DEVLOG [#3] - BATTLE

After multiple months, I've finally finished developing the basis for the game's battle system.

Considering this is the (almost literal) backbone of any RPG, I really wanted to spend a lot of time thinking it through and designing it. Like everything else in the game, this meant writing everything out in my notebook beforehand...

I wish I could show everything I wrote out for this system, but if I did then this entire post would be nothing but pages from my notebook.. I spent around 25 pages deciding exactly how I wanted everything to work. Hence, why it took me a little over a month before I actually moved on to programming the system into the game itself.

A couple of things to note, during this process I decided that I wanted to have both a male and a female character that the player could play as. I designed Jamie here as a counterpart to Raine, making her a similar color palette and species. At some point, I also decided on a title for the game - Asylust. I can't exactly remember how long ago that was though, considering I've been in and out of my notebook since early January.

So, for the majority of these screenshots using placeholder graphics, I was using Jamie as a basis, not Raine.

I began working on the battle system's implementation near the end of February, which means the entire thing took a month and some change to fully implement... The underlying RPG mechanics are somewhat basic, I think. This is the second time I've programmed my own RPG system from scratch (not using something like RPG Maker), the first time was back in 2016 and was a disaster, lol.

At it's core, the game's a basic 1v1 JRPG... Similar to Dragon Quest I on the NES. Part of this was also, of course, influenced by Sweet Home on the same console. I want to keep the game somewhat mechanically simple, since I'm moreso focused on the general atmosphere and feeling of the game... Not really worried about making something mechanically deep, as long as it sells the desperate feeling I'm going for.

Anyway, the system is set up to be as robust and modular as possible, allowing for custom functions and scripts to be run in place of each character's turn. Which, I assume is how most other RPGs do it... Unlike my previous attempt, where every action pretty much had to be hardcoded as an option from the get-go for it to work.

Essentially, you as the player have two resources to manage - Condition and Mind. Unlike a traditional RPG, I wanted to cut numbers out of the experience... Because, realistically, the player doesn't need to know that information. Think about it, pen and paper roleplaying games try to hide the numbers as well - you're not supposed to know the stats of the enemies you face, or even your party members. So, I wanted to translate that sense of immersion to the game by having all of the feedback be more tactile, rather than having the game spit out a bunch of numbers at you...

At least, I know whenever I play something like Final Fantasy, I'm not really paying attention to the numbers themselves - you only really care about how things like damage numbers stack up relatively to your health, right? Everything in Asylust works off this idea of relativity... Your portrait dynamically changes relative to the situation - and so does the enemy's sprite. The damage hit effects also change based on this relativity... Getting all of this to look and feel right is what took up most of my time.

My overall philosophy while designing this system was that, if I could make it look good with shitty placeholder art, then it'd look fantastic with final art. The graphic nature of the game might be a turn-off to some, but it's something I wanted from the first day I started conceptualizing a porn game with horror influences... It's an inherently adult game, so those playing it should be able to handle the darker, more adult themes it delves into. Personally, I really hate the almost childlike way yiff is presented, how it often shies away from any truly adult themes. Sure, I like cute cuddly characters and femboys, stuff like that... But, it gets stale, you know? So I wanted to try changing that with this project, which may make it more niche, but that's okay.

Personally, I love yiff with darker implications. That's why I've always loved corruption, the thought of having your mind shattered and forced into sexual subservience... Or potentially even slavery... That's the kind of stuff that's always been hot to me.

This is why the game is intentionally designed to lack scenes where the player can dominate their enemies, unlike Thirstchasm or Tailbound. I always really struggled with those scenes because, really, I just don't get off to them. The entire game's premise, aesthetic, and theme is in service to the sex scenes.

The camcorder, found footage aesthetic that the entire game has affords me a lot of freedom with these bad-end game over scenes. With it, I can imply that the sex scenes take place anywhere from moments, to months after the player falls in battle. It also has the added benefit of implying that the enemies are mockingly recording the player's failure - the broken cockslut they've become... I'm a big, BIG fan of that kind of mental domination.

The fights aren't easy. As your overall condition worsens, the world around you becomes hazy, warping, melting... Your options are slowly replaced with submitting to your enemy... It's all you can even imagine doing... Reality is whatever you perceive it as, this aspect is a powerful part of all sex and relationships in general as well. Translating this to the game, everything in battle is technically only the player character's perception of what's happening - it's not necessarily "reality".

Sorry that I don't have much else to say, I'm honestly just kind of exhausted from working so hard non-stop the past few months on this system, and I'm not really sure what else to mention... There's probably hundreds of little details and quirks, but it's hard to remember them all or how they all interact. I'll be recording gameplay footage soon to post to the Discord and to Twitter, so if you're curious to see the whole thing in motion, you can check there.

Thank you all for your continued support, next up is the pause menu and status screens, for real this time. (These should hopefully be much easier to implement...)