Tiny Furry In A Huge World Anniversary Post - Future Plans & More

Hello everyone!

This isn't a post about a story or a poll or anything like that. I'm not really sure how to describe what I'm about to write properly, so... let's just call it a dev blog or something like that? Or, I'm going to write about a few things that I have been thinking about and planning and generally just doing for A Tiny Furry In A Huge World over the past month or two. Future plans for new content, changes to the game, things like that. It's not going to be a super structured or highly edited thing, though - I'm just going to write and let my stream of thought guide the way.

I'm doing this because it's A Tiny Furry In A Huge World's anniversary month - specifically, the game's birthday was actually like, three days ago. It's three years old now, which is kind of crazy! When I made it one cold December night three years ago, I didn't think that I'd be here now talking about it like it's my child or that it would really lead me toward any financial gain... and certainly not a career. I don't think a day goes by where I'm not grateful that things did turn out that way, though. I am very happy to be where I am right now - it's like a dream come true, really.

I'm probably going to write a lot about a lot of things, so if reading a big dev post isn't your thing, that's completely fair. Give it a quick scroll, anyway - there are some images later on that you might find cool, or, interesting, or, something!

Solidifying The College/World Building Stuff

Way back when I first started A Tiny Furry In A Huge World, I didn't really put a ton of thought into the setting or the world that surrounds it because it wasn't really all that important. I wanted to do a college setting because it's kind of a classic when it comes to shrinking stories/games. Especially choose your own adventures. The reason for this is simple, I guess - it allows you to include a wide variety of characters and situations in a way that's easily understood by the audience. Everyone knows what a college is and how one works, right?

At the time I made it, though, I didn't really think of what kind of college it was - heck, I never even gave the place a name - and, to be honest, I haven't really put a great deal of thought into it since. At least, not until recently.

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't plan on overthinking anything here and suddenly pushing for total realism and reams and reams of background information about the college. But I think finally establishing what type of school, it's name, and a rough idea of the surrounding area is at the very least is important, especially moving forward as I add new characters/areas/locations to the game. I don't want it to feel like I'm just tacking new places in for the sake of it. Not only because I want to do better than that, but because I think it's infinitely more interesting and immersive.

So. I have decided to call the college Eastbrook College. It is in the town of Eastbrook, which is a comfortable little rural town in the middle of the countryside. Eastbrook College is a community college - specifically, one that's a little beaten and low on budget with many rooms that are probably in need of a good remodeling.

I settled on a worn down community college in the end for a three reasons. The first is that community colleges tend to be a little smaller, so not only is that an easier space for me to create in a semi-realistic way, but it also makes it a lot easier for a tiny little shrunken person to explore. The second is that I think it'll lead to more interesting stories on the whole, plus allow for a wider range of ages and backgrounds. If it was a school for wealthy people for example then everyone would have to be wealthy, but if it's a community college then just about anyone might have a reason for attending it, young, middle-aged, or old. The third and final reason is that it won't I have to alter very much of the existing script to accommodate for this - most areas in the college are pretty beat up in some fashion or in need of a remodelling, so I won't have to clean them up to make them 'high-class'.

Eastbrook College actually has several buildings - and Tiny Furry In A Huge World only takes place in one of them so far - specifically, a building called J Block. J Block is the area of the school that's dedicated to physical activities (for the most part) - hence the pool area, and the gym and basketball courts that I've mentioned from time to time and will probably eventually add - though, more on this in a bit. There's also the library and the lecture halls and the computer lab, but - even students in physical education need those things, and, you know, why not. Like I say, I'm not going to be pushing for reams of realism here and I don't want to waste a ton of time moving things around or justifying areas.

Anyway. To cut to the chase a little, I'd like to eventually add other buildings to the game - you know, the other blocks beside the one that the game takes place in. I'd also like to add a dormitory-like area. There are a lot of things that I'd like to add, actually, which is kind of why I needed to think out how the college works. In order to not turn the game into a huge maze, I'd make sure to make any future buildings easy to access and jump between - but, that's something to think about after I add them.

New Characters/Areas

So, new areas and new characters to inhabit them. We have the Event Room coming up for v1.2 which I'll start adding properly next year. It's going to be a cool thing, hopefully. If I can get it to work properly then it's going to be something that's going to be able to check what day/month it is in the real world and offer a seasonal event. If it's close to Halloween then there will be a Halloween party for example, or if it's the game's birthday then there might be an anniversary bash, or, you know - something for the in-universe equivalent of Christmas, or Easter, or whatever. I won't be using real-world events because the game doesn't take place in the real world, so - they'll be real world inspired instead. There'll also be some generic scenes and a new character to explore, which is Bellus the fae dragon.

I also want to add a gym or a court-style area. This will probably be added in v1.3. I'm not sure how big this will be or how many endings it will have or what the new character will be who will be inside of it - they'll be polled almost certainly so who knows - but it'll sit in the West Wing corridor on the opposite side of the pool area. I think that will round out J Block nicely.

I was kinda stuck on what to add beyond that, though. This is why I started thinking a little more deeply about what kinda college I had been making for the past three years. Now that I've done that, I have a much clearer idea of what I could potentially add to the game! 

The first thing that I'm going to do after finishing off J Block is a dorms-style area for v1.4. This will make it so that people can more easily commission their characters/OCs and add them to the game without having to worry about awkwardly squeezing them into a pre-existing area. 

The characters could be as complicated as having explorable rooms/bodies or it could just be like 'you squeeze underneath the door and you're squashed by <insert OC here>!' It would obviously depend on what people want to commission, but I think it would be cool and it would ultimately offer a ton of variety in species and dispositions and all that jazz.

It will be a few months before I do this most certainly, but, when I do, I'll probably do a prize draw or something dumb like that on here and see if a few people here would like to have their OCs added to the game (for free, besides Patreon admission I guess) as 'examples' of that.

After that... well, I think there's tons of room to explore other things, including entirely new buildings that will have entirely new things in them.

Something else that I wanted to point out was that I saw that a lot of the proposed family members that took place in last months poll were quite popular, so I wanted to let everyone know that I am definitely keeping some of them in mind to add as future characters as little 'surprises' down the road. Especially Andy's mom. Too many people liked her to not include her.

New Backgrounds

So, with a more solid idea of the college's concept and surrounds in my mind, I wanted to get a clearer picture of the college itself in my mind. To do this, I turned to Blender. It's been an incredibly useful program for doing things like this in A Tiny Furry On A Huge Quest, so I figured that attempting to model some areas of the college would put a clearer picture of them in my own - and everyone else's - minds.

I'm not super good with Blender yet, but, I would like to be, and in the process of modelling this area I've definitely improved in the program a lot. Don't get me wrong, I'm no expert, but I've learned lots of techniques that make things easier. The reason why I wanna learn more Blender is simple, really - it's a super useful tool for game development, not just for this game, but, for future ones. I'd love to make a more complicated 3D game at some point, so... learning the software - or, one of the pieces of software - that'll help me do that is only a good thing.

I've started putting together a bunch of areas already, but the one that is the most complete is the college's library. It still needs a couple of finishing touches here and there, but it's looking pretty good I think, so I'd like to show it off to everyone today. It's still a work in progress, though.

Here is the lobby of J Block! As you can see - maybe - J Block is represented by the mighty fox. Other blocks are represented by other animals, probably! From a shrunken perspective, it might look something like this, though.

I definitely want to fuck with the camera here to make the perspective more small, but like I say, it's a work in progress. You get the idea though, right?

And in game, it might look something like this!

Here's a comparison screenshot for what the lobby background currently looks like because why not. It's up to your eyes whether it looks better, of course - but I think the new background looks a lot better, personally.

Here are some more angles of the place.

There is a vending machine in the lobby - obviously - so it was important to incorporate it in the room somehow.

Don't mind the infinite void leading out into the skybox! Here are some sofas and a table with a couple of coffee cups on it. A nice little area to relax. Maybe someone will be relaxing there one day. Who knows?

Here's a close-up of the table and the leaflets and the old map that I put on the wall because I was feeling nostalgic.

Here's what the inside of the diner looks like currently. It's a very big work in progress as you can see.

The other door leads to the outdoor rest area, which is less of a work in progress than the diner, but, still a work in progress.

That's all I really have to show off right now, but I will be putting together all of the other areas too - the computer lab, the library, the corridors, the pool, the new gym area... and I'm sure of all of these will come with new challenges for me to surmount since Blender can be awkward as all hell. In the end, though, it will lead to me having a greater understanding of the college's layout and interior as well as giving me actual 'physical' spaces that I can spin a camera around and take a good look at. And, who knows - maybe, in the distant future, the game might become some bizarre 3D adventure text game hybrid. Doubtful, but you never know.

New Engine

This one is a while off, but I figured I'd drop something in about it.

I don't plan on making A Tiny Furry In A Huge World in Quest forever - or, at least, in the current version of Quest at the very least. While I am using the latest version of the software currently, there's been a new version in development for... a while. 

It's unclear as to if it's going to be coming out any time soon, but, if it does, my plan is to port my shit over to it as soon as possible. The reason for this is real simple - the newer version of Quest doesn't export to a .quest file, but, a .HTML. This is good for numerous reasons, the best one being that you won't need a Windows computer to play the game, or, indeed, a desktop/laptop at all - in theory, at least. You could run it off a mobile phone - or on a console if you were feeling especially daring - or, really, whatever you want, as long as it can view webpages.

However, like I said - this new version of Quest has been in development for a long time. I can't blame them for taking forever on it - it's entirely volunteer based and nobody is getting paid for it as far as I know - but I'm also planning on not relying on it's eventual release. If it comes down to it, I'll use one of another couple of engines that I've had an eye on that can do a similar thing. It would require learning a fair bit more about them and spending a fair amount of time porting stuff over, but I think it would be worth it in the end.

I want to future-proof my game so that it can be played for years and years to come. I also want it to be playable without relying on an antiquated program like Quest. On top of that, I want it to have more features and functions than Quest currently offers to me - like easier ways to navigate around, or better ways of displaying text and images, or, heck, proper resolution settings.

I am (re)learning to draw

Who knows what will come of this one, but I have recently thrusted myself into the world of digital art by getting a drawing tablet for Christmas that I can doodle on. I used to be able to draw decently, but it isn't something that I've really done for over a decade so I'm more than rusty, but I am enjoying the process of relearning. If I ever get confident in it I'll probably show some stuff off, or, maybe even use it in-game, hence why I am including it here. Being able to draw my own art would be wonderful, but it's hard to say whether I'll get to that point and I already have a bunch of other stuff on my plate, so...

Thank You

It's a little mushy, but I want to say thank you to everyone for the past three years. Whether you've been here for a couple of days or whether you've somehow been here for the whole three years that I've been doing this, I want to give you a big thank you for enjoying my work and for supporting me. 

You are my lifeblood - I would literally not be able to do this without you. Not just from a financial perspective, but from a creative one too - half of the fun of being able to create is having so many lovely people to show it to. I promise to keep pushing myself and bringing you all exciting new content, whether that's A Tiny Furry In A Huge World or A Tiny Furry On A Huge Quest or pretty much any game or story that I put out.

Oh geez I'm crying now! But in a good way, you know? I think it's about time I put a stopper on this post. It's like three thousand words long and I should probably give my wrists a break and go wipe my eyes.

Happy holidays, everyone! I'll be back with a poll this weekend!

by Xennademonorph on FA - festive hat added by Raruke