The Abugida Effect - Episode 5 - Battle on the Hungerdome

[Chugachugs]

General Info

This is a WIP space adventure with fetish elements. There is an emphasis on story-telling. In other words, there is no RPG combat and I don’t plan on adding any. I might add other kinds of gameplay if I can figure stuff out. I haven’t spent this much time on a game project before, this is something I’m doing for fun in my free time and wish to share now.

Playtime is roughly three hours.

Story Synopsis

Follow the crew of the UG Rhea (and others) as they transport an important girl across the galaxy that may make them bite off more than they can chew.

Latest News

Episode 5 Plus - Minor Update

Changelog:

1. New BTS starring Riley
2. More scenes in the Ep6 preview
3. Retroactively add some characters into the background of previous episodes
4. New uniform faces for James
5. Various art fixes
6. Various typo fixes

Old saves should work. There’s no Episode Select for Episode 6 yet so you’ll need to load a save at the end of Episode 5 or go through Episode 5 again, sorry.

It’s about 15 minutes of new scenes.

I think half of my motivation working on this “game” at this point is because of fans, so thank you.

Fetish Content

This game contains stuffing, burping, weight gain, and inflation so far. There is also technically vore for like five seconds but I don’t think it really counts. Other possible expansions or transformations are planned…at some point.

Itchio Link

The Abugida Effect by Chugachugs

Discord Server

Join the The Abugida Effect Discord Server!

Screenshots

Original Background

I want to create a melodramatic space opera-kind of story that’s a mixture of comedy and tragedy. I want the story to hopefully be a driving force for the fetish content. Inspirations include Some Bullshit, Apostles, and others of this vein.

My goals while working on this were to make the reader laugh, have feelings for the characters, be curious about the setting, and enjoy the fetish content. I also wanted to see how much you could push AI imagery to accomplish this.

As for the story itself, I have notes I keep with ideas. I have a general outline, but sometimes I make things up on the spot. I did not want a first release to be a herculean effort and kept the scale as small and doable as possible. It has still been a lot of work for me so I’ve been cutting some scenes down for now to account for this. In addition, a lot of scenes were made completely out of order and stitched together so there may be some plot holes or bugs if I missed them. I might retcon plot elements in the future if I’m not happy with something. I’m not super happy with the pacing of this playable build…I think it’s a little too quick still maybe due to cutting some stuff.

There’s no combat or real gameplay it’s just a story where you click on things sometimes. I don’t find default RPG Maker combat very interesting. I may add some gameplay elements if I become more committed to this, however it would be minigames like in Your Turn To Die or something.

All character portraits and CGs are made with AI. I am not an artist and wanted to see how decent results could be. I’m using a mixed model that combines BiggerGirlsV5 with GhostMixV2 along with Loras from certain artists I like, it’s probably obvious which ones just from looking at the images. I think the results are decent. Sometimes you don’t get what you want and it doesn’t seem possible even after messing around for awhile. My biggest criticisms are the clothing and skin tone inconsistencies, which I could maybe fix with vigorous editing, but I haven’t bothered at this point. I have done minor post-editing for some images. I made the title and space graphics myself (and a few other things).

Game sprites are taken from various games, mainly Phantasy Star for the character sprites. I’ve edited the sprites to match the portraits better. I think they range from fairly decent looking to a bit shoddy. I don’t really have any experience doing pixel art either. One character does not have a completed sprite set yet so one part is going to look pretty bad. It’ll probably be the next thing I do when I have a free day.

The tilesets are just stock RPG Maker ones with some edits. I would like to change that in the future so it looks more unique although it definitely wouldn’t be my own work.

Music is mainly FM Synth tracks I like from Genesis or PC-98 games with a few exceptions.

All the writing and shoddy RPG Maker coding is mine. I’ve never done this before, but tried to playtest it so that nothing will break. If something breaks tell me and I can try to fix it. I wouldn’t mind some feedback either, play the game to find out more.

[BuiltToBlast]

I know everyone’s stances on AI art in games here are mixed, but I think this might be stepping over the line a lot.

It’s just Dr.Worms art/style tossed into the machine, effectively stealing it.

[ejkda3]

Spoilers ahead!

Played the game and I must say I didn’t expected it, but I actually really liked it. It’s easy to connect with the characters even tho they have a bit stereotypical personalities. Pacing is nice so it’s very easy to go through the game even when the things that are happening are not really important.
From my amateur critic standpoint I’ll say you did a good job at revealing just enough lore to let the player know what’s going on while keeping the greater scope of things a mystery. It makes for an interesting plot so far. I also like how in the last scene everyone’s emotions and goals clash with each other into a huge mess. Good cliffhanger.

Issues
Humor isn’t bad, tho very simple. The scooby-doo like chase scene is goofy af and it’s not really my vibe. I have no idea what does it add to the story/game other than stalling the characters. Tho I imagine how much time it took to make it so respect for that.

When playing as Cody the Dekec (how on earth do you pronounce this?!) is still in the inventory.

Questions

1. Do you want to release the first chapter? Was it merged with the second one or did you completely cut it off? If you add it, will it be as an intro, sequel or something else?
2. Is it a set story or do you want there to be a choice for the player to make? I know it would make the game a lot longer and probably three times harder to develop, but if done well it’s always a nice addition and gives some resemblence of “gameplay”.
3. The most important question: Will there be weight gain? I’ll keep playing the next releases regardless of the answer, but with so many characters (and probably many more to come) there’s a lot of room for that kind of thing.

That’s it from me. I will watch your career with great interest, but I’m new to posting here so I don’t want post the wrong image.

PS.
Good luck with AI gens. I know how hard it is to get them right, but keep trying. Remember, never don’t give up!

[Chugachugs]

@BuiltToBlast
Yes, it’s DrWorm/Lewdlemage art. I don’t have a credits page made: I plan on including one as a text file in the main folder maybe? I respect the artists and whatever countless other things were ripped in these AI models. I have absolutely no intention on selling anything or making profit in any way. I’m not sure what the etiquette is.

Also, this is obvious too, but I took most of the non-stock sound effects from Some Bullshit.

@ejkda3
I really wanted a music montage. I admitted in my notes I thought it was very silly, but it’s not something I wanted to cut after making it so oops. As for everything else…I can respond maybe later.

[VPG001]

I’m very excited to see where this goes (I didn’t realize this used ai)

[ramenpunch]

I like this outside the ai art but the story and pacing is fun and the sounds too

[Wulf_Diomhaireachd]

This is a mixed bag for me. On the one hand, I love the story, characters, the goofy Scooby-Doo chase scene, it’s clear a lot of love and passion went into this. The conflicting interests and subtle lore spread throughout is great, and swapping characters is a great way to demonstrate that.

Couple bugs before the big paragraph: there’s no event blocking the entrance to the bunker in the rescue scene and Veska’s overworld sprite seems to be mixing two different sheets together so her walking looks odd.

On the other hand, oh no this is going to spark another “debate” on AI art (and yes, I’m about to make it one. I am a hypocrite).

I get it, not everyone is a talented artist, and not everyone can afford commissioning artists to fully illustrate their games, so AI art is a great alternative to those developers. I will always prefer human art, but if you want to use AI then go for it, it can certainly produce some amazing results. However, using Loras of other artists is where I draw the line. Just to quickly note your wording:

@Chugachugs

along with Loras from certain artists I like

without even checking, I can guarantee that these Loras will not be from these artists, as no artist would be stupid enough to cannibalise their commissions income like this. Even if you don’t intend to monetise this in any way, these Loras still indirectly harm the artists, because why would anyone pay for art when they could get a machine to copy their artstyle for free?

I know redoing every image will be a pain, but for someone’s work that they’ve spent years perfecting to be completely emulated without them seeing any benefit (and probably being harmed as a result) feels like a huge smack in the face to the original artist. Include AI art if you want, but don’t just rip off someone else’s artstyle.

[Wulf_Diomhaireachd]

Welcome to the forum, there’s a spoiler tag in the message box (click the cog then “blur spoiler”) so you can hide anything you think is a spoiler without the disclaimer. Should have said this before the big review so the tone shift didn’t seem so severe. Oh well lol

[PancakesAndChill]

I heavily recommend collabing with an artist for your project. AI generated images are never ok, as they are theft, and it should not be encouraged. You’ll find there’s plenty of artists out there who would love to collab for a project - I’m myself collabing with some friends of mine, some of them also being artists, and we’re making a project (still WIP, hope to share details soon). No remmuneration here, just passion.
AI is never the answer. I won’t shame you for using it, you may not have thought it was a big deal, but I heavily HEAVILY recommend either hiring an artist, collabing with one, or learning how to do art yourself.

[Moinaushniki]

“I respect the artists and whatever countless other things were ripped in these AI models”

If you did you wouldn’t use AI.

[ejkda3]

What I’m about to say is more just a though than an opinion of mine. Please keep that in mind.

I think it’s easy to say that a game dev should either collab with an artist or do art on their own, but I think in most cases it’s not an optimal solution. Artists often time have different preferences than game dev’s. Best example would be Nerds and Clinko in SB. Of course you can make compromises like they did, but it was a project big enough to include ideas of multiple people. Quality of what artists make may also vary from person to person and I think it’s understandable for a dev to maybe be picky about what art they want in their game.

Also I’m not sure if I understand correctly but how would using ai art, without profiting from it, harm the artist? Isn’t the damage already done just by certain Lora existing? Is it about spreading awareness of such tools? The lora is there for everyone to use and unless it somehow gets deleted there’s no way of stopping people from using it.

[ejkda3]

Thanks for the tip

[onipuck]

I wish to see Ange and Veska getting into gluttonous misadventures together at some point.

[Fuzzd22]

IT is a good start the story is good as I kind of want to see what happen next.

[Moinaushniki]

Also I’m not sure if I understand correctly but how would using ai art, without profiting from it, harm the artist?

AI steals entire artists’ galleries, which take decades to produce, improve and become unique through the artist’s decisions, style, medium of choice, etc. It’s not even a human manually stealing, reposting or tracing art they like, but a souless machine consuming millions upon millions of art files, with no permission, respect or regard to the original artists. Artists who’re slow, get tired, stressed, sad, injured, need money, have other priorities, etc. But nobody cares about that, specially not AI.

Then, AI vandalizes together those millions of files together in order to churn out AI ‘art’. The result is the entirety DeviantArt page being completely flooded with repetitive AI ‘art’, and AI ‘artists’ who post 20+ times a day. The latter even open Patreon and Ko-fi pages, because stealing and prompting is hard work. All of this deprives real artists of traffic and visibility, since they may post every 2-3 days at most. It also deprives them of income; why would anyone waste $50 on a single commission which will take weeks, when they can spend $5 on an AI site and create dozens of AI works to their liking? You can even steal a drawing from a real artist and run it through an AI, or use custom Loras.

So now that artists lost traffic, income and respect from rampant AI content, made from their very own art… they also lose their community. They won’t see fellow artists and humans, but subpar, samey AI spam from non-artists. AI and AI users aren’t artists and thus simply don’t get all the art details; no particular artist style, no lineweight, no brushes, no color palettes, no shape design, no gesture, no anything. AI kills the human element and massively pollutes the art community.

But thankfully you ‘respect’ artists (by using their stolen work) and don’t make a profit (but OpenAI will be making a billion this year thanks to you and many others).

[Wulf_Diomhaireachd]

The sad part is I can’t even disagree with any of this, I try to find arguments for both sides of whatever topic people are discussing, but this pretty much sums up what’s been in the back of my head for months now. I’m going to tie this up here because I don’t want to derail this thread any further from what is otherwise a really good game, but I would strongly suggest @Chugachugs looks at getting some other form of art added. As initial placeholder/proof of concept stuff then I think it’s fine, or if you’re just going for the most generic of generic anime looks, but not for a final product and certainly not using artstyle stealing Loras.

Quick note though, @ejkda3 isn’t the dev here, your last sentence looks as if you’ve got the two confused.

[Chugachugs]

I’ve been doing this as a personal endeavor for fun. I’m really nervous and anxious sharing on a public forum. I saw it as a challenge to use AI art I was happy with (I could point and go, "Hey, look at what you can do if you mess with this!). I don’t talk about my fetishes with others and I’ve also been working on this in isolation without feedback from anyone. I’m not trying to harm anyone, but I understand the distaste this specific aspect has created. Given the choice between “generic” AI art (which I assume still involves real artists’ work) and drawing things myself: I would rather draw things myself as this would remove the biggest criticism I have seen and also benefit me in the long run as a person. I really like how DrWorm, or Jaccobus, or Clinko’s art looks where it’s bright and colorful so that is how I would want to draw things myself in the first place. I don’t think that would change, just the way I got there would involve…more effort and talent building.

[Wulf_Diomhaireachd]

I don’t want any of this to discourage you from continuing this game, like I said before if we ignore the art aspect what you’ve created is a genuinely fun game, and I’d love to see how this story continues. The chase scene in particular, I’ve never seen something like that in RPG Maker, and I can only begin to imagine how tough that would have been to bring to life.

Even if you don’t feel like your art skills are of a high standard currently (and they’ll still be a load better than mine regardless), or if you draw inspiration from your favourite artists to create your work, you’re still putting your own human touch into that. I don’t think anyone could argue being against that. However these characters end up looking, any quirks about the overall style is what makes it your work, and I’m looking forward to seeing how this progresses.

[Chugachugs]

1. The first episode is completely cut. My plan was it would be events leading up to the UG Rhea leaving Earth, an introduction to the whole crew and the false mission, the details of the real mission behind closed doors, and it would end with a certain character dying. It was probably going to be from Clark’s POV the entire time. I found that creating so many sprites at once and the lack of fetish content was reason to just skip ahead. I will probably add it as a prequel, or maybe in the form of flashbacks, if I continue.
2. Routes aren’t planned, although I love routes in VNs and games.
3. Yes.

[PancakesAndChill]

I agree with this wholeheartedly. There is potential, and I do not wish to discourage you from continuing your passion project. If I wasn’t already doing 3+ projects, I’d be more than happy to help out with the art department. If you do decide to start using your own artwork, I support you 100% and I think it’s a very respectable decision. You’ll find that most people won’t critique you for not having THE best artstyle in the world.
Also, you’ll feel much more accomplished, I can guarantee it.