Slice of Venture Remake Talk #1

Hello everyone,

Because I don't know how exactly things will evolve and what is going to be my post pace in the coming months, I'm going back to 1 in terms of post numerotation because it's easier for me to work in "batch". I hope you won't mind.

So, New Year is past us (Happy New Years for those who couldn't see the message) and with it, the last update of SoVR.

If you're waiting in the $5 tier to play the game, you might be advised to not read that post because I'll talk about content from that last update.

One of the thing you've seen in that new update is the mating press base image. That one has been in the works for months, it should have been there in the previous release but there was more work on it than we expected. You have to understand that what you find in an update isn't what has been worked on. In the case of that image, we have done much more, but as it is right now, it's still not finished. There are still parts of the pics that need to be colored and the liquids need to be done (boy, I'd need a full post just to talk about liquids.)

So when I was working on that picture I realized something: the exercise of choosing the right amount of variations on a pic is extremely difficult. With that update, I've realized that I'm in a situation where I have to choose a lesser evil but both choices are not really good.

On one hand, you have a pic like Emiri's where you guys saw 100% of what was done. All the variations are there. After all this pic was meant to be used as a standalone specifically for that memory. On the other hand, you have the mating press base image where you've already seen two different uses and more are to come. Of course, that second base image is meant to serve a lot of different purposes (I can't mention everything to avoid spoiling potential stuff in the future.) But I keep wondering: what is the "good amount"?

Here are the problematics when it comes to variations (whether they're heavy or not (cause yeah, no variations can also have its cons.)

1) The workload

Something that can seem logical to everyone would be that "making multiple scenes with low variations is quicker than making fewer with lots of variations". After all, when you make a base scene, if you only have to draw the characters, it's quicker than when you have to think about different arms positions that can alter clothes or other parts of the body.

But it's not entirely true. When we create a new scene, we spend time on finding the right pose and the right angle. Sometimes it's very quick, sometimes it can be VERY long. The problem with 2D is that we can cheat. It's very easy to distort slightly the realism to adapt what we want to see (you'll see that in a future scene). While it's great, it also means it spreads the possibilities, meaning we can spend more time finding the proper setup. So if you make 3 pics without variations, it won't necessarily mean it will be quicker than 1 scene with lots of variations, because the pre-work process will be thought for 3 base images instead of one.

I'm not saying it's equal in terms of length, of course, but I'm saying it's not A LOT quicker.

Now, the more consensual statement is that yes, heavy-variations scenes take longer to work on. But even that needs a bit of precision. The pure number of variations in a scene doesn't necessarily equals the length it'll take. We discovered that while working on the spanking scene. See, in that scene, all the variations are separate elements. They don't interact DIRECTLY with each other. Since they're all independant and almost none are interconnected (only the clothes), they're MUCH quicker to do than a scene where just moving one arm requires to redraw all the clothes and sometimes even more. The best example is the sheath scene. This has much less variations than the spanking one (yeah, you haven't seen everything of course :p), and yet it took longer to do.

So yeah, the workload is something more subtle than we can think. That makes a first point where pondering about variations is tricky.

2) The pic creation

One of the downside of a heavy-variation scene is that there are TONS of layers in the PSD or CSP file (it gets even worse when the color is there.) So colorists lose time making sure the color works for every combination (often leading to the creation of masks, making the files even bigger so even longer to load) and on my side, when I create the pic, of course, the more layers there are the longer I take to create each pic, because I have to navigate through everything. In SoVR it's even worse because there are the accessories which adds even more time.

So for that point alone, the result is simple: the more there are variations the longer that step of the process is.

3) The player experience

This is probably my biggest concern because it concerns you directly. At some point, I have the chance to have a community that basically never complained about the content of my scenes (I said "scenes", not "games" :p) Whether some scenes have no variations or tons, it doesn't seem to matter.

BUT. At some point, we're all different and have different opinions about what can/should be present in an adult game. MY point of view is that using a whole base image for a single scene is a waste UNLESS it's not the majority of the game and the game calls for it (basically Emiri's scene in SoVR.) I played a game last year where there was like maybe 10 scenes. Each were a base image. Since there was a bit of corruption system, I was hoping that the first scenes would happen again with a slight different setting due to the corruption, but it didn't happen. When I finished the game I was quite disappointed that each scene happened only once. That's when I realized I wasn't the target audience for that choice.

Now on the contrary, you have games which feature a lot of scenes with the same base image. And unfortunately here, I have to mention myself because I haven't played another game that features 13 different scenes with the same base image. Because yes, the Reiko/Yuki/Ayame base image in SoV2 features a total of 13 different scenes. And I liked it. Changing the setting in most of those scenes helped a lot. But maybe some people ended up finding it boring after some point. I can't say. Just because you find that a bit boring means you're going to complain the dev about it (especially if you've enjoyed the game overall.)

So here I am. SoVR has both. The first pics we worked on have a TREMENDOUS amount of variations and as we saw how long and teddious it was for most of the artists, I eased down and I'm leaning towards small to middle-heavy variation scenes. Thing is, I mentioned above the case of "quick" heavy-variation scenes. Namely the spanking scene can have quite a good amount of scenes without needed the same amount of work than some other heavy ones.

So what's the problem? Well it's my constant questioning about "what the player wants". I've always said for SoVR that the key word was "context". SoV2 was cruelly lacking one in many scenes (but it was logical since many scenes were shot like movie clips so it's understandable.) But I'm bound to end up in a case where some scenes will have few or no context at all, just for the sake of adding them.

Are YOU interested in seeing 25 scenes where a girl has the same position just because the elements around her change? Wouldn't it feel rehashed and superficial? It's tricky because you all have different views.

SoVR is supposed to be one of these games where there's enough content that you definitely don't need to find all H content to finish the game. But is that enough to satisfy everyone? There are trophy hunters who'll want to find all the scenes because they want to 100% the game, but will they take pleasure? Hunting down all those extra scenes just for the trophy because "Ark put too many similar stuff and I stopped searching for them, I'm just using a guide to speedrun the rest" looks a bit like a failure to me.

I'm not going to hide that I don't plan on discarding what we've done with those early heavy-loaded scenes because of that. Yes, there are some base image you're bound to see much more often than others. We'll work towards diluting them inside the other scenes that should have a more reasonable amount. But still, I'd be interested in hearing your opinion on the topic because it can still help me think more about the whole problem and who knows? Maybe you're all going to tell me to go fuck myself with my myriad of variations or you'll all be "you can do 100 scenes with the same base image". I don't know. So feel free to express yourself if you want to, I'll read your comments.

That's all for today.

I'll see you later! o/