Dev Log: 01 - Yes we doin’ this guys and gals and all those in-between
So I’m going to try to upload a devlog at least once a week to keep everyone up to date on development between update rollouts. This one will be longer than typical as it will encompass everything that has elapsed so far. So without further adieu let’s begin.
Development begins
Intro added
Temporary backgrounds and sprites were added to aid in visualisation during development. Some might make it through to the 1st demo. Hopefully not, they’re do-do.
Added character object list to more easily set attributes and store data on each character such as weight, sprite stage, name, job, college course, happiness, skills etc
Added money system, each character has their own balance.
Added Sequence to choose starting stats, job, and college course.
Added opening sequence and introduced main deuteragonist (Kia).
Added 4 optional introductions to choose from during the opening sequence. Each one introduces an individual NPC, they can be revisited later but the associated stat bonus’ wont apply (Cassy, Sandra, Rebecca, Lisa)
Added recurring plot devise character (Frank)
Added framework for cooking mini-game.
Added base framework for side activities.
Added base framework for college activities
Added inventory system.
Overhauled money system. Removed balances for NPC characters. Likely to change later.
Began converting placeholder backgrounds to real backgrounds.
Added V1 “main loop” UI to control the character’s actions throughout the day.
Added stats menu to view skill levels, attributes, balance etc
This is what has transpired by now. To do before Version 0.1 upload:
Flesh out 4th intro, it’s a bit lacklustre.
Build on the framework for side activities and college activities.
Add 2 additional NPCs and 3 Vendor characters to flesh out the college storyline (NPCs) and side activities (vendors).
Add framework for crafting mini-game.
Continue Kia storyline
Add bakery
Add Park (and it’s various RNG events)
Add framework to return to the 4 possible intro locations and add 1 section of post-intro content.
Credit free-to-use background assets.
Refine character sprites.
After the 2nd list of objectives is completed I will launch a demo. As you can see the to-do vs the did-do is quite a bit shorter so it shouldn’t be too much longer. On the grand scale of things, a few of these systems will need revision but for now, the framework that is in place should work well in terms of the character definitions and the inventory systems which are the 2 big systems in place at the moment. The 3rd big system is the whole caloric digestive thing but I need to do some research into how that works and how best to approximate it in terms of making it a feature that adds to the gameplay rather than detracts from it. It will probably be an optional system, as of in it can be disabled and food = fat.
Until next time (feel free to ask as many questions as you would like).
Current bottleneck is my internet speed. I’m essentially living out of a hotel room stylized as a “ApartHotel” and as such everything is running on mobile hostspot. I’m trying to move assets from my desktop pc to my work laptop so i can work on this in college and at work and wherever else I may be with a few hrs to kill and of course my USB drive corrupted and I don’t have a usb to usb c cable
What’s the reason for tracking individual NPC wallet funds? Is it for general side activities or personal food purchases for passive gain rate?
Knowing this is early days yet and it’s easy to chime in with ideas I don’t actually have to implement - I think one of the biggest adds for immersion is NPC reactivity- other characters commenting on the PC’s weight gain and actions as everything escalates. Tramp has a good deal of this, and Big Aspirations has some as well. Implementing for NPC gain might be harder but having some mechanism to modify existing encounters or actions as the NPC changes goes a long way in making it feel like there’s an actual world the character exists within imo. Waitresses/cashiers/fellow students making comments, adding in notes about furniture creaking etc. it helps break up the loop which otherwise risks becoming repetitive as you reach higher weight stages and have to cycle through it many times.
Sorry to hear about the internet situation. Hopefully there’s some path to improvement or at least more efficient mooching?
The idea behind each NPC having a balance is it would be used as a sliding weight during activities. E.g. you go out drinking one night, depending on the wealth of the character, the wealth of the NPC and the ratio of their wealths would determine the quality of establishment you could reasonably go to. Stuff along those lines. Non-visual weight gain i.e. WG that happens behind the scenes will likely be minimized to prevent players from missing too much but will still be a factor. So if you don’t talk to a character for a few months they shouldn’t visibly gain weight but forget about a character for 6 months? They may have gained, lost, or maintained their weight depending on their individual thoughts about their weight and modifiers given by their vocation, hobbies, and general lifestyle.
With the reactivity, yes, this is one of the things I plan to do to increase immersion. While there is no PC WG there should definitely be interactions between NPC’s to the effect of their weight gain.
Hey guys and gals. The spoilered images below are sneak peeks at the UI elements being introduced. These probably won’t be the final designs I’m just trying things out. Let me know what you think!
There is also the fact that the way the AI art models work is by scraping the galleries of artists who likely didn’t consent or know that its happening to them, meaning not only is their work being stolen to be emulated but worse - some dorks are calling themselves artists using said generated art.
Personally, so long as it’s a passion project and not done for monetary gain I don’t think there’s anything morally wrong with using AI art
This will be a small one, didn’t get much done in the last week much to my shake fist brain element
Started work on the park
Updated some of the backgrounds and started updating the early sprites to their final forms
Started tangential work on the cooking minigame (will be working on it here and there, will not delay demo launch)
Credits Added
Added 1 of the 4 side activities (you may now drink to your hearts content and there’s a very short story component introduced if you manage to do the right thing and stuff ) See roundup at end.
Remaining before demo / v 0.1 launch:
4th intro completion
build on framework for college activities
finish other 3 side activities
continue kia storyline
add bakery
finish park
finish refining sprites and bgs
So small steps this week, been busy and stressed with the grand total of 72 euro that came in my pay cheque thanks to el fuckedo footo so yeah, fun fun.
The little nugget that you can “find” in the bar segment essentially requires you to find the 1 unique dialogue option, follow that process and eventually, if you don’t play spam clicker the game, you will unlock something. That’s all I’m saying.
Along with each update I plan to document these secrets and missable bits so the players that cant or dont want to find them can just look them up.
Recently saw somone get shot, skinned, eaten and regurgitated for giving a deadline and then missing it so there’s no eta as of now but tentatively before the end of 2024 for v0.1. Don’t @ me (please @ me, I’m lonely)
Ive mainly just beeb drained from sitting around all the time with the injury so my motivation for everything tanked. Should get a decent chunk done this week.
Hey guys, gals, cyborgs and demons. I’m looking for an artist to do sprite work. The images I need are 128x128 pixels, they’re not fetish-related, they’re for inventory items. If you’re interested then pm me with samples and a quote.
Scratch Notes:
Will be removed with the push of devlog 3 on monday but is useful to keep my head in order and keeps you guys informed at the same time! I’m intentionally trying to be a bit vague whilst putting enough that I know what I’m talking about.
Inventory system improved, added functions to allow for the listing of items, added caloric values and portions per item for 24 ingredients and beverages, no completed dishes yet.
Finished the bar activity for this version. Added framework for 2 bar related activities but for now only alcoholism is available.
Began the Theater activity. Need to further the inventory system to allow item transfer between inventories to enable our 1st piece of fetish-related content. (it’s stuffing guys and not the Christmas kind)
Added framework to tie into one of the planned bar activities.
Got bored on my lunch break and contemplated taking a nap.
Worked around inventory issue with a not-so-elegant solution but it works so why knock it?
Finished 1st section of the Theater activity. It will probably seem quite simplistic when you play it but there’s a decent amount going on under the hood. This is also the 1st time the metabolism system comes into play but it’s far from implemented.
Still bored on my lunch break, fulfillment eludes me…
Dev Log 03: - Still quiet, but not as of yet Too quiet
Another small update, hours have been racking up at work with christmas coming up but there’s a few weeks after christmas and then after exams where I will hopefully be moving to my forever job and that should give me even less free time! But the works more in-line with what I want to do from an engineering perspective so yay I guess!
*Inventory System upgrade (again). Framework now in place to list contents of inventory so everything is now in place to build a gui for it.
Finished the bar activity for now. There are 2 secondary activities related to the bar activity that haven’t been implemented yet and may not be for the V0.1 build but the framework is in place.
Theater activity is now mostly finished. Started implementing a stuffing sequence to go along with it.
Added framework to tie one of the theater activities to the bar activities (essentially invite person A to go to the bar and do stuff like play darts, pool, drinking contests, etc
That’s it…
I use the term framework a lot and I use it to describe adding the foundational support for a feature or like a nut and a bolt the nut is in place but there’s no bolt to go into it.
Some messing around in DAZ, I have so much respect for the time and effort people like thelustlord put into these renders. Holy shit is there a learning curve.
lowres previews. These are the min and max the inbuilt sliders can bring to. Need to do a hell of a lot of research if I ever decide to go this route for this game or any other
Still alive, playing around in Daz and had a quick look at godot. Just trying my options for models and rendering. I’m not sure if Godot is a viable route right now. I do have a backround as an electronics and automation graduate so I’m familiar with C and C++ but I don’t have the time to devote to learning a new engine right now but still fun to have a look at so for this reason I’m keeping “A new Renpy Game” in the forum title.
Render I did just now in DAZ, just a tester with base assets. That’s the big constraint with DAZ really, the cost of assets. I’m learning blender in conjunction with DAZ to hopefully pull off my own morphs rather than relying on an asset pack but even still I may stick with AI generated imagery.
There has been no coding progress since the last DEVLOG. I’m working in retail right now before I take my last 2 exams and graduate college when I will then go to work as a technician and as retail goes around christmas I’ve just had 0 time. There wont be any more content this side of christmas but I might pop out a few more renders.
