SoVR Post-Game Diary #12

Hello everyone,

We're reaching a point where I don't have many things left to mention (let alone to show, considering how I can't show anything anymore if it's remotely nsfw...) so I'm afraid you'll have to deal with smaller posts until the next release is out ^^'

Talking about the release, I'm not gonna lie, we're going to need an extra week. The art part is painstakingly slow (I might have to hire a 3rd colorist... No joke -_-) and there's no way everything will be ready for next week. I'm starting to remember why I started working on The Hunter back in SoV2 days. It wasn't originally to alternate projects so I don't get bored. It was because of the time needed to make the 2D content of SoV2...

Thing is, I can't really go back to that way of working anymore. For two main reasons: 1) TH2 is in the process of being transfered to MZ (and it's completely in the middle, Hime had to stop to work on SoVR so it's currently unplayable) and 2) I'm 95% sure I wouldn't have the necessary brain level anymore to alternate two huge projects like that. Back in SoV2 days, TH was just a random game I fiddled with for a bit so I could stay focused on SoV2 most of the time (TH grew bigger after.) Here, it would be the two biggest projects being worked on alternatively. I wouldn't be capable of it anymore. Too many things to remember on each side (I already have trouble remembering everything correctly for SoVR alone.)

So I might have to try and find a solution to fix all that because I can't really go on with so long development times just because the art is progressing too slowly. Once again I apologize on the behalf of the team.

Now back to SoVR. There's one element I haven't detailed yet: pregnancy.

This is probably the most "roller-coasting"-like gameplay element of the game in terms of how I wanted to implement it (went from "just specific situations" to "major quest revolving around it" to "completely optional" to "fuck it, I won't put it" x)). So what's left in the end?

Well, it IS a major scenario element but NOT a major quest. Basically, it's going to be a major scenario element because I've always planned the post game content to start with a rather terrible event linked to the original scenario. And that event will lead to the girls being able to get pregnant (you gotta justify that ^^'). BUT, after lots of pondering, I decided to NOT make it a huge gameplay element.

I have a 3 page-long game document I wrote with a detailed way of how pregnancy should be handled gameplay-wise. But after thinking about it over and over again, it sounded a bit too restrictive (both for the player and me). For the player because it meant you couldn't decide exactly what you'd get pregnant from, and for me, because it was even harder to justify to classify allowed species per girl scenaristically speaking. So I ditched everything. Almost everything. Now pregnancy is mainly just a side dish you can enjoy. You can give birth at the right place and you'll get a few rewards depending on the amount of animals you've given birth to, but that's all. Because handling pregnancy in pictures is already long enough as it is (it's the same problem than with accessories, gotta have the necessary amount of extra pngs for layering things properly in RPG Maker.)

Because yes, due to how it's implemented, you'll be able to watch most scenes either pregnant or not (some scenes will require to be and some scenes will require not to be but all in all most scenes will have the possibility to be either.) In some scenes, you will also have some different dialogue lines depending on whether the girl is pregnant or not. It nothing big, mind you, but I do it when I find it adds extra flavour.

Lastly, about giving birth. For this update, you'll only be able to give birth at a very specific spot. It won't be visually shown (but there will be a base picture for it on the update after, don't worry.) The update after that one will introduce two extra elements linked to birth. When unlocking the corresponding skill, you'll be able to give birth in specific place but alone. And that will mean you'll abandon whatever you gave birth to. And the last element will be the possibility to abort. I am not going to get more friends with that feature, but fuck it. If you've played VQ2, you know where I'm going.

That's it for this post. I'll see you in the future for another post, but considering the state of things outside the game, there's a possibility the next post won't be about SoVR :x

See ya o/