Talk about the new project!

It's here, I mentioned it in the past and I can hear all these teeth gritting and passive-agressive words slipping through said teeth "finish a goddamn game before starting a new one!"

Yeah, well, in all honesty, I could make an SoVR update this month with 2 or 3 new scenes and a few more things, then do nothing for the remaining two weeks. But while I'm EAGER to show you what's to come for the next SoVR update, it's safer to wait a bit.

I've already said it before, I'll say it again: what I'm working on this month is a side project meant only to give more time to the artists (just like The Hunter was back at its beginning). Are things going to get crazy and I'll make a full game out of it? No idea, but for now, don't expect much. Usually to have a reasonnable first version of a game, I need between 4 and 6 months (depending on different factors). Here, I have one month. So it's REALLY a side dish. But a fun one.

You guys voted for it, you had the choice between a spin off focusing on TH2 side characters or a pokemon game and the pokemon game won by 66% to 34%.

Let me tell you the process behind everything because it's a bit goofy. I've been wanting to make a pokemon game for a long time. Even if I'm far from being a pokefan, I grew up with the game. I'm old enough to have discovered the game with the Blue Version when I was already 10. And I played them all (I mean the core ones, not the spin offs), except Legend Arceus. Now I don't expect much from the licence because Game Freaks are some of the laziest devs I've ever seen but I still play new games just for the fun of discovering new pokemons and their French names (our French translators have talent when it comes to that x))

Of coooooooooooooourse, who am I kidding, I also check the new female characters because there's always something good to eat (even if I have to admit that in Scarlet/Violet I was... uh... let's say "both surprised and not surprised"). And if you want to know, my go-to, my favourite Pokémon female character is Touko/Hilda (followed by Cynthia/Shirona). But honestly, I like MANY designs.

Anyway, all this to say that the first time I saw someone making pixel animation of a pokemon fucking a female trainer I was like "I'd love to see a game doing that!" (and that was easily more than 10 years ago). So with the time, it changed from "I'd love to see a game doing that" to "I'd love to make a game doing that". When Yarimesubuta (from Nyou Koubo) came out, of course I was amazed by the amount of work, and utterly disappointed to see you're playing a guy, hence having an H pokemon game (the best, undeniably) without a single pokefuck in it.

A year or two before, someone released an engine for Game Maker to make a pokemon game (MonMae). Back then, I thought "if I ever do a pokemon game, I'll use that engine! It's perfect!"

And so, on March the first, here we are. Hime's at home, on my computer, to try and see how MonMae works so she can explain me bits I don't understand (it's Game Maker after all, I don't have all the keys in hand.)

We spend the whole afternoon making tests and stuff, and at some point we realize that the engine is actually TOO user-friendly as in, if you don't do the assets exactly like they're supposed to be (so the right amount of frames per character etc...) it's a pain in the ass to create. And the more we test stuff the more we're like "wait, we can't use that feature from the engine either" because the restrictions are too big. They are overridable, of course, but Hime doesn't know anything about Game Maker language so she'd have to learn it from scratch. And for a single month of dev, that was going to be extremely tricky.

So after losing that whole afternoon, we pondered over the question. The terrible question I didn't want to hear. But she HAD to ask it. She turned her head towards me and said "Why don't we make it under RPG Maker MZ?"

:insert Darth Vader meme "Nooooooooooo":

Am I going to get stuck with that software forever? Well, looks like it. To Hime, it was simpler to build all the mechanics of a pokemon game from scratch in RPG Maker than to try and tweak the engine I had bought. So... Yes, this game will be done in RPG Maker... And considering all the mechanics have to be done from scratch, I have absolutely NO IDEA what will be available by the end of the month. I mean, there's a chance you won't even be able to battle ^^'

One thing you have to understand for that game is that the goal is to give leeway to artists. So I bought ready-made assets (the fantastic sets made by Limezu on itch) to be able to start quickly. The only problem is that his files aren't really meant for RPG Maker (some are but it's done very quickly and not optimized at all) so I have to manually create each tiletset. But for once, you'll have a game that looks like no other Blue Axolotl game. With the style I'm aiming at a VERY specific generation: generation 3. Because I'm a GBA/GBA SP enjoyer so Ruby and Sapphire don't have the same taste for me (hell I even win almost 200€ of prizes in a pokémon competition back then during that generation). So if you want to see how it'll look like: here it is!

The character is a place holder. We'll have the real one that will come soon when it's ready. We're also using the characters from Limezu and their charsets have NOTHING to do with RPG Maker charsets, so Hime's job for now is to adapt those elements to the game so that when the characters move etc... they behave normally. We're also working on adapting the UI to make it neat like a pokemon game.

So it's mainly a Hime and I project AND a pixel artist that I've hired just for that who's goal will be to make the pixel version of pokemons and of H content.

I keep using the word "pokemon" but you understand they'll have their own names. I'm just not 100% sure of the wording I chose.

Before telling you, I want to explain something. This game will not be serious. Like, not at all. It's going to be a parody. Because with it being a parody, I'm protected by French laws, and also because I haven't had the chance to make something really goofy for a long time.

As such, since I wanted to have something that is a mix between two words like Poke(t)mon(sters), I thought I could take the "Ani" from animals for the first part of the word, and the "Mals" from animals for the second part of the words. And thus the creatures would be "Animals". What do you think? Yeah it's lame and stupid but this isn't even my final form. I can do worse 8D

Anyway, we'll see through the month how things evolve. I can tell you one thing, though. For the creation of Animals, PeakJump, Hime, JFC and I are at work. I will make you a post of what I sketched, and what Peak sketched out of my sketch. You guys are not ready.

We'll see that another time :p

I hope those waiting for a new SoVR update won't be too disappointed (it's not as if I haven't been mentioning it for the past 2 months). But don't worry, it doesn't mean SoVR doesn't progress on the side. I can only tell you this: the content of April update will force me to implement the fetish selector in the game or some people are gonna hate me (⌐■_■)

See ya o/