Devlog #2 (Patreon)

(Content warning: this post depicts sexual content.) 

Welcome to the second devlog. Like the first one, this one will mostly be talking about the design of the currently released version of the game rather than upcoming changes. I have been working on the next version of the game. Feel free to keep up with my work over on the issue tracker.  

So let's talk about the game's narrative. 

Story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It's expected to be there, but it's not that important.

- John Carmack 

Uh oh, my project is basically a combination of those things! 

Story Matters 

Story is actually pretty important as it provides a context through which you understand the events of a game (or porn). In other words, at the absolute minimum, the story sets a tone. That can be incredibly important to get players into the mindset you think is most conducive to a good playing experience. In the original Doom for example, the story doesn't take itself too seriously and is quite tongue in cheek, so the hyper violence is not meant to make you feel sick or reflect on the nature of violence, it's meant to be cathartic and fun, and even comedic. Contrast that with the violence of getting your limbs chopped off in RE7, which is meant to make you feel shocked and helpless. Or the intense, stomach-turning violence present in The Last of Us, which is intended to revolt you or make you consider the human cost of survival in a world like that one. 

What does this have to do with a lewd game? Well, there are a few approaches lewd games take narratively, and these approaches reflect the developer's goals and inform the way the game's erotic scenes land with players. I think the two most common approaches are a more light-hearted, comedic approach, and more grounded, gritty approach. The latter, seen in games like Freecities and Liz of the Tower, present a world with more realism intended to enhance the feelings of risk, consequence, and depravity in the lewd stuff. On the other hand, the more light-hearted approach is meant to be sort of consequence-free, meaning the player is encouraged to simply not think about whatever risks are associated with random unprotected sex. I do think you lose a bit of immersion in the latter case, but in my opinion, you also gain the ability to tell a much more fun and interesting story. 

I really did sit down and try to think about which approach I wanted for this game. I think a more realistic, grittier approach enhances immersion and, in some ways, eroticism, but I also feel that a light tone keeps the story from ever getting too serious or too depressing. 

In the last entry I talked about how I ultimately landed on a more hentai-esque style for the sexual depictions in this game than a more realistic one as I felt it gave me more to work with. There's only so many ways you can describe a guy railing a girl, but if you start throwing in unrealistically frequent and large squirts and hips moving on their own, you've got more points of articulation in that scene, and more things to say and more ways to say it. I felt that the over-the-top scenes fit better with a lighter tone, but also that a lighter tone had more room to work in than a darker tone. It's hard to inject levity into the latter, but it's easy to inject serious moments into the former. In short, I settled on a light-hearted tone because I felt it gave me more freedom, and because I felt it fit better with the direction the sex scenes were moving in. 

I think this choice resonates through the entire game. Nothing that happens in SS is all that serious. While there are consequences for the protagonist's behavior, she's not gonna get murdered or anything horrible like that. I also decided to make her fairly strong, being a demon, so that the average human, even a pretty tough one, isn't a significant danger to her. Though this isn't explicitly stated in the game, the depictions of the protagonist resisting attackers and such usually involve her kicking their asses in a humorous way. The protagonist is always in control, and therefore, so is the player. 

The Protagonist 

I wanted the protagonist to be a mostly defined character, but with some fuzzy edges for the player to express agency and preference through them. This is a hard balance to strike and I know I haven't nailed it, but I hope you can at least see what I'm going for. My goals for the protagonist were simple. They say comedy is when you put strange people in normal situations or normal people in strange situations. I want the protagonist to consistently be out of place even in this fairly sexually charged city, but also not be the butt of all the jokes or anything either. 

I try to keep the protagonist feeling like she could be interpreted in several ways. Maybe she's kinda dumb. Maybe she's actually smart and just fucking with everyone. Maybe she's naive. Maybe she's just a weirdo. I want her to be consistent but I also don't want her to be a one-note ditz or sex maniac. I want the player to feel that there's hidden depths to her and explore those depths by playing as her through interaction with the game. 

This is a goal, and a hard one both in terms of writing and in terms of game design. I'm describing what I hope to accomplish at best, not necessarily the way the game is right now, so don't @ me. The point is that I've spent a lot of time, probably far more than you've any reason to expect, agonizing over characterization in my porn game. I want the protagonist to feel like more than a means to an end, but without shutting out the player's ability to interact with the world through her, to interpret her, to shape her, and to express their preferences and desires with her. It's a balance I'm striving for. 

The Plot 

I'd be insane to set everything in stone, but there is a plan that spreads across five or so chapters. I've planned the story to the task level, meaning I know what obstacle or task the player will be charged with at every point along the journey, but I haven't planned every single scene yet. 

There are currently six planned endings, with several minor variations for each. The final count may be more or less, but I expect six to be the most likely number. The game does end rather definitively, so this isn't a story I plan to just expand indefinitely or anything, though right now I intend for players to be able to keep playing after the ending as though it never happened if they want. I am open to finding other ways to expand the story if players want, but the important point is that stories need to end to be stories. Every story needs a beginning, middle, and end, and SS has those things. 

I can't promise the story will be good and that you'll like it, but I can promise that it will present lots of content for you to experience over the coming months, and I think you'll be surprised and intrigued with where we end up going and how things eventually work out. 

Time Table 

It is hard to gauge how long it will take me to release an entire new chapter. At least once per month a game update will arrive, and it will have new content, but they will probably not actually include a complete chapter. The prologue was written over a long period of time, but I was also working on several dozen other things at the same time, including the basic operation of the game and the engine. That said, as far as chapters go, the prologue is also very short. The game at this point in time represents almost a year of development work, if you can believe it, and the prologue was written over the last four months of that, bit by bit. Chapter 1 will probably not take four months, but it might take two or three updates to complete rather than one. 

I will be in a better position to establish a time table going forward as I settle into a more consistent development routine. 

Also, the end of the story is not necessarily the end of development. After the story, I want to add a new game plus feature, some post game content, mod tools, custom art pack support, and maybe some official expansion pack-like mods. For example, a futanari mode or improved lesbian options. These are things I want to do, but they are far enough in the future that I can't promise anything right now, and my first and most important goal is completing the game's story. 

The End 

That's it for this entry. In the next entry, I will provide a post-mortem for v0.2.0, and maybe dive a bit into the technology powering the game for those interested in that sort of thing.