0.8 Development Update 3

Hey folks!

First off, sorry for the lack of development updates. There's been a boatload of things to do and then fix, I couldn't find time to write a proper post. Now that we have mostly fixed the biggest of the new things - the Lewdness 2.0 - I finally set aside a few hours to do a proper dev update.

So let's get into it.

v0.8.02

Is now in Early Access here - ➡️https://rift.ink/4mTJ50u 

It has the aforementioned Lewdness 2.0 system enabled for all the girls, and after two hotfixes it should mostly work like intended! I'll talk more in-depth about it later.

The update also has two new sex scenes - one with Blair in the shower, and another with handcuffed Yona. Again, more on that later.

September of Specials

We know that the last few updates were a bit light on the content, so to at least somewhat make up for it, we're releasing two specials in September, and what's more, we're making them available to Neighbours this time!

First part is already out, and you get to see Rae come to life in an awesome cosplay here:➡️ https://rift.ink/4mTJ50u

Please let us know if you're interested in more content like this, we might be able to commission a few more cosplay set, for Rae and for other girls as well. Might have a bit of a problem finding a good model for Naomi, though. And for Yona. But we'll try our best if you want to see it!

The second part is coming a bit later, but it's going to be worth it, I promise.

Now let's talk about all the things that we were doing instead of adding story content.

House Locations, Sprites and Talk Backgrounds

You might have noticed that the House looks much different now. We've updated all the rooms to the current render pipeline, added more consistent lighting and a greater contrast between the morning, the afternoon and the evening. 

The rooms look much less flat now, and they should match the newer events much better when it comes to lighting and general feel. We've already updated some of the older events to match the look, but there are still many more left to update. We'll keep doing it in the background while we get back to pushing the storylines.

Next, the sprites. It's not the most noticeable change since we don't really use sprite-based conversations that often, but it's been bothering me so much that we had badly made and what's worse, inconsistent sprites for the past couple of years. Now they are all made to a standard and they are so much prettier. And they match the updated talk background.

Just look at Rae's. She was so... flat in the old sprite versions. Now she's glowing, she has depth and curvature, and the nipple shadow is so much more pronounced, too, which is nice.

Naomi changed the most. She still used the very first sprite type which looked super out of place. Now she's properly sized and, again, looks so much curvier and shinier and hotter.

And Yona! She now has emotions! Imagine that! And we used the updated model, and it's so, so much better.

Speaking of Yona...

New sex scenes

We've added multiple new sex scenes for Yona and Blair in the last few updates. In the very last one, Blair got her new shower almost-spitroast scene with you and a tub-attached dildo.

Her ass looks super fine bouncing on it. And she won't say no to you splurging your cum straight down her throat!

And Yona got a new wax throatfuck scene, as well as a proper handcuffed sex in the last update.

She also found some new garterbelts and fishnet thighhighs, and IMO she looks quite a lot sexier in them. Please leave a comment if you like this outfit for her! If you folks want to see it, we'll think about backporting that outfit to the earlier scenes. We still need to add a proper repeat to the net top sex scene anyway, so why not kill two birds with one stone. Or rather one garterbelt and a pair of thighhighs. You get the idea.

All in all, we had to add those scenes to get both Yona a Blair to at least two tiers in the Lewdness 2.0 system. So...

Lewndess 2.0

The main question is - why? 

Well, multiple reasons. First of all, I was long annoyed by the fact that the intimacy and lewdness systems were basically irrelevant after the first few days in the House. We could remove them altogether, but I really think that sandbox games need at least some sort of stat progression to keep them from being just a linear visual novel with annoying breaks. Now if you start the game anew you will actually have a clear progression path with all the lewd scenes. And if you are loading an old save, you should have everything completed and ready for the new scenes.

The second reason was the state of the quest log. 

Just look at this mess. With all the side scenes having their own quest entries the amount of available quests ballooned and became almost totally indecipherable. We've seen folks post saves with like five pages of quests. 2 story/kink quests for every main girl. A main story quest, a couple of "neutral" side quests. And then another twenty side scene quests, most of which were in various states of "wait for another event" and "increase her lewdness". 

Now it's all neatly tucked into the previously mostly useless love app.

The second main question - how does it work?

We're going to add a tutorial of sorts if we can, but for now, please have this explanation.

The sex scenes are now divided into tiers. Each tier has at least two and at most four scenes in it.

When you complete a tier you get a lewdness cap increase and you unlock the next tier of sex scenes. To complete a tier you have to check at least two scenes from that tier.

Almost all sex scenes now have a lewdness floor. When you do a sex scene for the first time you get bonus lewdness points, but overall you should be getting lewdness points from all the sexes. (If you don't, please report)

You still should have all the hints and everything, and a couple of sex scenes, especially those tied to girls' primary personal stories, might trigger out of order, but we should be able to iron it out eventually.

We'll do an opinion poll on the Lewdness 2.0 a bit later after we fix all the remaining issues and tidy up the UI/UX thing, but I'm like 95% sure the new system stays. I personally like it. Hope you either like it already or will come to like it as well.

What's next

Now that we're finished with all the updates and system-level changes, we're getting back to adding story content. The next version should bring at least a few story events for Lyriel, and then we'll move to the next lagging girl and we should get back to pushing the main story forward within a few updates.

Then we're trying out a new render pipeline in the background. Check out one of the test renders. The regular one on top.

And the new pipeline below. We're doing our best to keep the general look the same so we don't have to re-remaster everything, but if we switch to the new pipeline we'll be able to do much cooler stuff with the animations and some scenes. We'll have a proper vote later, but for now we'd be super grateful for your thoughts on the comparison.

I suppose this is it for the development news. Don't really have any new goodies to share at the moment, so...

See you soon!

P.S. You can find the Rae cosplay here ➡️https://rift.ink/4mTJ50u