[Experimental] Big’ol Monthly Post: v0.4.4, Progression Implemented, New Sex Sim Animations Started, Finally Moving to Cinematics

Hey peeps, sorry it took so long to get this build released. This stuff just made everything way easier to break, at least for the first pass. Because I wasn’t able to meet my goal I haven’t even really taken a break this month. So, I can finally do that now.

Progression Preview

This release now available to preview the progression system, but it’s also just an initial implementation. There’s no balancing, a lot of place holder dialogue and events, lots of work just to make sure things work as intended.

This was a daunting task to implement, like a lot of layers to it and times where being even a little side tracked meant important aspects were only partially setup. One thing I realize is I need to make some better tools for the way certain content is configured. It’s simply too easy to miss one aspect and then wonder why shit doesn’t work. Hopefully this issue can be solved in the future, but for now it’s just something I need to be aware of.

Mad props to a supporter named Shades who single handedly gave me feedback on builds, making this take A LOT less time than it might have! With this kind of stuff it’s simply too much to test effectively.

This is also the first time $5 supporters can preview the story. But do understand besides that there’s no new content, as such this preview effectively ends once Act 4 starts and there’s no focus given to make Act 4 functional. If stuff (Sex Sim, Pose Mode, etc) in Act 4 works, great! Otherwise, it’s not my focus right now.

So, some notes:

• After Act 0 progression is gated by levels of a “Trust” stat, many levels may be needed per Act
• The stats core to progression are: Trust (Naomi) & Leadership (Player) which isn’t used much just yet.
• Other stats affect unlocks (Sex Sim, events, etc), or affect character performance (High player stress may limit aspects in sex sim)
• Focus at the moment is progression, not unlocks, or how stats affect the characters, that will come in a later update
• Selecting “Do nothing” now plays a random event with smaller progression values
• More actively selected events, especially ones with dialogue have a stronger impact. You’re rewarded more basically for events and things like sex sim results.
• ATM there’s no balancing, I’d like to hear what you think of the pacing until Act 4.
• The meters currently visible will in the future mostly need to be unlocked by buying an item.

Again, this release is to give you an idea of the way the game loop will be from now on it is VERY much still in development. And still it’s not a complete picture, Act 4 is when the game is intended to really open up initially. It’s the first act where all the functions come together, and you just play. There will be another opening up beyond that too.

Please keep expectations in check this stuff is very rough lol…

New Content Already in Production! Cinematics Begun!

So, at the start of this month I did some hiring of animators and other stuff. I still have some more hiring to do, feel free to hit me up! Looking for animators and asset creation with experience in Blender, Marvelous Designer, and Substance Painter. Some of the people are already making animations, in fact a sex sim set was initially finished just last night but I need to review it and such so I’m not showing it for now. One dude I hired got the coof, so there’s a bit of delay but otherwise the content push is underway.

I’ll do specific names when I release previews. Obviously, the assigned animations are based on the position poll some time ago. 😉

My publisher has made significant demands for content (Sexsim, sex scenes, etc) due to the Steam wishlist count, so this is a huge undertaking on its own.

For now, stuff like Sex Sim and certain other content animations and some assets will be made by people I hire (And this is becoming very expensive O_O). But as for me I’m focusing on cinematics around dialogue. There’s a ton to do there as the current build is devoid of them until Act 4. I can’t really focus on anything else until the cinematics are more or less complete.

From now on, most updates will be visual, that means more posts or at least previews might be supporter only. If you want to see more of what’s coming (at least for free), I suggest following on Subsribestar where that content will be publicly posted like it can’t be here.

Polish

One of the next big steps is polish, the progression has a partial implementation, content is being made (Again my publisher has big demands here), cinematics are being made, and things like Sex Sim and Photo mode have long been functional.

But all this needs to come together with polish. Much of what you’ll see over the next couple months will be devoid of this, but before the steam release that will be the only focus. So, what I’m saying now is there’s going to be a huge content push, and then after that a significant freeze as we focus on making what we have as quality as possible.

I don’t know how long this period will be, but it will likely extend past the steam release. We’ll polish until that release (pending publisher approval), then polish more as we get feedback thereafter. And only after that is satisfactory will content continue again.

It will be a period of working on everything at once.

Though surely things will still be made in the background.

Thanks for your patience!

It’s been a long road trying to take this from effectively a scene viewer demo into a proper game. The decision to focus on the internals wasn’t an easy one, but many patreon games like this are made backwards really. I’m grateful so many have stuck around. Maybe I’ll get a boost in support with the focus on content coming finally! I look back on the year and realize I’ve hardly been an artist at all for a long time…

Which sucks cause my XP-Pen 24” I bought like 2 years ago decided to die on me this month >:/

It’s been mostly a monitor for two years ffs…

I haven’t figured out what manner I’m replacing or fixing it yet, cause I will likely need it for the coming workload. For now, I can use my Surface Laptop Studio as my main tablet but that has its limits…

Anyway, thanks for your support everyone!

~sacb0y