a long term project with 100 works due, what percentage will you absolutely guarantee to turn in on time? Also tell us if you have ever quit a project before and if so why. Do not send attachments.

Total Graphics Budget for the Demo: $4,000 USD

We require the following:

SPRITES $600
7 Base Sprites (from the mid-thigh up): $40/sprite
40 Emotional Variations Total: $5 for expression changes $10 for pose/expression changes

BACKGROUNDS $700
7 Backgrounds: $100/background

CGS $2,400
12 CGs: $200/CG

GUI $75

LOGO $60

GRAPHIC DESIGN $150

Our preference is for a studio that can complete all the tasks we need with a lead artist and multiple assistants. If a well connected artist can put together a talented team of four or five people that they work well with, that’s also ideal.

Otherwise we will be splitting up the art tasks ourselves and dividing payment for the CGs in this fashion:

Sketch Artist 65% or 50% if characters without a background
Background Pencils (if necessary) 15%
Digital Inker 12.5%
Flatter 10%
Colorist 12.5%

We would not be comfortable with a single artist taking on all tasks related to the CGs. If you’re a single artist please let us know which position listed above you’re submitting for.

The CG sketch artist should be involved with sprite creation. The tasks related to them can be divided up the same as they are with the CGs if necessary.

Payment is via Paypal after a low-res, watermarked image is approved. Missed deadlines will result in a 10% reduction of payment. All work is work-for-hire. You must sign a contract before you begin work for us.

The Harsi Beta of To Trust an Incubus is Coming Soon!

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The first beta game containing the Devi route was given out to Incu-Betor backers from the Kickstarter and ‘All Digital Rewards’ backers from our Coffee Page!  Now the Harsi Route is coming out for all our Beta Testers!  This is more than half of the game.

HarsiEmbraceSaji

If you missed the To Trust a Incubus Kickstarter you can still play the beta game if you get the ‘All Digital Rewards’ donation perk!  You can also sign up to get the game when it’s released, or the Game, Art Book, and Sound Track.   (Physical perks are closed).

HarsiBedSad2

Preorder To Trust an Incubus now on Steam!

The First Beta of To Trust an Incubus Went Out Last Week!

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We’re cruising along on To Trust an Incubus, our flagship game that raised $47,217 on Kickstarter.

playdate

On June 8th, 2018, our first beta of the game went out to relevant backers, specifically all backers who choose the ‘Cuddly Incubus’ tier or higher, and all backers who choose the ‘Digital Rewards Only Side Package’ either on Kickstarter or through Coffee here.  You can still play the beta if you donate for the Digital Rewards only on Coffee!!

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The Devi route was mostly complete, but has already been edited heavily through feedback from our testers!  Thanks guys!  The next beta should include voices for the portion of the game that made up the Demo game and another route of To Trust an Incubus.  There is four routes in all and we’ve already got one done!

In addition to the first Beta Game we’ve also distributed the Backer Only Digital Poster and have ordered the key chains.  We’ll keep plugging along on this!

To Trust an Incubus is still on schedule for a November 2018 release.  We’re hoping we can even get it out earlier.  🙂

Thanks to everyone who has supported us!

 

My Magical Demon Lover Available on Itch

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At long last we have our yaoi visual novel out on Itch!  Steam is coming soon.

Play the FREE DEMO Here!


Buy it on Itch Here!

Purchase the Cheat Map, Art Book, or Soundtrack By Itself Here!

Want to know when it will be out for Steam?  Sign up for our Newsletter!

Tristan dreamed of being a wizard his entire life, but has no idea what it will cost him. He’s the great grandson of the wizard who protects his village and the first one to show any affinity for magic in three generations.

After waiting fiveever for his great grandfather to take him as his apprentice it’s finally happened! He’s been summoned up to the tower where his great grandfather watches over the village. But it’s not what he expects…

Percival has no intention of mentoring him. He’s eager to leave for a smutty vacation from his village-protecting duties. Tristan needs to take over, and that means picking a mentor from three demons Percival lined up for him.

The demons will give Tristan the magic he needs to become a wizard, but for a price! …His butt.

Fortunately these demons love humans and really want to connect with one. Tristan has a chance to fall in love with one of three demons, but which one will he chose?

Spicy Ecchi Content + A Yaoi Fantasy Story + A Dash of Comedy = My Magical Demon Lover, a ‘mature players’ dating sim that puts the wannabe wizard Tristan with his choice of three hot demons.

Three sultry routes, 50,000 words, and 10 endings! Choices matter and there’s a high replay value. Pick correctly for maximum love, wizarding skills, and sexy times!

Includes an original sound track and over 50 computer graphics to illustrate every spicy scene!

tristanindie copy - Copy

Everyone thought Tristan was going to be the worlds next greatest wizard. But then he graduated from school, never got summoned to be a wizard, and became a loser. After years of shitty work in a shitty tavern his ship has finally come in! Tristan wants to be a wizard more than ever now.

percivalindie copy

Percival is Tristan’s perverted great grandfather who became immortal at fifty. He’s protected the village for 100 years.  He feels he’s due for a vacation, and Tristan is just the guy to cover for him while he takes off to the Pleasure Realm.

Harse lost his beloved in the underworld and is incapable of loving another demon. He wants to be with a human and learn to share his love again. He’ll be a kind, loving, and gentle mentor–but he’s all seme (a top).

Karn is looking for a human to dominate into submission. As the most powerful demon of the underworld he can give Tristan the strongest magic–but it’s going to be rough! Karn is versatile and can be either seme (top) or uke (bottom).

If Tristan isn’t interested in sex with a demon he might want to pick Soren, who doesn’t want sex. What he wants instead, however, is a little weird…  When he does have sex Soren is all uke.

Play the FREE DEMO Here!


Buy it on Itch Here!

Purchase the Cheat Map, Art Book, or Soundtrack By Itself Here!

Want to know when it will be out for Steam? Sign up for our Newsletter!

Donate for My Magical Demon Lover Perks

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My Magical Demon Lover is now Available on Itch and Manga Gamer (Steam Coming Soon).

You can also get it and other perks directly from us by donating through Coffee!  Follow the directions below.

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Get the Game!

We will send you an Itch key to download the game as soon as possible!

  • Donate 3 Coffees for $9.
  • Write a Message Saying the Donation is for the MMDL Game
  • Give us the email where we can send your Itch key

newcoffee

CLICK HERE TO DONATE

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Get the Cheat Map

  • Donate 2 Ko-Fis for $6.
  • Write a Message Saying the Donation is for the MMDL Cheat Map
  • Give us the email where we can send your Perk

CLICK HERE TO DONATE

Get the Soundtrack and Artbook (No Game)

  • Donate 3 Ko-Fis for $9.
  • Write a Message Saying the Donation is for the MMDL Soundtrack and Artbook
  • Give us the email we can add to our Dropbox where you can access your perks.

CLICK HERE TO DONATE

Get the Art Book

  • Donate 2 Ko-Fis for $6.
  • Write a Message Saying the Donation is for the MMDL Art Book
  • Give us the email we can add to our Dropbox where you can access your perks.

CLICK HERE TO DONATE

Get the Soundtrack

  • Donate 2 Ko-Fis for $6.
  • Write a Message Saying the Donation is for the MMDL Soundtrack
  • Give us the email we can add to our Dropbox where you can access your perks.

CLICK HERE TO DONATE

Get the Game and the Soundtrack

  • Donate 5 Ko-Fis for $15.
  • Write a Message Saying the Donation is for the MMDL Game and Soundtrack
  • Give us the email we can add to our Dropbox where you can access your perks, and the email where we can send the Itch key if this is different.

CLICK HERE TO DONATE

Get the Game, Soundtrack, and Art Book

  • Donate 6 Ko-Fis for $18
  • Write a Message Saying the Donation is for the MMDL Game, Soundtrack, and Art Book.
  • Give us the email we can add to our Dropbox where you can access your perks, and the email where we can send the Itch key if this is different.

CLICK HERE TO DONATE

Get the Game, Soundtrack, Art Book, and Cheat Map

  • Donate 8 Ko-Fis for $24
  • Write a Message Saying the Donation is for the he MMDL Game, Soundtrack, Art Book, and Cheat Map
  • Give us the email where we can send your Perks.

CLICK HERE TO DONATE

FAQs

Q. Can I get the game on Steam?

A.  Hopefully, yes.  We’re working on that right now and hopefully will have Steam availability in a few weeks.

Q.  How did you decide the pricing?

A.  From the Indiegogo Campaign.

  • To get your name in the credits was $5
  • To get your name in the credits and the game was $15 (so $5 for the credit, and $10 for the game).
  • To get the credit, game, art book, and sound track was $25 (so $5 for the credit, $10 for the game, $5 for the art book, and $5 for the soundtrack).
  • To get the cheat map you had to be an Alpha Tester or higher.  This was a minimum of $50, and most of this went to the Alpha Tester perk.  The $5 cheat map perk was added to this to sweeten the pot.
  • On this page we have to round by $3 to use the Ko-Fi donation system.  We round down when possible.

Q.  Can I get a physical copy of the game?

A.  No, there are no physical copies.

Q.  What if I just send you Coffees but don’t give you my email or tell you what I want?

A.  Then it’s a donation without a perk.  Thank you for that!!  🙂

Q.  Can I share these items online once I buy them.

A.  We beg you to please not do this.  Please give us a chance to make money from this game we worked so hard on.

 

How our Yaoi Bara Visual Novel Kickstarter Made Almost $50,000

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This is Yamila, owner of Y Press Games.  When I decided to make a massive Kickstarter project for our game To Trust an Incubus I looked at similar Kickstarters and used them to estimate how much we might make.  This is a flawed method because you have no idea what creators had in place before they launched.

I really wish someone had bared their soul about a Kickstarter similar to mine so I could have had realistic expectations about our potential.  I’ll leave this here for other people who are starting yaoi, bara, or visual novel Kickstarters and are thirsty for knowledge on how to make their efforts at least as successful as ours.

Here is what we had for the To Trust an Incubus Kickstarter, which ended today, April 21, 2018, with $47,212.

Before We Launched:

  • We researched which ideas would be the most viable and profitable and tweaked our concept to emulate an extremely successful similar Kickstarter.  (Just Yaoi wasn’t going to get us the money we needed–bara was more marketable and something I’m just as passionate about.)
  • We built the Kickstarter page as soon as we had the main game image, which was just our sprites on a background design, 4 months before we launched.  It was incomplete, but showed the art and story.  We continued to build it more and more as we got ready to launch.  I started to promote and build buzz for the Kickstarter, getting comments and followers on Kickstarter.
    • Advance Discovery got us 7% of our funds, or $3,303.00
  • We built a web site for our company and game.
    • We got $2,986 direct from our WordPress web site.
  • We made a long demo comprising 30% of the game and ended on a cliffhanger.
  • We had a professional, enticing, and beautiful game trailer with animation and characters’ voices.
  • We teased that the Kickstarter was coming through our social media.
  • We booked advertising on Starfighter.com for $340.
    • This ad got us $1,578.  It was a much poorer return than I expected.
  • We sent out press releases a month in advance, but it seems like a few days in advance would have been better because most venues were online and didn’t need such a long lead.  Boy Culture, Stevivor.com, TwoHappyCats, Queer SciFi, Doujins.com, and LewdGamer ran the story out of the dozens we contacted.
    • Queer SciFi got us $1100
    • Lewd Gamer got us $75
    • Others may have got us sales too, but were not in the referrers

After We Launched:

  • We posted on forums all over the place.
    • LemmaSoft got us $207
    • Aarin Fantasy got us $150
    • 4Chan got us $25
    • Fireden got us $25
    • Reddit got us $25
    • Others may have got us sales too, but were not in the referrers
  • We blasted our social media regularly.  I have a SUBSTANTIAL social media presence after building up Yaoi Press since 2004.  Most of the sales that came from social media didn’t show in referrers.  I know it was helpful, however, because I always saw new backers after I did a social media blitz.  Here’s what I had in my arsenal for this Kickstarter:
    • The Yaoi a Go Go Facebook of 146,000 Followers run by a kind friend who helped me.
    • The Yaoi Press Facebook of 10,000 Followers
    • The Yaoi Prose Facebook of 2,400 Followers
    • My Author Page with 700 Followers
    • The Y Press Games Facebook with 600 Followers
    • My Facebook Author Group with 193 Members
    • Assorted relevant groups open to promotion.
      • Facebook got us $2573
    • The Yaoi Press Twitter with 9,000 Followers
    • The Yaoi Prose Twitter with 3,250 Followers
    • The Y Press Games Twitter with 400 Followers
      • Twitter got us $1202
    • The Yaoi Press Tumblr with 1,600 Followers
    • The Yaoimila Web Comic Tumblr with 500 Followers
    • The Y Press Games Tumblr with 200 Followers
      • Tumblr got us $532
    • The Yaoi Press Google Plus with 3,300 Followers
    • The Y Press Games Instagram with 200 Followers
    • The Yaoi Press Pinterest with 550 Followers
    • The Gaijin Manga Deviant Art with 61 Watchers
  • I sent three newsletters.  I have over 5,000 Subscribers.
  • I did a Thunderclap
  • I posted the demo on Itch.io.
    • I saw $50 in backers referring directly from there.
  • I was featured on the Top to Botm Podcast
  • We ran the Kickstarter for 60 days and made $25,663 in the first 30 days and $21,549 in the last 30 days.  (Don’t go for shorter Kickstarters if your project is viable and is expected to be a winner.  Just being present on Kickstarter will get you 35% of your funding.  People search for stuff to back on this platform, so the longer you’re there the better.)
  • We spent a total of $1,900 on advertising, including Facebook, Starfighter, Twitter, Google Adwords, and $75 on two of those scammers who email you after you start a Kickstarter, buying one of your perks to make you like them, taking your money and doing nothing for you.  Don’t respond to any direct marketing, even if they buy a perk. They’re just going to refund it later.
  • We encouraged people to promote our social media by offering to strip chibis of four of our characters.
    • EDIT 6/24/2019 – It seems the best way to get backers to help promote your Kickstarter is ask them to post a sentence with the short link on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Tumblr, and to tag you in the post.  Then you offer to thank them in a future update.  Also tell them which tags to us for each platform.
  • We commented frequently and had 30 updates, building a rapport with backers.  Many of them stepped up to help with promotion because they got to know us.  (We introduced our team in Kickstarter updates).  We also did not lose many backers when we ran into a problem that jeopardized the project.  Being honest and having a good rapport saved us.
  • We had bitchin’ rewards, including the chance to marry one of the characters for $1000 (this sold out).
  • We Promo swapped with the Lovenuts Patreon.  I promoted their Patreon in a Kickstarter update and they promoted my Kickstarter in an update on their old Kickstarter for Sentimental Trickster.  (Doing this also helped me find a very knowledgeable new friend.)
  • I promo swapped with a popular Bara deviant artist.  He promoted our Kickstarter and I will be promoting his Patreon soon.  (This gave us at least a $2000 boost)
  • I contacted YouTubers to get them to play our demo.  Many did!  Some backers told us they were sent by YouTubers.
  • I contacted YouTubers to share our Trailer.  One of them did.
  • Our most sought after Stretch Goal, Full Voice Acting, was the next one to get on the last 2 days of our Kickstarter.  People upped their pledges and helped us get backers to hit this goal.  We went up $9,000 in the last 48 hours.  I’ve included our pledge chart below.

I think that’s all we did, but I’ll update if I remember something else.  Here’s our top 20 Kickstarter referrers:

referrers

Here’s our pledge chart:

pledgechart

 

 

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