Clown Control

Promo Art Poll + Credits reminder!

Happy New Years! The update is almost ready, just sanding some edges and buffing the hood. So like we said in the retrospective, we're doing another promo art for this update...a New Year's Kiss! Which means we need TWO people to be voted on (and yes, Joker's an option this time!)

Here's a link to the poll.

And here's a link to the credits. If you've filled out the credits for past updates, you don't need to fill them out a second time.

--LG

Joker's Trip 2025 Retrospective

Hey! LG here. Hope the winter holidays are treating you well. Before I get into the retrospective, an update on the next update. We effectively tripled the dialog in Joker's Trip, added a new Joker scene, and added a new mechanic where girls can leave once they earn enough dough (as well as a bunch of other things). The initial test build for QA was finished last week and revealed we still have a few big bugs to squash, so we’ll be pushing this update to January instead of competing with the holidays. Our playtesters have loved it so far though, and we're excited to share it with you!

In the meantime, enjoy this Reindeer Rosalie that would have gone with the update! We'll come up with a new prompt and poll for you to vote on when we're actually for realsies ready to launch the next build.

To get on with the retrospective...

When this year started I was out of a job for several months, and thought “any day now I’ll get back on my feet and get a new gig again!” This wouldn’t happen until August. Three to five applications a day from October 2024, with a final count of nearly 900 job applications over the course of 2024-2025. 

So you know. I had some free time. 

Joker’s Trip is a game I technically started 3 years ago. I was feeling like I was hitting a dead end with how overworked I was at a shit company, and was failing to make any of my game ideas. TT was the one to actually tell me "just make something simple first, like blackjack." So then I did! I made the prototype and then…! 

I put down the project and picked it back up pretty sporadically. The rate of progress Sky Rocketed once I was unemployed, partly from free time, partly from a manic need to do Anything other than job apps.

I was worried about it to be honest. Instead of learning skills for the jobs I was applying for, I was working on a game that I wasn’t even sure would make back what I put in (at this point a few grand for initial art assets). But the thing I realized was that I was having fun. I liked writing for these characters, I liked learning how to model and texture, I liked making a gambler’s ability and seeing it work. And then I realized that for the past eight years as a programmer, this was the First time I felt fulfilled in what I was doing.

A few lessons I learned. One, no one will care about your ideas until they have it in front of them. This isn't me griping, it's completely fair. I've always had a weird presence online, being friends with a lot of really cool artists and writers but never making anything myself, so I'd remain largely ignored. Then I put out Field Report! And remained largely ignored. Which was also fine, it's a hard ask to be like "hey give me, guy you've never heard of, $5 for a book." It wasn't until Joker's Trip released that I got feedback, and it was positive feedback! People liked the characters I wrote and my jokes landed, what more could I ask for? The fact people had FAVORITES out of the cast was new to me, I felt like I did my job correctly. 

Lesson two: if you think you can Simply Write A VN, no. Nah. Dude. The amount of writing dialog it takes to make a video game is always going to be significantly more than you think. I thought I wrote plenty for the initial release of Joker's Trip, I spent a lot of time on it! Wanna know how much more dialog there is now, compared to the first build? Six times. And we still don't feel like it's enough. Thankfully we learned this lesson early, so the bar conversations won't be a nasty surprise, but still! If you want a taste of what it's like, I want you to take a generic comment or action, like "I'm going to go out," and write 20 different ways to say it that are all different. Then do that again for 50 more actions. Then scrap some when you realize that some of those events will never be used and, and, and–

Lesson three: you've gotta be able to write and code through writer's block. You gotta be able to do that at the drop of a hat, no matter how you feel, no matter how empty the inspo tank is. Inspiration cannot be the fuel for your process. Don't get it twisted, inspiration is insanely important. Playing Deltarune this year really boosted my drive to do better with Joker's Trip in ways I'm thankful for. But. But. If you want to be serious about a project, you can't say, "Ah, I'm not inspired enough to write 20 dialog nodes today. I don't feel like adding that piece of logic today." Ya kinda just gotta sit down and do.

With all of those lessons combined, the biggest take away I had from this year and from Joker's Trip is: that adage of "the best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago, the next best time is today" is truer than you think. Just sit down, plan something out on paper, then open your game engine of choice and do. No excuses of not being ready or "oh but I'm saving this idea for when I'm established." Start simple and Go.

I could never imagine being where I'm at with Clown Control, and I'm so thankful for TT, my friends, and for YOU, the gorgeous person reading this. I'm going to keep going strong and improve, iterate, and develop on Joker's Trip. Look forward to all the bar stories, boys, and babes in the coming year <3

--LG

---------

yeah okay i guess it’s my turn.

it’s true, joker’s trip started as me telling leo to stop making these huge projects they’d never finish and start on something small. program A Functioning Game before you start commissioning the art for CGs. and now here we are. working on a huge project that only gets bigger with every iteration, largely because of me going ‘i would be willing to do that’ and then i have to Do That. 

23 sex scenes, 6 (technically 10) character sprites, 5 crowd sprites, multiple drink sprites, background sprites, environment designs, chip designs, particle effects, assets assets assets oh my GOD the assets. leo up there was talking about how you will always need more dialogue than you think you do and now i’m here to tell you that you’ll always need more art than you think you do. you will always need to do more work than you think you will. it’s FUN work. but oh my god it’s endless.

as Basically The Product Manager—because leo needs somebody to keep them on target so they don't spend their dev time redesigning the casino floor for the 8th time—there’s a lot of things i wish we’d done better to streamline production. best practices. things you ought to plan ahead, like. what the story progression actually looks like. or what your final cast would look like. or like—did you know that all the sprites and the cgs were originally shaded. like, baked in, painted shading. i don’t know why i did that. i don’t draw like that normally. it made it a bitch to edit anything. so i went back and recolored the whole thing (at the time, the 4 starting girls and all their layers and the 12 scenes between them). and if i’d just had a brain at the beginning i wouldn’t have had to do that!

still. it’s amazing that the game is Real now. still very early access, still very rough. but damn if it ain’t something you can play and have fun with! that’s more than i’ve ever done before! like every comic artist ever born i’d entertained the “i’m gonna make a VN!” idea and learned basic ren’py and cobbled together some bullshit that didn’t go anywhere. i’ll admit, i’d thought this project would end up the same way, because that’s how these things always go! but damned if leo didn’t make it happen. they’ve put so much work into this and it’s soooooo cool when they fix a bug and it just works. i don’t know dick about programming and i’m not about to learn. it’s magic.

we’ve been at this Publicly for about 3/4 of a year (i believe we launched this patreon in march or april) and in that time we’ve added an entire new character, ability mechanics, and have, as leo mentioned, multiplied the amount of dialogue in the game by six. and we’re about to add an entire other mechanic with the bar that’ll basically allow real story progression. NARRATIVE. my god. we’re really gonna have to sit down and make some flowcharts soon. can’t wait.

and i can’t wait for you guys to go with us there. we’re SO appreciative of your support and patience as we bang rocks together to bring you pictures of banging and cocks. thank you, sincerely, for sticking around.

--TT

December Update Promo Poll!

hey!! it's been--wow it's been a month to the day. WELL we were hard at work all that time and we're excited to say we're finally wrapping up with our goals for this update, which have been BIG! i can confidently say joker's trip is going to feel like a much richer experience with all the additions we've made to the dialogue system, which includes new flags, new visual effects, and TRIPLE the amount of dialogue previously in the game. even joker got a total overhaul to how his dialogue works! he says DIFFERENT THINGS now.

we're really looking forward to giving you this new build in the next two weeks, which means it's PROMO POLL TIME!

WHO'S UP HOLLYING THEY JOLLY?

--TT

Devlog #15 - Girl Talk

heyyyyy it's a check in from your favorite chickens. we've been hard at work on the dialogue update, which is admittedly not a very glamorous process and there's not a ton to talk about that we didn't cover in the devlog about the dialogue studio. but we're just about at our halfway point, so we thought it'd be a good idea to share some of our favorite additions, and talk about some new flags and changes!

a big one is a new trigger: "DEAL_CONVO". you may recall from our survey about dialogue that we asked when you'd want longer conversations to trigger. the way it currently works (with what little we'd written) is that there's always a chance for a longer conversation to trigger during the deal phase, in between all the "gimme a card" variations every character has.

now, it's going to be a rare chance that at the end of each deal round, the characters may start talking to each other. this is where we'll have them talk about their lives, hobbies, or each other--stuff that'll let you get to know them and their dynamics a bit better.

here's one between meredith and noriko:

and one between rosalie and joker:

we've written a whole lot of these so far and it's been a Ton of fun. but we've also taken a look at where the characters needed more dialogue. we were stunned to discover that for a lot of the triggers (got a good hand? lost a round? pulled a natural 21?) the characters only had like, 3-5 lines. that's NOTHING. so we've been working on padding things out a bit better. one of the big ones is the START dialogue--the first things the characters say to you when the game begins.

here's one from prill that takes advantage of the new "PRESENT" flag. the characters now know who's at the table with them, or in this case, who's not!

possibly the biggest change we'll be making with this update is that the gamblers can now... actually win money. one of the questions that's come up a lot (and has been plaguing Us in turn) was "why do they stay at the table when they run out of money if they can't actually earn more? why don't they leave?"

the answer is now: they Can [LG: again]. gamblers can now continue earning money after they start stripping, and leave the table when they reach a winnings threshold, different to each character. each item of clothing will be assigned a monetary value, and can be offered as collateral on a bet. for example, if syd bets her boots and wins, she'll get money And keep her boots. but if she bets her boots and loses... there go the boots! during the strip phase, any money they earn, they get to keep, so while things will get spicier, they'll also get riskier for you as the dealer. you don't want them to hit that threshold before you've totally stripped them!

but if they do... we've got dialogue for that too.

we'll definitely be looking for feedback on this new mechanic once it's been added, so look forward to that! it should add a level of challenge to the game it was somewhat lacking (and therefore make it easier to lose and get the joker scenes! which will be relevant for this update as well...)

so far we've added roughly 293 new dialogue nodes, and our goal is to double that by the time the update is complete. we want this game to feel RICH. thank you for your patience as we plug away at it!

--TT

RESULTS: We're Building A Bar!

the votes are IN and we can finally stop tearing our hair out over whether it would end up tied. you guys did not make it easy for us. 109 responses and a difference of three votes decided it. 40-43! (with 26 for outfits) we really did not think it would be this close.

SO WHAT DOES THIS MEAN!

it means we're gonna be working on the bar! the bar will (ultimately) be the main hub for character and story progression, featuring longer conversations between joker and the gamblers to discover their backstories and reasons for being at the casino. it'll be how you unlock new scenes and dialogue for the table, and how you access and acquire new drink abilities. and whatever other sexy things we attach to it.

so there's a lot of work to do! it's going to require designing and modeling an entire new location within the casino, a lot of additional programming, and a handful of art assets. most of it is stuff leo's in charge of, so i'm getting off pretty easy compared to the other two poll options... of course, i'll be keeping busy writing more game dialogue and further developing boys and outfits :]

OH THANK GOD WE'LL STILL GET BOYS?

you will still get boys! you were always going to get boys. the boys will be the next update after the bar. outfits will be placed on the backburner for now, but they're also the sort of thing i can just Do here and there, so when the time comes for the programming, the art could potentially be done. noriko's first alt outfit already exists, for example.

but yeah! boys! they're real! they're out there! they're coming!

WHEN'S THE DIALOGUE UPDATE COMING OUT?

dunno! we're taking our time! as you'll recall leo started a new Real Job around the time we finished meredith and announced our intentions, and balancing that and joker's trip development is a lot! getting the dialogue studio into a state where i could easily use it took a few more weeks than we thought, but it's functional and in my hands and i've been hacking away at my Quests.

(less than half of what i've been assigned)

so things are moving! slowly, but they're moving, and i think you'll really like a lot of the new lines and jokes. we're having fun and so will you :]

that's all! we'll keep you informed on where we're at and what we're up to. in all likelihood we'll be working on this and the bar concurrently so we'll still have regular devlogs for you.

OKAY THANK YOU LOVE YOU

we love you too stay safe on the playground

--TT

Reminder: Direction Voting closes this Friday!

A while back we put out a survey for High Roller tier members to vote on the next Major Update to Joker's Trip. As a refresher, we gave you the choice between adding outfits, adding a bar VN mode, and adding boys.

This survey will now be ending this Friday at 12 PM EST! The reason? We're making headway in the next update, but the update after that also requires a decent bit of prep work, which means actually knowing what that will be. And you guys have made that kind of hard.

Because it's perfectly tied between Bars and Boys

How did you all manage this??? Every time we checked and one was ahead, the next day it'd tie again! We're hoping that by giving you a hard deadline, we can break this tie.

Good luck! May the horniest win.

-LG

Devlog #14 - The Dialog Studio

Imagine if you will, being asked to write three characters. No not "abc" but three fully realized fictional characters with hopes and dreams. Each character has 10 events where they need to be able to say some kind of line, and each event needs at least 5 lines that deliver who they are as a person without coming off as one-note. 

That's 150 lines of dialog! Woof. But at least you typed it all out in your favorite word processor and you can just hand it over to the developer!

Wait. You didn't add tags. You need to add <i> and <b> when applicable. Also the custom tags that make the game work, like <?express=HAPPY,DEF> and <?fexpress=THINK> and <?HAS_CLOTH=CLOTH_BRA_bra>.

After going through each of those one hundo and fiddy lines, referencing a handy text doc that lists all the custom tags, and making sure there's no typos in the text or the tags (there will be, anyway) you can finally send it to the dev—

Oh. It has to be in a spreadsheet. And no spreadsheet program works the way a human being would want it to work. Whatever. It's just busy work.

After 150 copy and pastes, configuring the spreadsheet, and making 3 huge csv files, you're finally ready to hand it in.

Then the dev adds the ability for characters to have multiple line conversations.

You want them dead.

Then the horror dawns on you. There’s five characters now. 

With 45 events each. 

And games are 21 rounds so you need to have more than five lines to avoid repetition.  

10 by 5 by 45 is 2250 dialog nodes, on average 2-3 lines of dialog due to conversations between the character, other characters, and Joker. 4500 to 6750. Christ. 

Then more horror dawns on you. You're the sole programmer. This is your fault.

But that's ok! It's great, actually. Because YOU have the power to right these wrongs and write this right. 

The dialog studio is something made out of necessity. My co-writer, TT, doesn’t have knowledge of the game's code, and I want this tool to make it as easy as possible for us to work on dialog. The easier dialog is to write, the more of it there will be. (Also one day I want people to be able to mod characters into the game, and I know that the easier the tools, the more willing people will be to try. Buuut I’m getting ahead of myself.)

Step numero uno, you choose a dialog sheet, which is separated by speaker.

Step two, you choose an event (or add your own!). These are the key words for what happens when. START happens when the game starts, BETTING happens when they bet money, HIT_BLOCK is what happens when you fail a Hit taunt, etc. You can think of it as the "category" of dialog as well.

You can review dialog nodes, and if you click one you can edit it! If you want to add new dialog nodes to the event, just press the + sign

Here is where the magic happens! When you write a line of dialog you can add it to the list of dialogs in the “dialog node”. You can even move them around and delete lines. 

Up top is a modal that serves as a cheat sheet for some important info: clothing strip playlists and character expressions. 

And now for the real hero of this tool, The Grid Of Buttons. By far the most annoying part of writing dialog is managing the tags. Nearly every typo bug report we’ve gotten was from a single out of place tag or misspelling of said tag. With the buttons it’s way harder to mess it up, since nobody’s typing them!

What do all these buttons mean? Let’s break it down. 

Speaker tags: Very powerful, it’s what enables a conversation to happen if that character is present. The default speaker will always be the character who owns the dialog sheet, unless the speaker tag is used, or an asterisk is at the start of a dialog line (to denote joker). 

Expression tags: the meat and potatoes of dialog, they’re what bring characters to life! The expression tag works on the current speaker of that line, since you only ever see one character at a time. If you hit the “full” button, it’ll assign the preset for that emotion. You can also split it by eyes and mouths, for more bespoke emotions. This boosts the amount of possible expressions from 9 to 81 per character! Joker has his own set of them. 

Now we’re getting into the “check” tags. Dialogs are picked at random. These tags have one purpose: if the condition doesn’t pass, don’t use this line of dialog and go back to look for one that passes inspection. 

Clothing tags: does the current speaker have or not have X article of clothing? This one’s important because it’s what will enable sexy dialog by letting the game know THIS line of dialog is for when Syd is only in her panties. 

Money tag: does the speaker have less than, more than, or exactly X amount of money? A way to know if a character is on a hot streak or eating it. 

Round tags: is it past the fourth round? Are we on the first one? How about the last? This can add urgency or guarantee a line will only happen at the start of the game. 

There’s plenty more I won’t get into, but you can see how all of these combined can lead to more immersive dialog. Press "Finish & Add", and viola, character now has: new dialog.

Things to improve:

1. The Look of it is a bit shit. I never sat down to really design it, and it's an 'admin' tool so it doesn't matter right now. Buuuuuuuuut it'd be nice to not look so. Periwinkle.

2. A whole csv of dialog in your browser isn't good for memory. I need to work on some sort of lazy loading system, or figure something else out. It's crashed before and will likely crash again.

3. Hot key support for common tags like making the speaker Joker.

4. Markdown tags like italics, size, and the animated text tags I use in unity. 

Sometimes software development is a lot like civil engineering. You have to build a scaffolding or an entire other structure just to start on the project you're actually being paid for. But that's not really the case, is it? You're being paid to make a building, and those auxiliary structures are part of the labor. Engineering is about balancing costs, resources and time. I can write a program that helps me organize and write dialog faster than doing it raw and reviewing for errors over, and over, and over again between two people. If I was writing all the dialog by myself and I didn't plan on getting mods working? I might not have made this tool, because I'm used to writing with tags and code, so less time would be spent on the two person review process.

My goal with Joker's Trip from the start was to treat it like a professional project. I've been applying all those software engineering skills I picked up at my day job over the past decade, and I think it's been paying off.

Let me know what ya'll think!

-LG

it makes me fucking insane that LG spells dialogue this way 

-TT

You'll get over it.

-LG

Devlog #13 - Dialogue Survey Breakdown

or at least a breakdown of the responses we got in the first week. you're still free to respond to it if you haven't already! we will continue checking it regularly.

i wanted to do a write up of the current results, partially to leo and i's benefit to clearly see what's being asked for, and partly because i'm sure you guys would find it interesting. as far as i can tell we don't really have a community so much as a bunch of individual players, so outside of the results of votes and surveys like this, you don't really know what your fellow clowns are thinking about the game.

the good news is, most of you are thinking the same thing.

you want these girls hornier.

the most common requests were for reactions to stripping, the crowd's appearance, and other players being grabbed by the crowd. you want to see them be more embarrassed about losing their clothes around other people, and you want them to be flirting with each other. we couldn't agree more. we have not been especially horny with the dialogue at the fuck casino, despite everyone at the fuck casino knowing they are at a fuck casino. they should be hornier.

fortunately, the conversation system makes it extremely easy to write them responding to each other and the crowd, and the new dialogue studio makes it possible for lines to be triggered based on the clothing worn (or not worn). you've probably noticed some specific lines for Meredith relating to whether she's keeping her frock on until the last minute, like how every character has a chance of saying "Finally" when it's the last thing she takes off. this is the new system in action! this also makes it possible for joker to taunt them differently based on how many items of clothing they're wearing. lots of fun options to play with, and we've barely scratched the surface.

beyond horniness, we also saw some requests for characters to react to where they're at in the game, or to how others are doing. characters getting nervous as the game goes on, or feeling confident because the game's barely started. or maybe somebody else lost, and they won, and they want to rub it in. or maybe they want to just take a shot at somebody, but it's only worth doing if they're actually at the table. things that don't hugely impact the game, but would contribute to making them feel more aware.

we've added tags for those too!

prill can now react to it being exactly round 8, or earlier than round 8, or later than round 8. you know, in case we think of a reason to use that.

speaking of prill...

looks like you guys think she needs more lines the most. other than joker, who so completely obviously needs more variations of the same five lines he says that leo is rewriting his handler code to make that possible. he was (until the next update) basically baked into the game, this would give him a dialogue sheet like the rest.

this question was more out of curiosity, since we're probably going to end up being even-handed with everybody when we start writing. our interpretation of the data is less 'prill doesn't have enough lines' and more 'everybody loves prill's jokes and they want more of them'. it makes sense for noriko and meredith to be the lowest since they've been played with the least, though i'm pretty sure noriko actually needs the most help.

lastly, we asked you what you want to see the girls talk about. the big three responses we got were:

• hobbies/their lives outside the casino

• why they're at the casino

• worldbuilding

all very reasonable things to be interested in! we're more likely to explore these in the bar update, where we can have longer conversations with the characters without grinding the gameplay to a halt. given the nature of the table is to play again and again, anything that involves continuity or the progression of a plot will likely be tied to bar scenes where it's easier to guarantee what's seen in what order. but we'll still see where we can fit in comments about rosalie's flowershop, or noriko's job, or what's going on with this weird casino.

--

we've come really far with the dialogue system since we first launched! at the very beginning, there was a generic sheet that every character could pull dialogue from, meaning the characters would often talk the same way when doing their actions or being taunted. they didn't have dialogue specific to what they were betting or what they were losing. they couldn't acknowledge other characters at the table. very limited!

even when we added reactions, we had to write around a very rigid format. reactions could only be one line and couldn't prompt a response from the first character. sure, noriko could notice she and rosalie trim their bush the same way, but they couldn't actually talk about it.

the conversation system as it currently exists is way more robust, allowing for really specific triggers and circumstances that will make the characters feel way more aware and alive. we're currently still polishing the dialogue studio tool; your feedback and all these new triggers has meant we need a slight reorganization of the insert-code-here buttons. leo will be making a devblog about it sometime next week, after which we should be able to get properly started.

in the meantime, keep sending us feedback if you haven't already! and vote in the $7 direction survey! i'm currently dual wielding boy development and bar design because we still don't know which is gonna win!

--TT

SURVEYS REMINDER!

hey! you've had a week with those surveys, but we've heard from less than half of you! we want more!!!! more responses!!

here's a link to the DIALOGUE SURVEY post. we've received 31 responses... out of over 200 people eligible to respond! don't get me wrong, what we've already received has been super useful, and has led to us adding several new triggers for dialogue. we just want more~ tomorrow i'll be sitting down to do a write up of the most common feedback we've received, and how we plan to address it. so if you wanna be in that post, respond! (though you'll still be able to afterward, of course)

and here's a link to the DIRECTION SURVEY post for our $7 people. this one... this one we Really need more of you to vote on. 74 of you have voted, out of about 160 eligible to respond. and folks. Folks. there is currently one vote between us adding male characters to the game, and us starting on the VN bar update. one vote! ONE VOTE.... never let anyone tell you your vote doesn't matter. this is driving us crazy. PLEASE vote.

okay love u bye

--TT

Joker's Trip Dialogue Survey

hi! it's me! TT! and i'm here with a survey about dialogue in Joker's Trip! as mentioned, leo and i will be spending the next month or so beefing up the dialogue to take advantage of our various new systems for interactions, conversations, etc. it's been a long time coming and we can't wait to start!

but first, we want to hear from you, our players, what you think needs focusing. what dialogue triggers do you think need the most help? what moments had you go "it would have been so funny if they said something about this"? and what would you like to hear them talk about?

CLICK HERE to fill out our google form and let us know your thoughts! and feel free to comment below if there's anything you think we forgot to ask or doesn't fit into any of the questions. this is an open call for any feedback related to dialogue!

IT'S ALSO WORTH MENTIONING...

the $7 high rollers will be determining what we do next in development, and how often we update. they've received their own survey, in which they'll be voting whether we start the visual novel bar system, add alternate outfits and costumes, or begin introducing male characters. they'll have until we finish the dialogue update to vote.

you can find their survey here, if you upgrade your tier!

thank you for your help in making Joker's Trip the best it can be!

--TT

Joker's Trip Direction Survey (IMPORTANT)

hi all, it's TT, it's survey time, and i don't use that big (IMPORTANT) lightly! this survey is to help us determine where we put our focus next, and how we should deliver updates as our cast grows. CLICK HERE to go to our google form and fill out the survey! the deadline for responding is "whenever we finish the dialogue update" and we don't know when that'll be, so it's better to respond sooner than later. luckily it is literally just two questions!

below (and on the form) are the 3 directions we can go for the next stage of development. like most things we let you vote on, they'll all happen eventually. but we want to know what to do next.

Start the Bar System

This would add a bar where you can have one-on-one conversations with the characters in a visual novel format. This would let you get to know more about them and their lives away from the blackjack table, and potentially unlock new scenes, story progression, and drink abilities as we develop it further. An initial bar update would add the new location and at least one conversation with each character currently in the game.

Add Outfits

This would add functionality for alternate outfits. These would range from simple changes of clothing to special event costumes, such as holiday themes, and will present different difficulty ratings depending upon the number of items worn (Ex: Noriko currently has 5 items. Her second outfit has 8.) Clothing updates would potentially fill long development gaps, and special outfits may have new scenes and dialogue to go with them. Special outfits would be voted on by patrons. An initial outfit update would add a second basic outfit to each character currently in the game.

Add Male Characters

It's been the plan for a while to add male characters to the cast. This option would have us push it up in the schedule. While this is lower in overall complexity, it can delay the development of other game features due to the growing cost of parity, but you'd get hot boys to look at. This option would mean a vote between 2 new male characters, a new promotional video, and the addition of the winning character--with a new sprite, new scenes, and new dialogue. This does not mean we're finished adding girls.

as mentioned in the last option, parity is a concern. so we're also asking if you would prefer to wait longer for bigger updates where everybody gets new content, or if you'd prefer smaller updates that add content for select characters at a time.

so let us know what you want!

(note: this is separate from the dialogue survey, which is going to everybody. you guys get TWO surveys to respond to, lucky ducks)

--TT

Meredith's Here!

The Meredith Update has just launched for the Build and High Roller tiers! Subscribe for $5 to get access to the latest build, or $7 to participate in an upcoming feature vote (and play the new build). As a $3 supporter, you'll only have to pay the difference to bump up your tier.

WHAT'S NEW!

Meredith! Duh! But in terms of new content, she brings with her a new strip sprite, a crowd sprite, and 4 new unlockable scenes! We hope you'll have fun stripping her layer after layer--she has a whopping nine items to get through, and she's no fool. Good luck getting to the heart of this goth mommy!

WHAT ELSE?

Strip Playlists! We've added new functionality to the way the girls choose what items to strip. No longer will they always go in the same order every time, but they'll instead be assigned one of multiple "playlists". Syd might save her sexy leather jacket for last, or you might catch Prill in just her robe. Rosalie might not even wait to get her dress off to kick away those panties. I (TT) have wanted something like this ever since I first designed their strip sprites. There's something so inherently sexy about turning a girls' layers on and off and discovering new combinations. You actually have Kim, the loser of the last poll, to thank for this function being added.

WHAT'S NEXT?

Joker's Trip is a very character and dialogue focused game, and we've been slowly refining our toolset to give ourselves as many opportunities for interesting interactions as we can. Reactions and conversations between characters are now possible, plus dialogue based on what specific items a character is or isn't wearing (another new feature tied to the strip playlists!) We've even added functionality that should prevent you from seeing the same joke five times in one round.

We finally have a working dev tool that makes writing dialogue significantly easier than it used to be. Previously, me and Leo would scratchpad in a google doc and they'd have to go through and manually add all the text tags and then manually add them to an excel sheet. Miserable. Now we don't have to do that! Writing dialogue has never been easier! So we want to spend an update doing nothing else! I'm sure those of you that have been playing the game for a while are sick of seeing the same taunts and responses over and over. We feel the same way!

We'll be spending the next month or so just writing new dialogue and refining the dialogue that's already there. All patrons should keep an eye out for a survey asking what you think needs the most love. $7 patrons will be determining what we do after the dialogue update, and will be receiving their own special survey soon as well.

Join us at Build or above to meet Meredith!

Joker's Trip Patreon Release - v 0.2.3: Meredith! (UPDATED HOTFIX)

UPDATE 9/28: Fixed Meredith's crowd sprite issues, fixed a few typos

UPDATE: The post now has version 0.2.2, a hotfix enabling Joker's gallery tab and updating the patron credits!

Hooray! She's finally here! Our very first voter-chosen character, Miss Meredith!

This update was primarily to bring the lovely lady into the cast, and we'd like to thank you all for your patience these past two months. Surgery, a new job, and relentless attacks upon adult artistic expression have not stopped us from bringing a brand new babe to the blackjack table.

WHAT'S NEW!

Meredith! Duh! But in terms of new content, she brings with her a new strip sprite, a crowd sprite, and 4 new unlockable scenes! We hope you'll have fun stripping her layer after layer--she has a whopping nine items to get through, and she's no fool. Good luck getting to the heart of this goth mommy!

WHAT ELSE?

Strip Playlists! We've added new functionality to the way the girls choose what items to strip. No longer will they always go in the same order every time, but they'll instead be assigned one of multiple "playlists". Syd might save her sexy leather jacket for last, or you might catch Prill in just her robe. Rosalie might not even wait to get her dress off to kick away those panties. I (TT) have wanted something like this ever since I first designed their strip sprites. There's something so inherently sexy about turning a girls' layers on and off and discovering new combinations. You actually have Kim, the loser of the last poll, to thank for this function being added.

WHAT'S NEXT?

Dang dude play the update we just gave you first!!

Just kidding. Joker's Trip is a very character and dialogue focused game, and we've been slowly refining our toolset to give ourselves as many opportunities for interesting interactions as we can. Reactions and conversations between characters are now possible, plus dialogue based on what specific items a character is or isn't wearing (another new feature tied to the strip playlists!) We've even added functionality that should prevent you from seeing the same joke five times in one round.

We finally have a working dev tool that makes writing dialogue significantly easier than it used to be. Previously, me and Leo would scratchpad in a google doc and they'd have to go through and manually add all the text tags and then manually add them to an excel sheet. Miserable. Now we don't have to do that! Writing dialogue has never been easier! So we want to spend an update doing nothing else! I'm sure those of you that have been playing the game for a while are sick of seeing the same taunts and responses over and over. We feel the same way!

We'll be spending the next month or so just writing new dialogue and refining the dialogue that's already there. All patrons should keep an eye out for a survey asking what you think needs the most love. $7 patrons will be determining what we do after the dialogue update, and will be receiving their own special survey soon as well.

Thank you for your patience, and for playing Joker's Trip!

-- TT

(PS)

(It was really, really close.)

Bonus: unused version of the promo

Ay yo, it's me Leo

Thanks for being patient with this one! Like I mentioned in the past I have a full time job now, and getting used to the swing of things. But I still work on Joker's Trip after logging off the work computer, because I truly can't help but look forward to working on this project. So thank you for playing Joker's Trip, and allowing us to make it better, one update at a time :)

So this update! Meredith's here and loving it. If I'm going to be honest a majority of my Brain Power went into those aforementioned dev tools. The idea of having to write over 400 lines of dialog for her in a google doc, then edit them, format them, then copy and paste them one at a time into a spreadsheet made me break into a cold sweat.

It's a pretty developed program now, lets you do everything the game lets you do with dialog! Makes conversations really easy to write, can add expressions easily, even lets you check which articles of clothing are still present. It still needs some improvements, but It Works.

Anyway, enough technical mumbo jumbo, hope you have fun playing blackjack with Meredith! And now, for the changelog.

0.2.1 - Changelog

Additions

• Added Meredith!

  • A new gambler joins the roster!

  • 4 CGs with Jack, Queen, King and the Crowd

  • A unique crowd sprite with animation

  • 265 Dialog nodes (~400 lines of dialog!)

• Added more conversations between gamblers

• Strip playlist! Now characters have multiple presets for the order they'll strip in.

Changes

• Gamblers hit/stand dialogue combined into the taunt dialogue when appropriate, no longer separate triggers

• Moved various reactions into other character's dialogs

Fixes

• Fixed the hide dialog box bug by disabling its tooltip.

• Fixed various typos.

• Capped Rosalie's ability usage

• Fixed a bug where characters would strip more than once.

Meredith Promo Poll! (Closes Thursday)

baby we are a GO on meredith. mostly. still testing and bug catching but all the new content is done and she's soooo excited to gamble with you this weekend. all we need from YOU guys now is to decide what i'm drawing for the update art! since this is our first new character poll, we're keeping it simple:

TITS or ASS?

meredith is a woman of curves. which side of her should we pay special attention to in her promotional art?

other things to note! if you want to have your name in the credits, you have to submit it to this form by thursday morning! if you've already done it, you're good!

and a reminder about the tier change! there is now a $5 tier to access the builds! so if you're a $3 patron and want to play with meredith, it's now slightly cheaper to do so!

$7 patrons should also keep an eye out. we already know what we'll be focusing on for the next update after meredith, but we'll be looking for feedback from our most valued customers regarding what we do after that...

anyway, get voting! you have till thursday!

-TT

Tier Update is Live!

Hi all! The changes to the tiers have been launched, and you can now subscribe at $5 for build access. As a refresher on our tiers:

SUPPORTER: $3

• Dev logs! We try to post at least one a month, and these will include anything from an explanation of what mechanics we're working on, previews of new art, character design processes, and more!

• Name in the credits, self explanatory! We have a form you can fill out at any time to be added, and once you're in, you're in forever!

• Voting on promotional art. Every update needs promo art, and we'll let you vote on who's featured in it, or what they're getting up to.

BUILD: $5

• You get all of the above, plus...

• The latest builds! Duh! We don't guarantee a new build every month (as we're now both employed outside of this project) but what we do release, you get to play! That means...

  • First and full access to new features! (The public demo doesn't get the crowd CGs, for example)

  • All the exclusive characters, like Noriko and soon-to-come Meredith!

HIGH ROLLER: $7

• Everything above! Plus...

• Voting in character and feature polls! You have the privilege of selecting the order we add new characters to the game, and later--what characters we focus on when adding new features, such as new outfits and special scenes.

  • As these polls are not a monthly occurrence, we do not expect current $7 supporters to remain on this tier all the time. Feel free to hop back and forth as it suits you! If you wish to upgrade from a lower tier, Patreon will only charge you the difference, not the full price, and you'll get instant access to the higher tier. If you downgrade or cancel, you keep your current access until the next charge date. Voting opportunities will be announced in advanced so you can decide whenever you like.

Thank you for supporting us here at Clown Control! Any level of support is appreciated, even those of you who're here for free. We appreciate you playing the demo and keeping an eye on our work!

Meredith is well on her way to Joker's Trip! All art assets have been completed, what's left is plugging in her CG scenes, reviewing her dialogue, and playtesting. She's on track for a September release (though honestly, it's almost a shame she'll be done this month. She would have made a great October feature!)

Look forward to it!

-TT

Devlog #12 - News, the good kind!

Hey! 

So, TT had (elective, non-emergency) surgery this month. Recovery and his other jobs took a big chunk out of his Joker’s Trip work, hence why it’s been pretty quiet around here. He's doing better now and has been trucking along on Meredith’s update, and just has one more CG to write and illustrate before he can move on to dialog review and playtesting.

...But what about me? Couldn't I have kept my half of things moving? Well, something came up…a brand new full time job! After 10 months and 860+ job applications, I finally, finally have a full time job again. Obviously this will slow down the dev part of the game dev process as the game's only programmer, but this is where the good news starts!

Starting September 5th, we'll be restructuring our tiers. The new tiers are as follows:

$3 Supporter: Devlogs, news, and voting on promo images.

$5 Build: Devlogs, news, voting on promo images, and build access.

$7 High Roller: Devlogs, news, voting on promo images, build access, and character and feature polls.

We’re doing this to make the builds more accessible, while also adjusting for the fact that updates will come a bit slower with this new job. The game was never meant to have monthly updates like we were delivering in the early summer, that’s just what happens when you’re unemployed... Feel free to hop between tiers when the new $5 tier is active! 

Anyway, time for the dev part of this log!

Meredith is coming along nicely! I've implemented all her new programming in the game, written a ton of dialog, and am gonna start hooking up her scenes once TT gets that last one turned in. But this isn't about her.

It's about stripping.

You see, the way stripping was calculated was a little complex. Every piece of clothing was assigned a monetary value, and the first to come off would be the cheapest clothes. The reason clothing had a money value to begin with was that, in early development, the gamblers would earn back money when they bet their clothes, meaning they could bet with cash again despite being down to their underwear. This turned out to be a Total Slog in playtesting, and I cut it right before the first real public release. (This is why a lot of them still act like they’re earning money when betting clothes, we’re long overdue a dialog audit to trim those out...)

Anyway, stripping.

The code went through each piece of clothing that was left over, and bet the cheapest out of the bunch. This also meant that there was no randomness. Things always happened in the order they were placed. So if you had two pieces of clothing at the same value, the code would always bet the first one it ran into. 

That's actually why Rosalie would bet her panties before her bra. That wasn't intentional, but players (and us) found it funny so it became a character trait! But wouldn't it be better if we could do that on purpose?

Introducing: strip playlists! At the start of every match, each gambler will randomly choose an order to strip in. As shown in the above example, Syd could be left in just her jacket. Noriko could bet her shoes before her ribbon. Rosalie could bet her sandals before her bracelet. The possibilities are endless.

And on top of that, I added some new features to the dialog system. Lines that are meant to be said in certain circumstances can now trigger. For example in the STRIP_COAT dialogs for Syd, we can actually add a tag that says "don't say this UNLESS the bra's gone," so that it's rightly horny.

It seems like a very simple thing, but the strip logic was a tangled mess of code. I'm hoping that this will lead to dialog that feels more fitting, and more dynamic! Thank you all again for your patience, we’ll be delivering another great update to you soon!

-LG

Devlog #11 - a little grab bag

Hey, hey. Crazy week, huh? You’ve probably heard what’s been going on over on itch.io and the broader internet. It’d be an understatement to say that it was a bit of a morale dampener, but after a week of activism and getting shit together, I’m back on the Joker’s Trip grind! 

A few things I’ve been working on and wanted to talk about, a grab bag of you will. 

The Table!

Eagle eyed gamers might’ve noticed the new blackjack table! This is the third table that I’ve used in Joker’s Trip. 4th if you count the primitive red cylinder I used as a placeholder. Here’s the evolution of blackjack tables. 

One thing you might immediately notice is different proportions. For the latest I actually used blackjack table specifications to make a more accurate and lifelike model. Since the camera doesn’t move in game, the table never really had to be anything other than an oval inspired shape. That changed though! With the crowd scenes, you can have angles UNDER the table and see it in full view. 

So detail is added. Casino logo, rail to put your feet, arm rest bumper. No cup holders though. And the boot (where the cards are stored) is still something I’m Eh! on adding. 

Before this game, I knew how to model and texture, but didn’t have any experience in it, if that makes sense. Making so many versions of the same piece of furniture really highlights how much you can improve a skill by keeping at it, I’d definitely recommend making a game if you want to Really learn how to model. 

Dialog!

Some changes! For starters, we're getting rid of reactions. When the game first launched, I had issues with the dialog system I made, and the easiest way to fake a conversation was to let characters "react" to others. For example, you might've seen Syd pog out from Rosalie taking off her bra. 

You might have also seen characters react in a way that just doesn't match with what the line for that event was. For example, a dialog event is BUST, because Prill busted. The dialog between her and Joker is a fourth wall breaking examination of Prill as a person. Then Noriko reacts and says, "Wow, idiot busted." That's a weakness of the reaction system.

Now that I've made conversations possible, I can just get rid of 'em! You'll still have Syd going gaga for Rosalie's bobbers, but now it'll be a much more contextualized experience! It'll mean a bunch of rewriting, but it'll be better dialog all around.

Aaaaand on top of that, I'm giving TT and I some new tools in the form of conditions: dialog lines that only proc when the speaker has X amount of money, or still has Y clothing, or if Z is present at the table. Dialog lines that only happen if they're in the buff! This game is sold on its writing (and really great art (thank you TT <3)) so having ways to make something happen and only when it makes sense is paramount. Also it'll be hot to have lines that only happen when they're down to their undos:) 

Dialog studio!

Hey guess what, Meredith is coming. She’s also going to be in the next update! Which means we need to write hundreds of lines of dialog just to bring her to parity with everyone else. And this isn’t including the new dialog we’d add to existing characters to acknowledge the goth bombshell playing with them!

So it’s back to making tools to make writing this easier. And really it’s just the tags. I hate typing out the tags, but it's literally how the game's dialog runs! It’s been the source of most of the typos and bugs we’ve received. Stop what you're doing and try to type the following on your phone: <?express=happy,def>Heh, didn't think that <i>I</i> would be able to get a <wave>natural</wave>, did you?|*<?jexpress=tired,def>This is a game of pure luck.|*<?express=shock><?jexpress=smug,happy>It was a matter of time!

Miserable, Christ. And to be honest, not much better on a keyboard! With the dialog studio that won't be a problem.

What was a problem was rewriting the logic completely for the past week. But it's better now :) 

...Also don't worry about how it looks, I promise most dev tools look worse.

That's about it, I wanted to touch base a little before I plow through this update. I've seen the thumbnails for Meredith's scenes and you're all in for a real treat~ Till next time!

-LG

Joker's Trip Patreon Release - v0.2.0: The Gallery Update

honk honk

Boy, this one took a lot out of us! New mechanics, new graphics, new scenes, new sprites, new menus...but it was worth it! The Crowd + Gallery Update is now out and playable! This is our biggest update yet, so you’ll forgive that we took a little longer to cook it.

WHAT’S NEW!

The Gallery menu has been expanded and polished to make it easier for us to add new scenes, AND we’ve given you a new option for viewing them. If you don’t want to watch with all the dialogue and effects, we now have a “View Art” feature that lets you flip through the individual CGs image by image. Take your time and appreciate the craft!

All the scenes have been given the letterbox treatment. This is to solve the issue of the chatbox consistently covering up the goods, and just makes them look nice and cinematic! We’d already rolled this out with Joker’s loss scenes, and now all of the scenes have been edited for parity. (Incidentally, Prill’s King scene has been redrawn from scratch. The original just didn’t work very well with the change, but it’s much better now!)

THE CROWD! This is the one you can blame on the update taking so long... I (TT) got it in my head to give everyone new sprites as a reward for stripping them by the time the crowd shows up, and special scenes. Which meant a lot more art than we’d initially planned for this update, plus a lot more programming to make it work at all... but it looks great! There’s even some animation... everyone loves animation in their porn games. We’ve expanded the turn duration for the crowd to make it easier to see this new feature! The crowd will now remain for 5 turns rather than 3. If you want to see the special scene, make sure you wait till “Showtime” turns rainbow before clicking it (but we’ve set it to unlock in the gallery if you miss it).

We’ve also added conversations! Characters at the table can now talk back and forth with each other if certain conditions are met. Previously we only had reactions, where a character could react to something happening to another. (For example, Syd reacting to Rosalie’s big boobs when she takes off her bra). Now they can respond more than once. We don’t have too many of these in the game just yet, but they should pop up now and then!

And... that’s it! With this done, our next focus will be adding Meredith to the game and polishing up the dialogue systems. I’ve learned my lesson of calling my shot for when things will be finished, so... she’ll be in when she’s in! But you’ve got plenty of new stuff to play with until then.

Thanks for supporting the game, and have fun! Please let us know if you run into any bugs by filling out this form. Since this one adds a bunch of new features, we’re expecting a few hiccups...

—TT

And now Leo, with the change log

—LG

0.2.0 - Changelog

Additions

• Four new crowd CGs! One for each gambler. 

• Added new expressions to Syd, Noriko, Rosalie. 

• Conversations: characters at the table can now talk back and forth with each other and Joker.

• Added ~120 dialog nodes ( ~355 new lines of dialog! )

• New Gallery Screen with new modes. Now you can view the CG as the scene, or as a series of images without dialogue.

• New Crowd Mechanic

  • New “fondled by the crowd” sprites for all characters with 4 phases and limited animation.

  • New “Special Showtime” scene for all characters with the crowd at the Blackjack table. 

Changes

• Made Rosalie’s boobs slightly bigger.

• Updated all CGs to suit the new letterbox format.

• Redrew Prill/King scene.

• 6 CGs were touched up to support the new letterbox format.

• Tweaked “shake” effect in CGs.

• New blackjack table.

• Increased turn count on crowds to make the new content easier to get.

• Lowered reaction dialog chance.

Fixes

• Fixed the hide dialog box functionality.

• Fixed various typos.

• Noriko's glasses should now actually change during certain

Credits Reminder!

Oh boy, Leo's posting a credits reminder, that must mean the next update's coming out this weekend....and it does!

Here's a link to the credits form to get your name in da game, reminder that you don't need to fill it out if you've already done so. You've got till Thursday morning to get your name in for version 0.2.0, otherwise it'll roll over to the update after.

This update's got a ton of new stuff, hope you're excited as I am :)

-LG

0.2 Promo Poll! (Closes Next Thursday!)

guess who finally finished all the new art for the 0.2 update! four bespoke sprites with multiple phases, 4 new CG scenes with 8+ phases, a rework of an existing CG (so technically 5 new scenes), plus everything leo did to make the gallery look not shit and even allow for additional scenes to be added! so much stuff is coming in this new update!! we didn't even tell you that we got back and forth conversations working. SO MUCH STUFF IS COMING.

which means it's time for another poll for the promo art to go with it! given this update's main content expansion is with the new crowd mob scenes, who should get all good and felt up by those fellas?

you have until next thursday to vote, and the update should come out next weekend! look forward to it!

--TT

Devlog #10 - i promise i'm still working on the crowd scenes

wow it's been longer since the last devlog than i thought. i'm the busiest boy in the world. but i'm here and i'm back to talk about what i've been so busy doing! as you know the gallery update turned into the gallery + crowd update, which would add special new sprites, animations, and CGs for all of the girls. i've now completed rosalie's, and thought i would share the process with you to tide you over till i finish the last two (which are now written and sketched!)

we've done like. over 15 scenes by now, over the course of 2+ years of development, and we're always trying to figure out the perfect workflow. the way we did it at first was i would just draw whatever i wanted, and then leo would model a background, and try to make it fit the art.

this is a stupid way to do it. don't do it this way.

now the workflow is leo will make a space first (like the break room for the joker loss scenes), i'll thumbnail what i want to draw, and then we'll either take a few screenshots of the location to find an angle for the sketch, or i'll make a sketch we then import into the environment and test placements for it till we find one we like. it depends a bit on whether the character will be interacting with any furniture or have overlapping elements.

so let's look at an example!

i thumbnailed the composition for rosalie's crowd scene first. honestly i did this before i'd even written the script for it, because i knew it was going to be about rosalie being jazzed to get fucked in front of joker. once we had this, leo and i went through the casino environment and picked a few angles to take screenshots of. this is the one i ultimately used:

(leo was in the middle of making a new model for the table and hadn't finished the texture yet)

next step was to create a base sketch. i've included her face here, but there's actually 8 separate layers for rosalie's various expressions (two of which are an entirely different head.).

pretty rough! it takes a lot of adjustments to get 2d things to look right against a 3d environment. lot of scale, lot of overlap. the red lines at the top and bottom are the "bleed" lines, indicating how far the art needs to go to make sure it ends behind the letterboxing. anybody who's worked in storyboarding knows how important it is to have closed lines past the bleed.

so from here, i drew all of rosalie's expression and state changes as their own sketch layers. then it came time to figure out what elements don't change at all, and what parts needed to be separated. this is when i ink and color!

this image is made up of five separate parts. joker, rosalie's head, rosalie's expression, rosalie's torso, and rosalie's ass. technically joker and her torso could be one part because they never move and don't overlap, but waves hand i like to keep things organized.

oh god oh fuck oh shit no no no

from here it's pretty much 'draw the rest of the owl', in that it's just a matter of inking and coloring all her expressions, making sure they sit nicely on the base, and that anything that changes is properly set up. ultimately ending up with the final image when it's imported into the game!

doesn't that just look nice :]

here's what it actually looks like:

lol. lmao. movie magic.

anyway i will keep working on these dang scenes! i keep saying they're more ambitious than the previous ones and they ARE, DOG. way more expression changes than usual. but it is supposed to be a special rare reward! once they're done the whole update will be done and we'll be able to move forward on meredith! i am so eager to have this dang update out!!!

--TT

MEREDITH WINS!

Final results:

With 70 votes over Kim's 51, Meredith will be the first new character added to Joker's Trip! Congratulations Meredith! (And better luck next time, Kim! We'll see you again another time!)

If you came from my (TT) personal patreon, you'll already know how much I love analyzing poll data and marketing.

Our prediction was that Meredith would ultimately win, but that Kim would have the more vocal fans--and we were right! On the whole, we saw a lot more comments cheering for Kim than Meredith here and on social media. My guess is that Kim's fans, like us, predicted Meredith would prove more popular in the vote, and so Kim needed more support. (And I'll confess, I voted for Kim with the same thought in mind--that she'd need all the help she could get). Ultimately, MILF is a slightly less popular category than hot goth mommy, even if the people that love it really love it.

But don't fret! She'll be back later for another poll and you'll get a second chance! Every character we propose will be added eventually! And hey, 42/58 isn't so bad at all! That's still pretty close. Our worst fear was that it'd be a total knockout, and fortunately it wasn't.

What did we learn and what would we change the next time we do a poll? For one thing--video first. Releasing the introduction video at the eleventh hour was mostly to do with scheduling. I have been Turbo Busy all this past month and so we just didn't have the time to get it together, and it took longer than we thought. Next time, an introduction video will be higher priority. (That said, it did help Kim to rally her numbers! She'd been doing a few points worse before we let you see her bra.)

So when do we get to play with Meredith?

...not for a little bit! We're still working on the gallery + crowd update, still aiming for early July. The good news is that the art and script for Noriko is completely done, and Rosalie's will be next. I plan to have a devlog for you later this week about the process of making a CG, which will include a preview of Noriko's new CG, so look forward to that! These new CGs are considerably more ambitious than the ones currently in the game, hence the delay. But they'll be worth the wait >:]

Once that's done, then we'll work on adding Meredith to the game. We haven't been able to start work on her yet because a) still working on the gallery update but also b) we couldn't start until we knew for sure who would win! Adding a new character requires bringing her to parity with the existing ones, so that's a lot of dialogue to write, plus 4 CG scripts, and a special crowd sprite. Lots of things to do!

We'll keep you posted with regular devlogs and updates, and thank you so much for participating in our first poll and supporting the game! Once we get closer to the crowd/gallery update, there'll be another poll for the promotional art. Keep an eye out!

--TT

Hi it's me Leo, just wanted to add to the post. Yeah, I voted for Kim too. Of course I would, I begged for her existence like the dog I am. But to the winner, the spoils. I'll be writing A Lot of Meredith dialog for a grip. Also, the new features, including the eponymous Gallery of the Gallery update are in place, just need to be tested thoroughly.

-LG

Meredith vs Kim REMINDER! (Video)

With less than a week left to vote, we've invited the ladies to the casino to answer a few questions and introduce themselves. Please enjoy what is (technically) our first gameplay video!

Who do you want to meet at the table--the curious curator Meredith, or mean MILF Kim? You have until June 30th to cast your vote, and if the video swayed you to another side, you can change your pick! A little over 100 of you have voted so far, and it's still anyone's race! You can find the original post with more information and a link to the poll here! If you're a $3 tier, now's a great time to bump up to vote and play the next build!

----------------

Speaking of the next build, I thought I'd give you all an update on where we're at with 0.2.0! The gallery has been fully overhauled to make it easier to add new scenes, and the new crowd mechanic has been implemented. All that's left is for me (TT) to finish illustrating the 4 new sex scenes to go with it! 2 have been written/thumbnailed, and 2 more still need to be scripted, but once they're finished, that's it! The new crowd mechanic wasn't initially planned to go with this update, but I wanted it... so we're now aiming for an early July release of the next build!

Stick around for it!

--TT

Devlog #9 - making mommies and milves

we're a little over a week into the vote, so i thought i'd write up a post about the design process for meredith and kim and share some of the development art! (and also remind you to vote, if you still haven't)

first of all, how did we land on the two concepts for our first vote? i'll confess, we didn't have these two planned from the very start. they were invented Just for the initial poll. (which is not to say we don't have other characters already planned, we do! we just didn't want to start with them). games like this live and die on archetypes. characters can and should be well rounded, but there will always be a little seed of Type from which they grow. the big boobed bimbo, the cool girl, the mean girl, the disaster--from these our initial cast was born. we did in fact ask on twitter Years ago what people's favorite girl archetypes were, to help us figure out what we should include. i'm not sure that we fully listened with what we chose, but it was a good start.

so for our first poll, we wanted to pick two strong, popular archetypes that could reasonably compete against each other. as i've said before, i wanted to make it a tough choice. it's no fun if there's an obvious favorite. i want a healthy competition! thus we landed on mommy vs milf, with goth gf thrown in because Of Course we have to have a goth gf.

but, like, a goth gf with a specific flavor and not just '30 year old's out of date idea of what mall goths wear'

anyway. that's enough words let's look at some sketches.

for meredith i started with her face and hair. the face came Pretty Immediately, you gotta love the big heavy black eyeshadow eyes. i tried a few styles, looking at irl goth black hair styles. i still really like the thick braids, but i was Really into the one eye covered look, and explored that further when i moved on to future sketches.

also i'm so sorry but her nipples are not actually pierced like in that sketch because My Ass Forgot when i made the sprite. but also with the type of historical goth she is, she may not have gone for that anyway.

next was outfits! we hadn't settled on exactly what type of goth she was yet at this point. i recall leo specifically requesting 'the vibe of enid's mom from okko' which is where that morticia witch dress design came from, which i did not go with because it felt Too fantastical for the general style of the game. my Design Ethos for joker's trip is that the guests should remain within a realm of believability and not get Too OC-like, if that makes any sense. like the cast should for the most part be normal women with normal jobs. they can't all be Super Interesting Mysterious Women With Exciting Lives because then [syndrome voice] none of them will be.

and thus we landed on Librarian Energy. before we had the idea for museum curator that was literally what i thought her job would be. cool goth librarian who gives you the occult books. but i'd made the joke to leo about giving her an interest that they share so she'd be easier to write, and leo's a big science nerd, so she was made a museum curator. she loves a Specimen (and we both love biology, so she'll be easy for us Both to write).

there were some minor tweaks to her design when i began work on her sprite. her hair shape got cartoonified, she lost the "bib" to her dress, she got a big ol' ribbon cause i love a big ol' ribbon. losing the bib was actually in service of a clothing layer i really wanted to do, which was a thin shift, which made more sense if it wasn't attached to the dress. + on top of that, the neck ribbon being a removable item meant the bib would have just looked Wrong without it. but anyway.

this is pretty hot right.

in a grandma sort of way. ghost of an ass.

speaking of grandmas, or rather mas, let's move on to kim! kim's development was, in comparison to meredith, very fast.

this is it. literally this is all i did and that sketch on the left came afterward because i was like 'i Know i am going to make a devlog about designing these women i can't JUST have one sketch'.

but that's all it took. and there is a good reason for why it didn't take much. that's because i had designed this character before and already Knew who she was. because..........

i'm ripping myself off.

this is rin, an antagonist from my old webcomic (this art is from 2018. eugh). she was chief of the (magic) police and mother of a shithead son. and hot. she was pretty hot. leo loves her. leo loves her so much that i've drawn her getting railed multiple times for them. in fact here you go, have some porn on this patreon for a porn game.

nice.

anyway that webcomic was YA and i had a pretty strict rule at the time of not posting porn around it (most of the characters and a lot of the audience were teens, you understand) but leo loves this lady So Much. i asked them what specifically about her they liked, and thus: kim was born. obviously design elements had to change, but the Energy is the same. really the biggest change is that rin's main relationship was with her mostly-adult shithead son. that's not something we wanted to port over to A Porn Game so we made her deal more about her shithead husband. kim still has a shithead adult son, because otherwise she is not a milf, but by necessity he can never appear and only be alluded to vaguely. you understand.

most of kim's real Design Development actually happened during the process of making her sprite. it was important to me that the milf character Actually Look Like A Mother. that means putting a bit of weight on her, giving her a bit of sag. even rin doesn't really have the body of a mother of a 19 year old, so i tried to correct that with kim. give that woman wrinkles and a tummy. and a proper bush.

not that i'm going to show you all that so soon~ though tbh i should have introduced her without the coat. all of her best qualities are hidden behind the coat. such as the fact she is Stacked. and also Packed. With A Gun. she brings a gun to the casino. and she bets it. isn't she cool...

anyway, don't forget to vote! you have until the end of the month, and you are allowed to change your vote if any of this swayed you to a different side. just go to the form again and it'll let you switch!

-- TT

meesa go boing boing for rin kim

-LG

Devlog #8 - grabbed by the boobies

i always forget that devlogs don't need to be a full 'here's how we did it!' process post so much as they can just be 'here's what we're working on!' posts. it's my comic artist background. surely everybody wants to know exactly how i do what i do rather than just that i'm doing it.

anyway. here's what i'm doing.

has this ever happened to you? things are going great, you're stripping these girls left and right, and you got one down to skin really early, before the crowd even showed up! but when they did finally appear... nothing special happened! something special ought to happen, right? you've got a nude chick right there, in public, all horny and humiliated with nothing left to bet, but nobody's doing anything! do you really trust these faces not to go in for a grab?

i wouldn't.

and you shouldn't either! because now, they will.

all the girls will be getting new bespoke grabbed by the ghoulies sprites and dialogue for when they've reached showtime before the crowd arrives. watch your favorite gal get fingerblasted while you keep playing with the other girls--if you can even focus on the other girls!

"but wait, TT! some of the characters are too short to be seen behind the table! are you going to make me do the full body view every turn to see the action?"

no ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

the crowd will make sure you can see every little thing.

what's more, if you manage to get this rare event, you'll unlock a Special Showtime set right there at the blackjack table. right in front of joker! oh my~ (and those special showtimes will not be added to the public demo!)

please look forward to it :^)

AND please don't forget to vote in our first character poll! for those of you who missed it (or those of you on the $3 tier who might consider bumping up) we're running a vote for the duration of june on who should be our first new character! meredith, the big beautiful goth gf, or kim, the hard-boiled milf!

you can find the post with more information about them here! only about half of the patrons eligible to vote have done so, so please--do so!

--TT

New Guest Poll #1 - Vote for our first new character!

It's time! It's finally time! After a few months of structural updates, Joker's Trip is just about ready to welcome its first new character to the casino floor! As build-tier patrons, you have the honor of deciding which of these lovely ladies you want to meet at your Blackjack table. Whoever isn't picked will be put back into rotation, and may not come up again for several months. So choose wisely...

(But that said: both will eventually be added to the game!)

You'll have the duration of June to cast your vote as we work on the gallery update. At the end of the month we'll announce the winner, and begin working on getting her into the game! So to be clear, June's update will not add the winning character; she will be the update for July.

Anyway, without further ado, let's meet the ladies...

MEREDITH

Meredith loves collecting things that interest her--whether it's new insect specimens, or cute boys and girls. Don't let her stuffy appearance fool you, she's a soft touch and a kind heart, and in possession of the biggest, beautiful, natural... history museum in the tri-state area. If she could only keep it funded!

Cool and collected, it won't be easy to get under her skin. Or even to get to her skin--with 8 items of clothing to bet, she'll be a challenge for the most seasoned of dealers.

KIM

This mother's no gumshoe--as director of one of the largest private investigation firms in the country, it's rare she gets her own hands dirty. But after catching her husband of twenty years cheating, all bets are off. She's not here to have fun or make friends. She's only here for revenge.

Observant by habit, she knows more about the girls than they know themselves, and she's not afraid to use it to her advantage. And having been in the business as long as she has, she's got little patience for Joker and his antics. She is, as they say, too old for his shit.

Those are your options! Mommy vs MILF! Miss vs Ma'am! Who will we meet at the table?

Cast your vote here! You have until June 30th to make your decision, but don't worry, you can change your vote at any time. The winning character will be a patreon exclusive, so be sure to stick around--and get your friends to join and vote for the girl you like the best!

I can't wait to find out who you guys pick, I tried to make it as hard a choice as possible. Good luck! --TT

Devlog #7 - Gallery Unlock Cheat (also a devlog I guess)

So! I hope everyone had fun downing a bunch of booze that had Effects on Joker. It was fun making them! But I gotta move on to the meat and potatoes, the structural changes that'll allow us to straight up make content updates whenever possible. To do that we're gonna need–hm? Oh right, gallery unlocks.

So some folks found out how to do it already, but for those that haven't, here's the step by step for unlocking the full gallery!

• Meet every girl. All you need to do is to have seen them at the Blackjack table, you can immediately leave.

• In the start menu, click on the Queen's chest. She should bounce a bit. Keep doing it.

• Once it looks like she's spent, open the gallery menu, and voila~

Follow that guide and every girl and Joker scene will be unlocked. I thought it'd be fitting to mention all this since I'm overhauling every single CG's camera, and the gallery menu. "Hey that sounds like a lot of work," haha yeah. But it has to be done. Why? Cause we want to add more new CGs with the next update, and there simply isn't enough room in the current menu! There may or may not be some other features that aren't explicitly porn related, but that's for another devlog.

One of the complaints we got when we first launched was that the dialog box covered the action. And honestly, it's almost comical how many CGs that happened with. This is because TT drew the illustrations before we'd finalized the UI. And this ended up happening so often, I was able to get multiple "censored" screenshots for itch.io. Obviously, an oversight on our part. So now we have a dilemma where we want to:

• Not block CGs with the dialog box.

• Not redraw all 12 CGs from scratch again.

• Be able to apply the solution to each CG.

The answer? Letterboxing! The new Joker CGs were a test bed to try out this new resolution and it worked fabulously. Nothing's blocked, and it feels a little more cinematic!

And as you can see in this test with Prill's Queen scene, the letterboxing doesn't mess with the composition too much! In fact, it allows for more space to have that sexy, sexy audience and show that mouthwatering hog.

And this…is an example of something that'll need work. There's a handful of CGs where we can't just move them to the left or right, and Syd's King scene is a doozy. So that'll need some touching up! But it's not a full redraw by any means, so we take those.

Another feature that'll be included is a revamped gallery menu. The one that exists right now was cobbled up together Really quickly so that I could put out the demo faster. It works, it's functional, but it's limiting. It's hard coded (hard formatted?) to only have the Jack, Queen and King scenes. So what if, oh, I don't know, we wanted to add a scene where the crowd gets to fuck Rosalie on the blackjack table?

I made two mock-ups: a clean UI, and a more detailed one. The clean UI is nice to look at, but clicking on one would activate a modal, and that's an extra click, and I never like that if I can help it. The more wordy version on the right has the benefit of having a title and the ability to just Click on which you want to see. The only issue is it'd require a little more work. But that's life! We'd also be adding a "CG Only" option, where you can go through the CG without dialog, at your own pace.

All in all I'm excited for the next update, hope you look forward to it :)

-LG

(Source for the original cover image https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/types-of-camera-shots-sizes-in-film/ )

Quick Notice: Gallery unlocks

Hey hope you're enjoying the new build that dropped yesterday! If you unlocked a scene and notice the letter is dark purple instead of red, that's not a bug, nor is it locked. What I was trying to do was be cute and indicate what suit the Jack/Queen/King was in the CG, for a reason that was lost in development. If the letter doesn't have a literal Lock on top of it, it's available! Try clicking it.

-LG

Edit: Also worth mentioning, with the gallery overhaul in the next update, this won't be an issue anymore.

Joker's Trip Patreon Release - v0.1.4: The Drink Update

What a month. I could really use...a drink? ,':^)

Seriously, I'm happy to get this update out for y'all! The gist of it is Joker now has a couple of proper game overs, and we now have an ability system! It's kind of a prototype of what I want to do in the future, but it's nice to have it here, now, to get feedback on balancing and the like. Like before, if you find anything funky, here's a link to the bug report form.

-Leo G

Up next, we'll be overhauling the gallery system and how CGs are displayed. That should be the last structural update before we're able to start focusing on new content. You'll get a preview of the new look for CGs with the Game Over Joker/Suits scenes. Good luck losing!

-TT

0.1.4 - Changelog

Additions

• Joker x Jacks and Joker x Queens CGs unlockable by losing.

• Joker page added to the gallery.

• Ability system, now you can choose from 5 special powers! And water.

• Chat history for the blackjack table and CGs.

• 150 new lines of dialogue.

• Added Winner/Loser/Tie animation to make game results clearer.

Changes

• Changed how status effects work. Ex. Instead of always hitting, "Hot" always hits on hit taunts.

• Gambler logic tweaks.

• Gamblers start with more money to balance new abilities.

• Gamblers now have specific lines for betting clothes.

• Made some alterations to the Blackjack room background.

• Changed hide chat window symbol and placement.

• Changed Queen voice sample.

Fixes

• Character facial expressions don't disappear.

• Various of typos.

• Prill’s ability will now only activate once per turn.

Devlog #6 - give me a break! room.

Hey. Hello. Check this out. So first thing's first, a new update is incoming! 0.1.4 (skipping 0.1.3 because that looks unlucky) should be arriving this weekend for Da Bank patrons. A lot of new and exciting features in that one, but more importantly there's two new sex scenes to unlock! These ones are for the Joker enjoyers in the house, Joker x Jacks and Joker x Queens. All you gotta do to unlock them is fail the House. And because a new update is so close, a reminder to get your name in the credits by Thursday night (5/15, 11PM EST).

Alright, devlog time. 

So those new scenes that we're adding aren't just more content for people to jerk off to. I mean, it is, but it's also prep and experimental work on how we want to make CGs in the future. One of the issues was actually making the scene work.

Hey it's Noriko, getting railed! Dissecting it a bit, the scene has 2D art over a 3D background. Why not all 2D? I thought it'd be too much work for TT and also I wanted CGs to look like they take place in the same space as the game, which means having to use a 3D background. 

And it was a fucking nightmare lol. Camera tricks aren't new technology, plenty of games will do bizarre things to fake the funk on perspective (for example, the Halo ring in Halo 1 is extremely tiny and close when you look out the window from the Pillar of Autumn) and when this scene was made, I was rushing to get scenes done so we could have our first release. But the workflow itself was also deeply flawed. For each girl we decided "Ok, each get 3 scenes, one with Jack, Queen, and King." Okay. Then the following happened 12 times.

• "What would be hot? Draw that."

• I wrote around what the scene was.

• TT draws a gorgeous scene with no background.

• I export each phase of the CG as separate PNGs.

• Using the guidelines of the 3d layer, I placed the sprite in fSpy and then exported the perspective in blender to get the right camera angle to THEN export to unity.

• Import that into Unity, using the camera, dress up the scene.

• Uh. Hope it works.

And for the most part, it worked! But it was sloppy and took a lot of small adjustments constantly to look good. So here's the thing. We want to add girls. We want to add new CGs. We gotta be more efficient about it. So I proposed the following workflow.

• First we have actual pre-made rooms.

• We choose a camera angle and an idea/pose.

• Then Taylor draws over it, and we write the scene.

That's so much better and efficient! If you ignore the fact that "just have pre-made rooms" is 20 steps in of itself, like a Bon Appetite recipe telling you to already have chopped onions, minced garlic, washed and picked thyme herbs, and a slab of meat that was dry brining 24 hours in advance.

Regardless, this time I wanted to be a lot smarter about it. First, I wanted to know what the room actually looked like. So I made a room in IKEA home designer, and asked Taylor to make concept art for the palette and vibe.

The concept art gave me art direction for what the room would end up feeling like, even if I didn't stick to it 100%. With different angles, and measurements of the furniture, I was able to make a mock up for size references in blender.

And then. I modeled. I did all of these in one day, and a few more later when I realized I forgot some furniture.

Texturing took a little longer because I wanted to find a way to texture furniture that didn't suck. So I looked at furniture at Models-resource and studied some of the textures that came with couches and similar chaise. It uh. Didn't work great at first.

A good couch for a survival horror game, not this one.

I'm not an artist, but I really wanted to learn how to do this in a way that was fun and looked good. I remembered a really cool technique I learned a few months back, using gradient textures. The way it works is (tldr) instead of making UV maps or painting directly on the model, you have swatches of the colors you want and just move the UV over to where you want it! If that doesn't make sense to you, imagine it like this: it's easier to just wrap a box in patterned paper than it'd be to meticulously paint the pattern on the box. Here's a link to the article, a really good read. Thanks to this, it took me just another day or two to completely texture all of the furniture.

Here's what the end result looks like!

As you can see, pretty good! Now we have a break room to use for when Joker fails his employees and has to– wait a minute. The couch is fucked up.

And fixed! It's also so easy to make changes now. Literally just drag the UV region and boom, done. Just a matter of exporting the .FBX into Unity after making adjustments. 

You can even see how little of the texture map was used by this room! Which is great because that means I can reuse this material for future furniture in other rooms, and mix and match objects. In Unity, objects with the same material render at the same time, which makes the performance great. Especially since there's no lighting system in Joker's Trip and most models are pretty low-poly, that means most of the performance bottlenecks are gonna be from image sizes.

Anyway, see y’all this weekend!

-LG