Dev Log — August 2024

Hi everyone!

Last month I decided to take a different approach to the game's development and began making the game more approachable for new players. The PvE overhaul is vast and it's very difficult to gauge when it's "good enough" for the Steam release, and another game developer and friend of mine suggested that I finish up the other things I needed for the release first, so when I get to the PvE overhaul I can release it when I want to or need to.

It's also been a tough month and it's near impossible to find any work because of the recession in the game industry. Companies are in a panic and many people are out of a job, and I'm also feeling the pressure for the game to be released on Steam and for it to have a good reception. It's not that players on Steam are overly critical of their lewd games, but any free-to-play game attracts a lot of general attention and will get slaughtered in the reviews if it doesn't have a general appeal, which is making me hesitant about releasing the game on Steam without a strong PvE element.

But adult games are also popular on itch.io, and I've noticed people on itch.io seem much more welcoming of games that are still in development. So I've decided to change gears and focus on a release for itch.io with an early iteration of the PvE overhaul, and give myself a less overwhelming milestone to look towards!

Dynamic Avatars

We've made progress on the dynamic avatars and we're finally at a point where I am happy with the base models for the different physiques! We're moving on to testing breasts, genitalia, and rigging in Live2D and I will share more examples with you once we have the basics implemented on the test server. From there, we will start adding clothes, facial features, and allowing for customizable skin color.

I expect we'll have a beta version of the dynamic avatars in the near future for beta testers to play around with on the test server and later on the live servers. Beta testers will be able to switch between which avatar they prefer, and when the feature is eventually fully supported, it will be released for everyone!

From left to right: Muscular, curvaceous lean, slim, voluptuous.

Artistry

I've been working on a new skill for the game called artistry, which is about repurposing items into improvised weapons, such as a shrink ray or maybe a VR headset that can be used to reprogram other students. It also allows you to create a myriad of vibrators and other electronic sex toys from parts salvaged from junk items found in the upcoming PvE overhaul.

Salvaging is an ability that works similarly to when you sell items to a vendor, but instead of selling the items, they are deconstructed into components that can be used with the Artistry ability. 

Artistry will open a unique crafting window, where you must combine components in order to reveal and discover new recipes. Combining a microcontroller and a laser component will create a ray gun, a simple and useless toy. But by adding some enchanted dust as the magical glue, and a battery as a power source, you can create an experimental prototype with unknown magical properties.

You must then test your prototype to figure out what it does and learn how to create more powerful versions of it. But beware, prototypes are volatile and prone to backfire and malfunction!

The Artistry skill still requires more work and content, but the basic logic is in place! I also implemented logic for items that cannot be traded, such as prototypes, which you must test yourself. When you discover a recipe, such as a shrink ray, you will be able to create a version that can be traded with other players. However, these items can only be traded once, to prevent speculation in their market value and make sure these items are only bought by players who want to use them. It also means if you sell or gift a powerful item to someone else, you know they won't sell it for profit. You will still be able to salvage such items for a fraction of their original cost if you're done with it.

The padlock icons in the bottom-left corner of the item tooltip will appear when trading is limited. The icon within the padlock is also found on crowns. An closed padlock means the item cannot be traded, while an open padlock means it becomes untradeable after being traded with another player.

Tips & Onboarding

I've added tips to the game to help onboard new players and tell them what they need to know about various aspects of the game so they feel less lost after the prologue ends. Tips will replace the prologue as a tutorial for the game, which will instead focus on setting the stage for the game and delivering a compelling start to the story.

Anonymous Players & Solo Mode

The game now supports anonymous users so players can start playing the game without having to register an account first, another step towards making it easier for new players to join our community as I realize many people shy away the moment they are prompted to make an account for an adult game, even if they don't need to use an email for their account.

The website doesn't currently have a pipeline for creating these anonymous accounts, which will be added with the itch.io release so players can jump right into the game from itch.io in the future.

Players will still need to pick a username before they can use any of the game's social features, however, and players will be able to set their username from within the game.

Furthermore, I have added complete solo mode support to any player in the game, which allows players to change whether they want to encounter other players in the world. The avoid encounter option when changing locations now avoids any encounter, without having to enable solo mode for other aspects of the game.

I've come to realize that the nature of how encounters are basically PvP, the game has never given players a choice between a PvP or PvE server, and I think more players will enjoy the game if they can decide whether they want to opt into world PvP, similar to War Mode in World of Warcraft.

With the introduction of solo mode, I've also added support for character-specific settings, which can be used for content filters, solo mode, and the roleplay tag.

Action Bars

I've implemented action bars on the test server, which are highly customizable and allow players to list and use spells and items without having to constantly open their spellbook or inventory!

If you place an item into an action bar, it will display its actual color and will also show the appropriate magical effect background (the blue stars for magical, and red stars for hexed). If the item is stackable, it will also show a counter for the total number of items you have of that kind in your inventory.

By default, the game has two rows with 5 action bar buttons each near the bottom-center of the screen, but you can add another 11 action bars using settings. Some of them are located outside the game's container, so players who have additional space either below or on either side of the screen can use the void space for additional buttons. These buttons can also be set as oversized, which makes them appear larger than the action bars inside the game container. I imagine this will be useful for players on mobile devices, and I'm also working on macros that will allow players to write their own action buttons for common interactions, which can also be used to create buttons for opening the inventory and other screens on devices that can't make use of hotkeys. 

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That's all for this month's dev log! I'll continue to work towards the next big release, and once I'm done with macros, I'll start working on things for the PvE overhaul again and on the embedded game client for itch.io!

The itch.io release is honestly going to be a lot easier to make because I won't have to deal with the Steam SDK and I can also postpone sound and music for the game, which is expected on Steam, but less so on itch.io

Between making headway on the game and having to constantly visit family over the summer, I haven't been able to find a good time to stream in a while! I really miss it and I hope I'll catch a break soon and be able to stream one of the coming weekends!

Thank you so much for all your support and I hope you're looking forward to being able to decorate your user interface with all sorts of colorful icons! ❤️

Cheers,

Tinon