Home Artists Posts Import Register

Content

So, I'm still working through the process of the 1000 stat upgrades. The first step was easy, the vast majority of the stats are checked and assigned by a central function, so changing that function instantly "fixed" all those interactions (although we still need to test it to make sure it works as intended). The second step was to go through and deal with a few hundred "exceptions" in the code, places where I used some other method to check the stats because the core function wasn't efficient in that situation. This wasn't difficult, but it was pretty tedious, just stepping through a list of every possible instance and making sure that a ">= 120" gets updated to a ">= 1200."

Now I'm halfway through the last step of the process, going through each section of the game and deciding which situations I should leave the stat upgrades as they are, just a single digit increase in most cases, or where I should boost them up, so that they retain the same relative shift that they used to. If I didn't do this, then you could do anything there was to do in the game once through, and end up with stats something like 675/220/197 out of 1000/1000/1000, requiring a ton of grinding to get to get any higher. That's no fun.


So anyway, in the next version, it'll hopefully be in a good place, but I'll still be looking for feedback as to what events you feel give too much or too little gain. Keep in mind that there is a lot of diminishing returns in the system, so the first time you do anything should almost always reward a large payout, and in many cases the first few times will offer a  smaller, but still decent payout, and then they drop to minimal returns, and in some cases zero returns once she gets used to it.


I've got a question for you guys though, something I've been thinking about. My current plan is to release each new girl in a "mostly complete" status, that is that they will be at least as "done" as Rogue is now before I add them to the game in any way. I was thinking though that it might be better to start adding them in a "minimal" form instead, earlier than intended. This would mean that basically you couldn't likely have any unique scenes with them, no sex or dating or chatting or anything, but that they might pop up from time to time as "NPCs" in the world in multi-character story scenes.


The downside to this is that it would of course take some time to make even these fairly minimal sprites for them, and it would mean locking in some of the basic design work way before they were ready for prime time. So I wonder what you guys think about that? Should I save the new characters until I'm ready to launch them as complete potential love interests, or should I include them as basic NPCs that offer minimal "PG-13" interaction until I am ready to invest in them fully? I'll put a poll below, but also please comment on the issue if you have an opinion.

http://strawpoll.me/6540832

Comments

Anonymous

I'll say - wait until they are ready. Otherwise it's just a tease and will probably frustrate people more than add anything to the game. But that's just my opinion.)

Thursday

I would say add them as NPCs first. My reasoning behind this is that as fun as the game is the world feels empty, the only characters that exist are Rogue and Professor X. Adding other character i.e. potential love interests would help the game feel more immersive and also help you the creator decide which girl should be next on the development cycle. Everyone knows that Kitty will likely be next, but what if you added vaguely interactable girls such as Boom-Boom, Wanda, Jean, Storm and Mystique. Your patrons would get an idea of what characters are being worked on and could express interest in which character should be next in the development cycle. Anyway, there are my two cents, I love the game and am looking forward to the next update.

Arcash

I would say the second. I agree with what beishiznit said about introducing characters and also think it would be easier to give you feedback with a preliminary version. If you add everything in on go for a character in may be difficult to trace all down. I'm not saying that you can't do it perfectly on the first try but by law of murphy bugs should appear, that's how programming works sadly. That's my opinion but with the issue i have never worked with Renpy, don't know if it's complicated or how much time it would take.

OniArtist

Well, bugs probably wouldn't be that big a factor. I mean, they'll happen, but this wouldn't make them less likely to happen. ;) The bugs would come from how their main systems are implemented, which wouldn't come until later. The "NPC" versions of them would be using pretty basic code already in action, to display characters. 95% of the work in making them would be in the art of making the sprites (one costume, a few expressions, way less than Rogue currently has), and then adding some dialog and stuff. It's not until I go through the process of actually making them "playable" that the real headaches begin. ;)

Arcash

Okay, I still think that maybe it will be better to add them like a presentation. Like adding Kitty to introduce her so anyone can comment something on the model or behaviour before putting the action on it. I can't draw shit so i don't know how much time consuming is the process althought i imagine that it will take a lot. Do you draw a basic body an then "stick" the expressions and clothes on it or do you have to make a complete new drawing for all of them?

Quwykxz

I say I'd prefer to have true characters rather than random sprites floating around without any purpose besides just filling space. I believe in the old adages "Good things come to those that wait", and "Patience is a virtue". :-)

Techfire80

I'd like to see the others added so they can be seen. If we can at least talk to them or see them somewhere on the campus. Would be great if you could walk in on them in the showers or danger room or their rooms (when you get the keys)

OniArtist

It's a layered process, so basically, I already have a basic Kitty that is practically ready to go for NPC purposes, I sort of made her last year as an April Fools joke. She consists of a base body, and then clothing layers for each of her default costume pieces, and she has one each of her facial features, in the "normal" expression. If I were to make her an actual NPC I'd probably want to throw in at least 3-4 other facial expressions to cover general conversation, although I wouldn't need quite as many as a fully sexually active sprite. She also doesn't have alternate arm positions, which are nice to have.

OniArtist

Yeah, that's kind of part of the problem though, because if you start to encounter them in "sexy" situations, then why couldn't you push those situations like you can with Rogue? The option to do so wouldn't be available because I wouldn't have the parts built for that yet. So basically if you do encounter them, they wouldn't have their own rooms, they wouldn't have shower graphics yet, you'd basically just see them in class or on campus with short story dialogs. The other stuff would definitely come, but as part of the full release of that character.

Arcash

I see, i seen it on other games but they we're always static images, wasn't sure if it could be done with animations.

OniArtist

Yup. Now the animations I can do with them are a bit limited, I can't easily do fluid animations like you might see in a flash game or something, but the sprites I'm using can be moved around and rotated and stuff like that. There are a lot of seemingly simple things that I wish I could do but can't with Renpy, but I'm trying to work out clever ways to get around that.

Shadow

even if you dont put in any characters in soon can you post the image of kitty

OniArtist

I posted it in my April Fools 2015 posts, let me find some links. . . Ok, here's the mock cover with the full outfit on: <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/kat-fancy-2058301">https://www.patreon.com/posts/kat-fancy-2058301</a> and here's a screenshot with her partially dressed: <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/kat-fancy-april-2097015">https://www.patreon.com/posts/kat-fancy-april-2097015</a> I haven't really touched it since, it's lacking lots of facial features and I'll probably tweak it a bit before moving forward on it, but that's the general idea.

madmaxxlr

Can't wait to see how this comes out. Btw, is there a place to download the last version? Also, are you planing to to add storm and Jean to the roster? That seems like it would be good for a naughty teacher role. I'm brand new to Patreon and you are the first person that I'm supporting. I would Just like to say "Hello".

OniArtist

Hello! I'll be sending out a new version as soon as I get it nailed up (more update on that later, but it should be in a week or so). As for Jean and Storm, I have to be honest, I have some issues with including them. I just found the versions they had in Evolution to be super boring, both in design and personality. We can discuss that if people have other ideas. ;) My plans at the moment are that if I do include them, I might come up with a more original redesign for them, some combination of the Evo style with more of a comic costume design or something, I don't know. I'll give it some thought. I will say, the third character I have in mind was one that was not actually in the cartoon, but might still satisfy your interests here. . .

walkeroftheocean

Hi, have you sent out links for 0.93? I don't seem to have got it if you have...