Inner Circle Update for June 25 2017!

Hey guys!  

The past few days I've been cleaning up from my character design flurry.  This guy above is the mysterious "masked man" mentioned in the v0.06 design document :D.  We've also been collectively updating Ubercharge (the new artist) on map design mechanics/restrictions, and he has already begun whipping up concepts for some of the maps we need.  My real reason for posting however is that I just finished the following and wanted to share it with you in advance of the monthly update.   

Summary of Future Plans

The following is a “summary” (it’s pretty huge) of our plans after v0.06. While I’ve mentioned many of these ideas to you guys at one time or another, I’ve never put them all in one place, and the public is pretty much in the dark about them entirely. Not mentioning these publicly has largely been due to us waiting to see the big picture before we pull the trigger 😃. Seeing it all in one place however makes said big picture easier to swallow. I wanted to fill you guys in since I plan on making a similar list public after we announce a release date for v0.06. I’ve tried to list these plans in the order that will make the most sense to implement (by that I mean the order that will require the least amount of redoing work for us), however it really depends on what bottlenecks we might run into along the way. Note that everything that follows is subject to change!

NEW ENGINE

• No more RPG Maker. The game will no longer require the RPG Maker runtime environment package (or any extra software for that matter). 
• Vastly improved performance. Not only will this allow for a wider range of hardware to run the game, but it will raise our ceiling for the quality of art and designs from a development perspective.
• Will allow for HD graphics (see Artwork Overhaul below). Note the usage of the term “will allow”. The actual artwork upgrade won’t take place until the Artwork Overhaul.
• Will allow for greatly improved controls and user control options. This means support for currently unsupported keyboard layouts.
• Will potentially make it possible in the future to support platforms other than Windows.
• Will open up the possibility for future development of custom construction/editor tools.

ARTWORK OVERHAUL

Implementation of the new engine will mean a need to upgrade the graphics to 1080p. This is relatively simple since we have the vast majority of the artwork in HD anyways (it’s downscaled heavily for the game). However, this effort will give us the perfect opportunity to bring all of the early artwork into line with what we’re now artistically capable of, and it’s one I’d really like to make use of.

• Upgrade all graphics to HD (1080p).
• HD user interface.
• Replace the Artwork PDF with a standalone HD gallery program utilizing the new engine. The code for this would eventually be utilized for the in-game gallery system.
• Upgrade the quality of all artwork to current standards (see recent artwork of Onyx for an example of the direction we are heading). This includes things such as the following bullets: 
• Better hair. 
• Stylized shadows and self-shadows on character artwork. 
• Better stylistic use of ambient occlusion (better gradients and darks without the shitty pseudo-3D look)
• Potential revamp of some characters to utilize modern base body figures. This will result in dramatically more natural looking poses.
• Some cases of improved clothing models and character props. If successful this will greatly cut down on paint-over work in post for certain characters.
• Improved artwork for legacy maps. I had originally stated there would be improved artwork for the Access Tunnels in v0.06, however to prevent having to redo a significant amount of the work twice we will likely implement this during the artwork overhaul.
• Make use of graphics capabilities of the new engine not available in RPG Maker.

DIFFICULTY OVERHAUL

The purpose of this will be to add a difficulty system that will allow the user to tailor gameplay to their desired experience. Difficulty systems from the games System Shock, Pillars of Eternity, and The Witcher 3 are big inspirations. Presets will exist with descriptions that indicate the type of playstyle that the preset was designed for. These presets will range from those designed for users that simply want to enjoy the H content or story, to those that are designed for players who want a more, uh, masochistic experience. The user can then diverge from these presets by fine tuning more detailed options to create their own custom experience. Options will likely pertain to things including battle speed, general combat difficulty, and a host of options for the H system.  

H SYSTEM OVERHAUL

• Lust and Armor Damage will be completely independent. Currently, a character must be at a specific stage of Lust Sickness before their armor can break (remember that Armor Damage is different from Exposure). This doesn't make a lot of sense, and was in place primarily to reduce the amount of artwork combinations necessary. Without the memory limitations of RPG Maker and with the improved artwork rendering/processing speeds, this isn't as much of an issue. 
• Change the enemy damage reduction system when actors are being grappled with by enemies. Instead of a damage reduction modifier on enemies, enemies' pink "grasp" gauge will be similar to a shield from the Borderlands games. All damage will reduce their grasp, however some skills will bypass their grasp to directly damage their HP.  I feel this is a much more accessible and intuitive way to achieve the effect I was after with the damage reduction idea.
• Implement mechanics for gangbangs and dedicated mechanics for restraint devices. 
• Various other requested and unconfirmed changes (some quite major that will require testing before I make a call on them), some of which may be options in the new difficulty system.

CLASS SYSTEM

This system will add the potential for extended character development and at the same time will improve compatibility with and allow for story events to include combat that previously couldn’t due to how the characters’ outfits and weapons currently tie into the combat system. This basically means a wider variety of outfits (and other states of undress) during story events and more character customization options for combat. Also, criticism regarding how skills are tied to outfit types will be addressed here. We currently have a design for all of this that works much better than what is currently in place, however I still feel there’s room for improvement, so I’ll leave the details for later.

Let me know what you guys think!