Progress Report

Greetings, everyone!

Since last week, I have finished writing and illustrating the scene from the prologue chapter I discussed in the previous progress report. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out and eagerly looking forward to seeing it in the game later. I have also made some progress on the music for that scene, but it hasn't been a priority.

I also spent significant time and effort working on the character arcs and backstories for the most important women you'll meet in this game. One significant difference between Supermodel and Long Live the Princess is that, as a fantasy setting, LLtP allowed me to just make up shit when I wanted to fill out details about history or the world. That is far less viable in Supermodel, which is based on our own world. Despite the clearly unnatural superpowers involved, I want every character and aspect of Supermodel to feel authentic. That means doing research. This week, Much of my time was spent digging into the gritty details of certain characters' backstories, how they would relate to the real world, and the physical and mental effects of the superpowers described in this game. This is not your typical superhero story where physics goes entirely out the window as soon as a superpower arrives. No, everything has consequences, even if their catalyst is an unexplainable phenomenon. What would the real-life side effects of someone moving at super speed be? How would physical invulnerability affect a person's mental state and growth? 

And that's just talking about superpowers. What about the other things that will clearly matter to this story, such as how an organization like STALWART is funded, who has an interest in its existence, what they would need to do their job, and so on? It all matters, even if it doesn't get mentioned at all in the game or merely in passing. The important thing is that I'm aware of these things so that any world-building I do is built on a rock-solid foundation. Nothing is left to chance here.

Luckily, my research has proven extremely valuable and has produced so much useful material that I won't lack inspiration while writing Supermodel's story. The central characters are now far better fleshed out in my mind, with more clearly defined arcs and origins. This will pay off, I guarantee it.

By now, you're probably wondering about the image attached to the top of this post. That's one of the other things I worked on this week. This image is a work-in-progress (but probably close to final) mockup of the new menu screen. If you have played Supermodel Snapshot 2.0 or later, you will have already seen how this menu will work. The main difference is that instead of the two characters in Snapshot, Supermodel will have seven! Furthermore, there will no longer just be card matches in their submenus but also chapters of the story. I will go into more detail on this later, but to summarize it real quick: Whenever you want to continue the story in Supermodel, you will choose a character to focus on and then select one of that character's story chapters. If that chapter is unlocked, you can play it anytime, even if you have been through it before. If it is locked, you will be told what other chapters or card matches you need to play before it will unlock for you.

These chapters will be arranged according to who is their primary focus. The POV characters will almost always (with a few exceptions) be Michael and Anna. Still, many chapters will focus on some other character, either seen from the POV characters' eyes or told via a narrator and seen in a third-person perspective. The prologue scene mentioned near the top of this post is one such third-person scene, with neither Michael nor Anna present to witness it. Each story chapter, as long as it is unlocked, can be played in any order, and you are unlikely to experience the depicted events chronologically. This is by design.

Anyway, the above image shows some characters in more detail than ever before, making this the first time all the central women (and Michael) are shown in normal light conditions and in costume. You might notice the strong contrast between this image and the preview from last week. In that image, the colors were flat and muted, while this image features stark contrasts and vibrant colors. This is how I want most of the game, with imagery that really sticks out. Expect most of the game to be brighter and more colorful than you're used to from LLtP. This comes in addition to the work I put in to avoid some of the most common pitfalls in Daz Studio renders, such as grey, lifeless skin and dead eyes. I feel like I've succeeded, but ultimately, your opinion is what matters the most.

Anyway, it's back to work for me!

Until next time!