crushstation

Production week 1

Added 2021-07-18 20:56:21 +0000 UTC

Hey guys! Last week I finished the 1.13 storyboard, so this week I've been producing actual playable scenes in the game engine. It all started on Monday morning with a certain title card:

I had a great week writing the Bangkok arrival section. Converting it from notes and long-held ideas into actual code feels great.

The storyboard is the blueprint, but while I'm building it up in the actual game engine I get to play through as I go, and that's when ideas for new branches or decision points pop out the most.

This week, I added in an optional new nude scene that was totally unplanned, but adds some tension and excitement to an early scene that was weak without it. I also completed a big chunk of the storyboard. Next week I'll continue, and report back on progress: I should have a clearer idea of the release date in next week's report.

Sweet Emotion
While I've been busy with storyboards and scene drafts our illustrator, lovely Victoria, has been working on some technical and aesthetic improvements to the avatar expressions.

The technical improvement is some clever stuff with layers that reduces the number of art assets we need for each facial feature by 80%. That will make art production of makeup, skin tones and new face shapes faster in the future.

The aesthetic improvement was something she initiated after her playthroughs of 1.12. She felt that the avatar was over emoting for certain scenes, and needed some subtler expressions. She deleted two of the 1.12 features, added five, and has created a system of 60 avatar emotions that I think are both subtler and more expressive than the ones from 1.12. Check it out!

https://vimeo.com/576508946