Home Artists Posts Import Register
The Offical Matrix Groupchat is online! >>CLICK HERE<<

Content

Hey there, nudies! Apologies for being a bit late on this progress report. Took a bit of time to get everything to work, but I'll get into that later. Right now, it's bath time!

Me and Invertex have been deliberating on how exactly we would incorporate showering into this game. It's been something we've been struggling with since the very inception of this game under Jaguar's watch. We obviously want to include showering - how could you not? But at the same time, we don't really want to implement a hygiene system to force you to shower. If a mechanic like that is mandatory, then it kinda takes the fun out of it, you know? So what do we do? Make it a mini-game? How would that mini-game work in context? Do we just have it as an optional thing to do? Include it only in a story moment and make it a cutscene? We fretted for quite a while, until we had an idea...

What if showers functioned as a save area? The more we explored the idea, the more sense it made. Save rooms in games are often areas of rest and relaxation, and what better place to do that than in the shower? As a nudist, Amber doesn't have to worry about dirtying clothes or even towels. She can hop in the shower for a quick rinse any time she wants! It's just down the hall from her room, so it's a short little detour if you want a quick save. This way, we even incorporate that element of "hygiene" into the game design by encouraging the player to shower every day as a means to save their game. You don't HAVE to, naturally. But you'll probably want to!

We've been wondering how best to incorporate a save/load system into the game, and limiting the save room to Amber's shower gives us a number of benefits, development-wise. By locking save functionality to the act of showering, it limits where and how players can save or load their game. While it would be more convenient to be able to save and load anywhere, we want to encourage players to act more spontaneously during gameplay. If you're like me, you'll want to explore everything and save before committing to any action to min/max your time in Culo Culo Town. But if the ability to save is tied to an action that you have to go out of the way to do, it becomes inconvenient to save before everything. And since your schedule in Culo Culo Town is pretty open and free, the hope is that players will just say "fuck it" and have fun with whatever catches their eye, without the need to go save real quick before you do anything.

Now, you probably have some concerns. After all, Culo Culo Town is presumably a big place. It would be very limiting to only be allowed to save your game in Amber's bathroom, right? But here's the really fun part - It's the ACT of showering that saves your game. You're not limited to Amber's bathroom. If you're bold enough, any spot with enough running water can act as a shower, especially if you're a nudist! Save your game out in town by showering at the public beach showers, the gym showers, in the mall's fountain, on the street with a broken fire hydrant, or even just with a garden hose! You may draw some looks in public places, so you do have to raise your stats in order to shower everywhere. But once you do, the whole world is your shower!

In not save-showering news, we've also been working on reworking Amber's home for Godot. Amber's home has been... tricky, to say the least. It was the first thing our original lead made using various asset packs, but the nature of those asset packs make it extremely hard to work with. It's essentially the only thing in our game that wasn't made from scratch with the express purpose of using it for MNL. In addition to that, the tight, enclosed space of Amber's home has made ut difficult to get our camera system working within it. But I think we've finally wrangled it together and have made it cooperate.

We've got some nice fixed camera angles, a tracking system, a smooth transition from room to room, all smoothly operated with just your mouse! Invertex did an incredible job getting this all working so smoothly, and from what he's told me, it wasn't easy! Since we wanted to make this game completely functional with just a mouse, it meant that every room and area needed to be able to convey its information as efficiently as possible to the player without the need of any direct camera control. That means knowing what you can interact with, where you can go in it, what the purpose of the area even is. Amber's room in particular was tricky, because not only was it small, every major thing in the room was basically in opposite ends of each other.

 

It took a lot of tweaking, but we managed to get everything visible from one single camera angle. But to do that, we actually had to move something. Amber originally had a little corner cubby spot with a desk and computer, but to make sure we got the angle we wanted, we had to move that whole set-up down a floor.

Thankfully, it works pretty well there! But that's the kinda stuff you have to account for in designing a game like this. When you have fixed camera angles, you need to make sure the player can easily explore and get a read on anything they can do on it. If the camera needs to transition from one shot to another, it has to be done in a way that doesn't disorient the player and confuses them. There's lots of little things to consider! I could talk forever about it, but this post is getting a bit long. I'll grant you mercy and call it here.

Thank you all for your continued support! See you next week!

Files

Comments

Dr.Cgad

So we getting close to a demo?

Double Deadline

Public showering would be amazing! Maybe Amber can leverage her friendship with the Mayor to have more public outdoor showers? XD Also, if there are beaches in town, there can be showers along there? We can always forgive any contrivance to allow for awesome. I think it would increase immersion to have a hygiene metric to balance for Amber too! Love to see the innovation and progress!