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2021-05-03 News
Wow, ok it looks like it’s been awhile so I figure it’s time to share some news! Now, where to start?!
I Swear I Wasn’t Ghosting You Baby!
And that’s true. I’ve been quiet the last couple of weeks but that’s because the week before last I had a chest cold and and had to spent he week after playing catch up with the real job. So between bouts of coughing and grinding out the real job I didn’t have much energy or time for live streaming. But that doesn’t mean the time was lost. In fact during my periods of lucidness I’ve managed to learn quite a bit these last couple of weeks.
So What’d You Learn?
I’ve been breaking down my 3D learning into discrete chunks. Areas that I feel I should master to move forward with top not development and artwork. The first area is one of the largest contributors to high quality renders, textures. So over the last couple of weeks I’ve doubled down hard on learning Substance Painter.
I still have a few more chapters of study left to complete but already I’m reaping the benefits. Through online tutorials and good old fashioned trial and error, I now have a pipeline to run assets from Daz to Blender for modification. Then from Blender to Substance for texturing and surfacing. After which everything is exported back into Daz for use in the game. It took some doing to configure the presets so that the world axis, tangent spaces and scales lined up between the three programs, but I finally nailed it down.
This brings us within reach of escaping our reliance on the Daz store and other online resources and gives us the ability to craft whatever custom assets we want or need for the game. It’s a major win that I’m excited to capitalize on going forward.
New Game Feature
Oh and before I forget, I’ve added another minor feature to the game. Along with an opacity slider for the text box you can now change the color of the font. I’m going to work on tidying it up later and hiding it behind a drop down box, but for now it’s functional and will be included in the playtests and releases going forward. Just wanted to mention that before I forgot about it.
Poll Results
And of course I’d be remiss if I didn’t comment on the character poll from a few weeks ago. The popularity of Cassie, Jane and Amanda was no surprise. What did surprise me was the popularity of Lola compared to some of the other characters. Not going to lie, that one took me by surprise. I’ll be sure to do some more of these public opinion polls as we go forward and continue to add characters to our retinue. It doesn’t steer development, but it is fascinating to see what’s currently highest in the ranking.
Tier and Development Changes
And finally the kicker. Without recapping all of the conversations I’ve had about this topic with different patrons, players and friends, I’m thinking it’s time to do some updating to the tiers and the path of development. The reality is that in the world of Patreon and game development there is no one size fits all solution rewards and and benefits.
Lately I’ve added some additional complication by including a Subscribestar option for which I don’t have the ability to mirror all the rewards and benefits currently offered through Patreon. Ideally I’d like to strike a balance so that one platform doesn’t have an advantage over the other and the rewards are evenly distributed so that everyone gets a little something.
So in the next week or so I’m going to go through and do a re-vamp of the tier system on both platforms. With one exception the goal is not to take away any of the existing rewards but to expand on them and even them out between the two platforms. Here are some of the tentative ideas I’ve been tossing around in conversation. I’d be curious to know your thoughts as well. Who knows, maybe someone will say something extremely convincing that would dissuade me from some of the below possibilities.
Tier 1 ($1)
-Access to the latest Release 4 weeks after Tier 2 Patrons
-Access to the Previous Month’s WIP Version (a chance to sample the newest content)
-NSFW Teaser Art as always!
Tier 2 ($5)
-Access to the latest Release 4 weeks ahead of Tier 1
-Access to the Current Month’s WIP Version
-Participation in Bi-weekly polls to determine content production
-NSFW Teaser Art as always!
Tier 3 ($10)
-Access to the latest Release 4 weeks ahead of Tier 1
-Playtest Each New Scene as it becomes available. (These will be bundled at the end of the month and released as a WIP Version until all the content is assembled to build a Release.)
-Participation in Bi-weekly polls to determine content production
-NSFW Teaser Art as always!
Tier 4 ($20)
-Access to the latest Release 4 weeks ahead of Tier 1
-Playtest Each New Scene as it becomes available. (These will be bundled at the end of the month and released as a WIP Version until all the content is assembled to build a Release.)
-Participation in Bi-weekly polls to determine content production
-Access to the Asset Directory (As I build custom assets, scenes, props, characters, etc. I want to make them available to players for the creation of Fan Art!)
-NSFW Teaser Art as always!
Tier 5 ($30)
-Access to the latest Release 4 weeks ahead of Tier 1
-Playtest Each New Scene as it becomes available. (These will be bundled at the end of the month and released as a WIP Version until all the content is assembled to build a Release.)
-Participation in Bi-weekly polls to determine content production
-Access to the Asset Directory (As I build custom assets, scenes, props, characters, etc. I want to make them available to players for the creation of Fan Art!)
-Participation in Bi-Monthly Polls to Determine Lewd Content (Each month we will add one new ‘position’ to an existing menu in the game’s lewd scenes. Here’s your chance to determine which character and scene gets some new love.)
-NSFW Teaser Art as always!
Summary: What We’ve Gained
The big additions to this structure are the bi-monthly expansion of the sex scenes in the game. By changing from a “purchase what you want to see” to a “vote for who you want to see” model we can ensure gradual and consistent expansion of those scenes going forward.
We’re also opening up the play testing to more tiers over time. This will give $1 and $5 patrons a change to sample some new content prior to the release if they choose to.
We can do some minor track adjustment on a weekly basis to determine which characters we’re working on. Since everyone will have access to play tests in due time, and since we are now in a position to effectively work on multiple characters simultaneously I’m now willing to give this a try.
And of course the asset directory for those wanting to build their own DAST artwork. Any assets I create and surface on my own are mine and I can freely distribute them however I please. This means more custom props, environments and modifications which will not only make the game unique, but give those artists among you something new to play with.
Summary: What We’re Losing
The Exclusive Gallery was a fun idea but has been incredibly slow growing and I don’t know that it ever really generated much traction. In hand with that we’ll be losing custom wallpapers. While these are exceptionally fun they’ve turned out to be a lot more involved and time consuming than I thought they’d be. I’ve only made a small handful and already I’m months behind schedule on delivery with several more still in the queue.
I’ll finish up all the artwork that is owed but May will probably be the last month that I do these commissions. Starting in June we’ll switch over to the new model. So don’t worry, if you’re one of the few people who’ve purchased these custom wallpapers, you’ll still get everything you’re owed at the quality you expect. And if you’ve already paid for May I’ll be honoring those commissions as well!
We’re also probably going to lose the Alternate Game Modes. This is a really fun idea that I was excited to implement, but as I’m totaling up the numbers I’m just not sure the interest is there. Cassie’s chapter had over 1300 images. Assuming 3/4 of those had alternate images, that’s two per mode for an additional 2600 images. Daz takes anywhere from 15 to 25 seconds to save a file. Which means while live streaming that’s about 10 hours spent JUST SAVING THE IMAGES! Now figure another 40 seconds to a minute and a half to load the image, and another fifteen to twenty to render…well let’s just say that the alternate game modes added about 700+ hours in total from creation to rendering to post production.
I know, I know. Some of you warned me. Still. I thought it was a cool idea and that I could pull it off with both systems running. But it turns out it’s the time spent in between that is really sucking it up.
So in all likelihood I’ll be ditching those Alt Game modes and just focusing on Core Content.
None of this is of course set in stone. It’s a tentative plan. And who knows, we may try this and decide it doesn’t work and go back to how it was. Or we may decide it’s better and go this way forever. Or we may come up with something better in between. Point is, there is no hard science behind it. It’s just a matter of finding ways for me to make this fun for you and give you opportunities to influence and experience the game throughout the entire production process.
Feel free to let me know your thoughts. Share them in the comments or send me a message directly through email or Discord. I’d love to know your thoughts.
Anyway, that’s all I got for now. I’ll be back online tomorrow to stream some more Emily content and then we got to revisit our dear girl Lupita.
Salute!
