Game Update #49 (Patreon)

Hey there, folks. I'm here with the first February game status update.

First—we've just passed the two year anniversary of the game being released on Itch.io! It's wild to think how far I've come since that humble beginning, and how supportive so many people have been the past few years as I tinker away at this project. 

Realistically, I feel like I should be so much further in the development of this game than I am. Last year I released the development road map for the current leg of the game, and it's a massive understatement to say I didn't complete all I wanted to. The list had 10 new versions for 2023 and I got a grand total of two done. The second one (New You Update) isn't even on that list.

But I'm trying to give myself a little grace by acknowledging I'm one person doing every aspect of the game. Much larger development teams have faced even bigger delays, after all, and I didn't anticipate decisions like basically redoing all the art in the game.

The plan from last year is still the plan as far as game versions go. I'm going to work very, very hard to lessen the development time of each version. The Morning After Update starts a bit sprawling story-wise, but the rest of Week 1 narrows focus back to a handful of guys with each update, which will help keep the gap between releases smaller. I hope.

Speaking of The Morning After Update...

Dev Build

In the last game status update, I mentioned thinking I was a week or so out from completing the first in-development build for the Morning After Update. This build for Seniors & Graduates will follow up on Matt's apartment and the frat house stories.

I'm very close to done with this and was delaying this game status update so I could announce the two year anniversary and its release at the same time. Some extenuating personal circumstances and some rewrites prevented that.

But it's on its way! I'll announce when it's finished as it'll mark the first milestone of the Morning After Update's development. I'm looking forward to moving on to create the rest of the morning sequences soon.

Art

So let's talk about this update's cover image. There's a lot on my checklist as I transition between what's in the game so far to what is to come in Week 1. An example of that is all the choice flag cleanup that'll happen in the background as you progress the game.

But also on the checklist is something I've touched a little bit on before, which is doing a critical look at each main character's model and making adjustments to fix long-standing issues. Mostly this is correcting how the dick assets connect to the models, since I wasn't sure how to fix those when I first started. 

Some characters like Matt didn't really need touched at all, but I've been going a little bit further with some characters. Unlike Connor's revamp, I'm trying to keep the appearances consistent enough that you may not even notice any changes. I've actually tested out some revised models via the Patreon galleries, and as far as I know, no one clocked them even if I used an entirely different body.

Bringing it back to the cover, one character I went a little further with is NC17. I decided to make him and his brother identical twins rather than fraternal, mostly because I like Trevor's face much more than NC17's original face. Trevor's model was built off a base of the original NC17, so the change feels (to me) relatively seamless. I basically took Trevor, meshed his textures with the original NC textures, and gave him the appropriate hair.

I like to always have renders running while I sleep to get as much art done as I can without limiting how much I can work on new art. With all the art for the first Morning After dev build done, I've slotted in making adjustments to other art like this NC17 picture just to keep production rolling.

It may seem counterintuitive to say I'm behind with a dev build while I also doing work in other areas, but I tend to use this adjustment time to briefly set aside the current work so I can let my creativity meter fill back up. The writing brain doesn't necessarily work on-demand, unfortunately. I kind of consider tasks like this a way of making progress even if it doesn't necessarily feel to me like I am.

Aaaanyway, that's a lot more words about this part of the game than there needed to be! I'll just end this ramble with a look at some of the slight differences between a few character models plus my decision process with them.

I'll start with NC17. In addition to what I said above, I wanted new sprites for him (and everyone) to match the lighting of the newer sprites as well using a fixed camera to accurately present each character's height relative to one another.

I also wanted to tone down some of the cartooniness and changed his posing to be less all over the place, which I primarily did for space-saving reasons. It's hard to fit multiple characters on screen when one of them is wildly gesticulating.

Mafia is an example of much more subtle changes. I hated the way his chest was sculpted on the original model. It kind of looked like he had chest implants. I went with a new body model that I adjusted to match the original proportions, and I also ever so slightly softened his facial features. The original sprite in this before-and-after doesn't show his chest, but it does show how I worked to closely match the body shape. 

Looking Ahead

My focus for the immediate future is the dev build, same as last time! Once I get that done, I'll be better able to anticipate how long the rest of the work for the Morning After Update will take. I'll discuss that in the mid-month game status update.

That's what I got today! All my apologies for how long this all takes, but I'm doing my best to make it worth the wait 🙂