ABDLCheeks

Progress and clothing tests

Hey everyone,

So I spent a little bit of this week experimenting with some  outfit pieces. It wasn't very successful. The main issue is trying to add unusual or more complex pieces. I like the accessory system and want to add more ways to customize your character but they don't interact well with a rigged character.

In the above example I can use it a little to add some details like puffy shoulders and the effect works sorta okay but not great. I'll leave these outfits in t...

Feeling a little better

Hey everyone,

I have not felt this sick in a long time. Done a few covid tests but I have no idea what it is. Trying to juggle being sick, dayjob and this project has been very draining.

I created a bunch of documentation for the writer and have passed that along with the new tool. We are starting work using the new tool. Not sure what the first like test character will be but we are working that out.

I started to but together the "brain" for the test character and look a...

Under the weather

Hey everyone,

Come down with something so I'm going to do a quick post and might pop another one out once I'm feeling back to normal. Should only be a day or so. Already starting to feel on the mend.

So I've been documenting the system for dialogue I created and got to doing some bug fixes. In a piece of good news I was able to get the bug where you can't exit the secret lab to happen to me. It required specific timing but it now makes sense why it wasn't throwing an error. An o...

Dialogue

Hey everyone,

So the good news is I have the tool working and it’s linked to the game. I can now call and ask for dialogue from a template and blend and mix between dialogue pieces. It’s also set up to make writing this sort of character dialogue much easier for a writer so they don’t have to understand key features.

I still have a few bugs in the system and some features I want to add. I decided to hold off adding them until I have the main system working just because tryin...

Figured it out

Hey everyone,

So I think I figured it out. I’ve built up the new system and I think I’ve understood how I can make this work. The final step of this process is building all the standard access methods so I can use this easily.

This was a wild ride that was almost archeology as it’s been years since I’ve touched my old dialogue code. I made a few errors when I wrote it that made it very inflexible. My fault but a few years of experience will always create an improvement. <...

Difficult systems

Hey sorry for taking so long at the moment. It's been a rough couple weeks and the way I'm trying to improve this writing tool is just much harder than I hoped.

The key problem with getting and retaining writers is how complex the systems are and how much work it takes to do simple things. If the game was a visual novel it would be much more direct as the whole game would basically be one large dialogue tree. You could just add dialogue paths ext. 

An open world game relies o...

Quick Post

Hey everyone,

Just a quick post because as mentioned previously this week has been pretty interrupted.

I got some time to keep working on integration. I'm adding in the links for the template. It's a little harder than I hoped. I have basic dialogue patterns working but linking multiples together is proving difficult.

I originally tried to build a system to that would get several pieces, link them together and pass them into the dialogue popup. However, I'm finding that...

Truckin along

Hey everyone,

So nothing exciting to show this week. I’m working on the integration and still working with the writer to get a test template to start inputting. In the short term I’m starting to draft up the integrations I wanted along with doing some basics like event detection.

Obviously because this system is a little more dynamic I need to be able to ask the level if there is an available change table or bath if those events are a valid choice to present to the player. ...

Item Descriptions

Hey everyone,

So I pushed out a quick update to the game. Obviously there is no new content that should just add item descriptions to the items in the game. I mentioned I wanted to push this out so I thought I would just push a mini update up. A the moment this is just for the windows 64 branch. The others will get the update in a week or two. Just takes a bit longer to build for the other platforms.

If you're waiting for new content you can skip this one; it's more of an aesthe...

Writing away

Hey everyone, So things are going well.

Patreon seems to be having trouble posting at the moment. I've tried to post this update a few times. Not having much luck so with any luck this one will go live.

The template tool is finished. It took a little bit longer because I added a few really useful features into it. Most of this is directed towards making a writer's life much easier. It's also designed to be very flexible so I can use it in multiple ways. One cool feature is it ...

Progress and engine troubles.

Hey everyone,

Made good progress on the writing tool. It's not like ready to use yet but I now have a good plan on how it's going to work. Previously the system was I build a template and you go into the individual elements on that template and fill them out.

The new system is I have this writing tool. It lets a writer create the character dialogue and important elements. It turns this into a special file that the the templates can ask for. It's designed to be generic and will j...

Challenges and Solutions.

It's been a hectic week and I only have time for a quick post today.

But I thought I would give some insight into what causes these slowdowns and challenges in getting and working with written content. The issue is one of time and complexity along with familiarity with the process.

Standard tools like RPG maker already have thousands of hours put into custom tools with a large community of tutorials. Most of the tools I've had to build myself and they aren't as user friendly as...

Holding items

Hey everyone,

So got the new item holding system in and working.

So basically as you can see here you can now hold any item in the game. I have a special 3D model that uses the texture of the icon to create a little item in your hands when you hold it.

If you have been following the previous post obviously this has a functional use beyond just physically holding the item. The most important change is that the character you talk with can understand what item you are holdin...

Outfit switching

Hey everyone,

So got some cool stuff working.

As I was talking about last week I wanted to see if you could "change" another characters outfit. This was actually pretty successful.

So actually changing a character outfit wasn't all that complex obviously but the cool part is I managed to integrate it into the save game system. So now I can tag a specific NPC with a specific ID that will save and load as you play.

So this makes NPC outfit changes permanent. Curren...

Templates and character interactions

Hey everyone,

Didn't have as much of a productive week as I wanted. This week is also going to be a little slow. I'm just slammed in the day job leaving me a bit burnt out at the moment. I'll get back the energy but yeah running slower than I'd like.

So I've put together several templates in the new system. But obviously I'm still in the early stages of working with new writers so they won't be ready to pick them up just yet.

What I think I'll do is try and use some of th...

Progress

Hey everyone,

So made good progress this week. It was a bit tricky but I upgraded the character loading system to also load character logic from a file too.

I already had the framework for storing character logic in a text file rather than within Unity but honestly I wasn't using it all that much. Now I can link that character profile along with a piece of logic and then hook it into the core game.

I also updated the character load system so as levels in the game load it...

Spawning Characters

Hey everyone,

Been working away at some technical stuff. I've had some success at getting some of these new systems working.

This image is testing the ability to spawn a character into a map. It's not exciting looking but pretty important. So one of these characters despite being on the map was not loaded from the map it was loaded independently from my own data structure.

This was a little tricky because while I designed the player character to load and save none of the...

Working away

Hey everyone,

Nothing exciting to show obviously.

Mostly working on code and template stuff along with some tools and instructions on how to write for the different systems.

My next task is to get the new content loading system working. I mentioned this before but obviously the existing scenes are pretty complex already. If I add content by just putting them in the scenes it effects load times but more importantly makes my life difficult.

I haven't worked out the ...

Current tasks

Hey everyone,

Given I'm working mostly on code stuff / writing stuff I don't have anything pretty to show graphically. Maybe I should do some extra items/outfits just so I have something to show for these posts.

I'm currently chatting with a new writer. Things have been going pretty well so I'm just starting the process of teaching them how the game works and the writing tools. This is obviously a slow process because the game has been running for awhile so there is a bunch to ...

Re factoring

Hey everyone,

So don't have anything to show at the moment. I'm just re-writing some of the event code. Currently the game is in a bit of a broken state as I change this around.

This is something I've needed to do for a little while. Some elements of certain events are basically hard coded. Doing a new set of templates would be easier if I could create and test a template anywhere in the game world without having to re-build/reload. The ideal is a basic template that can be load...

Quick Update - Returning to the other world

Hey everyone,

So very quick post I wanted to push out a super quick fix. I had a couple requests asking if you could get back to the "other world".

I had a sorta interesting way to do it so I decided to give it a quick go.
There is now a "portal" at the University left after the disaster. With a safety fence.
(if you can think of a way to get past fences :D)

This portal will take you to the other world. If you want to get back just jump off the edge of the clouds and...

Planning

Hey everyone,

So I've been taking it pretty easy this week and working on some basic planning stuff. As this last update was a pretty big milestone. I need to think carefully how I want to work going forward.

So the biggest thing I want to accomplish is to increase the pace / shorten the time between updates. This I need to do in two ways. I need to make individual content shorter/simpler and set up a pipeline that requires less testing.

Complex multi character events and...

Next Steps

Hey everyone,

So obviously after the last update I have been taking it easy and don't have anything to show just yet. I've been compiling bugs and doing a little bit of breakdown on what I want to work on next.

My todo list has a large chunk of elements that were bumped off because they were too difficult or bug ridden. I'm going to clear out the list and see what is worth keeping and what is no longer viable.

I'll also start planning out the next steps. As I've mentioned...

Update is live

Hey everyone,

The updates have been pushed live to itch.io
As usual you can access them at

https://gauche-cheeks.itch.io/littleington-university/patreon-access

I'm not completely happy with it but again better to get it out rather than continue to re-tool it. It's much shorter than I wanted and doesn't have...

Bug fixin

Hey everyone,

So got everything mostly working. I'll hopefully push out the update this coming week. I'll have a quick play through and see where we are at. Again apologies for how short it is but I'll be working on side content /side quests next so hopefully can get into a better groove.

Basically what I need to do now is play through looking for soft locks and crashes. I'll also find all the small areas I need to fix and anything I want to adjust or polish.

This update...

Getting Close

Heyo,

So getting closer. I hope to have it wrapped up for the most part next week then release soon after. I'm not 100 percent happy with it and as mentioned a largish chunk was cut because honestly it was just broken. But I think it's better we get the main quest finished so the game can move forwards on side quests and character stories. Don't expect the next update to be big so much as just concluding that questline.

I also wanted to try and get the hint not system full of hi...

Quick Post

Hey everyone,

Sorry been working slowly lately. It's been busy with the day job and just hectic in general. I don't have much of an excuse just running slower than I'd like. But I am still working. Even if more slowly than I'd like.

I managed to get a bunch more dialogue pieces done. Tested the overall flow and found all the pieces I was missing. It's starting to come together. I need to polish some of the combat stuff and clean up and edit all the dialogue I've created.

...

Still working away

Hey everyone,

Still running slow but getting stuff done. It's been awhile since I've had to do writing and I'm still doing research into other writers.

It's great to see so many suggestions and thank you for the offers of people who'd be interested in writing. I appreciate it. I have a very specific set of requirements that I tend to follow. I won't go into too much detail but it mostly involves reading stories and looking at how consistent they are ext. There might be an opport...

Progress

Hey everyone,

Nothing exciting to show at the moment. I front loaded most of the visual stuff obviously so was posting about that stuff.

Now that I'm back up to speed I've been working on the boring flow stuff. Like talk to character A, teleport to location B and updating a few other elements. Most of the flow I would say is working. It wasn't particularly complex mostly just making sure characters were in the correct locations.

It's mostly place holder dialogue at the mo...

Back to normal

Wow so I'm back to normal. I have no idea what that was all about. But I do not want to be that sick again. Right so I'm back to work. It took me a little bit to get back up to speed. Sorry for the couple weeks of downtime. Very annoying when this stuff happens. Between work, being sick and just life stuff I've been feeling very slow the last couple months. I hope with a little more energy I can pick up the pace and get back where I want to be.

I finished cutting out the old non workin...