Game Update #20 (Patreon)

Hey there, everyone! It's update time. And of course the huge news since the last update: The frat party release is finished and in early access!!

This one was a long time coming, and I learned a lot about creating a content drop of this size in making it. So far I've received some really great feedback on how it all came together, so I can happily say it seems all the effort was worth it.

If you're a Junior, Senior, or Graduate who missed the release post, you can find it here. For the full release schedule, click here.

So what's next?

Script

In the last update, I shared a flow chart of the start of the club sequence, and it hasn't changed much since then—my focus the past few weeks was solely on finishing the frat party.

With that said, more and more ideas have been coming to me in the few days since I finished the frat party. I have a very clear idea of what will occur throughout the night, and I'll be able to share more on that once the story beats are more clearly laid out.

I'll also be using what I learned from the insane amount of writing I did for the frat party to narrow the club's focus slightly. (The frat party script ended up at 82,000 words!) I am going to be carefully considering how to do this without short-changing the storylines or hookup scenes compared to what we got for the frat party guys, Matt, and Leo. It'll be a challenge for sure, but necessary to avoid another lengthy gap between releases.

Art

I've created designs and rendered early sprites for 7 of the 17 new characters that'll be in the club sequence and have acquired most of the assets I need to make the rest. This is the first art step before moving on to the backgrounds & CGs. What I learned from the frat party is to not be overly nitpicky about the characters—I can make them look good without spending an entire day to make just a couple!

As for those CGs, those will be planned as the flowcharts are created. As with the frat party, I intend to make sure every main guy involved gets at least 3 new CGs, with the hookup scenes getting many, many more. 

Something I discovered with the frat party—sometimes I just can't stop making CGs. The original planned CG count for the frat party was around 40 but ended up at nearly 70 by the end! I'm taking into account what extra CGs I ended up including to make sure I can more accurately schedule out how many I'll do for the club sequence.

Something interesting as well—I sometimes find myself spending hours and hours making a single CG, which extends development time quite a bit. In the final frat party stretch, I challenged myself to make the last CGs in an hour each. And those turned out to be my favorite CGs in the entire update. Again I'm learning how to cull back without sacrificing quality—a great lesson to have learned!

Coding

Obviously I haven't begun coding the club sequence yet—I need a script first 🙂 But in this last stretch I had to code the gallery to add in a second page for a few characters. There were some challenges involving the page layout, but I was able to figure out how to correct it without going into frustration mode. It's encouraging to know I've learned enough the past year to be able do that!

I'm also thinking ahead to how I'm going to code the relationship status with each character as we go into the section I refer to as Week One. The intention is to do a calculation between the end of Day Two and the start of Week One to evaluate all your choices, then set a relationship status for this stretch of the game—think "acquaintance," "good friend," "romantic prospect," etc. This will make it easier for me to code what version of dialogue you'll get with each character and what extra scenes you'll see.

Right now everything is plotted via a point system and various choice flags. And I didn't set out with any specific number of points needed to reach a certain status. In a game with this many choices, setting the correct relationship status for each chunk of the game is pretty necessary. So that'll be something I carefully research how to do over the next couple months.

Additional Content

In the last game update I mentioned I was thinking of adding mini-hookup scenarios you can unlock on the main menu as the game progresses, much like the Brofinder dates in Coming out on Top. I've decided I'm definitely going to do this after the club update is released. The aim is to do smaller content drops between the larger ones so you don't need to wait as long for more Freshmen fun.

But which characters will get a hookup scenario first? I've decided I'm going to put it to a vote here on Patreon. Right now the highest patron tier, Graduate, is a support-only tier with the same benefits as Senior. I'm now adding the benefit for Graduates to get exclusive voting privileges for the bonus hookups. I'll be sure to announce when I start doing these polls for anyone interested in taking part.

Looking Ahead

First, I want to make sure everyone knows I didn't forget about the Guy Gallery or Bonus Gallery for November! I delayed the guy gallery in favor of finishing the frat party release since I figured that was what you all would be looking forward to most  😉 But I'm working on the Guy Gallery now and will have that up soon. If you played the frat party and thought, "Dang, I wish I could see this hot side character naked and hooking up," you're very likely to be pretty happy!

As for the game itself, my sights are now fully set on creating the club sequence. I've got a lot of fun stuff planned and I want to share it with all of you as soon as I can!

As always, I want to thank all of you for your support. I can't stress enough that this game wouldn't exist without your help. I hope you have fun with the frat party that you helped me create!

- Danny