AHE Devlog #1 (Patreon)

   Time to share some game development and the thought processes that went into certain decisions I've made. It's very easy to have a dream project, and an enormous struggle to take all the steps to actually start to realize one.

1: Visual aesthetic.

   I hunted across veritable oceans of different artists each with their own unique styles and I suffered over mountains of gameplay exploring different western erotic games to see what others had done.

   In the end, the ideal fantasy dream perfect game my mind always conjured up was reminiscent of the look of late 80s / early 90s western cartoons; that lost era of style that harked more towards comic book proportions rather than the boom of more exaggerated 'cartoony' designs in the years that followed. Yes, there was a time in the past where western animation was developing in parallel to anime. I wanted to avoid anime/manga-style designs for our project, because the story is meant to directly contrast realistic characterizations/situations to the anime and manga our cast have in-story interests in.

   In other words, painted backdrops with a foreground of simple but detailed western characters. Our killer combination of Basem_S1's backgrounds and Zaphryon's character art pull this off with excellence in all the test images I've put together; this one of Emily and Rebecca could've been a screencap from a Saturday morning cartoon.

2: Character designs.

   In the ten or so months of development we currently have only eleven different sprite sheets to use for the game. One might ask—what's taking so long? The answer is basically that I've been continuously commissioning Zaphryon to redo sets over again for improvement. The first designs were a starting off 'concept art' point to build off of, and from there we determine what we like and what we don't, what body proportions could be corrected, hairstyle, pose, accessory, and costume changes and et cetera. 

   Partway through my first test version of the game, I discovered that the characters as-is... weren't going to work. Visual novels traditionally use front-facing character sprites all looking towards the screen (looking towards the player) for an immersive experience. The protagonist typically would not be depicted on-screen... but in a multiple-POV story like ours, that just wasn't going to work. Those present in a scene all needed to appear together on-screen.

   So, I began to commission 'side-facing' sprites (actually 3/4 view but you get the idea) that could be placed on screen turned towards one another and this would mitigate the awkward way they were looking at the fourth wall rather than each other for conversations in-game. These two don't look like they're interacting with each other in the scene with front-facing designs:

   That isn't to say the front-facing designs are all wasted; AnimeCon Harem is a complex story and often there aren't just two characters interacting at once. When three or more characters are on screen together we'll be able to have the middle ones front-facing (but perhaps with face/eyes that orient both left and right) so that the group is arrayed in a natural sort of huddle together.

3: Special illustrations.

   In a lot of projects there would be only sprite sets and then special graphics for sex scenes, but in adapting the story into the game I found way too many annoying moments where something was being described as happening—but the sprites themselves were just static and standing there the same as always. This is a somewhat visual medium, for crying out loud—players want to see what's happening. So I made the hard (on my wallet) decision of commissioning special illustrations for just about everything I can.

   This is going to be an arduous process, because frankly there's just a lot of different things players will want to see rather than read about. I thought it was better to start early though, so I've been commissioning these at a rate of two special illustrations a month; one via VIP patron tier and up voting on a set of options, and one "secret" illustration just so that when the game release does roll around patrons will still have new sights to discover.

4: Background illustrations.

   Many western erotic games focus completely on character art and sex scenes, and cut corners on background illustrations. Sometimes to the extent of using real-life photos with a lazy filter over them, or oversimplified 'hypermodern' designs for bedrooms, kitchens, and bathrooms.

   Most of AnimeCon Harem is based on my real experiences however and needs to provide just the right context to really sell the scenes. Ideally, a lot of the art that Basem_S1 does for us will feel grounded, real, and lived in, will evoke similar familiar feelings from veteran con-goers. Leaflet clutter on the ground, an aging and outdated hotel room! I've been extraordinarily pleased with the backgrounds we've gotten in so far, and the only ones I've hired him to redo were a few early ones that were 'zoomed in' too far to comfortably fit characters into for a scene... and that awful first Cafe Booth we had.

   Basem_S1 does brilliant work—but he was also very firm with me in that he draws environments, not figures, and empty pavilion halls will never have the energy and excitement of a proper anime convention. So, our work wasn't finished, and we had to try out a few different 'background crowd' artists, which are difficult to find, before happening across YeeMcBear:

   Her art style is absolutely ideal for what we need! More simplistic than Zaphryon's designs, so that they don't steal all the limelight, but also each background person is defined in their own way and radiates personality and life. She even managed to do this without resorting to the inclusion of 'brand-name' cosplays! Mess with the brightness levels of that layer a bit, add in ambient crowd noise, and players will really get a feel for the convention experience.

   I'll have more to devblog about in the future when I start getting into branching story paths, in-game items and inventory, map-screens and user interfaces and et cetera, but for now I wanted to share with everyone a bit of this journey in building up art assets for the game. Hopefully this was interesting and informative! I've been somewhat low-key in asset updates for the game here, as in I've just been editing old abandoned story teaser posts rather than annoying you all with new posts whenever we get new designs in.

( AnimeCon Harem Eroge | Devlog #2 )