Weekly Update! (June, week 2) (Patreon)

Providing weekly updates on game development progress, including news, work-in-progress images (to appropriate tiers), and write-ups, as promised!

TLDR:

• Latest Release occurred last Sunday and introduced the new Inventory System
• I created a new Dynamic Mouse Input System
• I'm currently working on Shopping Mechanics 
• The Project Vision is now defined, and the roadmap is coming.

Update 1: Last Release
If you're not caught up, I put out 3 releases back-to-back: May 23 (v0.1.02), May 27 (v0.1.03), and June 4 (v0.1.04). It was a period of high productivity and little sleep for me - but I really enjoy working on this game.

If you checked out the latest release of version 0.1.04, you would have seen the new Inventory System. I made a post about it as well pushed out the release notes, here. 

The Inventory System will be crucial moving forward since future mechanics involve strong Dating Elements, from catcalling, chatting, asking out on dates, doing quests for the Milfs, etc.. But a huge part of that will be Buying Gifts for the girls - and that won't be possible without an inventory system that you can manage. 

Note: I mapped the Inventory to "I", but I will be changing that to "Tab" for the next release.

If you're a programmer and are curious, I ended up creating a simple inventory that stores a list of int, and I cross-check that with a simple database that is created at runtime. This way I don't have to save out each object in the list, and only store the id attributed to the object. It keeps the save file from bloating out of proportion. 

Update 2: Worked on a new Dynamic Mouse Input System
I'm crazy proud of this since it makes the game more modern in terms of user experience. Remember the way you used to interact with objects before? In case you forgot, your character has a (dot) reticle in the middle of the screen, and whenever that dot touches anything interactable in the game, you get the chance to click on it (or hold). That worked fine except it required you, the player, to hold that reticle over each object and that could be difficult with some smaller objects like the hammer. Well, no more!

I changed the mouse input so that it dynamically targets the closest thing that you may be looking at, allowing you to interact with something while removing the need for the reticle to be placed precisely over the object. Here's a clip of it in action:

The whole thing feels so much more satisfying to point at things now!

This input system will be available in the next release. If you're in one of the top tiers, I'll be sending you an experimental build link soon. 

Update 3: Working on Shopping Mechanics

You may have noticed that your player is starting to accumulate money, but has no reason to spend it at the moment. The dev plan is for you to buy gifts for the girls, tools to perform jobs, clothing to increase your stats, etc...

So that's what I'll be working on next. What is exciting about this, is that It won't be an obvious/typical experience for you to buy things using only a menu - it's going to feel more like real life where you have to shop around. This may not be in the next release, since shopping mechanics also means that you need a place to do the shopping - a store or two that will require artwork. 

Update 4: PROJECT VISION

This one is in all caps, because its probably the most important thing on this list. 

When I started the project, I kinda knew what I wanted - just to be in a neighborhood and be a perv with all the hot cartoon Milfs. Like, that was literally the entire idea. Things started to get annoying when I tried to scale the project - what does it mean to be a "perv"? Are you spying on them? Are you in complete control of them? How far do things go with them? What happens when you pull the weeds, do they just blow you right there and then? What do you do when you run out of weeds to pull? Are there any other game mechanics to keep this thing going? I could go on...

Eventually that means you have to sit down and begin to define these questions, and hopefully have an answer. And for the longest time I didn't have an answer. I was just trying out shit and seeing how people responded. I paid a lot of attention to the community and thought about what a "NSFW" game really meant. 

The answers couldn't have been obvious. Afterall, there's a ton of free p*rn on the internet - so why would anyone even decide play a NSFW game when all they had to do was look up videos online? 

And that lead to a lot of insight about the industry and specifically about the game that I was making. Without going into too much detail, I pinpointed what Edgeville was going to be:

Edgeville is an Open-World, Parody Life-Sim game, with Adult Content and a Stylized Aesthetic.

The statement seems like a "duh" statement, but it really isn't. It's not a visual novel, it's not an RPG, or an Action game, or even a Walking Sim. And I definitely didn't want to make it a Shooter, but I also didn't want the game to stay where it was - it needed to move forward with something. In terms of the content - did that mean only a Dating Sim? 

And then I realized the true appeal of the game. It's not high-speed. It's casual. It's a slice-of-life. It's Studio Ghibli meets your pervert Uncle. Yeah, there's hot babes and that's a great enticement, but the true reality is that we want to LIVE in Edgeville. We want to fish, buy gifts for hot babes, make them meals, work out, buy some clothes, deliver pizzas as a part time gig - all while trying to convince Dexter's Mom to give up her ass. 

So......the Roadmap is coming!

Conclusion:

I'm trying very hard to give you guys content while still developing the game at the same time. If I wait for all of the game systems to be complete before adding content, that would mean that you won't see Jessica Rabbit, Lois, Marge, or your favorite Milf easily for another year. 

Instead, I'm developing things in layers - add a new mechanic, add a character that can utilize that mechanic in the story, and rinse and repeat. I may even introduce characters that are just walking around so the game feels more alive, even though they may not have all the content ready yet (kind of like Dexter's Mom is atm). 

But I couldn't be doing any of this without knowing that I have a supportive community behind me. Seriously guys, THANK YOU for just being so fucking AWESOME. 

Please let me know your thoughts below! Or if you are a bit more shy - just send me a message either here or on Discord. Love you guys!