[Devlog] Lewd Dragon Game 0.1.07.0 ALPHA

Orifice overhaul, new toys and major performance fixes!

Orifices won in a landslide against the trouser snake tune-up in the latest poll. So naturally I got busy and spent a fair amount of time researching existing methods, and coming up with what I wanted the final product to look like. I wanted a result that once a gadget was parked in the garage, it stayed parked. I also didn’t want a simple stiff experience, like jamming a broomstick into a mail slot.

As ambitious as it was, it turned out to be fairly simple when working backwards. Just gotta break it down into steps and account for all the ways someone might try to, uh, test the system. In the end, the solution was calculating a series of splines that depended on one another to generate a list of transforms for the mesh to follow. Because it was all mathematical, it naturally worked on Quest! Which genuinely surprised me.

And with this new entryway system comes the next generation of plug-and-play tech. I’m starting it off simple and will be iterating as time goes on. We’re launching with 4 test units: a majestic stallion-themed implement, a classic wand, a chain of jingly baubles, and a good ol’ cork-style stopper.

What’s nice about the new system is that it’s size-flexible. It doesn’t discriminate. It just gets the job done. That said, there is a visual limit to what the characters can reasonably tolerate… You can’t back a freight train into a garden shed and expect everything to go smoothly. Well—you can… but should you? That’s another story. At a certain point, the mesh itself throws up its hands and says “I’m out.”

Anyway—Quest users. You’ve been through it. I’m sorry. The last patch had a code tangle that really scrambled the experience on Quest… but not PCVR. That’s now fixed, and it actually feels like a game again instead of watching someone else play on a floating TV.

Quest 2 folks, rejoice! We’re hitting near max framerate! I had to undergo complete EGO DEATH and buy a few highly optimized environments made for the Metaverse just to make that happen. Even with all my experience, it’s still a nightmare trying to get Quest levels to both look decent and run well.

For now, the best path forward is to adapt these VR showroom levels while I keep focusing on the good stuff—dragons, vibes, and all the spicy nonsense that brings us together.