Update - 19 September 2016 (Patreon)

This week's image

Okay, pop quiz - who are the characters in this picture? The first one to get the answer right in the comments gets to see the next picture that follows up from this one in a private message. :)

Also, do you like it? I don't normally do extreme sex close-ups like this; partially because they're not really my thing (I like to see the girl's face) and partly because until recently I didn't have the graphics capability, but I think it's nice to throw them in at the occasional key moment. I personally think this one turned out better than I expected.

Working on the climax of the game

This week I've been working a fair bit on the climax of the game. Honestly I expected the focus of my work for this version of the alpha to mostly rest on the endings (epilogues) for the girls, but the climax itself has so far taken up a lot of work. This is, I suppose, because there are a lot of plot points that occur in the scene and so they need to be visually depicted, leading to a lot of image design. Some of these illustrations were pretty tough, too, as they contain a lot of characters. Also, I had to create the monster.

All of that turned out in some ways better than I expected, since it was all pretty solid, but also maybe a little less grand and impressive than I had in my head. Oh, well. It's actually not the most important part of the game anyway. I will say this now (and probably repeat it later) you haven't really seen the end of this game until you've seen the harem end. I set out with a plan to make this game with a harem end, and so I thought it would be interesting to do something significant with that ending... okay, I can't say a whole lot more without getting spoilery.

In terms of what I've actually been doing for the climax apart from image design, it's mostly been technical work. Some voice editing and text coding, and most importantly programming within the game. This was a little intimidating to me for a while since it's complicated, but I had a good night's work on it last night so I think it's mostly done now. I'll need to test it, though, because likely there's a whole bunch of junk not working as of yet.

Epilogues

The epilogues are a harder thing to make than you might expect. Basically I find it hard to sum up the relationships in one simple ending. The threesome endings are actually a little easier for me - they don't feel so 'definitive', they're just a bit of fun with sex between the various characters and a fun ending that doesn't have to completely capture the whole dynamic of their romances. The one-on-one endings are higher pressure though, as they need to give at least a little bit of a sense of closure to the romance that I've been building. It's not that I have no ideas, just that I have to have ideas for their sex lives, their romance and for their lives together - a long and complicated proposal. And I have to illustrate it.

Anyway, long story short, I did some work on the epilogues too. It made a nice break from programming the climax which is kind of cool and fun in some ways, but also a technical thing that isn't really my preferred use of my time. If I had loads of money I'd hire a couple of programmers and a couple of artists. Maybe another writer, too, to handle some of the smaller stuff. :)

More design work for the next big thing!

Yes, I wound up doing more design work for my next big game project. Even though this distracts a little from PAL progress I don't feel bad about doing it because I'm sure you're going to approve once you see what I'm putting together. (Well... pretty sure, anyway.) I've been working a bit on graphics and I'm making sure that all of my sets/environments and characters are of a higher visual quality than in past, so I will have a generally higher standard across the board. Also, I've been working on the writing (plot and characters), which is important too, I'd say!

Twitter: @BBBenAIF

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