SoVR Update Talk

Hello everyone,

This post is going to be a bit random as I'll talk about things and others you'll see in the next update.

Let's start with the bad news first. PeakJump got covided and our new colorist is still progessing a bit slowly. In another setting, I'd have published the release and said "we'll add missing element next" like I tend to do. But here, the situation is a bit special. This update is supposed to be the "main original content is finished" update. I want a clear cut between the moment where I'm working on the remake part and on the new stuff. So I don't want to postpone stuff from the original game into updates that should contain post-game content only. As such, we'll probably have one or two weeks of delay. Sorry about that :/

Now we can move on to what you can expect in this update. Well, of course, H content. It's the main elements you're interested in, after all. There are 2 major scenes from the original game that will be integrated (one being divided into three different base pic, like the Naomi/Yuki scene, so it's taking longer). You can probably easily guess which they are if you've played the game already :p

In addition to those, there will be one extra new scene that wasn't in the original game but that I kinda needed to add because without it, some settings in SoV2 would be a bit off. Originally it's supposed to be something steming from SoVO, but I removed a scene from Vitamin Plus that leads to some dialogues and context in SoV2. So I'm used SoVR to try and reimplement that (it'll be awkward mind, you, to be totally smooth, I'd have to rewrite a part of the corresponding dialogues directly inside SoV2 ^^' But it's better than nothing.) Anyway, you'll have your fix of H content. Even if a single month is a bit short to deliver everything, hence the delay :/

We'll have some art updates as well. All the backgroundless scenes will now have a proper background (Yuki/Maitake, Naomi/Yuki & Naomi birthing scene.) In terms of art update, I've also tweaked Reiko's faceset: I've removed the eye wrinkles and changed the brown of her hair which wasn't fitting her at all.

Gameplay-wise, we've added some nice things:

- Trophies. Of course, they're back :p As you can expect, the list can't be huge for the base game so it will grow as the game development keeps on.

- The game will feature a status screen.

It's pretty basic. It just reminds you of your current goal in case you're lost, and also gives the progression of the horse health. We still need to improve some elements but this is the overall idea. One thing to note is that this status screen is exclusive to the main story content. It will be replaced by something else for the post-game content.

- The Gallery will be implemented as well. This time, I'm back to doing it à la Japanese.

I'm doing this for two reasons. 1) It was how it was in SoV 2) ALL Japanese RPG Maker games do it that way. Since at some point I'm aiming at that market, might as well adapt myself. And for the most skeptical, I have good news: the crystals are orders chronologically, meaning it's a first help to see whether or not you've missed something. And even better, clicking on the crystals will give you a small hint as to how to unlock the corresponding scene. It's the kind of effort I'm doing to avoid having people asking for a guide all the time :x

- We've implemented two shortcuts you'll love: The return of the "H" key to hide the text box and the new beautiful "S" key to switch between Ayame and Yuki as the leader. No need to go through an item anymore. A simple key and the two switches automatically. As you can expect, it has absoluetly zero impact on the game since they speak as a single person. For different reasons some of those features will only be available after bringing Hanamichi to the farm on Saturday morning (notably the gallery, or the character switching). You'll be prompted when it's available, don't worry.

- For the younger people who never played Triple Triad there's now a nice tutorial on how to play the game. We've also added some features around the game, like the fact that you can't challenge NPCs if you don't have at least 5 cards in your inventory or the fact that the otaku near the train station will give you an extra card if you talk to him with less than 5 cards in your inventory.

- Finally. For the first time ever, a BA game will feature H sounds. I'll be honest, it took me almost two full days to buy packs of these, listen to them all, ponder which were interesting and work on them on Audacity before converting them for the game. In-game it's good, but I swear hearing to that kind of sound over and over again with the mental image of a 40 years old Japanese guy making strange noise with mayonnaise or jelly feels a bit awkward :x

The amount of sounds in the game isn't even 10% of what I bought but there are many close-sounding things and sometimes, it's just that the sounds don't fit. As such, don't expect sound effect for EVERYTHING. It's mainly for liquids and a few things here and there. There will be BGS, though, (looping background sounds) for some pistoning and sucking. Even if I have to admit that in the case of sucking, the mouth effects felt waaaaaay too awkward to me so I didn't add many ^^' If you're uncomfortable with them, you can always lower their volume in the options. Feel free to tell me how it feels if you play with sound so I know if it was a good idea or not :p

- There are other elements we're working on to make things as complete as possible. So of course there will be the proper amount of NPC in town when searching for information about the legend. You'll have the whole conversation between Kentaro, Riki and Tetsu about 3D printed figurines and the remaining bits of missing characters in the farm towards the end of the game will also be added. Ideally, I'd also like to find the time to make some background elements interactive like in most games (it wasn't done for the first release because of a bug preventing bubbles to appear in that specific setting). That delay will surely allow me to do it ^^'

That's all for that update. As you can see, it's not going to be empty. I'd say that it's pretty nice for a 6 weeks update. Now there's just one thing I want to mention. The fact that I want everything implemented for the main story doesn't mean we'll never touch the original part of the game ever. There are some elements I'd like to improve in the future (like the horse health bar or, of course, many things related to SoulMate.) But these are considered secondary so we'll improve them bit by bit as the development keeps on. At least with that update, we'll have solid grounds :)

I'll see you next week for a post about the other projects as one of you wanted to know how I envisioned things for them.

See ya o/