Devlog 45

Hey folks, as you may have noticed the build 25 is about one month late already. This is due to issues we are having animating the smut scene in a new software. Up until now we were using Anima2D to make our animations, which is a defunct Unity asset no longer maintained since 2020. In principle we could continue to use it indefinitely since we have access to the source code, but it's obviously not ideal, and it will be hard to find animators willing and able to work with it in the future.

Due to this we decided a couple of months ago to switch our animation pipeline to Spine, a well known animation software with Unity integration. We were hopping it would accelerate the animation process and improve the quality, but it didn't turn out like that so far, at least on the animation production speed aspect.

We experimented with Spine in last build, Nailah dance being done entirely in it without issues, but our much more complex smut scenes animations are proving a lot more time consuming, to the point where it is the only thing missing for build 25 for more than a month, the quest and everything else being ready to release.

It is the first time animations are the bottleneck for us, and we are doing what we can to improve things, such as trying out two additional animators.

On the flip side the rest of the team have been able to continue writing, drawing, composing musics, and coding for future updates, to the point where some work has been started for content planned for after build 27... So lets get through it.

First of all we added the long awaited tutorial for the prologue, the thing asked the most often by new players.

An additional way to end Osh'to tribe quest has been added for players without enough money to pay the surgeon and can't ask Mara for whatever reason. It involve the Alchemist and Dee.

Dee has a bunch more dialogue portrait expressions and a new pose, along with Aya.

We moved all the fights in the prologue to the world instead of instances, which feels a lot better.

We have a new persistent effects system affecting the combat. So for example consuming alcohol will grant combat buff and debuff depending on the amount you drink. We will later add drugs and other effects such as "well rested" for example.

Some new environment hazard were added to the prologue catacombs, to make the combat more interesting, and we plan to expand their use elsewhere. They can have various effects whenever a character is thrown into them, from movement impediment to huge damage. Some can be broken and move through afterward.

Arbuz has worked on a bunch of new locations that we will eventually need. Fortune teller tent, trade district slaves cells, slums kyot home, slums dirty tavern and more.

Etherek has completed the drake mansion exterior:

Katie pole dance assets and dialogues are ready and are being animated in Spine by a new animator (Build 26). Terry dance assets are also ready (Build 28).

Build 27 quest writing is pretty far along and the smut scene associated to it is already fully drawn.

We have a new sweet soundtrack for our smut scenes, named Nighttime Armony by Dirk J. Neefs, who is now composing Hiho's theme.

To finish we have an insult battle between Samara and Katrina...

And a bunch more things we will elaborate in later devlogs.

Sorry for this delay, we hope we can finish build 25 animations relatively soon ; The silver lining is next few builds content is already pretty far along and should be released shortly after this hurdle.