Others Displaced Worlds: Lost Between Realms and Tits. [Development Thread]

[Tenasynth]

​

The Issue

A few months ago, a deity came to me in my dreams. I don't know which one—it could be one only I know about—and told me to make an NSFW game, otherwise the world would end. Yeah, I know, there are so many talented developers around who could have been tasked with such a noble mission, but it came to me instead. And did I say "the world ends"? Yes. All because of some porn game? Yes. "B-but we have millions of games already!" Yeah, don’t ask me. I’m totally not the one who made this shit up.

If you have any complaints, leave them here, and I'll forward them to the deity. Likewise, if you have any dissatisfaction with the game itself, say it, announce it to the world, spit it out. This humble, undistinguished developer of low birth will try his best to address your valuable criticism.

The (hopefully) Solution

So there I went, knowing nothing about how to make games or art, and started this project.

I'm making a simple isometric game where you play as a faceless, nameless grey man who can freely move around. Since I dislike games where you spend hours on the story and minigames for just a few minutes of actual fuck, I mean, I go in with dick in hand, harder than diamond, the hardest metal in the universe, spend 1 hour grinding through whatever the game requires me to, until finally "WHOAAA, SEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEX" only for it to be a quick single scene, then I need to grind again for another hour until I get more. I understand that people like it, but I do not. This may make this game unpopular, but so be it. I won't make it a slow burn or an eternal grind.

So, things will be pretty straight forward: you get some plot, some mysteries, and goals here and there. You walk around, solve them, and unlock the cool stuff we actually care about. Nothing that takes too long or is too hard—about 3 minutes or so and pa-PUM, done! Also, no drip feeding. Once you reach event where you unlock scenes, you don't just unlock one animation and that is it; you get several poses, and later even items and costumes, so you can fap at you pace like a king.

I'll first be focused on creating more visual content, like animations, and improving my art, which is what I enjoy the most. This thread might be a bit early since I don't have much to show yet, but I'll work as fast as I can to deliver beta builds soon after the new year. I can't take long or the world will end, remember?

Regardless if I get good, bad or no feedback at all, it will motivate me to try harder all the same. It is better than to make something while I'm the only creature on this planet who knows about it. It is not a secrete military project, state secrete or anything sensitive. No point in hiding it. I need energy for my rotting soul.

If you care about it, I'm using Gamemaker Studio and no AI.

Story

Spoiler: We have that?

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Characters

Spoiler: We have some girls here

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Animation Preview

Spoiler: Animating is not easy

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Planned tags

Spoiler: Will it have my fetishes?

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And some [very[few]] in-game screenshots.

Spoiler: I need to draw a lot more

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[HELIO CESAR]

D orders me to draw.

Does it want to draw some hairy bits?
Good luck mate, seems it will be a hell of a ride!

 

[Tenasynth]

Good luck mate, seems it will be a hell of a ride!

Thanks! Yeah, it will. I need to figure out how to complete this game, but it shall get done nonetheless.

Does it want to draw some hairy bits?

Good thing you asked, because it did. However, due to the incompetency of my body middle manager, the secondary head, the brain, I didn't manage to do a good job there, so no hairy bits for now. If I'm able to figure this out later, I'll add it.

 

[Tenasynth]

Oh no! One month has passed and I wasn't able to post any updates. Well, I'm still going, albeit slowly. I tried to make an illustration, but it didn't turn out so well. Drawing such a pose without a reference is beyond my current level and I got a bit obsessed with realism this time. I think I'll try to aim for a more simplified art style as I keep learning and developing this game.

View attachment Nephira_tree.mp4

 

[Jon Alm]

Is this still alive? I take it would be kind of an isometric rpg type of thing. Good call on not using rpgmaker or other slop engines. The art so far looks crude and you seem to be conflicted on two different styles, but it is sovlfvl. I hope this wasn't a spur of the moment project that you forgot after three months. We could use more non-rpgm isos. Good luck if you're still kicking.

 

[Tenasynth]

Is this still alive? I take it would be kind of an isometric rpg type of thing. Good call on not using rpgmaker or other slop engines. The art so far looks crude and you seem to be conflicted on two different styles, but it is sovlfvl. I hope this wasn't a spur of the moment project that you forgot after three months. We could use more non-rpgm isos. Good luck if you're still kicking.

I apologize, but it was dead. As you said, the artwork is indeed quite bad, more than that, boring, I would say. Which terribly dismantled all my motivation. I tried to practice and improve, but after some more failures I gave up as a loser. Not only the art, but the game idea was simply not exciting, I couldn't make it be, I didn't have the vision required for it. My disappointment currently is so great that when I try to draw, I just blankly stare at a screen or paper and my hand remain still. Every line is a hurdle too big to overcome.

But your comment motivated me, I expected this to be forgotten, but it was not, so maybe there's something I can still do. Thank you.

About the art, would you mind giving me some more feedback? Of course the technique leaves much to be desired, but more than that, I think it lacks expression and the style is all over the place, as you pointed out. Maybe with an opinion I can figure out where to focus and improve the art direction.

 

[HELIO CESAR]

I apologize, but it was dead. As you said, the artwork is indeed quite bad, more than that, boring, I would say. Which terribly dismantled all my motivation. I tried to practice and improve, but after some more failures I gave up as a loser. Not only the art, but the game idea was simply not exciting, I couldn't make it be, I didn't have the vision required for it. My disappointment currently is so great that when I try to draw, I just blankly stare at a screen or paper and my hand remain still. Every line is a hurdle too big to overcome.

But your comment motivated me, I expected this to be forgotten, but it was not, so maybe there's something I can still do. Thank you.

About the art, would you mind giving me some more feedback? Of course the technique leaves much to be desired, but more than that, I think it lacks expression and the style is all over the place, as you pointed out. Maybe with an opinion I can figure out where to focus and improve the art direction.

Bro don't be so harsh with you, for the matter i was really digging the art, especially if it was at this level for the CGs


many games made it far with art of this level or less, Katalist has this kind of scene CG and in-game characters:



And its a extremely entertaining and popular game, i mostly play it for the situations and story. but i do like it's art.

Amoral Quest is another one, it has 'simple' CGs scenes and in-game characters:



It's less popular but it's because of the dev commitment i would say haha.

Or take World of Sisters, another extremely popular game with CGs like this:



Point is, art is subjective i was pretty pleased with it, the premise was weird? totally, but this is fine! There are people, i included that love weird, we like new things, different things, it could be a bit difficult to write? being honest yeah, but man things are like this with unconventional narratives, you choose a difficult lane, simply, don't be your enemy.

If you want to revamp it no problem, but be aware that at least one person liked your premise. maybe read this manga

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, it was the first thing that came to my mind when i first saw this thread, maybe it could help you with ideas and inspiration, just chin up brother. : )

 

[Tenasynth]

Bro don't be so harsh with you, for the matter i was really digging the art, especially if it was at this level for the CGs
View attachment 5052884

many games made it far with art of this level or less, Katalist has this kind of scene CG and in-game characters:
View attachment 5052890
View attachment 5052888
View attachment 5052887
And its a extremely entertaining and popular game, i mostly play it for the situations and story. but i do like it's art.

Amoral Quest is another one, it has 'simple' CGs scenes and in-game characters:
View attachment 5052893
View attachment 5052894

It's less popular but it's because of the dev commitment i would say haha.

Or take World of Sisters, another extremely popular game with CGs like this:
View attachment 5052897
View attachment 5052898

Point is, art is subjective i was pretty pleased with it, the premise was weird? totally, but this is fine! There are people, i included that love weird, we like new things, different things, it could be a bit difficult to write? being honest yeah, but man things are like this with unconventional narratives, you choose a difficult lane, simply, don't be your enemy.

If you want to revamp it no problem, but be aware that at least one person liked your premise. maybe read this manga

You must be registered to see the links

, it was the first thing that came to my mind when i first saw this thread, maybe it could help you with ideas and inspiration, just chin up brother. : )

Oh! A manga by Hamita. I used to watch his livestreams to learn since he teaches about art, composition and writing. His style is very methodical and thought out. I'll surely read this work, thanks! It's a bit embarrassing to say this, but I did not forget your comments and felt like I was betraying your expectations when I stopped, so I apologize for it.

As for the art, you are correct, there are many great games and even manga that do not have top tier artwork. Sometimes, despite being simple, the art is incredibly expressive or other components from the work are amazing and make up for it. It's just that after putting so much effort, the constant poor results took a toll on me and I lost motivation. There's a certain game dev I look up to and after seeing how I can't measure up even to his first work, I thought I simply did not have what it takes.

But never mind, it's cool to see that there are still people interested in my game. No matter what, I will finish it. If it ends up being a boring game, too bad, it will be free anyway, lol.

Thank you for the encouragement.

 

[Jon Alm]

I apologize, but it was dead. As you said, the artwork is indeed quite bad, more than that, boring, I would say. Which terribly dismantled all my motivation. I tried to practice and improve, but after some more failures I gave up as a loser. Not only the art, but the game idea was simply not exciting, I couldn't make it be, I didn't have the vision required for it. My disappointment currently is so great that when I try to draw, I just blankly stare at a screen or paper and my hand remain still. Every line is a hurdle too big to overcome.

But your comment motivated me, I expected this to be forgotten, but it was not, so maybe there's something I can still do. Thank you.

About the art, would you mind giving me some more feedback? Of course the technique leaves much to be desired, but more than that, I think it lacks expression and the style is all over the place, as you pointed out. Maybe with an opinion I can figure out where to focus and improve the art direction.

Damn, I didn't mean it in an irredeemable way, just as in it has room for improvement. As the other guy said, it's quite there in comparison with many relatively successful games. Good thing you're still trying though, the worst thing someone can do in life is to give up on something because of anything other than becoming physically incapable of doing it.

Now on the art, I'm no expert, but I can list some things that bugged me enough to call them errors or inconsistencies:

• The footwear in the first pin-up contrasts wildly with the rest of it, I assume it's an image.
• Still on it, her face seems slapped on, I think the lack of depth makes the angle a bit fucked up.
• These two elbows, I can't reproduce these positions with my arm, if you can, they surely are not in resting position, in which I assume they should be here
  
• The nude pic with both of them you kinda cooked with the body, but hands and feet didn't get that much attention with the creases and such, I think you can spot that too. You did that better in the bed cg. In that style, I think that if you learnt how to shade the face the same way you did the body you would be golden.
• The in-game style looking cleaner than the pin-ups - Not a problem really, but I think you should try to do more on that style for the cover or whatever front-art you choose to do. I retract this if I undershot your current progress, please post more!

Keep at it. The animations alone put this on a 'most wouldn't get pissy if you started asking for donations midway to finish' level. I think that if you started posting your progress monthly, surely people would come and give more feedback.

 

[Tenasynth]

I'm sorry for the late reply.

The footwear in the first pin-up contrasts wildly with the rest of it, I assume it's an image.

It's not an image, It was fully painted by me. I have this annoying habit of putting more and more details, even when I'm lacking the skills for that. In the case of the footwear, I was able to figure it out better then all the other elements, so it stands out, which - as you point it out - contrasts too much with the rest.
It's something I'm working on improving.

Still on it, her face seems slapped on, I think the lack of depth makes the angle a bit fucked up.

You are fully correct, I really struggle with drawing faces and shading them, even now I have a hard time.

These two elbows, I can't reproduce these positions with my arm, if you can, they surely are not in resting position, in which I assume they should be here

My intention was to draw them on a resting position, lol. Point taken, I'll pay more attention to it next time.

The nude pic with both of them you kinda cooked with the body, but hands and feet didn't get that much attention with the creases and such, I think you can spot that too. You did that better in the bed cg. In that style, I think that if you learnt how to shade the face the same way you did the body you would be golden.

Great. I'm right at this moment painting an illustration and I'll pay attention to those points.

The in-game style looking cleaner than the pin-ups - Not a problem really, but I think you should try to do more on that style for the cover or whatever front-art you choose to do. I retract this if I undershot your current progress, please post more!

This is true and it's due to my lack of ability. I'll try to work on making them match a bit better. I tried to see if I could move to a slightly more simplified style. I tried to do that with a drawing I uploaded to my Pixiv of Lanikea doing a footjob, but I failed. Which is why I didn't post it here.

Keep at it. The animations alone put this on a 'most wouldn't get pissy if you started asking for donations midway to finish' level. I think that if you started posting your progress monthly, surely people would come and give more feedback.

Good to know that at least the animations seem to be on an barely acceptable level.

Thank you for your feedback! There are issues I cannot spot, so feedback like this is very much appreciated.

Unfortunately, I don't have much progress to show yet. This week, I focused mainly on programming and an illustration. As always, I struggled with anatomy and the face, which slowed me down, but I think I've finally got it right, and things are now progressing smoothly. This week I plan to work on in-game animations. It’s been a while, but I'm confident I can handle it now.

I'll try to deliver at least bi-montly updates, since I might be too slow for monthly updates.

 

[HELIO CESAR]

Everything going well pal? no pressure tho, just checking.

 

[Tenasynth]

Everything going well pal? no pressure tho, just checking.

Thanks for asking, I was just about to make a post about that. As a short answer to your question: slightly yes, things are progressing, albeit slowly.

The reason for the lack of updates is, once again, my art. This time I didn't stop working, but I wasn't satisfied with what I was making, so I kept trying to improve it over and over, which prevented me from finishing new content. I knew I should hurry up and move forward, but it was really bothering me. For example, I decided to test whether adding character portraits during dialogues was a good addition or unnecessary, so I got to work and nine hours later, I drew this:
(Yes, it really took me nine hours to finish this drawing!)

Spoiler: The Bad Drawing

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This is obviously not sustainable, the ratio of time spent to quality is terrible. At this rate, not only would it take me forever to complete the game, but it would also look bad. So, unbothered by whether the game would actually include portraits or not, since this quality was unacceptable, I started practicing again, and this is the result:

Spoiler: The Better Drawing

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Despite taking a similar amount of time to draw (which is still a lot, I think a skilled artist could do something like this in under 3 hours (and a superior work too! The anatomy and painting could be a lot better.)), I believe this looks much better. But to reach this level I had to practice a lot, and that took time away from working on other assets. I know I'm making a game, not an illustration portfolio, but I really needed to fix this before moving forward. I would’ve dropped the project again if everything looked ugly as it kills my motivation.

I'm running into similar issues with the other graphical aspects of the game. For example, this is Nephira's place, which still isn’t finished. I don’t know exactly how many hours I’ve put into it, but it’s already over 40 and it doesn’t look that good. So again, the time-to-quality ratio isn’t ideal.

Spoiler

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So this is why I haven’t posted any updates yet. But I assure you, I haven’t stopped working on the game, there are just a lot of things I still haven’t figured out. That said, now that I’m comfortable enough to draw all future character CGs, I can shift more focus to everything else. I’m aiming to complete all game backgrounds and environments by the end of the year. They take the most time to draw, and even though I’m not happy with the quality, since they’re not the main focus, I don’t plan to keep improving them. So this is what you should expect quality wise. I just wish to improve my workflow so I can make them faster. When they’re done I can finally focus on the animations, since they need to be correctly scaled to the environment and I want to draw them correctly instead of resizing.

Once again, thank you for caring about this project. I’ll keep working hard to deliver a good game.

 

[HELIO CESAR]

Thanks for asking, I was just about to make a post about that. As a short answer to your question: slightly yes, things are progressing, albeit slowly.

The reason for the lack of updates is, once again, my art. This time I didn't stop working, but I wasn't satisfied with what I was making, so I kept trying to improve it over and over, which prevented me from finishing new content. I knew I should hurry up and move forward, but it was really bothering me. For example, I decided to test whether adding character portraits during dialogues was a good addition or unnecessary, so I got to work and nine hours later, I drew this:
(Yes, it really took me nine hours to finish this drawing!)

Spoiler: The Bad Drawing

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This is obviously not sustainable, the ratio of time spent to quality is terrible. At this rate, not only would it take me forever to complete the game, but it would also look bad. So, unbothered by whether the game would actually include portraits or not, since this quality was unacceptable, I started practicing again, and this is the result:

Spoiler: The Better Drawing

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Despite taking a similar amount of time to draw (which is still a lot, I think a skilled artist could do this in under 3 hours), I believe this looks much better. But to reach this level I had to practice a lot, and that took time away from working on other assets. I know I'm making a game, not an illustration portfolio, but I really needed to fix this before moving forward. I would’ve dropped the project again if everything looked ugly as it kills my motivation.

I'm running into similar issues with the other graphical aspects of the game. For example, this is Nephira's place, which still isn’t finished. I don’t know exactly how many hours I’ve put into it, but it’s already over 40 and it doesn’t look that good. So again, the time-to-quality ratio isn’t ideal.

Spoiler

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So this is why I haven’t posted any updates yet. But I assure you, I haven’t stopped working on the game, there are just a lot of things I still haven’t figured out. That said, now that I’m comfortable enough to draw all future character CGs, I can shift more focus to everything else. I’m aiming to complete all game backgrounds and environments by the end of the year. They take the most time to draw, and even though I’m not happy with the quality, since they’re not the main focus, I don’t plan to keep improving them. So this is what you should expect quality wise. I just wish to improve my workflow so I can make them faster. When they’re done I can finally focus on the animations, since they need to be correctly scaled to the environment and I want to draw them correctly instead of resizing.

Once again, thank you for caring about this project. I’ll keep working hard to deliver a good game.

Man you are doing good, and i can say it with a bit of weight because i understand personally the struggle, 7 years ago (seesh i didn't realize it was this much already...) i dabbled in digital paint, my passion for art died a bit from that time but i remember this drawing that took me days to finish:

Took so damn long hahaha, but i noticed that every time the sessions were getting more easy and fun to do, it's normal for it to take time, but i does get more fast with mastery.
But i also understand the self pressure of putting something out quick, for others and for proofing to ourselves that we can do it, so if i were going to it today i would use other technics that i didn't even consider or recurses i couldn't have at the time, like 3D models as reference, a better drawing tablet (i used a wacom intuos pen ctl-480), i would also use more post processing editing like photoshop and after effects (not try to render everything painting).
If i remember correctly Superhuman, one of my favourite adult games, currently uses 3D models for bootstrapping the drawing pipeline, his art also went a long way.
From this level:


To this:



But i was charmed with the game even with the old art, because the story of the game is lit as fuck! Art is important but it's only one element.
Do you already have the code and other things sorted? I really think a small demo to show people what is planned can help you gather a cool number of feedback and support.
I know when we see what other people are doing we tend to think we are less, but as it is said "Comparison is the thief of joy", you are doing good man, use other as examples of what to learn, not what to be.

 

[Tenasynth]

Man you are doing good, and i can say it with a bit of weight because i understand personally the struggle, 7 years ago (seesh i didn't realize it was this much already...) i dabbled in digital paint, my passion for art died a bit from that time but i remember this drawing that took me days to finish:
View attachment 5388940
Took so damn long hahaha, but i noticed that every time the sessions were getting more easy and fun to do, it's normal for it to take time, but i does get more fast with mastery.
But i also understand the self pressure of putting something out quick, for others and for proofing to ourselves that we can do it, so if i were going to it today i would use other technics that i didn't even consider or recurses i couldn't have at the time, like 3D models as reference, a better drawing tablet (i used a wacom intuos pen ctl-480), i would also use more post processing editing like photoshop and after effects (not try to render everything painting).
If i remember correctly Superhuman, one of my favourite adult games, currently uses 3D models for bootstrapping the drawing pipeline, his art also went a long way.
From this level:
View attachment 5388955
View attachment 5388956
To this:
View attachment 5388959
View attachment 5388960
View attachment 5388967
But i was charmed with the game even with the old art, because the story of the game is lit as fuck! Art is important but it's only one element.
Do you already have the code and other things sorted? I really think a small demo to show people what is planned can help you gather a cool number of feedback and support.
I know when we see what other people are doing we tend to think we are less, but as it is said "Comparison is the thief of joy", you are doing good man, use other as examples of what to learn, not what to be.

Whoa, your drawing is so vivid, the colors and composition are pretty neat, I like it. I can see why it took so long to make!

About using other tools and techniques, I'll look into it, I know very little about Photoshop and the like, I'll see what I can employ to speed up my work. Also, incredible evolution from the author of Superhuman, I didn't know about this game. Going from what I'm seeing, it does look interesting.

And about programing and everything else, it's more or less all sorted out, most systems I'll use throughout the game are already built, they just require some ironing out, which I pushed to do way later, so I don't waste time and focus on what I mentioned. Technically the game is playable, it just lacks a lot of content, so there's very little to do. And to be honest, those animations I made don't quite fit at the game start plot wise, I was not working according to the game progression, so the player wouldn't be capable of triggering them yet. There's this big gap after the game intro, which requires quite a few animated sprites and other art assets. I plan to release a demo after I finally get them done.

 

[HELIO CESAR]

Whoa, your drawing is so vivid, the colors and composition are pretty neat, I like it. I can see why it took so long to make!

Thanks, i was afraid to death of using more high-contrast shadows at the time haha, and its such an important factor to quicky improve the drawing, even a simple multiply layer with photoshop (what i used at the time) would have helped it.

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series about improving his followers drawings tackles this pretty frequently, his insight about coloured light,

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videos were very good too, guy loved the fresnel effect and aerial perspective.
But one of the most influential actives at the moment would be

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, mainly his discord art community, content is focused in classic oil painting but the principles of art are the same for every style.

For the background scenarios that you mentioned i can say for sure 3D will help, first at quick composition with low poly models, there are even some pixel art shaders in blender that could help with it.
Isometric is a two-faced bitch, very easy and fun to make a composition, but suddenly everything looks flat and you want to cry haha, carefully thought shadows and light work helps a lot to sell it tho.

Cool that the other things are already sorted out, art can improve with time, but in the long run, players will care much about a good structured and bug free game (future development too, looking at you summer time saga).

 

[Tenasynth]

Thanks, i was afraid to death of using more high-contrast shadows at the time haha, and its such an important factor to quicky improve the drawing, even a simple multiply layer with photoshop (what i used at the time) would have helped it.

I know this feeling very well, my drawings were pretty flat due to the lack of contrast and I feel like I'm still to fully grasp it, but I'm giving more attention to it. Funny (or bad) enough, I don't really use many layers and when I do, I set everything to normal and I try to figure out the colors myself. Not

For the background scenarios that you mentioned i can say for sure 3D will help, first at quick composition with low poly models, there are even some pixel art shaders in blender that could help with it.
Isometric is a two-faced bitch, very easy and fun to make a composition, but suddenly everything looks flat and you want to cry haha, carefully thought shadows and light work helps a lot to sell it tho.

This is also true, as isometric isn't really "real" 3D perspective, I think I try to compensate with more detail, but it still looks flat and I don't quite know what to do. I'll try learning a little about using Blender, my experience with 3D is essentially null.

Cool that the other things are already sorted out, art can improve with time, but in the long run, players will care much about a good structured and bug free game (future development too, looking at you summer time saga).

I agree. I'm very anal about bugs, performance and playability. On these matters you can be sure I'll deliver a good experience. About the future, this game has a clear ending and even I don't want to keep working on it forever. I don't plan to deliver updates after the game is complete, with the exception of bug fixes maybe, but no more content.