Progress Update - February 2nd, 2022

Hey there everyone, Halftilt here with a pretty exciting update!

Hestrir and I have started working together on a... Sex Framework for Darkest Dungeon?!

Yep, you heard that right. 

So, what does this mean?

First of all, it means that we're working on a Custom Class together that will be fully integrated with this sex framework. There will be spoilers and more details on her in the near future.

It may also delay my own custom class so that she may accommodate this framework as well.

Unfortunately, this is also going to put the Crimson Curse Overhaul on the back-burner. But, you can expect the bosses (like the Tentacle Mother & Priestess encounter) that I've been working on to be released relatively soon -- though there may be some delays to make sure they're integrated with this coming Sex Framework.

What is this going to look like?

So, given that sprites can't exactly be "on top of" each other and interact like in games such as NSFW. M.U.G.E.N.'s sex system -- it's going to require a bit of creative illustration and obfuscation from artists/animators.

If that's confusing, perhaps this screenshot will help:

So what's happening up there?
Note: This explanation is geared more towards mod creators.

Let's say you've got a dog monster (in this example, the vanilla hound) and you want it to have "sex" with any character that's integrated to have sex with hounds in the sex framework.
Then, what you'll want to do is set up the dog's ".art" file with a variable stating that this attack is for having sex with its target -- specifically that it's a dog having sex with its target. 

So, let's take its basic attack and say it's always trying to have sex with its target. So, if the target is integrated, it will play its "sex with hound" animation and if the target isn't integrated, it'll play its default "defend" animation instead.
This is achieved seamlessly by using the ".custom_target_anim" variable and setting it to (in this example) "sex_with_hound" on the hound's ".art" file.

What this means is that if the target has a sprite that corresponds to them having sex with a hound (named "sex_with_hound" in this instance). That sprite will play. If the target doesn't then their "defend" sprite will play. And if the ability misses, the "defend" animation will play regardless (integrated or not).

So how can this possibly be used universally?

It's going to require quite a bit of collaboration from other modders that want to be integrated into this sex framework. Animators/modders will have to follow a pretty strict and consistent naming method. It'll be assumed that any "fully integrated" character (hero or monster) will have a bunch of animations like "orgasming", "masturbating", "sex_with_tentacles", "sex_with_human_female", etc. 

It also allows any modder to opt out of certain animations and choose what kind of sex they want their characters to have. 

On the other hand, if an animator/modder just wants their character to be an aggressor, then they'll add the variables to their ".art" file for each "sex" ability and that's it.

As of right now I'm optimistic that far in the future this Framework (or one very similar to it) will be adopted across multiple heroes and monsters from the Darkest Dungeon modding community if this implementation succeeds.

Now Some Patreon Stuff

I mentioned this a while back in January that I plan on setting up a yearly subscription option; I should be rolling it out in the next week -- this'll switch our subscription mode to "charge-up-front". This won't affect any active subscribers, just any new ones.

Some Personal Stuff

Other than that, I'm taking a short vacation until the end of next week, so I won't be actively working on this Framework until around mid-February.

And that's about it!

Stay tuned for more updates and thanks so much for all of the support!