Hey there, you may remember me from such smash hits as Succubus of Gluttony and… that’s it and I didn’t even finish that one… wow… what a legacy. Anyway, moving along swiftly. Freshman year is the working title but this game will, in theory, after about 25 years of development, encompass all the early parts of adult life, college, finding a job, relationships, hobbies, crafts, friendships, family, etc etc etc. The plan being to create a vibrant environment where your actions affect the world around you.
That’s about all I have right now. My photoshop subscription and novelAI subscriptions both ran out and I am mucho broke-o so all of the art in game is temporary and thus shall never see the light of day. I can already taste the “Ai BaD yOuRe BaD mE nO lIke YoU” If i could draw I would but I can’t so I’ll spare you all the agony.
Planned features:
Non-Player weightgain
Detailed random encounters
relationships where your choices actually matter
incredibly diverse and large cast of characters
college exam minigames
hobby minigames like crafting, cooking, scrapbooking etc
detailed metabolism system
graduation
job hunting
property dealing and management
investment
and much more but I’m tired so dont come at me
Most recent Devlog:
If anyone has any other questions please ask because I’m far better at giving out targeted information than I am at info dumping. Until the first demo please enjoy some concept art of Kia, your tempestuous roommate.
Succubus of Gluttony is unfinished, yes, but it was a great start! Can’t wait for a first build of this one. I do want to say the 100% detailed, they-thought-of-everything life sim is this really attractive holy grail type thing, but no one person is the team for that job. Please don’t enslave yourself to realism and detail to the point that it chokes out the cool stuff that got you excited for this one.
So, that’s my question. What one (1) thing about this game beyond “it’s a wg life sim” are you excited to make? What do you hope players will love about it?
My hope is that each character we meet will have a different personality, and our choices will have something to do with that, so that we’re not making the same nice/mean, bimbo/goth/normal choices with each one. Systems are cool, but not everywhere.
Succubus was fun - hopefully since you have the systems down from that getting started here will be easier. Are there plans to include other adjacent kinks (succubus had intox which would play well with college) health things etc. ?
Are you open to/looking for any help with writing?
Firstly, thank you! SOG wasn’t my 1st dive into python but it was my first time seriously making something with Renpy. The story was already written and it was just a matter of making it interactive.
I’m not focusing too hard on the realism as of yet and with how I’ve structured the data for this game (Object-oriented rather than the linear style of SOG) it should make it easier to implement at a later stage. The thing I really want to include is a more realistic gaining system rather than food = fat. I do agree though it is really easy to fall into the trap of over-detailing it. Not to bash other games but I feel like TonBelly’s Feed my Affection falls into this trap whilst Sir Mister’s Gain of life does it really well.
I’m excited to create a game with less 1 dimensional npc’s. I do fully intend to have each character be a distinct personality. Not just the Mean Girl, shy girl, goth, bimbo type deal. Kia’s thing is she’s a semi-spoiled girl with an eating disorder brought on by her mother’s constant nagging that she has to be skinnier and your relationship with her over time breaks down these assumptions she’s held about her image her whole life and begins to embrace food as a kindness not as a curse. She becomes less frigid over time and whether you choose friendship or ultimately romance her character development will probably be the most fleshed out as the entire idea for this game came from the idea of her character.
I agree systems are cool but they are just a sum of their parts. Adding more parts might lead to the same result but it is no substitute for the individuals that make it up.
Succubus was in the very early stages and I was trying different approaches and ideas for things I’d seen done or thought about doing, such as the summoning circle glowing in the intro or the click and drag feeding function I demo’d on one of the posts but never fully implement.
The code for Freshman is far more refined but may be stuck in abstraction hell, I can’t quite say yet. As such most of the systems don’t transfer well if not at all bar the basics of renpy itself but on the python side they differ drastically.
I’m not too interested in serious health complications but I will definitely include passive comments by NPCs about stuff getting harder like stairs and strenuous activities, and throw in a few clothes-ripping and seam-popping bits. As for intoxication, yes that is a thing I enjoy in storytelling and I will be including alcohol tolerances for characters and in terms of the decisions of the main character, intoxication levels will affect your available responses.
I’m not looking for writers right now but I’ll keep you in mind if it ever gets to that point.
wish you well on this effort! would like to check out the demo.
w/r/t to funding, it seems like even the most successful of these types of games aren’t really generating enough to make a living, based on what i see in patreon, so hopefully you’re able to become fortunate enough in a general sense that you’re able to level up your tools for this passion project
That seems to be the general consensus. I’d be happy if it got to a point where it was generating enough traction to post a Patreon and have the game pay for its own development but that’s quite a way off. The intro for the game is already longer than what I put out for SOG.
I think its hard to find a balance between narrative and putting out a sim game that feels developed enough where it’s not just a big empty sandbox with many locations but no real reason for that location to exist. Story often suffers in some of the fetish simulator games in favor or random exploration/events. With this game being based around college life I hope that gives it enough of a focus for the narrative and characters to matter just as much as the world does. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with good luck to ya.
Think it comes from three places. First, there are a bunch of…unique individuals who call themselves AI art artists, and act like they have to put anywhere near the same effort and skill into making a piece as an actual artist. Second is the ‘why pay an artist when you can use AI generation’ that originally spooked the digital art community when ai art generation first popped up. Ai generated art has gotten better over time, but there’s usually a pretty decent gap between ai art and commissioned work, especially for certain styles/scenes. Third is the still active refinement of AI art. Start fiddling with a better Ai art engine, and you’ll start to see some weird, mutant extremities. If you look carefully at some of the Ai art used in some of the projects on here, occasionally you still see weird fingers and the like.
I personally don’t mind AI art at all. Several creators have started some pretty decent projects utilizing it, and wouldn’t have been able to put art in as they lack either the funds to backroll an artist, or lack the artistic talent to create the pieces they would want (no hate here, I’m a long time member of this club).
Fair points and learnt quite a bit there thank you! I suppose when you’re starting out and don’t have the cashflow using Ai seems to be a sensible choice but i can see how artists may feel about it.
From a selfish point of view bar a few creators we’re lacking content at the minute and a few guys have been releasing Ai orientated games getting frequent updates and from a neutral’s perspective the AI art seems to be a decent standard. I love the renpy style but there’s a severe lack of renpy games being updated this year on the site so i suppose if it makes creating a bit easier i see why people are using it. Thanks again for the point of view!
Sounds good though. Don’t worry too much about the ai stuff.
Real art’s expensive and I wouldn’t blame anybody who doesn’t wanna go that route for a project they’re making for free.
Haha that’s fair. Job hunting in the sense that you’re job isn’t just “waiter, office person, burger vendor” don’t like the pay? Go somewhere else but the hours might be worse leading to shorter days.
I do plan on adding a sliding scale type deal where you can choose the indepthness from “sandbox” piece of piss wg sim that bypasses a load of the features and metrics to “hardcore” where youre on difficulty level “asian” and a leaf falls on you and you reset (if you know, you know)
