Another TOTDC 2 art preview (Patreon)

Again, it's been a while since the last showcase for the art. You can see Darenzia's and Jane's new outfits, one of the early bad guys you'll encounter, a security robot (I expect to re-use this and some variations of it in several sections, so I don't have to commission unique art for unremarkable fights). Finally, we have the lair of a small gang, and Darenzia's room.

Not shown here are the first set of piercings for Celeste, and the various hair colors she'll have available (I settled for something simple on this one, having brown, black, red and blonde).

I am still trying to evaluate how much of an impact the piercings and possibly tattoos will have on the commissions. I'd like to have all changes shown in the sexy scenes, if possible, but I wonder if it would take too much time (there are only so many commissions I can get from Stan in a month, after all). I should probably commission something hot soon, so we can test it in practice. Worse case scenario, I'd limit the scene customization to the more obvious things (like hair color and breast size), but I'd be pretty bummed out if that was the case.

My eternal struggle with crafting a good UI continues. I am mostly in a good spot, but since I am still learning Ren'py, I occasionally waste time just trying to figure out if something is possible, and if it would be feasible to do it for regular development. I learned just how much I hate working with placeholders, though. Not having a lot of time to tackle this stuff doesn't help either, but it is what it is. I don't exactly have the luxury of regular development, so I need to get most of it right early on, as players might be stuck with the same UI for a while, and first impressions are also important.

Not much else to say, really. The demo needs UI work, art and content, and probably some balancing, but weirdly enough it's not that bad at all already. I feel like if I was using, say, RAGS or RPG Maker, I would have been ready for showing it to testers a while ago already, since I wouldn't have to worry as much about art or the UI, giving me more time for content and design. Well, I still have Caliross to worry about, so I guess it's fine to take it slowly at this point. :)