Unreal Engine Development Journal - Not a game yet, but close to be playable

[TheExordick]

I'm starting this thread to keep track and share progress and thoughts about the project i'm developing.

I took inspiration from two great adult games of our time:
- Corruption of Champion
- Karryn's Prison

Of course I don't have the arrogance to come close in quality and depth to such masterpieces, but i'm putting is some elbow grease and hope to come up with a decent prototype.

The main concepts i liked (in no particular order):
- progression and corruption of the protagonist
- change in appearance that can be extreme
- The possibility also for pure route
- Sex as a battle mechanics
- personalization of the experience
- MC can develop traits/passives
- death doesn't end the experience

I'm also trying to put some effort in the user experience ensuring that the game can be played with only the mouse.

So what's the result of this mix and match: a top-down "diablo-like" turn based sexy game where your hero starts as a normal human being (male or female) and through the adventure gets more and more corrupted changing also appearance.
Your final goal is to descend to hell and defeat Lilith, but this may not be easy.
I still need to choose if a save system is useful, or if it is better to leave the experience as a single adventure that is restarted each time.
Probably it depends on how long the gameplay lasts or if you get too emotionally attached to the hero and want to keep slaying and raping monster girls day after day.

Upon starting the game you are greeted by a pretty lame title screen (The Lust Champion is a working title).

And when pressing play you go to the Character creation, where you can select the champion's gender and modify a few stats




The Encampment needs a rework as i'm currently not satisfied with the arrangement of things, placeholders and the position of the hero.
This is a static place anyway, you don't run around, but just select with the mouse pointer the action to perform:
- explore,
- inventory and equipment,
- char stats,
- rest.



When you decide to explore, there will be a map that unveils as you discover more regions.
The first region is the Forest near the encampment, and here the gameplay begins. Scattered around there are points of interest marked by an exclamation mark "!".
These can be either enemies or loot. Enemies can drop something but being them monsters they don't carry any useful equipment.



In the Forest you can encounter low level type of enemies, as you progress in further areas enemies will get stronger and with more abilities.

The planned regions are 9:
- The Forest
- The Lake
- The Mountains
- The Swamps
- The Desert
- The Tropical Forest
- The Crystal Mountain
- The Cave
- Hell

and in each region you find different enemies.
My plan for enemies is to have female and futa monsters. Enemies will always be very antropomorphic (i'm not a furry guy) with some minor exception for mermaids and gorgones. And i'm thinking about making futa enemies as optional if you play as a male champion, maybe not everyone wants to be raped by futa monster (some do for sure...)

I'll come back in the next days with more information.

 

[HumbleBumbleBee]

 

[james4141]

looking forward to it

 

[TheExordick]

Looking at the maps i made i have a few considerations:
They are all 8x8 unreal terrain modules, but for some reason from the second map on they are double the dimension of the Forest region.
I see the dimension is double because of the Navmesh volume dimension.
Maybe i used the terrain in a more efficient way.

the Forest feels right in its dimension while the other maps feel way to big and dispersive. So they need a rework.
I made 5 of the 9 regions and 4 of them already needs to be redone. At least i didn't do all of them.

Here are some pics of the other regions.

The Lake.
It is just a round pond so some rework is needed for sure. It doesn't feel very interesting but as an early game area it doesn't need to feel threatening.


The Mountain.
Here i started to use GAEA to make terrains more interesting and i have to say it is a very interesting experience. The quality of the terrain is far better with respect to what i can do with the UE terrain tools. BUT, being this a top down game i discovered that the terrain needs to be mostly flat otherwise it becomes very difficult to navigate. I will need to add movement to the terrain in other ways.


The Swamps.
i'm very pleased with this one the fog is a simple plane with a transparent material and some moving texture. Very simple but very effective and cheap. This one only needs to be shrinked but the rest of the terrain is good.


And finally the Desert.
This one as well feels good but too wide and dispersive, i don't want to make a walk simulator.


As of now, each region will have specific level enemies with little overlap to help keep a feeling of continuity.
The plan as of now is as follow: (level between brackets)

Forest: Goblins(1) and Imps(2)
Lake: Imps(2), Mermaids(3) and Banshees(4)
Mountain: Banshees(4) and Harpies(8)
Swamps: Harpies(8), Lamias(12) and Gorgons(18)
Desert: Gorgones(18) and Daemonettes(26)
Tropical Forest: Daemonettes(26), Nymphs(33) and Fairys(40)
Crystal Mountain: Valkyries(50) and Gnomes(60)
Cave: Gnomes(60), Orcs(65) and Witches(70)
Hell: Witches(70), Succubi(80) and Lilith(90)

This level progression may be a bit steep, so further adjustments might be needed. Also, it could make things too grindy to have the last level between 70 and 90 so everything can be subjected to re-balance and changes.

As i am in early stages there are currently 2 enemies ready and 1 wip:

Female Goblin:


Female Imp


Female mermaid which is wip


I try to keep bodies with the same proportion to help me with the animations, otherwise the number of animations required spiral out of hand.
This might limit a bit the diversity of the enemies/characters making them feel like the only difference is the skin color.
We'll see how it goes, it is always easy to add new things.

 

[TheExordick]

Let's take a look at the combat system.
As you run around the areas you encounter those interest points (marked with "!"), when entering them three things can happen:
1- combat encounter (the most probable)
2- find equipment
3- find a vendor (not yet implemented)

The combat encounter open the combat panel and changes the view. It starts a turn based combat. As of now you can only face one opponent at a time, there is no possibility to spawn multiple opponents, this may change in the future, but a good rework of the combat manager is needed.

The view that is presented is like this:


In the top right corner you can see the name, level and stats of the creature (health and lust) you win the combat by either bring health to 0 or lust to maximum.
When it is your turn you have 4 different possibilities:
1- escape combat (with a chance based on your dexterity)
2- physical attacks (there is a hit chance based on your and your opponent dex but it's not frustrating, damage is modified by your strength and gear)
3- magic attacks (consume mana, damage/efficacy is modified by your int, not yet implemented)
4- sexual attack and tease (lust damage type, modified by your "dimensions")

As of now, only the simple attack is implemented for the phys attacks, and only the tease attack is implemented for the sexual attacks.
I need to find an interesting way to include the special phys attacks and the sexual attacks.
It doesn't make much sense to always have all the special attacks available, otherwise you always select the strongest one and bypass the strategic part of the combat. So one way could be that different kind of weapons unlocks different types of special attacks and these could be more or less efficient against the targets. This adds a non negligible amount of complexity in the combat system but it makes it more interesting. Additionally there is no resource to consume with special attacks so it may be useful to think if a cooldown makes sense.
This is the first draft of possible special attacks.



For magical attacks, there is still no mechanics implemented. My first idea is that you start without any magical power or known spell, as you progress you may find scrolls that give you knowledge of some spell, or something like that.
Spells could be more focused on control, restrain and damage amplification rather than damage itself, to add some depth to the combat.

For sexual attacks there are a few variables and depend on the type of genitals that the hero and the enemy have.
As of now only the tease is implemented. The idea is that in order to initiate a sexual attack the enemy needs to be restrained or in a submissive position, allowing the hero to do whatever they want.
Additionally the sexual attacks have a drawback, because the deal lust damage to the enemy but also to the hero. As you progress along the adventure you get more and more resistant to lust and you can perform more actions.
Here's a draft of possible sexual attacks



If you win the combat you can either go back to your adventure or rape the creature. If your lust is too low the rape option is not available, if it is too high it is the only option available. Choosing to rape the enemy will give you some minor bonus in corruption but nothing really important. In the long run it makes no difference.

(Animations are still bad... very bad)​

As you can see there is just the barebones of a combat system, a lot still needs to be done. This is all for combat system for the moment.
Right now, the enemies can only attack or tease you. This will change adding more options to them as well, so as you progress through the adventure you find more interesting and challenging enemies.

 

[zmikez]

Reminds me of corruption of champions without the transformative aspects... and 3d

 

[TheExordick]

Reminds me of corruption of champions without the transformative aspects... and 3d

Thats exatly where i'm going! i took strong inspiration from CoC, but i don't have the arrogance to think i will make a comparable game in terms of quality and success. I will try, but it's my hobby, so... don't expect much.

Regarding the transformation... i have plans, but it won't be so extensive as CoC, it would be way too complex and way too much work to implement such deep transformations. I will write something in the next few days about it. Stay tuned.

PS: also, less furry than CoC, that's not my cup of tea.

 

[zmikez]

Thats exatly where i'm going! i took strong inspiration from CoC, but i don't have the arrogance to think i will make a comparable game in terms of quality and success. I will try, but it's my hobby, so... don't expect much.

Regarding the transformation... i have plans, but it won't be so extensive as CoC, it would be way too complex and way too much work to implement such deep transformations. I will write something in the next few days about it. Stay tuned.

PS: also, less furry than CoC, that's not my cup of tea.

For transformations you can use material shaders to affect color/texture, for size, (penis size for example), you can scale the size of the bone connected to the mesh.

For other planned transformations you can create all of them on the character, set the scale to effectively 0, (or 0.001) and then when the transformation happens you set the scale to 1 and it'll work out there. Either that or parent the transformations to the object, though I'm personally partial to the scale version with shape keys so you can literally see it growing out of the MC.

Either way, I'll keep an eye on this, looks interesting.

 

[MattBellamont]

This looks incredible.

 

[1ewdBro69]

looks epic~

 

[TheExordick]

Here we go with some considerations about the character, hero, champion... you name it.
As of now only the male hero can be played, the female one is still too WIP and has no dedicated animations so it is a mess.

But first of all i found a good way (at least in my opinion) to have multiple modular characters. Because the first idea is to have a modular character, in this way it is possible to customize the elements of the character: legs, arms, torso, head (?), genitals.

The problem is that some customization require different bone structure, but we will get to that later.

You start your adventure as a plain boring human, with an average 5" dick, or standard B cup if you are a woman hero. (in this game, size matters)



The idea is that throughout the game you find potions or ointments that change your appearances.
To start i have prepared three different dicks: human, canine and equine:







All penis models are normalized to 10" more or less and then the in game dimension is modified scaling the bone in the control rig.
This gives the possibility to have the physics on the dick and the customizable dimensions.
Sharing overall dimension and skeleton makes it easier to use the same animation independently of the type of penis you have at any moment. Which is very desirable.

Right now, this is as much customization as there is. I know it is not much but it will grow.

The plan is:

Female human hero is a child class of the main character. This is convenient as many animations will be different, some interaction with objects and consumables will be different but the main functionalities are the same.

The same goes for futa hero: it will be a child of the main character class. Futa will not be selectable character but you can become one with the consumables you find around. I still need to plan how you can become a futa, but it will be again some kind of consumable.

i'm planning on dividing different levels of corruptions, as i need to create 3d models for everything it may become difficult otherwise.
So the plan is as follow:
Corruption level 0 is the base character with base skeleton. Changing dick mesh is still included in level 0, as well as simple morphs that might make you more muscular, grow in size, and so on.
As long as the skeleton is the same the corruption level is 0.

This doesn't mean that the corruption level in game is zero, it will change for basically every interesting action you take: like consume potions and stuff you find around, rape creatures and stuff like that.

Corruption level 1 is one change in the character skeleton. This can be easily be managed with child classes of the main character class. Examples of planned changes are:
- double dick (male and futa)
- quad tits (female and futa)
- double arms
- tentacles in place of arms
- double legs / quadruped character (still unsure about this one)

Tentacles need more bones to have a smooth feeling so i think they deserve a dedicated skeleton. I may be wrong and this would make things easier so i will experiment.
Each of these needs to have its own skeleton and some subset of animations so combining them together is not possible. This is the point of corruption level 2.
But as you can see combining two level 1 corruptions to make a level 2 corruption skeleton gets out of hand pretty quickly.
So for now i would say there is enough work making the level 1 already.

I will make some kind of warning when consuming something that changes the skeleton of the character so that you can choose to proceed or not.

This sums up pretty much my plan for customization. I will explore different alternative in order to make my life easier but as of now this is the easiest approach i found so far.
Unfortunately morphs can only go so far and when i need to change the hero's appearance substantially they are not enough.

The alternative would be to have the complete most complex skeleton possible and use it for every part of the character, from the simplest to the most articulate, but this isn't flexible at all: if one day i decide to add something new i need to remake basically everything done and change the skeleton of all the individual parts.
The risk of ruining the animations is high.

Changing subject i'm also testing the possibility to use simple plain colored materials instead of more complex / realistic textures.
Painted textures are not very easy to achieve and require a lot of work as well as realistic ones.

Here is a small comparison between the male hero with texture and a simple non textured material.



Of course there are some difference but the ease of customization would be miles away from fixed textures.
But we are missing nipples (and navel as well)..... This is a major problem. I guess some very simple texture is still needed (maybe decals??? not the most efficient way for sure).

Anyway i like the overall effect, maybe it is a bit too saturated right now but the overall look is good in my opinion.

I think this is it regarding the character customization. As you can see, there is a lot planned and little done. So let's go get some work done.

 

[TheExordick]

Itemization and leveling is a big component of the game.
But there is a big note to make: itemization is one of the most complex mechanics to balance and manage inside a game, items in the Diablo or PoE style, while are top of the line quality, require an amount of work that is not realistic for one person alone. In particular way when you deal with unique-style affixes that change game mechanics.

So in my design i want to keep things simple and straightforward. I will try to have a broad generic implementation that is kind of ready to accept more complex item structure but at the beginning it will be simple.

So you kill monster and get exp and some coins.
The character stats screen, accessible when at the encampment, on the left side there are stats that you can modify when leveling up: strength, dexterity, intelligence and vitality; very ARPG style each stat has a simple impact:
- str gives slight damage bonus
- dex gives slight crit and evasion bonus
- int gives magic effectiveness and mana bonus
- vitality gives overall health bonus



On the right side there are the corruption stats, this cannot be modified directly when leveling up but changes with different game actions and consumables.

When you find equipment and consumables during your exploration they will go directly in your stash, which is accessible only when you are at the encampment.
I didn't like the idea of a limited space inventory that forces you to go back and stash your loot. I prefer an uninterrupted experience when playing.

When you open the stash and inventory tab you can see your combat stats updating when you equip or unequip pieces of gear.



To equip or unequip any piece just drag and drop from stash to the corresponding slot.
Hovering over an item will give some information about it



After equipping the item the character displays the pieces of gear and updated stats



As i said i'm trying to keep itemization simple:
- armors will have a defense bonus which reduces damage taken but never completely. The minimum damage taken is 1
- weapons have a base attack damage and then a crit chance and crit multiplier. Very straightforward.

i want to make special items with more sexual connotations such as:
- butt plug
- cock ring
- cock cage
- purity seal (only for female char as long as they are virgins)

as i'm planning to make female virgin heroes have some sort of bonus, but to compensate for lack of corruption and its bonus, so anybody can choose their preferred route.
I don't think pure male route is very interesting but we will see how it evolves.

This special items will have special effects on the hero, so i'm planning to keep more complex mechanics limited to a handful of items with the possibility to have only one or maximum two of them equipped to limit mechanic complexity on my side.

One thing that is still missing is the traits. This is a common thing in both my inspiration games (CoC and Karryn's Prison) so i still need to study them and how to implement them.
As of now i'm thinking to have some pros and cons for most of the traits so they get more balanced, but we will see how it goes.
And also a big question mark is on how to gain them, the thresholds the levels the choices. This is a complex subject and it is in the pure RPG territory so i need to study.

Let's continue, one step at a time, and see where we go.