Aspiring Developer - Plum's Nightmare

[Zalius Black]

04/16
BIWEEKLY UPDATE TIME: Welcome to WIP Hell Part 2

Holy shit I got the date wrong last time​

Mechanical
Some balancing and minor changes but nothing crazy significant. Major focus has been on art-related stuff.

Visual
The past two weeks have been mostly practicing idea creation, just now learning wtf composition was, figuring out the process I mentioned last time, and figuring out how tf to nail plums likeness consistently.

DRAFTING/IDEA CREATION
I do character shape language/design studies from time to time and make my own from a set of 5 references. It's great practice and allows me to come up with looks to work off of for future characters I plan to implement (or maybe in future things), a few of them below.


The Sandrunner enemy has been completed, a demon enforcer is being drafted, and after that there is one more enemy that i plan on creating for the intro level.



ART LEARNING
Didn't know wtf a golden spiral was and the importance of composition, now drawing sex stuff & compositing RE's has become more digestible to create. I am beginning to learn how to block out shapes and color immediately - no lineart, see the cactus below. A quick method like this is preferable for RE's, but i'd like to make it so that Plum is still attractive within the style so ill need some practice.



PLUM LIKENESS - THE ETERNAL BATTLE
I've created a new battle idle as well as a fallen down sprite (which utilizes the new process - much faster rendering - i hope to continue using it). (Don't mind the random emoticon by the fallen down sprite, it was an experiment that I probably wont use again). Also, I get more revelations each time i draw her face, and not only that, her body type is something that I'm aiming to hone in on. I was creating the dialogue idle sprite (as I was last week) but i thought it was all off. Below you will see me using the new battle sprite to correct my proportions and whatnot, I think checking my new art of her with that battle sprite will be very useful to achieving likeness properly because that worked like a charm. Also, I'm going to hold off on making new alts until I have most of the art needed for the intro completed.




THOUGHTS SO FAR
This shit is hard! I'm pitting the quality control I put on myself against the skill requirement of achieving said quality control, and as high as it seems to be, I refuse to give up because I'm an arrogant bastard. I'll probably keep working on art stuff for the next 2 weeks, but I ended up damaging my iPad screen so I can't really do that till Friday.

HOWEVER, I've come pretty far. Below you'll find a colored drawing from the start of last year, and another drawing that was one of my earliest. I am absolutely making progress as time goes on one way or another!



Thank you for reading! Catch you next time on TIME, cause this was a day late. See you on the 29th of April!

 

[ShadowMaster69.]

Keep it up! Love following your development so far!

 

[Zalius Black]

04/29
BIWEEKLY UPDATE TIME: Every Time We Saiyans Fight, We Get STRONGER
And yet I keep having to re-learn which font sizes I've been using for these.
​

Mechanical
I've added at least one specific random event to each overworld map I have right now. To further explain...
In the game, four maps make up a minilevel, two minilevels (occuring at 50% and 100% trial progress) form a trial, and completing a trial counts as finishing a full level. Gaining trial progress inside each trial follows a random event loop inspired by World of Horror. What I'm working on and plan to release as a proof-of-concept - is a full playable trial. It'll make more sense when I release it, haha.

Anyway, I’ve completed the maps needed for the first minilevel, as you’ll see some snippets of below! My plan is to add at least two NSFW scenarios within each minilevel. I'm also working on the visuals and basic functionality for the second minilevel maps. As it looks right now, I’m predicting another mechanics-focused week in early June.



Visual
As I mentioned earlier, I've finished mapping the 4 maps for the first minilevel (I’ll probably polish them more later, but they’re solid for now). I also finished the Demon Enforcer I discussed last week, along with the rest of the enemies planned for the first trial. I considered adding non-lewd enemies... but honestly, I could be spending that time better elsewhere! Now that enemies are done, I can focus on painting random events and drawing NSFW scenarios that will appear in the minilevels, alongside the remaining map work. I'll be posting a cropped WIP for one of the scenarios in the first minilevel, along with one of its alts. Despite how it looks, the scene is more teasing than anything.


I'm noticing some of my clothing materials feel the same, sounds like another study I'll do at some point.


Still need to add the side HUD for the overworld random events.


Rendering on the left is FOR SURE not done either, but I wanted to show it so far! I'm experimenting a lot. This particular scenario has 2 ass grab variations and a spank/post-reaction in it. Im satisfied with the impact I drew but i cropped it out. I suppose you'll have to see when it's out!

SCENARIO/ARTSTYLE QUESTIONS
I'm not finished with the scenario art yet, but working on it raised some questions about how I want to utilize different art styles going forward.

• Should I use my full, polished battle idle coloring for idle-like poses and battle cut-ins?
• Should I use this faster, easier coloring style for characters in random event scenarios, especially since these scenes will be more complex and have alt variations?
• Then switch to a painted style for background elements in random events?
• Then with random events or scenarios that have a character and a background, I blend the 2 styles together??

I’m sure I'll figure it out as I keep working. That said, I’m feeling great about how much I accomplished (both for what's in this report, and what I've accomplished that wasn't mentioned!). The more I draw and work on the game, THE STRONGER I GET.

That's it from me, reader! I must return to the cold abyss now — but I always come back.
See you May 13th!

 

[Zalius Black]

05/13
BIWEEKLY UPDATE TIME: Mechanics Galore - and a VERY Important Visual Fix
And here I thought my "mechanics update" was going to be in June.
​

Mechanics
Even though this is where most of my work went, I’ll try to keep it brief with bulletin points — it’s not the most exciting to read!

• Trial Stat Effects:
  • Core trial stats now have mechanical effects beyond just pass/fail checks for random events.
• Map Structure Overhaul:
  • Reworked the trial’s pacing: instead of 4 maps per 50%, the player now progresses through 2 maps every 25%.
  • Total of 8 maps per trial; this structure flows better.
• Dialogue HUD:
  • A rough but working dialogue HUD is implemented.
• Intro Sequence (Fear & Hunger-style, I suppose):
  • Player listens to a story and makes choices for a slightly varied starting experience.
• Lewd CG System:
  • Full support for various lewd CG implementations:
    • Loss scenes for specific enemies.
    • Mid-battle cut-ins (some unique to enemies).
    • Generalized logic built into both the game and external HUD plugin.
  • Now I just need the time and power to forge more art!
• Analyze Ability:
  • A new ability where Plum learns more about enemies as their Pleasure rises.
  • Higher pleasure levels reveal more detailed and useful information.
  • I plan for this power to have some wacky scaling in how it's used
• Ability & XP Acquisition:
  • Improved progression system for abilities and experience.
  • Still needs balance tweaks, but already functional for a tech demo.
• First Boss Implementation:
  • Mechanics are in progress.
  • Main issue is visual clarity — too many state changes obscure what's happening.
• Writing Progress:
  • Completed a solid draft of the game’s introduction.
  • Will continue writing alongside concept art and illustration work (more on that below).
  • Also, I've found writing quite inspiring when it comes to drawing for this!
• More Shit:
  • That I don't remember right now. I'm tired but I shall not have this be a late update!

Visual
I completed 3 random events - but then it got me thinking, I shouldn't prioritize these.



Random events aren't what would convince people that the project is worthwhile even though there's a lot of them, It's the character art! (I'm about to get into an artist-learning moment - theres a couple faces at the end if you wish to skip it)

On the note of character art, I've had an issue recently with awkward posing and inconsistent proportioning with characters. It took getting lucky browsing through youtube one day to figure it the fuck out, the mannequins/shapes I was creating were still too abstract and quite subjective before I got into detailing, resulting in varying interpretations. Not only that, I found an awesome mannequin on twitter that I have adapted for my own use and have been practicing with - I plan to actually detail newer mannequins in the next couple weeks with characters to ensure that weakness has been diminished, and to experiment with dynamically changing its proportions intentionally for characters of different body types.

Before - the "skeleton/mannequin" was too vague, made detailing more inconsistent and inaccurate.


Some of the attempts at establishing/practicing with a mannequin. These will be far easier and appealing to apply anatomy to.


First mannequin I plan to detail. I also learned a bit more about foreshortening arms - exceptionally important.


I also mentioned in a previous post that I do shape language studies of characters in existing media. Well I have extended that into merging faces of characters in existing media to make new ones for characters. Not final - but I think this process definitely works for idea creation. For example, the cow woman on the right - I used Nabe from Overlord, Yamato from One Piece, and Ash from the fire emblem mobile game to determine her features.


And that's it for now! Apologies that I don't have more visuals to show, but I hope you can understand why that is. Art studies/learning slows me down, but it's also one of the primary points of starting the project, forcing me to do those things! I will see you again next update on 5/27 - and I'll keep seeing you until I get this thing playable. Farewell!

 

[Zalius Black]

5/27
BIWEEKLY UPDATE TIME: The Forge of Creation Burns!

This is a short one! In constructing a living world, I begin to understand the sheer weight behind weaving a new reality.​

MECHANICS
Minor changes, primarily a concepting week.

VISUAL
I've been coming up with roughs for the primary cast of the game since I have a strong idea of how the story beats will go, and here are the initial drafts! Much more iteration is needed, and I can see that I have quite the amount of work ahead of me. I'll definitely prioritize characters that will be visible sooner. Before this, i didn't realize just how much I liked drawing humanOIDS. I'm also realizing that i need more literal clothing knowledge than silhouette clothing knowledge to make more varied designs, and have them be sensible.




On some of my breaks, I've also drafted a couple story beat ideas. Exceptionally rough, but gives me a good idea of what im
making with the internal logic whirring within my mind.



RESULT OF THE MANNEQUIN PROCESS + WHAT I LEARNED
After my mannequin studies - I came to the shocking realization that i didn't understand what an appealing silhouette was WITHOUT a defined structure. I usually just fought to make it through raw detail. Through some dedicated practice and by combining that with the new mannequin, the pose creation process is far smoother, and It allows me to stress less over details! All the under-work will allow me to paint it in instead. That said, it gave me another realization...



WHAT ILL DO NEXT
Hair studies are on the menu and it's time to finally work on an actual full concept sheet for Plum (if i did this earlier, with what I know now im sure I would have had to redo it!). With what i've learned the past few weeks/months, i'm ready for the commitment. In addition I'm sticking to the painted style for most/all of the character arts. Even if it takes longer (which through trying other processes - might not actually be the case), the quality is significantly better! I'm really hoping to get a plum player sprite comm'd by the end, i'm thinking of hiring the pixel artist who worked with Heavy Hearts.

This one is short and sweet, and so I must go back into the art dungeons. It's funny though, making the game feels like the easy part by far! The developers that are really good at art but struggle with game flow, puzzle me. Perhaps we just think differently.

Id love the idea of having a patreon tier or something where i can implement OC's, that sounds pretty damn cool to me. However that's for future me to worry about. I hope to show more shiny things on June 10th, farewell!

 

[Zalius Black]

6/11
BIWEEKLY UPDATE TIME: LOCKED IN
On a minor note, my birthday just passed recently, and I aim to make this quite the year! Apologies for the late update.​

MECHANICS
Nothing significant.

VISUAL
Lets start small.

I was making a concept idea for a friend - but if they don't end up using it I may just repurpose it for this game. They wanted an attractive male which brought me to an interesting thought. I know most of this market is comprised of men, but I wonder what elements make women want to play games in this genre. I would assume hot males help, hmmm... At the same time beauty needs ugliness to shine in contrast, so I'd be doing myself a disservice to have everything be attractive.



Here's the big one!

Factory Style Work
I've struggled with a consistent pipeline for this entire time, but asset production finally has some consistency - I can't fucking believe it. This is something i just managed to achieve a couple days ago mind you, after a week and weekend meticulously figuring out what worked and didn't. I'm hopeful this rate continues, see the results below. Different assets are at different SET stages and I swap between them - keeps me entertained and prevents burnout. The redesign means i'll have to redo assets, but with this process it should be FAR faster than it was, plus with my accelerated growth those assets will be re-done better than before!

The first stage is getting the basic idea for the pose or action.



Then I put them in their own canvases, applying proportion and a mannequin to them. Then I go through passes of anatomy, likeness, hair, etc. It sounds straight forward - but honestly it's anything but. I'll spare you the details.

The first image is at the end of the body silhouette stage, the second is at the end of the anatomy stage (need to draw nips/areola).



The first one is at the end of the mannequin stage, the second one is at the gesture emotion stage. Kinda reminds me of that professor x meme though...



This one is in the rendering stage.




This was only possible through mostly-finishing Plums concept sheet. It answers essentially all of my questions when drawing her (with some redesigns as im sure you can tell, I DID redesign her outfit too as you'll see in the future), and making that concept sheet made me find consistency in the process that allowed for my Factory-Style method of production to be born.

I've push and pulled between learning techniques and making assets this whole time - at this point I've limited the amount of studies I do in a day since I have a bad habit of hyper fixating on them.

In particular I did have a monster cock study (dicks with creative variation) but I don't know if the people really want to see that, I'll spare you all this time around.

On one last note -



I REALLY hope someone someday gets mad at my art.

Until next time, see you on the 24th of June!

 

[HSDHC]

Great dedication!

 

[Zalius Black]

Great dedication!

Thank you! It means a lot

 

[Zalius Black]

6/24
BIWEEKLY UPDATE TIME: The First Batch of Many
A glimpse into the results of a functional process!​

Mechanical
Nothing significant, although I did learn some game design tricks I plan to implement later. I also looked more into dialogue huds that VN's use. This game isn't a VN but having a hud inspired by that genre can't hurt, and wow I did not realize just how dynamic they can be. I'll make sure to use some of those tricks as well.

Visual
I'm tired boss! I was able to get the 4 CG rendered and I have 4 more art pieces in the incubator. The battle idle, the dialogue idle, the fallen down pose, and the climax CG. Three of those are modular, which means it'll take some time. I do hope to finish them before next update though (haha PLEASE!!). I decided to redo the mr X meme pose later on. In making this first batch of CG I learned a lot of lessons, and at this point i'm sure that will forever be the case. I'm sure I can make each of these poses better, but at my current level of technique I will prioritize progress over perfection. Below are some cropped game screenshots of the CG.



I'd like to show you the rendering and technical improvement gained through the time period I've been on this project by comparing the old "Pussy Tease" CG to the new one. Crazy! I haven't drawn fanart in months, I sometimes wonder how well i'd do it.



Ignore the text on the new render - it's debug stuff.

That's it?
Yes! I imagine this process will get shorter as I go, since this was my first batch using that production method.

See you again in two weeks, HOPEFULLY with another completed batch. I also look forward to the prospect of rendering other characters, but for now, farewell! (PS i'll crop more in the next batches I make to not spoil every artpiece)

 

[Zalius Black]

7/8
BIWEEKLY UPDATE TIME: Mechanics, an Idea, and Batch Prog
I am very tired! I'll be brief​

MECHANICS
-multiple enemy support added, this was a bitch but necessary and makes combat far more interesting
-they have their own pleasure gauges (PL) and "special attack" style gauges (MT)
-no more large pink gauge on the left side of the battle screen (since it used to be the PL of the one opponent)
-item rarities established with colors (inspired from Warcraft)
-unlocking the RIGHT to LEARN a skill has been gamified (for example, you can unlock a learnable skill by tanking a certain ability, or by using an ANALYZE skill on a certain enemy at a certain pleasure level)
-uncommon recipes (green items) exist that allow learning of crafting recipes
-i plan to have specific enemies and areas drop specific loot - i was having them all drop from a massive loot table but doing it that way creates an unholy loot soup and makes it hard to control how much is dropped




-level design ideology: Right now it's "Trials with mini levels in them", but I recognize the game would be far more entertaining if it was instead "Mini levels with trials in them". If you don't remember, trials is the UI-based random event system. I can instead give those a treasure room-style treatment and have them occur in specific areas of a level that's based primarily in the overworld instead.


Visual
I had to do some clothing and highlight learning the past two weeks - which slowed down progress on these pieces, in addition to doing the game design work. In particular, right now im still trying to understand how i'll be rendering clothing since I wasn't a fan of how I did it last time. This is important to get right, exaggerated clothing creases and whatnot can increase sex appeal massively. The other two pieces need a step or two before they are ready for rendering.



IDEAS
I had an idea for a creature that could have a lewd scene with Plum, a paper rough of them below. They'd dwell around oasis' or something, although ideally I'd make them bulkier and I suppose with a giant reproductive organ. Probably an enemy for the future for a reason I'll outline later. I'm not an enjoyer of beast content, but I'm fine with depictions of creatures that don't exist. I will also throw in a couple of likeness studies of a few popular characters as a bonus. HOWEVER i did some reflection and calculating...



Holy Shit
I need at LEAST 24-28 more pieces of art for the first level in my current vision, NOT INCLUDING ALTS. There's no way I'll be able to have it all done in my first build of this game, I essentially have to come to terms to not having a complete level release when I make a public build (or I could cut things). That said..!

I will take a 2 week break. Burnout hit pretty hard, and I need a breather before I commit more. I'll restrict my work on this project so it will be more fresh to me when I come back on July 22nd, a fresh batch of motivation. I hate the idea of doing this but I believe it to be necessary to continue. In all likelihood, I'll probably be drawing for fun and rediscovering enjoyment through the process while learning techniques along the way. That said, I shall return on the 22nd, I WILL see you then!

 

[Verdance]

Shortly after I started drawing, I knew that I wanted to make an eroge.

I love this first sentence. I totally read it as "From the moment my hand could first hold a pencil, I knew, I was destined to be an Eroge maker!"

There's a lack of decent 2D games with an attractive, fit protagonist. It saddens me greatly... and so I must try my best to fulfill my own desire.

Here here comrade! Make the abs you want to see in the world!

The only things I do right now is work at my job and then work on this, which is loser behavior

Tbh, most people only do the the former so I'd say you're doing just fine lmao.


That little desert imp guy looks amazing ngl. You really meshed him well with the scenery with those pants, golden earrings, and really, whole aesthetic. A lesser dev would have just made an imp but you sir, clearly put thought into him. You definitely have a unique style and it pairs well with the expressions you've given to your drawings.



Your dedication is inspiring man. Come what may, you clearly put your heart into this project.

 

[Zalius Black]

7/22 BREAK OVER​

Alright!
Back to it and time to hit the ground running! I learned a few tricks while I was out, and I look forward to showing off what I've learned in the next pieces I'll make. In particular, the face, skin, hair, clothing, and eye structuring/rendering. I intended on drawing more "for fun", but then I realized that learning techniques and new ways of doing stuff better IS what I found fun. I did draft up a schedule to get something out @ the end of October since it's my cats birthday, WE'LL SEE WHAT HAPPENS.

I shall now try to put all that knowledge to the test. See you the 5th of August!

Also Verdance
Thank you! Among learning how to make everything that a game and world needs, it's very cool someone likes something I designed! Luckily dedication is ingrained within my soul, failure will always be temporary.

 

[Zalius Black]

PLUMS NIGHTMARE - THE SKY IS FALLING​

Reality
I WANT to complete Plums Nightmare, but at this point, I think its impossible. Even if I get it off the ground, consistent content updates are unlikely with my perfectionist nature and skill gaps in art. Constantly fighting with a push and pull with various elements of the artistic process, true time sinks, whole 16-hour days spent trying to iron various things out only to still be unsatisfied. I thought I was ready 8ish months ago, HAH! NOT EVEN CLOSE. What does this mean? I HAVE to become a better artist in general STILL to rise to this kind of challenge. I'm glad I tried for as long as I did (I learned a lot), but I tried to pursue essentially one of the hardest things you can do in a creative profession as soon as was theoretically possible (a whole ass game).

What now?
I will still make and post art on twitter. That way, I can gradually build and improve my skillset until I'm truly ready. One day however, I vow that I'll come back full force WITH a demo FIRST, REGARDLESS of if governments ban/restrict the content or how un-financially viable it is, or if AI makes human artists obsolete. And when I do, that shit will SLAP.

See you again, in this very thread, in the future. Remember what I said last post - failure is temporary.


Before that though, a few images.
You wouldn't BELIEVE how many facial variations of plum I've fought with. Below is the progress I made on the THIRD attempt at a battle idle before finally realizing that I was in over my head. Additionally, it took me too long to realize that Plum with larger eyes is more of what I wanted than smaller.




A very brief history of some attempts. Throughout, I've changed the outfit, head size, jaw length, eye shape, ear curvature, horn angle, iris size, nose placement size and angle, glasses size, tooth/mouth/lip size, and hair style at various points during this 8 month period.



But for some reason, I can do stupid shit like this no problem??


Until I return, farewell!