One of my biggest problems when it comes to working on personal projects is that I always have ideas for about a dozen other projects I'd like to do and usually end up getting sidetracked into messing around with one of those new ideas. If it weren't for this patreon Cohabitation probably wouldn't have made it past v0.40 or so, with me moving onto another project and then another.
So, since I don't have much else to post about this month beyond the next Cohabitation update (either at the end of this month or the start of the next) I thought I'd share a few of my favorite project ideas. Some I'll likely try to pursue after I finish up Cohabitation and then Staying with Aunt Katie but others I've given up on for various reasons; at the bottom of this post I'll attach some renders I've done of characters related to these projects.
- Likely Future Projects -
Debt - You play as a boy who finds out that his mother has lost a ton of money to a scam. You decide to help her get the money back by doing various jobs but also hold the whole thing over her head in order to coerce her to pay you back and for keeping your mouth shut in various lewd ways. The main mechanics here would, of course, be money management and balancing various jobs. I'd also carry over the school elements from SWAK to add an extra gameplay layer. Like Staying with Aunt Katie this would be decidedly smaller than Cohabitation but also bigger than SWAK. Below is an image of the mother, Nancy. After having made Katie I wanted to make Nancy a bit... unrealistic in body shape but I might've gone a touch too far.
Imperium - One project I've wanted to do for a long time was where you'd play as Robin (Tim Drake). Batman would have left Earth to fight in some intergalactic war with the rest of the JLA half way across the universe, leaving Robin in charge of protecting Gotham. You'd build regular, romantic relationships with the likes of Spoiler, Batgirl (Cassie), Huntress, and Oracle, plus others I'm probably forgetting. Then there'd be more 'physical' relationships with Catwoman, Harley Quinn, Lady Shiva, and the like.
The two main mechanics would be morality and reputation. A high morality and reputation would be required to continue relationships with the like of Batgirl and Oracle, with reputation mostly revolving around how the public and the police see you, needing a good reputation for the police to cooperate and not try to take you down. A low morality would allow you to do stuff like let Catwoman escape in return for a blowjob, and you'd need a low reputation in order for the criminals to trust any deals you might make with them. On top of all that you'd have to keep your grades up (Tim would still be living with his father), make time to train, and also do patrols of Gotham to stop regular crimes like muggings.
Sadly, unless I made it a purely text based game, it would require an artist to do the scenes. While there are costumes made for Daz3D that mimic (or are direct copies of) the bigger named characters there isn't anything for the lesser known ones (i.e. Spoiler). There's also the problem of DC themselves, with them having already sent cease & desist e-mails for Something Unlimited (hence the name change of that game). This would also be best suited for Ren'Py, which I'm still learning how to use.
Once I started to use Daz3D I saw that there were a lot of generic superhero clothes and costumes I could use plus a ton of sci-fi and fantasy clothes that could be re-purposed. So what I decided to do was create my own universe and characters (inspired by / ripped off of DC characters I planned on using) but keep the mechanics and same general plot outline (young hero protecting a city while the big guns are away). Outside of still learning the ropes of Ren'Py this project runs into the same problem as Common Life - needing a computer that won't melt when doing complex scene renders.
Common Life - I'm sure most of you already know about this one. In short it'd be a straightforward dating and life sim with no sort of magic spells or drugs making people do what you want, just pure relationship building and management of everyday life. As said above I still need to get a better computer or upgrade my current one so that it doesn't catch fire when rendering large scenes.
Fantasy RPG - I've talked about this one before too. It'd basically just be a Final Fantasy / Star Ocean / Tales of game with relationship building and sex scenes.
- Other projects I've either given up on or are in limbo -
Neighborhood - The idea for this was that you'd play as a boy during summer who'd build relationships with the people in his neighborhood, like the two sisters living next door, your own family, your friend's family, and a few others. The problem was I couldn't really think up any interesting mechanics beyond just affection and lewdness stats. It also looked like it'd eventually evolve into nothing but sexual scenes, which I'm trying to avoid for future projects.
I know everyone loves sex scenes for these games (including me, so long as I'm just the player) but working on little else but them quickly becomes soul crushingly tedious. Still, if I can develop this concept further into something more interesting I might go back to it. Some of the characters I've made for it I really love, like the neighbor sisters (which I've put up an image for below) who will definitely get into some project I'm working on at one point or another.
Engagement - You'd play as a older guy whose son comes home from college engaged to a girl and they decide to stay with you for the summer. Well I'm sure you can guess where that leads - NTRing your own son. Like above I couldn't really think of any fresh or otherwise interesting mechanics or gameplay concepts beyond the usual Cohabitation stuff. I really liked the girl I made for it, Jasmine, who you can see down below. Given that this would be a pretty small game I might pick it back up as a small side project in the future when I update my computer and can do renders really quickly.
Summer Vacation - This would be about the MC and his family and extended family going on vacation at a small hotel (that they'd fill up) in a little seaside beach town. You'd build up relationships with the various girls to get in their pants, work a part time job for money, and work out to gain confidence to do bolder stuff and increase your stamina so you can do more actions each day. There'd also be avoidable NTR, the idea being that your uncle, younger twin male cousins, and the hotel manager (who is friends with the uncle) would try to drug, get drunk, blackmail, or otherwise coerce the girls into sex. You'd be able to sabotage their efforts and the girl's relationship status with you would also have an effect on whether or not they fell for a scheme.
This ended up feeling a bit too ambitious for me, with a lot of moving parts and mechanics interacting. It would have also largely just been a sex game. I did like some of the characters I made, especially your female cousin, Khloe who you can see below.
Chemistry - The basic concept for this was that you'd play as guy who develops a drug that breaks down inhibitions and makes people more suggestible. He'd then start testing it on his family. This time around the mechanics and gameplay concepts weren't the problem (you'd need to buy the chemicals, keep an eye on the family's suspicion, and deal with their tolerance of the drug) but honestly my interest in the whole drugging/mind control thing is fairly low and there's already a dozen games that do it. Also, a lot of my projects involve the MC's family and I'd rather save my ideas for their characters for a game I had more passion for.
A Dragon Age 2 Game - This one is a bit weird and one of my older ideas. Basically the idea was that you'd play as Gamlen Amell while the Hawke family stays with you, and you'd choose Hawke's gender and who his love interest out of Isabela and Merrill. Regardless of your choices you'd convince Bethany she should be grateful and 'compensate' you for allowing the family to stay in your little home rent free. If you made Hawke a female then you'd eventually move on to her too; if instead you chose male you could convince Bethany to start showing him her 'appreciation' for always protecting her.
For Isabela you'd catch her having sex with some guy to pay back a debt at the Hanged Man and then start blackmailing her into sex. With Merrill you'd pretty much take advantage of her naivete and ignorance of human culture to convince her that blowjobs are an accepted 'thank you' and that since she's dating your nephew she has to share herself with you too, stuff like that.
The first obvious problem with this game is that there'd be no way for me to make images for it beyond hiring an artist. There also wouldn't really be any gameplay mechanics, it'd pretty much just be a straight visual novel with choices of who to go after, which doesn't much interest me anymore.
A Nick Katzenberg Game - If you don't know who this is Nick was a scummy tabloid reporter in older Spider-Man books. He once took photos of Peter becoming Spider-Man and tried to blackmail Mary Jane (Peter's wife back then) for sex in order to keep his mouth shut. MJ, of course, just punched him in the face and she and Peter ended up coming up with a story of why he was changing into a Spider-Man costume, and then Nick pretty much dropped out of the books until he turned up a few years later in the hospital dying of lung cancer. Anyway, the idea here would be that MJ would have actually accepted and then Nick would move onto blackmailing other female Marvel characters.
This one suffered from the usual problem of the above games - no way to really do scenes I'd need, not a whole lot of gameplay mechanics, mostly sexual scenes, and I'd possibly run into trouble with Marvel down the line. Still, I've always liked the idea of fat, disgusting Nick Katzenberg banging MJ and the likes of Sue Richards and others, so if I could ever solve the problem of creating the needed scenes and come up with some decent mechanics for gaining blackmail material I'd definitely come back to this.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
I was also going to talk about and recommend other people's games and projects I like but this post is already stupidly long so I'll save it for another post next month.
Well, hopefully someone got something out of this rambling mess.
So, since I don't have much else to post about this month beyond the next Cohabitation update (either at the end of this month or the start of the next) I thought I'd share a few of my favorite project ideas. Some I'll likely try to pursue after I finish up Cohabitation and then Staying with Aunt Katie but others I've given up on for various reasons; at the bottom of this post I'll attach some renders I've done of characters related to these projects.
- Likely Future Projects -
Debt - You play as a boy who finds out that his mother has lost a ton of money to a scam. You decide to help her get the money back by doing various jobs but also hold the whole thing over her head in order to coerce her to pay you back and for keeping your mouth shut in various lewd ways. The main mechanics here would, of course, be money management and balancing various jobs. I'd also carry over the school elements from SWAK to add an extra gameplay layer. Like Staying with Aunt Katie this would be decidedly smaller than Cohabitation but also bigger than SWAK. Below is an image of the mother, Nancy. After having made Katie I wanted to make Nancy a bit... unrealistic in body shape but I might've gone a touch too far.
Imperium - One project I've wanted to do for a long time was where you'd play as Robin (Tim Drake). Batman would have left Earth to fight in some intergalactic war with the rest of the JLA half way across the universe, leaving Robin in charge of protecting Gotham. You'd build regular, romantic relationships with the likes of Spoiler, Batgirl (Cassie), Huntress, and Oracle, plus others I'm probably forgetting. Then there'd be more 'physical' relationships with Catwoman, Harley Quinn, Lady Shiva, and the like.
The two main mechanics would be morality and reputation. A high morality and reputation would be required to continue relationships with the like of Batgirl and Oracle, with reputation mostly revolving around how the public and the police see you, needing a good reputation for the police to cooperate and not try to take you down. A low morality would allow you to do stuff like let Catwoman escape in return for a blowjob, and you'd need a low reputation in order for the criminals to trust any deals you might make with them. On top of all that you'd have to keep your grades up (Tim would still be living with his father), make time to train, and also do patrols of Gotham to stop regular crimes like muggings.
Sadly, unless I made it a purely text based game, it would require an artist to do the scenes. While there are costumes made for Daz3D that mimic (or are direct copies of) the bigger named characters there isn't anything for the lesser known ones (i.e. Spoiler). There's also the problem of DC themselves, with them having already sent cease & desist e-mails for Something Unlimited (hence the name change of that game). This would also be best suited for Ren'Py, which I'm still learning how to use.
Once I started to use Daz3D I saw that there were a lot of generic superhero clothes and costumes I could use plus a ton of sci-fi and fantasy clothes that could be re-purposed. So what I decided to do was create my own universe and characters (inspired by / ripped off of DC characters I planned on using) but keep the mechanics and same general plot outline (young hero protecting a city while the big guns are away). Outside of still learning the ropes of Ren'Py this project runs into the same problem as Common Life - needing a computer that won't melt when doing complex scene renders.
Common Life - I'm sure most of you already know about this one. In short it'd be a straightforward dating and life sim with no sort of magic spells or drugs making people do what you want, just pure relationship building and management of everyday life. As said above I still need to get a better computer or upgrade my current one so that it doesn't catch fire when rendering large scenes.
Fantasy RPG - I've talked about this one before too. It'd basically just be a Final Fantasy / Star Ocean / Tales of game with relationship building and sex scenes.
- Other projects I've either given up on or are in limbo -
Neighborhood - The idea for this was that you'd play as a boy during summer who'd build relationships with the people in his neighborhood, like the two sisters living next door, your own family, your friend's family, and a few others. The problem was I couldn't really think up any interesting mechanics beyond just affection and lewdness stats. It also looked like it'd eventually evolve into nothing but sexual scenes, which I'm trying to avoid for future projects.
I know everyone loves sex scenes for these games (including me, so long as I'm just the player) but working on little else but them quickly becomes soul crushingly tedious. Still, if I can develop this concept further into something more interesting I might go back to it. Some of the characters I've made for it I really love, like the neighbor sisters (which I've put up an image for below) who will definitely get into some project I'm working on at one point or another.
Engagement - You'd play as a older guy whose son comes home from college engaged to a girl and they decide to stay with you for the summer. Well I'm sure you can guess where that leads - NTRing your own son. Like above I couldn't really think of any fresh or otherwise interesting mechanics or gameplay concepts beyond the usual Cohabitation stuff. I really liked the girl I made for it, Jasmine, who you can see down below. Given that this would be a pretty small game I might pick it back up as a small side project in the future when I update my computer and can do renders really quickly.
Summer Vacation - This would be about the MC and his family and extended family going on vacation at a small hotel (that they'd fill up) in a little seaside beach town. You'd build up relationships with the various girls to get in their pants, work a part time job for money, and work out to gain confidence to do bolder stuff and increase your stamina so you can do more actions each day. There'd also be avoidable NTR, the idea being that your uncle, younger twin male cousins, and the hotel manager (who is friends with the uncle) would try to drug, get drunk, blackmail, or otherwise coerce the girls into sex. You'd be able to sabotage their efforts and the girl's relationship status with you would also have an effect on whether or not they fell for a scheme.
This ended up feeling a bit too ambitious for me, with a lot of moving parts and mechanics interacting. It would have also largely just been a sex game. I did like some of the characters I made, especially your female cousin, Khloe who you can see below.
Chemistry - The basic concept for this was that you'd play as guy who develops a drug that breaks down inhibitions and makes people more suggestible. He'd then start testing it on his family. This time around the mechanics and gameplay concepts weren't the problem (you'd need to buy the chemicals, keep an eye on the family's suspicion, and deal with their tolerance of the drug) but honestly my interest in the whole drugging/mind control thing is fairly low and there's already a dozen games that do it. Also, a lot of my projects involve the MC's family and I'd rather save my ideas for their characters for a game I had more passion for.
A Dragon Age 2 Game - This one is a bit weird and one of my older ideas. Basically the idea was that you'd play as Gamlen Amell while the Hawke family stays with you, and you'd choose Hawke's gender and who his love interest out of Isabela and Merrill. Regardless of your choices you'd convince Bethany she should be grateful and 'compensate' you for allowing the family to stay in your little home rent free. If you made Hawke a female then you'd eventually move on to her too; if instead you chose male you could convince Bethany to start showing him her 'appreciation' for always protecting her.
For Isabela you'd catch her having sex with some guy to pay back a debt at the Hanged Man and then start blackmailing her into sex. With Merrill you'd pretty much take advantage of her naivete and ignorance of human culture to convince her that blowjobs are an accepted 'thank you' and that since she's dating your nephew she has to share herself with you too, stuff like that.
The first obvious problem with this game is that there'd be no way for me to make images for it beyond hiring an artist. There also wouldn't really be any gameplay mechanics, it'd pretty much just be a straight visual novel with choices of who to go after, which doesn't much interest me anymore.
A Nick Katzenberg Game - If you don't know who this is Nick was a scummy tabloid reporter in older Spider-Man books. He once took photos of Peter becoming Spider-Man and tried to blackmail Mary Jane (Peter's wife back then) for sex in order to keep his mouth shut. MJ, of course, just punched him in the face and she and Peter ended up coming up with a story of why he was changing into a Spider-Man costume, and then Nick pretty much dropped out of the books until he turned up a few years later in the hospital dying of lung cancer. Anyway, the idea here would be that MJ would have actually accepted and then Nick would move onto blackmailing other female Marvel characters.
This one suffered from the usual problem of the above games - no way to really do scenes I'd need, not a whole lot of gameplay mechanics, mostly sexual scenes, and I'd possibly run into trouble with Marvel down the line. Still, I've always liked the idea of fat, disgusting Nick Katzenberg banging MJ and the likes of Sue Richards and others, so if I could ever solve the problem of creating the needed scenes and come up with some decent mechanics for gaining blackmail material I'd definitely come back to this.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
I was also going to talk about and recommend other people's games and projects I like but this post is already stupidly long so I'll save it for another post next month.
Well, hopefully someone got something out of this rambling mess.
