Unveiling the Unknown - Dev Blog 06/04: Intro and Characters (Patreon)

Unveiling the Unknown, my next game and collaboration with artist mdf-an, is progressing smoothly! 

Progress so far:

Dungeon:

The dungeon is now far more refined. While I still need to add spells and code the additional party members' appearances, I have the general gameplay loop and bosses working. I'm not a huge fan of the UI; I'm certainly no UI designer, but it's functional right now, at least. 

Some early progress on randomized enemy traits has also begun. In order to add depth, I'm considering adding an elemental system where every maid has an associated element that will be stronger or weaker against certain enemies. Of course, this would just turn dungeons into a color-matching simulator, so I'll take it a step further and add elemental reactions with various effects.

I also want to add roguelike-esque random events as you travel between the floors. Sometimes you'll have a percentage change to get a positive or negative effect based on your choices. I think an equipment/loot system could go pretty far, too, in adding a little more depth to the game. 

Manor:

Here's the area where you can walk around and interact with characters. Here is where you'll be able to talk to maids, engage in story events with them (like visiting a character in Friendship with Benefits did), and you can ask them for sex scenes or unique outfits if you have a high enough affection.

The minimap is fully functional; you can click the arrows to move around on the x/y axis or teleport around by clicking the icons in the map itself.

To the top left, you can see the most important currencies you have. Money will be used to buy "manor upgrades,", such as building a forge to process ore into ingots, and you can then upgrade the forge.

The first button on the top right will take you to the manor upgrade page, and here's an example of the forge:

The second button in the top right of the manor image, the coin, is for the "Shop" menu, which is mostly designed to buy gifts to raise affection and outfits.

The third button, the heart, is for the maid status and upgrade menu, which I haven't even begun to upgrade yet. Most of the time, crystals will be used to improve maids, but ingots can also be used to improve their equipment.

Introduction and the first H-Scenes:

I've finished writing and spell-checking the introduction. It introduces a plethora of characters while still having a very tight pace. It was important for me to give the player a general idea of how each character feels about almost every other character as concisely as I could, and I think this may be my best intro yet. The intro also features 3 sex scenes, which will consist of 8 different images, and I'm hoping for one image in each scene to be animated. It won't be extremely high-quality (10+ frames), frame-by-frame animation. It'll likely be two keyframes and maybe an in-between frame that transition together to give a good effect of motion. Parallax and other effects may be used to stimulate even more motion. 

For the first released version of the game, I also want some character hangouts to be available. I'm aiming to have introductory hangouts for each character and some extras for the Head Maid and Tomboy Maid, whose character arcs I want to finish first. 

Characters:

As you can see at the top, I've drawn three characters so far. 

We have Seraphina, with brunette hair in a bun. She is the regal, refined, and impossibly dutiful head maid of the Balethorn manor. She'll do anything to serve you, and do so professionally! There's probably a bit more to her than you'd expect at a glance... But she doesn't talk about herself often.

Emi, the blonde with a messy scrunchie ponytail I know the least about what I want to do with this character, but she'll be the most susceptible to the form of corruption this game will have, in which the maids gradually become part of your harem. She will star in the game's first sex scene, which I've written out to be a three-part party transitioning from hands to mouth to pussy. My goal is to make them the highest-quality H-scenes I've had in my games yet, with a complete commitment to quality. To do this, each girl will also primarily focus on certain themes and fetishes. Emi's scenes will be partially focused on her cheating with someone else with you, but don't worry; that guy's a dick. 

Lady Balethorn will strike you as having the most unique design, as she wears a visor over her head and a giant hat to go with it. Her design is inspired by Killua's mother from Hunter x Hunter. She is the mother of both the protagonist and the legendary hero, and while there won't be any incest, I drew a naked version of her anyway. I don't want to go into her character too much, because once you've played a little of Unveiling the Unknown, the lore implications if you think about her role in the story are quite intense. 

You may have noticed a lot of these characters have quite large breasts and hourglass figures! Don't worry, we'll have some greater variety soon. While there are more thicc, motherly types coming soon, there is also a muscular, short-haired tomboy, a dark-haired Butler with a smaller figure, and two other characters that won't have gigantic boobs.

I also mentioned earlier that this game will focus on a gradual escalation of the sexual content. While the girls will participate in sexual scenes early due to the inciting incident pushed by the game, most girls will start with handjobs, oral, and some of them will be reluctant at first. The game will gradually "corrupt" them into being more open to sexual encounters and more loving of you. The word corrupt here is mostly important because a lot of the maids are in love with your brother, "the legendary hero", so in a sense, you'll be stealing your brother's harem away from him, under his nose. There may also be more to it than just that, but I'll keep quiet for now! :)