Prancing Fields GameDev 30-03-2023

Previous devlog Fanbox: https://lerra.fanbox.cc/manage/posts/4856083

Previous devlog SubscribeStar: https://subscribestar.adult/posts/759147

This devlog features the following topics:

1. Character model overhaul

2. Combat prototype

3. Sneaking prototype

4. New animations

5. The first armor set

6. Clothing

7. Hair

8. The first enemies

1. Character model overhaul.

Last devlog I ended talking about the character model which by now has had 2/3? Reworks. What it comes down to is the fact that I’ve learned a lot since I started working on this project several years ago. In time I’ve learned how to create models, texture them, animate, import the models into unity, set up animations through coding and how to manipulate them real-time in game and much more. The point is: I’ve seen the flaws of my character model and it needed a bit more love before it was really “ready” as a game model. Because of that there was only one thing left to do: Jump back into blender and make sure the character would get all the love and attention needed.

It’s maybe a bit embarrassing to admit but up until now the character model had no IK (Inverse Kinematic) bones. I just did everything by hand and kept working on the animation until I was satisfied with the result (even if it took many hours of work).

Example of old rig

The character model also suffered from topology issues causing weird behaviors when certain body parts were bending/moving. At first I thought these wouldn’t be much of a problem. After all, the game is viewed from above. No one would ever see these glitches right?

This is where I realized my mistake. I’m not making “just some game”. I’m making a porn game where bondage and big boobies are a thing. OFF COURSE PEOPLE WANT TO CHECK OUT THESE MODELS FROM UP CLOSE!

There was no other alternative then to simply put work in the model. The character model was everything and it needed more love. So after last devlog I followed numerous tutorials in order to learn more about the subject. It’s safe to say that it simply took a lot of time. (Hence the large gap in between this devlog and the previous one). Now I can finally reveal everything I’ve learned and added. Starting with the IK bones I mentioned earlier:

A little background info: the limbs of a 3d character don’t bend automatically. However with IK bones added to the mix, that does in fact happen automatically. This makes animations and creating “realistic” poses A LOT easier. Other than IK bones I also added drivers to some of the character’s bones. This again allow certain bodyparts to move automatically to create a much more natural looking motion.

Last but not least are the corrective shapekey drivers which also help to create a more natural looking body.

I also added a TON of shapekeys that will add to the experience. Not only facial expressions but also certain fetish related shapekeys are included. (Took a bit of time since I had to mix and match some of these to make them look good at any possible situation or combination).

Is this rig now perfect? No definitely not but it is GOOD ENOUGH for the game I’m building. I’m sure there are many modelers and riggers out there who can do this job 10 times better and faster but I’m happy to have come this far, learn all of this, to create it myself and finally have the model in a place where it's “game ready” thanks to all the testing I’ve already put in.

All of this came at a cost however. Because the animations I previously created are not working anymore. I had to break all those animations because I needed to add and delete several bones. Therefore, I had to re-create a walk cycle and several other animations (like the sword swing/shooting arrows/tiptoe walk/reverse prayer bound arms etc). … So I did those as well and by now the model has several animations ready to be imported into the engine. More about that later because the animations go hand in hand with gameplay mechanics I’ve created.

Last thing I will say about my character model is that it has opened my eyes to determine which animations should be in the game and which shouldn’t. For example: before the reworked model I had created a pick up animation and I planned for characters to walk over to an item and play this animation when clicking on a node/mining deposit. Seeing how my inventory system is taking shape and how it will work made me question: should I even do such animations? I mean I’m working on this project alone and I don’t even have an alpha yet. In fact, it was meant to be something extra for my followers on patreon (back when I was still there…) Therefore: wouldn’t animations focused on bondage/kinky stuff be more important? Does a character really need to animate everything when it does something trivial like collecting items/picking stuff up?

It’s cool… it feels ‘polished’ yes… but is it needed? No and it’s something I can always add later. So the Alpha version will only contain the core animations + kinky bondage animations.

2. Combat prototype

While I was remaking the character model, I created a testing environment and set up the combat and sneak mechanics in an attempt to gain information about what types of animations they would need.

Before showing you the prototype footage, I’m giving you a small breakdown of how combat works in this game: You play as a team/squad (of 5 characters total including your own created character). Each character is of a certain class and plays a certain role during combat.

These classes are:

Tank (automatically draws the attention of enemies and is therefore taking the most damage and hits. These characters are best built with their stamina(health) and defenses as high as possible.)

Fighter (A close range character that can go any way you want to build them but keep in mind that they’re at the front of battle together with the tank since their strength lies with melee weapons. Some defenses and extra attention to their stamina will benefit them!)

Healer (Uses magic to heal injured teammates. Having one of these in your team is a MUST and you must protect them with other units if you want to win! Healers can also buff friendly units, debuff enemy units and cleanse friendly units from bad spells/magic.)

Caster (High damage but very low health and defenses. Can deal great damage to the entire enemy team at once with damage overtime effects and area effects).

Ranger (High damage with medium health and defenses. Together with the Caster this class is usually the farthest away from the enemy. Can deal enormous damage to a single target).

Now that you have an idea of what the classes are meant for we take a brief look at the combat loop:

1. Combat will start when you attack an enemy with your team or when one of your characters get caught sneaking (and is close enough to the team).

2. When combat starts, the enemies automatically search and target the tank of your team.

3. The other members of your team will automatically jump into combat by playing their respective roles. (fighters join the tank close at the frontlines of battle, healers provide healing from a short distance whenever a team member receives damage, casters shoot spells and rangers shoot arrows from even further away).

4. If you manage to defeat all enemies: you win and you can continue your adventure.

5. When the tank of your team dies, the enemies will search for the closest target and attack that character instead. Your characters will keep fighting and there is no way to run away. You can still win the fight at this point if you manage to kill all the remaining enemies!

6. If all your team members are defeated, the screen will go dark and a random generated value will decide how many characters of your team will be captured/locked up in tight bondage >:D

7. The team members that managed to get away will return to camp and you can continue playing with them.

8. A quest to help the captured team members will be available. You can choose to run in with a different team (by adding new characters to your roster) and fight your way through or you can choose to sneak into the enemy camp and free your friends. Both playstyles share the same risk: Losing more friendly characters to enemy camps.

“Lerra… T-That’s it?”

Not really… See: The island of Prancing Fields is cursed and the enemies that capture your friends will do freaky stuff with them. I plan to add a timer or some form of time passing where each day that your friends are held captive, their body might be modded further into a sex object or change their behavior until they can’t think about anything else anymore but pleasure. (more concrete examples are huge breasts and the big lips I showed earlier. Sex and fuck machines/devices are also possible). Long story short: The longer your friends are in the hands of the enemies, the more they will be shaped/changed into submissive sex slaves.

Going back to the combat where a lot happens automatically and in real time, it's clear that once combat starts there is little control about the outcome. Other than preparing your characters with the right gear and items there's little you can do. Or is there?

In order to give players the advantage and more control while in combat I plan to add abilities that only you can set and trigger on your characters. These abilities are powerful and can turn the tide of battle. Where these abilities really shine is when you combine them.

Example 1: An enemy caster deploys a powerful defensive spell, making all enemies much tougher. In turn you can react with your caster by casting an ability that nullifies buffs and weakens enemies.

Example 2: Your caster has its meteor shower ability up and ready to go. Before casting it, you activate your fighter’s ability which boosts critical chance and damage of all team members. Combined, the meteor shower can annihilate the entire enemy team in merely seconds.

Notice how timing is key in both examples. Using abilities too early or too late will have a negative impact on the current battle!

So far I’ve created the in- and out of combat loops for both the friendly and enemy characters. I have not implemented the abilities yet. Bare with me as we look at some really rough footage of the combat system I’ve built. Remember, I did not use the character model since I was busy re-working it. Also: These fights have no particles or any type of special effects yet.

Since the tank is the first friendly unit that enemies will target I created that first. In the Image below you can see how our tank behaves and the interaction with the enemy.

Things are not looking too well for the tank... it needs help. Let's add the healer to the party.

Things are starting to look better but we could really use someone to deal with the enemies faster... Let's add the fighter!

It's becoming clear that we only have a specific amount of time (Until our tank dies) before we lose the fight. Therefore, dealing with the enemies faster is good. More damage = good.

With the ranger firing arrows we are able to deal with a lot more enemies and still win the fight. Together, they make a great team and you will need to manage their gear, weapons and abilities in order for them to grow stronger and win battles.

"... What happened to the caster?"

I didn't add a caster AI since it's identical to the ranger (shooting projectiles from afar). The only difference is the projectile fired which will deal area damage (like a bomb).

So that's how combat will be in the game. It's simple and yet, I had fun creating it but I'm really looking forward to the finished version (with animations etc added). Keep in mind, this is a work in progress and some things will change along the way in order to balance things out.

... I almost forgot: YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR ENTIRE TEAM SETUP.

Don't like the fighter? Switch it for another tank.

Don't like your ranger? Switch it for another fighter.

The choice is yours and through it I hope you'll be able to enjoy the game more.

This does bring forward one very interesting problem however: What if your entire team is built up out of tanks and healers? (basically, always healing the tank to full health but also never killing any enemies?).

At this point you've basically soft locked the game and the only way to get around it is by:

A: Make enemies stronger as time passed by

B: Add a timer to each fight and if the timer reaches 0, you lost the fight.

I haven't decided yet about what I will do but making the enemies stronger/deal more damage after a certain period definitely seems best to me. This allows fights to continue even when no one has died yet (instead of the timer reaching 0 and instantly making you lose).

What do you think? Stronger enemies? Add a timer counting down to 0?

Sneaking prototype

Other than normal combat, you will also be able to sneak up onto unaware enemies and perform sneak attacks. Sneak attacks are very risky because getting caught might not trigger a team battle(depends on how far away that character is from the team). The character that got caught will have to fight on its own and (most likely) lose the fight.

Sneaking can however also be very rewarding. If you manage to sneak up behind an enemy and attack it in the back, you will 100% instant kill that target. This works on almost all enemies but not on bosses.

Sneaking is not for every class however. The tank, carrying nothing more than a large and heavy shield, is not only too loud but also doesn’t have a sharp weapon to kill with. Therefore tanks are not able to get close to an enemy without getting noticed. The other members of the team ( fighter, healer, caster and the ranger) are light footed and can easily get close to an enemy without being noticed. The caster and ranger can kill enemies in silence from a distance. Just make sure the other enemies don’t see the target getting killed.

For now I’ve created the most basic sneaking mechanic: First is the view distance and states of the enemy.

(The different view/alert circles are again prototype stuff, they will not be visible in the game and maybe not even in the game at all depending on the mesh I’m going to use.)

After that I’ve implemented a timer that slowly fills up when you’re considered “in view”. This allows players to pass gaps or move between objects to get around enemies.

Oh no...

Up next is the raycast from the enemy to the player object, checking if the player is behind an object or not.

Although this works without problems, this isn’t enough however since the player should also be able to hide in bushes or high grass. These models of plants or grass however can sometimes look weird and therefore allow enemies to see the player. A straight line towards the player would instantly reveal them to the enemy. Therefore the bushes and grass will use a method where they mark the player model as “hidden” once the character steps inside these models.

When done, I plan to add some visual feedback so people clearly know when the selected character on screen is hidden from view.

Right now the sneaking is starting to look better but there are some rough edges I would like to work on still. For example: if your character was spotted but the enemy lost sight of you, they should investigate an area by simply roaming around a bit at the last spotted location. I have not built it into this prototype because I already have a roaming function in the main project and I plan to use that.

Last but not least is a way for players to manipulate enemy movement by throwing objects. This will allow players to lure enemies away or get them to move closer to you for a sneak attack.

Sadly I cannot post a video of this so I placed a few layers on top of each other and let the idea shine through :P

This system is simple but I’m very happy with the results and I feel it’s very fitting for a game where characters end up in bondage and might need to sneak their way out of the enemy camp or need to be saved by someone sneaking in.

What do you think? I guess this is the "standard" sneaking mechanic that many people have already seen in many games but I figured it would work well for this game since there are consequences for failing.

New animations

With the new character model done and a clear setup for the combat and sneaking mechanics, I’ve started working on the necessary animations. In case you missed it: Due to the character update, I was forced to re-animate everything from scratch. Luckily, the new character rig made animating a lot easier. Due to SubscribeStar not allowing videos in the middle of blogs I’m only showing images of the animations.

I was planning to create multiple normal idle animations to give characters outside of combat a bit more variety and personality. This is not a priority though so I’m scrapping that idea until after the game has seen a alpha release.

As said before: I will leave out a lot of animations because they don’t really add much to the game/are not really needed. I can always add them later (even long after the game has been released).

It's a bit of a downer knowing how much work it took to get to this point and the amount of time invested and yet only show these images. Oh well... I guess the animations will shine once they are actually in the game and people can play it!

The first armor set

So with the character model in better shape and with many core animations set up, I decided to "try" and create something that looked like an armor set. Now I get that this is supposed to be a game with bondage involved and there is no reason to not make all armor pieces sexy. However, for the sake of "trying" I kept things simple and went with a 'padded' armor set.

... Surprisingly, I think it turned out great.

Some elements feel simple (like the belt and belt buckle) but this is where I did cut corners since these elements are not the main focus of the game and I doubt many people will even look at them or be bothered at all. Other than that, I think it portrays enough details for people to consider it as part of the armor.

Keep in mind, this is my first try at creating an armor set. I'm planning to create more armor sets (leather, hide, studded leather, chainmail, sexy leather, sexy hide, sexy studded leather, sexy chainmail). The list goes on and on and I plan to add a new set each update at some point but for now, for the alpha version of the game, this is fine to my standards.

Clothing

Other than armor I've also created several pieces meant as underwear/bikini or anything layered between the skin and armor. In the armor images you might've already noticed the lacing on her chest which is actually part of a different piece of clothing pictured below:

I've removed and replaced several parts just to show off the posibilities. Not gonna lie, the left version was my first attempt at creating armor that was meant to be more 'sexy'. In the future I will try to do more of that because I think it fits the theme of the game well.

I've also re-created and re-added some of the old bondage gear models. Again, simple but these are good enough for the game I'm making I think.

Hair

I've used 'simple' techniques in the past to model the character's hair. Having learned a lot in blender and with an improved workflow, I've now used paths and shapes to model the character's hair. The results are quite good I think. (although they are quite similar...)

The only downside about doing hair this way is the enourmous amounts of polygons. I have not scaled anything down yet because I'm curious if it really impacts the performance and the only way to find that out is by testing it.

Last words about the hair: While working on these I realized that in order for the character to wear a helmet, I would need to cut/clean up the hair pieces multiple times depending on what headwear the model is wearing. The latex suits make it easy since I basically just remove the hair entirely and give the skin a different material to make it look like rubber. Also, adding hair to these "bald" models only requires a few extra models that can be re-used and re-colored over and over. However, remodelling all hair styles around every helmet is a whole other task and I've decided to not do it for now. Therefore, the character's hair will always be visible when they're not wearing latex or any other kind of skin tight suit. I might add helmets somewhere far into the future but for now they are not included.

The first enemies

The first enemies in the game will lean VERY strongly towards living suits/mimics. Therefore, losing a battle will allow these mimics to lock your characters up in the bondage gear that you’’ve just tried to fend off.

This might come off as a bit cheap but the concept of living suits / stuff that’s alive and encasing characters seems to be very popular in my community. Adding to that is the fact that I can create awesome sexy outfits for the characters and re-use those same models and animations to create these enemies.

An example of how these enemies might look like:

It’s simple but also very effective in getting the message across that we're on an island where all kinds of kinky shit is happening.

Other than that I’ve already shown you some of the neutral slime npc’s in a previous devlog and the drones patrolling the areas. These will naturally be present when the alpha launches. The drone will not interact with the character in a kinky way (have sex with his victim/prisoner). Instead, the drone might lock the character in strict bondage and leave her on her own or allow nature to wrap her up. I’m not a 100% sure about this but I feel that some variety is needed instead of the same old bondage predicament each time you lose a fight. (this makes losing fights more fun and unpredictable. I’m hoping to create something where both winning a fight and losing a fight is a fun experience and not too repetitive).

Next time...

And with that... I’m ending this devlog. I still had a section lined up about new UI but since that was also prototype stuff and merely a concept I don't think many people will be bothered by it.

In terms of gameplay and creating concrete future plans I’m very happy with the direction this is going. On the agenda now are the combat and sneak mechanics and implement these into the main project. I will also export and import the animations and models from blender into unity (This part has been painful in the past many many times but now that I know where the problems lie I'm hoping things will go a lot smoother.)

The goal for next devlog (whenever that may be and depending on how long it will take...):

- to get the combat and sneaking mechanics in a state where the features shown in this devlog are all working in the main project, (combat and sneaking implemented)

- To animate the characters performing these actions. (Animations for combat and sneaking imported and set up for usage during gameplay)

- Solve bugs, clean some code portions and re write sections for performance optimizations.

"How far away are we from a playable alpha?"

In chronological order on the roadmap as of now (these might change depending on the problems and difficulties I’m running into):

1 Implementing the combat and sneaking mechanics into the main project.

2 Creating a few sets of clothing/weapons and bondage gear + implementation into the engine. (Keep in mind, all of these need to be modeled, textured, and configured in the engine + working with the UI/inventory system. This will take a good chunk of time I’m sure).

3 Creating defeat screens/lost battle scenes/predicaments and simple quests that grow from these situations in order to retrieve your friends/temmembers. (This part will most likely also take a good chunk of time)

4 Creating puzzles/small in world quests that can drop loot/work with bondage gear.

5 Adding particles/a bit of fluff and polished UI to the current mechanics to make the game look a bit more polished (even though it’s just an alpha, first impressions are important I think).

All in all, we’re talking about several devlogs and a few months of work that will each bring their own struggles (I’m 100% expecting to run into problems which will cause setbacks or delays). All in all: There’s still a lot to do but I’m seeing a very small little light at the end of the tunnel… which is a very simple playable alpha version of the game (with no sounds/music and very little story). When we get to that point I hope to gather information/feedback from you guys and build further from there.

... But there is one thing you can do to make the game more enjoyable already:

If you have certain armors or hairstyles that you have seen before or would like to see then leave a comment on Discord and send some image references to show what you mean. If I like the idea and the style, I might add these to the game and you'll be able to customize your character with it.

I plan to add new armor sets and hair styles each devlog until the Alpha, meaning we'll get at least another 5 armor sets and hair pieces before the alpha launch.

Thank you for your time and patience if you made it this far. I hope the current progress scratches your curiosity and interest. Until next time,

- Lerra