Development Blog (Patreon)

Teaser: Hover-Car

TLDR: We are working on a way to traverse Virtual Little Tokyo in a Hover-Car. Why? Because it´s gonna be damn frigging cool!

Virtual Little Tokyo is a vast futuristic cityscape and it needs to be explored. While we plan to limit the explorable areas, avoiding massive scope-creep, flying to different locations always was part of the plan.

In line with that thought, we plan to add some “Delivery” Side-Missions, so the player can earn some cash and buy presents for their loved ones!

We will release a pre alpha build (playable for everyone with the founders perk) for the hover car mechanic, so you can play-test, fly around and help us polish up the cars behaviour.

Teaser: X-Mas Mini Game!

TLDR: We are preparing a little present for everyone this year.

We will be releasing a small Christmas-Style Melody Arcade Game for the holidays as well as a new build of the main game!

The game is gonna be SFW and will feature a very particular little gremlin - that every Melody fan knows and loves.

Reviewing: Sandbox

TLDR:  The sandbox has been around for a few months now and we are taking a closer look at what works, what needs work and where we aim to take this game mode.

We developed the sandbox with these points in mind:

• View Characters from any angle
• Puppeteer // Pose Characters
• Create small scenarios
• Have a quick fap

The current state of the sandbox can simply be described as:

“It works, but how does it actually work?”

The sandbox offers a very high degree of freedom for creating simple scenarios. But with its steep learning curve and often fiddly interaction, it can scare off at first sight.

How to create a scenario also is split into many different paths. From creating levels yourself, to loading saved levels from other players over simply modifying pre-created scenarios altogether …

That level of complexity isn't very welcoming for simply having a quick fap. We plan on creating premade scenes for those looking to watch content rather than create to be added in the future!

Apart from these criticisms we are very happy with the state of the sandbox. It allows us to fairly easily generate smaller game updates while we are working on the larger story mode updates.

For the future of the sandbox, we are planning a rework late summer 2023, in order to move it farther towards what we feel the final game should contain.

Until then you can look forward to regular updates to its animation content, characters and props!

TechArt: Slime Shader

TLDR: Slime Waifus are the holy grail of 3D character shading - how are we faring so far?

When we first developed our “next gen anime shading” for unreal engine 4, it was always clear that we would somewhen encounter the “Endboss” of shading - a transparent, semi fluid character - like Jellody. 

Transparent shading in ANY engine is not just expensive to render, it also comes with many issues like:

• How does the engine sort the overlapping transparent triangles of a mesh?
• How does the engine handle backfaces?
• How can a transparent shader keep our character's style?

And many more …

At this point we are around 50% done with our research on the matter. 

That said - things we are still working on that might - or might not - be added to this shading over the coming months:

• Internal Volume Slime Density

Usually transparent meshes are flat planes and if they are containers like glasses, anything like water or a drink is done by adding another mesh inside. This might be possible to achieve with a character, but it would increase the cost of rendering that character by 2 times. To avoid that it would be best to work out a way to “fake” internal mesh volumetric effects through the shader itself.

• Internal Volume Slime Deformation

One of the major slime fantasies is to stick .. well anything into it. But instead of simply pushing through a flat plane surface, deforming the internal density volume would increase how “haptic” the slime character feels.

• External Slime Drip VFX

Slimes need to ooze and drip, maybe not constantly but somewhat regularly. It helps tell the story of an ever fluid being that is held together by her sheer will, constantly working against gravity, while maintaining her preferred shape.

• Full or Partial Character “Fluidization”

We are going to look into how to partially or fully melt Jellody´s body into a slime puddle on the ground in order to allow for even more enticing scenes.

The current result and some tests can be seen here: (WIP)

TechDev: Patreon Login

TLDR: True Patreon Exclusiveness!

We wanted to make sure to discuss with all of you our plans on adding a patreon only login to the game.

The plugin will use the patreon API to check your currently enabled patreon tier. It will not have access to any other information than that. We plan to add the login within the coming 2 months.

The plugin will allow us to differentiate between public demo content and patreon only content, within the same build. When it is working as intended, we will use that chance to revisit if we can start using steam as a release platform for future updates.

Soft-Spoilers: Stream-Scene

TLDR: The next release will feature scene 4 of chapter 1. It is the final act in the real world before we send you off into your Isekai adventure!

After having your sweet dream about Melody, you're still on edge and decide to watch one of Melody´s steamy streams. She shows off her new rooftop Onsen, plays with her Lovense toys and even lets the viewers take control of T1M!

Here is a very early preview of Melody´s rooftop Onsen!