Game Announcement: Casino Sonikko (Patreon)

Man. It's been 7 years since my last game. Let's change that together.

Here's the secret project I've started working on: Casino Sonikko: Blackjack Supreme. Without further ado, let's get down to brass tacks here.

• What is Casino Sonikko?

"Casino Sonikko" in itself is a title I'm using for the AU setting where Sonic is a ditzy yet alluring casino dealer. Blackjack Supreme is a Windows PC game where you'll play Blackjack (also known as 21) against her on a 1v1 table.

(In-game Screen Concept Art)

Is that it? Well, not really. It's going to be a game with a lot more is at stake than just whatever riches you start with. You frequent that Casino with only one thing in mind - Getting under the short, short skirt of this blue babe called Sonic. Luckily for you, this girl is in a bit of a pickle with her boss, since she's been bankrupting the tables she hosts left and right. She's going to do ANYTHING to save the her bank against you - and that means losing a couple layers along the way. And if you're really good? That dream of getting hands-on with her might just be on the table as well.

• So it's an adult Blackjack game.

Yes, and no. You see, in order to urge Sonic lose her clothing, simply winning big bets isn't enough. It will make your Ring count higher, sure, but nearly all of her clothing only comes off if you also hand her Red Rings. And you get Red Rings only from winning streaks. You do have to win a lot of times in a row if you want that ridiculously low-cut top off of there.

But it's a casino game, isn't it? It's a chance game. Isn't it unfair to ask getting a coin flip right so many times in a row? Well, then you might need to cheat, obviously. And in order to do that: A) You need a separate deck ready under your sleeve and B) You need to mess with her attention to pull your card in. Although it's casino policy for the employees not to drink, perhaps Knuckles the Bartender can help out a bro with that second one. As for obtaining the cheat cards - I heard a skeevy guy called Shadow might be smuggling some unmarked cards at the back. And they're not only just some number or face cards either - Using some of the more strange cards can change the rules of the game entirely!

Casino Sonikko: Blackjack Supreme, depending on how you want to play it, can either be a chill run-of-the-mill Blackjack game to play while looking at a blue-quilled cutie as she serves you --- Or, it can be an intense strategy game where you have to plan your strikes and make sure you have an unending streak going, as you venture into a kind of glory every man dreams to faceplant into.

•  Sounds cool. When can I play it? Where are you in development?

Ah, well, not soon. You see, I've only started this month, and I haven't had that much time to work on it due to all the other content (I'll get to this in a different post). I plan on having a really early pre-alpha build in 4 months (after Personality Adjustment Test ends), after which point I'll hopefully have the game in a state that's... representative. At that point, I'll stop doing comics for a while in order to work on the game full on, and add content into it every month until we pass by those Alpha, Beta, v0.9 and v1.0 stages together.

I started sketching out the ideas I have for this game in the month prior, and I didn't think it's a good idea to only bring you the ideas so I waited on it another month. But - due to having so many other responsibilities (commissions, other Patreon content, having uncoupled ties to IRL projects I'm involved in, and experiencing some of the most stressful IRL bullcrap I had to face recently) I only basically was able to work on the codes of the game for 2.5 days in the entire month. So thus far it looks like... 

Yeah, not so curvaceous looking as of yet.

Although it doesn't seem like much, I've coded in all rules (except Split) of Blackjack and they're fully operational. I'll do my best to add more and more to this as it comes into shape. A betting slider, the split function, better representation, the influx of assets -- Oh, speaking of which?

Thanu has been incredibly kind to help me out in this project by drawing custom pictures for all the face cards of the deck - and perhaps a lot more. He's already completed the four Ace cards so if you want to see the pictures, check out the tweet here.

I'm also in cahoots with a musician and voice actor friend of mine, and the game will feature some light voice acting for all three characters. I want all the characters to feel lively and animated. Speaking of that...

The game will feature plenty of 2D puppet animation. Every element is segmented properly, and Sonic will be REALLY big on the screen - so she'll serve the purpose of showing you just how far into the game you are, by - you know, getting more and more naked (without it affecting any of the animations).

•  Why a game? Why NOW?

This wasn't an easy decision. To address the elephant in the room: This will hurt my commission-taking process. Ever since I've made the commissions available, the influx was insane, and I'm thankful about it. And I still feel the need to do them, as they help me get less stagnated. That being said, this Patreon campaign, from the start, has always been to help me realize Female Sonic more and more. Comics were the logical next step after illustrations - but they're still static. The next frontier is to make Sonikko be fully interactable, much like what I tried to do with Sonic XX 7 years ago.

I want to serve to the majority of my patrons more than the individuals who pledge to me for higher amounts, to make something a lot more of us can enjoy. I know this is disappointing to some of you guys because you really want your ideas be drawn by me, and I'll still try to cater to that. Sadly, even the immensely limited availability of the slots are too much for me if I want to go through with this - And I want to go through with this. To serve a majority, to serve a purpose, and to get reconnected to my roots as a software developer. I need to refurbish myself and learn code again.

This is also why I chose an easy concept for this game. No game is truly easy to make, but I figured this would be less taxing to do, and fun to do. Due to the additions I want to have on top of the concept of Blackjack, I think this game will stand out on its own and be an experience like no other.

• Is the game going to be locked behind a tier?

Up until v1.0, Super Star Patrons and above will have early-access to all beta versions as they come out. After v1.0, I'll look into making a premium edition with more exclusive content for Patrons only, but the full version will be made free for everybody. All my Patrons on Discord (granted consent is necessary) will have their names be mentioned in the game, and I'll look into ways to honor long-time patrons.

That's all for now. If you have any questions, comment here or come to my Discord Server. I'd like to clear out any confusion that you might have. Love you all, thank you for making this possible for me, and I'll see you soon.