Sin Spire - Dev Log 12

Hello everyone! This week I come to you with… not much. Something unexpected happened earlier this week that threw off my schedule. I won’t go into details, but it made working pretty difficult. I did manage to get back to it yesterday, but it wasn’t quite enough time to prepare anything to show. At least, not anything that isn't explicit (which can't be shown in public posts).

Rather than leave you with nothing, though, I figured I’d outline the general plan for this month and briefly talk about what I’ve managed to do this week.

Before the hitch, I made some headway earlier this week on animations. I worked on a rough draft of the animation set for the Butcherette (seen above) and started working on a new sex purification sequence. Yesterday, and the day before, I also worked on a new enemy type with all the needed animations for them.

The new enemy is currently called the ‘Lost Soul’ (Inspired by the enemies from DOOM). As the name-sake implies, these are floating head enemies, though they don’t explode. They fly around erratically making them hard to hit with their small hitbox, though they go down quickly due to their low health. I also plan on using these enemies to help develop my enemy skins/variations system.

Visually, the initial model I created leans heavily into horror (wide open eyes and a gaping open mouth), but I plan to diversify the design somewhat. I’ll be creating some alternative looks, from a more attractive face to an evil and demonic version. The purification sequence for them is probably the simplest so far, being a floating head.

I also started work on another enemy type, but they’re still too early in development to share any real details. I’ve realized that the variety in monsters isn’t quite where I want it to be yet. A lot of enemies still have human skin tones, but I want some to appear more distinctly otherworldly or inhuman, like the Smiler with her blue-ish skin tone. Any monsters I add to the game will lean on the strange and supernatural designs rather than the more typical roster you’d see in a dedicated monster girl game. So, no Nagas, Plant-girls etc. for Sin Spire. More ghosts and ghouls.

I’ve also been considering how to streamline the animation process, mainly for sex anims. With so many enemies, I’m now looking into animating basic sequences on a simple human model and then retargeting and editing/adding detail for different enemies. This should save time at the cost of pose variety, but I’d rather let every enemy have at least two sex sequences that may be similar to another enemy’s than one or no sequences at all. There will be edge cases and I’m sure that I can get creative with more non-standard humanoid enemies like the Leg Amalgam.

Now, looking ahead, here’s what I want to achieve with the rest of the month:

• Create a variety of sex sequences that can be reused and retargeted.

• Create animation sets for all enemies, including those added during the month.

• Add basic grab attacks for all Stalkers (Important for the Steam Page’s Promo Materials)

• Steam Page Launch: I’m still aiming to finish the Steam Page this month. I’d like to get a teaser trailer out before submitting it, along with Savina’s redesign (which I mentioned last week). If it looks like the teaser trailer isn’t possible, I’ll submit the page anyway.

• Test Builds: Thank you all for your patience. I still plan on releasing builds after the Steam Page is up, but if it doesn’t seem feasible, I’ll simply focus on getting a test build out regardless. All current supporters will get access to the first test build. After that, I haven’t decided. As making builds will take time as they involve clean-up, I may move them to a higher tier. But that hasn’t been decided yet and won’t apply to the first build.

Keep in mind that the test build will be rough. It’s not a polished product, but it’ll give you a feel for the game as well let you experience the first dungeon at the very least.

That’s the general plan! While I aim to get all that done this month, sometimes unexpected things happen, as they did this week. I’ll make sure to keep you guys posted on progress, and I plan to share some previews for supporters throughout the month—similar to the Savina dialogue test. These won’t follow a strict schedule, so you’ll just have to keep an eye out, both on this page and potentially on the Discord.

Thank you all for your continued support! I’ll see you next time, whenever that may be.