VN dev: 3D BG progress + new mommy VN!

Hey gang! This month I did a bunch of VN work, and I wanted to make a little post about it.

First big event is I finally made some major Blender progress! For a few years now, the plan has been that I wanted to model the backgrounds for Somewhere In The Shade in Blender, and then paint over them in Clip Studio. I used to do this in Sketchup, but Sketchup is a pile of doodoo and I ended up dropping it years ago, but getting going in Blender has been tough. The program is just so complex and quirky that it took a few starts and stops - plus figuring out a halfway ergonomic way to use it so I don't stress my hand too much - but this month I managed to make solid progress.

I've successfully managed to lay down the base for the main BG in Somewhere, the club room. I made the room, modeled the little addendum closet and door leading to it, the windows, the table, and learned how to import and duplicate objects with the chairs. Each of these things was a whole can of worms. Then, I've been learning the rendering part; prior to a few days ago I didn't even know how to render an image in this program. Now I know how to render images, but I'm still trying to learn exactly how to light scenes and how these shaders work. Overall, pretty exciting. I'm hoping a few more sessions and I can clear out the 3D part of this background. There's 2 others that I'll need to make for this visual novel. One should be easy, the other might be the hardest, so I'm leaving it for last. I'll keep you guys updated on how it's going.

Oh, another Somewhere update: currently the final song is being worked on! The soundtrack is finally close to finished. Exciting. :>

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In other visual novel development news, I started writing a new one! I know, I know. But Kuro, you haven't even finished this one. It's true. But the script *has* been finished for a long time, and recently I was inspired to work this new one.

Long time fans know I have a thing for mom-son stories. I've played all the visual novels that feature those relationships, and I've read just about every manga and doujin too. However, it's one of those situations where not only are there few of these stories being made, but the ones that get made tend to be bad. In all these years, there's yet to be anything close to a perfect mom-son story. Most tend to get the most basic of things wrong. It's like they don't understand what makes this fetish exciting. And that got me thinking, hey, I know what would make a good one of these. And I've made VNs. And as of the past year, I've done NSFW work too. I have all the skills to make the ultimate mommy VN. Why don't I? So I opened a file and started writing.

The writing process has been explosive. All these years of pent up frustration and thinking about these stories have made a torrent of ideas come out. It's been coming to me so naturally. I'd never written a sex scene before (aside from that Shiori and BF CG set earlier in the year), but that came surprisingly easily too. In the span of a week or so I've now got a really fleshed out story, with loads of really exciting scenes. I mean, just like, pure heat moments. Even if you don't have this fetish, I'm convinced a lot of you would enjoy this. And so yeah. I've been having a great time working on this story. Figuring out the major and minor story bits, setting, logistics. The script is already close to 7000 words. For reference, Cuttlebone was 7.5k. This thing has enough meat to be at least 3 times as long, probably more.

Above you'll find the current concepts for the mom and the son characters. Their names are Mitsuki and Soma. The designs are not set it stone yet, but I like this a lot already.

Since this project includes objectionable material (inc**t), I sadly won't be able to show much of it here on Patreon, as it's against their rules. I've been polishing up my Subscribestar page for this purpose. I figure I might take a somewhat open development model where people can subscribe to it to support development, and periodically I can post builds of the game. It's a fairly common thing, and it might work here. I'll talk more about this in the future as things develop.

And that's it. I really hope I can bring Somewhere close to the finish line without too many more bottlenecks, and I'm excited to keep developing this mommy story. Hope you're excited to follow these projects too. <3