Enthralled & Consent: Development Thread, and my other works & projects.

[revan335]

Props to you for including girls with varying body types and breast sizes. I'm glad that Nicole has small breasts and the step-mom has bigger ones. Diversity in this and personality really makes a game more interesting.

 

[OhWee]

Props to you for including girls with varying body types and breast sizes. I'm glad that Nicole has small breasts and the step-mom has bigger ones. Diversity in this and personality really makes a game more interesting.

Thanks! I find that I like 'package' deals that come together nicely, and enjoy having a 'mix' of body types to work with. And, you'll notice that there aren't any ginormous breasts so far. Nothing wrong with those, but I'll 'leave those to the professionals'.

An 'A' cup gal isn't in the mix currently, but I have nothing against those. These are supposed to look like College Age (or older) gals, so I'm not feeling the need to invoke 'a very young looking 18' at the moment.

I've been spending the day mapping out the dialogue tree more fully, not quite as involved as storyboarding, but pretty close. There are nine characters (plus the MC) intertwined in the Day 1 events, and quite often they aren't in the same place at the same time, and in fact all nine are never seen together at the same time during day 1. In the meantime, since you seem to have taken a liking to her, here's an earlier render I did of Nicole, before I did some additional minor tweaks to her booty and such:



---

Something that I've been struggling with is how exactly to handle your 'more sexy' interactions with Stepmom and Nicole on Day 1. Thankfully, I like what I've come up with, r.e. a believable storyline that will allow them to survive day 1 intact, so to speak, without leaving you 'high and dry' in the process. Of course, some related storyline elements won't be fully revealed until much later (beyond the first release), but those will be developed more fully in followup releases.

Day 1 will feature a set number of relationship points that will be distributed throughout the day.

This is something I actually figured out while messing with another game (Lab Rats), where the intro dialogue didn't really do much, but where there were several dialogue choices you'd make in the prologue. I worked out a pretty complex matrix where a total of 17 points were distributed between five gals after you worked through the intro dialogue, with each gal ending up with a total of 0-5 points added to their influence scores based on your dialogue choices, all while only adding a tiny bit of additional dialogue and a new art asset or two (sexy daydreaming bus time with Alex). I'm still debating when/if to release that mod as it's incomplete and a little dysfuncitonal r.e. allowing multiple activities for the main events, plus I've moved on from that game, plus it's for 0.3.1, so it's really outdated at this point...

Anyways, for the purposes of this game, the 'matrix' won't be quite that complex, but there will be say 6-8 relationship points that will be assigned at critical points during the day, to help 'kickstart' your relationship with one or more gals. Focusing on one gal will increase your options with that one gal, BUT, slightly less sexy options will become available involving multiple partners if you focus on two particular gals. If you go with the 'shotgun' approach, well that may not be as rewarding for day one, but them's the breaks. This will make more sense ingame, but the short form is that you'll have multiple opportunities to interact with the six main gals during the day. The other three gals are 'along for the ride' so to speak, and could still play a role in your 18th birthday...

Day 1 is much more involved than a typical 'intro/prologue' but it will set the tone for the rest of the story. After day 1, the game will feel much more like a 'sandbox', with a more 'generic/open' approach to the storyline where you build up relationships, skills, and assets over several days, but of course I have to finish up Day 1 first...

Yeah, having this many gals involved in the story does add significantly to the workload, but i'tll be worth it in the end IMHO.

I finally decided on Crystal as the name for 'Pebbles', and Kelby for Mitzi's frend formally known as Ella. Kelby is a fairly common Scandinavian gal's name apparently, and I like hearing her with a Swedish accent in my head. Not a Swedish Chef accent, though, although she might have some fun with that at appropriately humorous moments...

Plus, the old

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, well that WAS a pretty big deal back in the day, so I don't mind maybe borrowing a tiny bit from that r.e. tidbits of 'sexy dialogue'...

One last random thought I had after some distracted pondering:

I mentioned that the MC's mom died when he was very young, BUT, what if you weren't told the truth about that... This is something that could be incorporated fairly easily into a 'pregame' choice for those interested in a slightly more taboo relationship, but that would significantly change a few conversations ingame, and may also 'raise the bar' so to speak, as to how much influence might be required for sexy fun time for the two particular relationships involved...

This would result in a much more convoluted backstory, which may or may not be a big deal to people playing this game... Stepmom's storyline already has one or more plot twists, so I'm not feeling the need to 'go there' at the moment.

I'll consider this as a 'wishlist' request for now (rather than just saying no hell no), and if I decide to follow up on it later, I'll post an update appropriately. In the meantime, it's not in the plan for now. I want to stay 'true' to the current story for now, and not get distracted any further...

 

[OhWee]

Kelby is long overdue for her own promo shot...



Kelby, our Scandinavian beauty, may end up playing a more significant role than originally planned... but then 'Dat's wot happens when jou flesh out characters, Ja?

 

[Lt. Aldo Raine]

Getting pumped up for this after reading this thread! I like your passion, and will be following your progress. Good luck!

 

[OhWee]

Getting pumped up for this after reading this thread! I like your passion, and will be following your progress. Good luck!

Thanks!

Yeah, this is definitely a passion project. I'm doing this mainly for me, as well as for others who like these sort of games.

I continue to slowly plug away. Nothing I really want to share at this point visually. Some things should really be revealed in the story of course, instead of beforehand.

I tracked down an 'issue' I was having with the skin color of the 'main character'. It was pretty dark gray before, and it turns out that there were a couple of extra skin tone options for Genesis (vascularity and such) that help make his skin tone look more 'normal'. Yeah, he's a 'placeholder character', and you'll mainly just see his chest, arms, leg, and his junk, but part of him is in enough scenes that... yeah, I'm glad that I managed to make him look better. I am using a Genesis 1 character for the MC to keep render times down a bit, or at least that's my theory.

I'm considering having an option to pick 'light skinned' or 'dark skinned' during the initial story setup, when you are picking a name for the MC. It'd involve rendering a good number of the scenes twice, but skin color is a pretty easy thing to change once you've set it up correctly.

Back to work!

 

[Lt. Aldo Raine]

Thanks!

Yeah, this is definitely a passion project. I'm doing this mainly for me, as well as for others who like these sort of games.

I continue to slowly plug away. Nothing I really want to share at this point visually. Some things should really be revealed in the story of course, instead of beforehand.

I tracked down an 'issue' I was having with the skin color of the 'main character'. It was pretty dark gray before, and it turns out that there were a couple of extra skin tone options for Genesis (vascularity and such) that help make his skin tone look more 'normal'. Yeah, he's a 'placeholder character', and you'll mainly just see his chest, arms, leg, and his junk, but part of him is in enough scenes that... yeah, I'm glad that I managed to make him look better. I am using a Genesis 1 character for the MC to keep render times down a bit, or at least that's my theory.

I'm considering having an option to pick 'light skinned' or 'dark skinned' during the initial story setup, when you are picking a name for the MC. It'd involve rendering a good number of the scenes twice, but skin color is a pretty easy thing to change once you've set it up correctly.

Back to work!

Your approach and interest seem equal to mine. Granted, you're a lot further in your journey than mine, yet im at my pc for uncomfortable amounts of time. Learning all i can in Python, Photoshop, and Daz. I suppose its time for me to formulate a plan.

 

[OhWee]

Quick update:

I 'took a day off' to release a couple of interface mods for a couple of other games yesterday. I enjoy working with these sorts of games, hence why I'm working on my own, and yes I play these other games while I'm waiting on renders and such...

So, Genesis 8 has been released for about a month now, and it has some pretty cool things going on. I've consciously made the decision, however, to not 'update' my characters to Genesis 8, because I already have a fair number of renders banked for my G2F/G3F characters, and I'm pretty heavily invested in Genesis 2 at the moment. Sure, the wardrobe and stuff will 'port over' to Genesis 8 to varying degrees, but my custom characters have a LOT of body and face morphs dialed in, and it'd take a fair amount of work to fully translate them over to G8.

I like my custom characters the way they are, although I'm still doing minor tweaks here and there as I go along. Also, I'm not looking to win any rendering contests or anything, I just want to tell this story I've been working on.

Humans aren't 'perfect' creatures, and I don't expect my characters to be perfect either. Sure, I want them to look visually pleasing, but they are also a reflection of my artistic style and personal preferences.

Probably the only exception here is Kelby. She's a 'vanilla' 3rd tier Daz character with very minor tweaks (she's a Girl 6 character variant, and Girl 6 is a Genesis 2 character variant), but I really like how this particular character looks, so I like keeping her the way she is. I know that some people like to criticize game developers for using 'vanilla' Daz characters, but I'll live with that in this case.

I'm telling an interactive story here, on my own terms. I love input, but if you are looking for awesome artistic design, this may not be your game. I happily cede the 'cutting edge' of character and environmental design to the professionals.

I don't mind occasional tips, but at this point, I'm focused on getting Day 1 done, and am going with what I have...

---

OK, boring hardware update time...

My tiny 2 in 1 laptop is starting to have issues... I've gotten a few good years out of it, so I have no reason to complain, but yeah it's time to replace it. Rendering is taking it's toll on the hardware.

AMD is taking their damn sweet time getting a Ryzen laptop processor to market (Q4), and even EPYC/Threadripper are still weeks away (yes EPYC was launched 2-3 weeks ago, but I'm not seeing what I want motherboard wise in the product channels yet, plus this would be a custom build, which takes time and research). I've been an 'AMD bigot' for a while, although Intel certainly has the edge on hardware (I accept this), but I haven't bought an Intel CPU since the last century. It's important to support the competition, as Intel's recent price drops on their new CPUs thanks to Ryzen demonstrate.

I've accepted that I need an NVidia GPU for this project, though. I love Radeon, but Daz is pretty heavily invested in Iray, and I have a lot of Iray Daz stuff. Not as much 3Delight stuff, and I prefer the 'Iray look'. so the Asus Ryzen laptop that is supposed to hit the market shortly isn't a good option for me, as it has a Radeon 580 GPU...

For various reasons, I prefer using laptops over desktops, portability being one of them. I also like to work with renders on the couch while the tv is on in the background... plus I sometimes work on stuff 'on the road' so to speak.

Anyways, there are a couple of interesting (and very expensive) dual 1080 laptop options out there (with Intel CPUs), and I may go this route temporarily... My AMD A8 2-in-1 13.5" laptop is soldiering on (except for the tiny screen I love this thing), but yeah it's far from an ideal rendering solution. Sure, the dual 1080's are expensive options, but in my case they fit my needs nicely. The single 1080 laptop options are also there, of course...

EPYC/Threadripper may still be in my future, but I've grown impatient in the meantime... and they aren't very portable. And my current laptop is slowly dying...

So, short form, I may be ordering a new laptop within the next week. This will temporarily disrupt my workflow as I transition my Daz install over to the new platform, but it'll be nice to finally be able to render decent looking scenes in minutes instead of hours, all while resting comfortably on the couch watching cheesy old sci fi...

In the meantime, it's hurry up and wait... and of course making some new backups of my Daz stuff!

Enough boring hardware talk. Still plugging away as best I can in the meantime!

 

[Led]

Pardon my laziness, but where can I find a download link for this game? It looks very promising! Thanks!

 

[OttO]

Hmm... don't know what to think about this one. CGI's are grainy, as mentioned before some of the facial expressions are creepy and that step-"incest" idea gives the author a con-man vibe- not the best impression when it comes to building trust.

 

[OhWee]

Pardon my laziness, but where can I find a download link for this game? It looks very promising! Thanks!

The game hasn't been released yet, and is still in development.
The planned initial release is still several months away.

I'm not big on doing 'tech demos', so it'll be a playable release when it's ready, with sufficient content to make it worth downloading.

 

[Led]

The game hasn't been released yet, and is still in development.
The planned initial release is still several months away.

I'm not big on doing 'tech demos', so it'll be a playable release when it's ready, with sufficient content to make it worth downloading.

I have you on my follow list, so I'll keep an eye on it. Thanks for getting back to (or is it "at"?) me on such a short notice!

 

[OhWee]

So, boring mechanics stuff here.

I spent the last week working on a mod for another game (way longer than I had originally planned), and came up with a cool framework for a load/save screen, which also relates to this game. One of the reasons I like to do mods is to learn how to do new things in RenPy.

I've been planning on 10 save slots per page already, with autosaves and quicksaves enabled, 'cuz RenPy does that and I think it's cool.

Anyways, I came up with this modified save/load navigation framework, and also learned a bit about displaying a bit of extra information along with the saves. Here's a screenshot from my DMD mod.

So, I want to draw your attention to the scrollbar at the left. While for shorter games you may not need say 2000 save slots, my goal for this game is a lot of paths over several weeks of ingame time. Since there may be a dozen or more ladies available for potential hookups once the game development is much further along, I can definitely see people wanting to try various combinations in different playthoughs, so having the ability to organize saves into 'page groups' could be a very useful feature, assuming that I'm able to develop that much content for this game.

So the time I spent getting sidetracked was indeed not wasted, as you'll probably see a similar feature in Consent.

I'll probably have some key data being displayed along with the saves (now that I understand how I can do this), plus the save description of course, although I'm not quite sure which key info would rate being displayed on a save slot. The day/day of week certainly, and maybe have 'head pics' of the top 2 or 3 gals relationship wise... most of the other stats are 'utilitarian' so there's no reason to track them on the load or save screen.

I've already developed a 'gal ranking system' for another purpose, but the variables involved with that would carry over quite easily to the save screen icons.

Of course, you'll have the save description box to work with too, so that you can include a small amount of text to describe what you feel is most important to you with the save in question.

Money would probably be a good item to include with the save screenshot, although this game isn't going to focus on money all that much... at least not in the sense that 'you only have $300, and have to pick one or two things' that you've seen in other games. Sure, it'll allow you to buy stuff to help you out in various ways, but at the end of the day, it'll be the time spent engaging in positive interaction with a gal that will earn you the most brownie points...

Money will of course tie in with some of the more 'global goals' for the storyline. About the best example I can think of is Lab Rats, where you are earning money and using it for day to day stuff (lunch, etc.) as well as to buy needed materials for more important stuff. No serums/magic pills though. Not in this game anyways, I have no desire to re-invent that wheel. Affection bribes are of course another matter... gals tend to love dinner dates!

So yeah, you'll have a job, plus be going to school, and will need to study of course. But there will be ample opportunities for other, more sexy activities as well. The mechanics for tracking these activities are worked out already, although for day 1 they will not matter all that much. Day one in the game is your birthday, so you'll be focused on that for most of day 1.

I like to share eye candy in these posts, so here's an early version of Mitzi. I've done a few tweaks to her since this render, adding some more detail to her face and body, but I sitll like how she looks in this early render.



Maybe this is what Mitzi looked like in high school. I wanted her to look a little older than this in my story, plus she was one of the first characters I put together, so she's been 'reworked' a bit since this render. I'm keeping this outfit on standby though, she looks good in it!

I used a 'stock photo' as the background here. I may fall back on those from time to time, but at this point I have a number of 3D environments in my model library, and will mostly be using those.

The new render machine should be arriving next week. In the meantime, I'm focused on coding some of the dialogue to make good use of my time.

Back to work!

 

[muttdoggy]

Those nips can cut glass! :FeelsGoodMan:

 

[OhWee]

Those nips can cut glass! :FeelsGoodMan:

Yeah I likesies the pointy nips! Especially when they are between my fingers!

Note that most of my gals in this game have nice nipples... not all of them, gotta have variety, but nips are fun!

 

[OhWee]

I added another minor character. Not much to see here, she's a more reserved type...



I needed an extra body or two to fill the classroom, and Lyssa was ready to go. She is from one of my other art projects, and I figured I might as well put her to use here. I did spend a bit of time putting together the outfit though. The 'schoolgirl' plaid skirt didn't quite fit the context (public college), so I ended up going with this one instead.

I'm being mindful about not getting sidetracked too much with minor characters, but at the same time of course, I don't want the setting to feel like only the main characters inhabit it.

I have a small handful of other minor characters I want to throw together real quick for day 1. I'll be using 'stock' characters for those to save time, as they will be 'customer service' oriented. Not that kind of service, get your mind out of the gutter! Save those thoughts for the primary cast!

I'm thinking about invoking Scarlett Jo-------, yeah that actress you know who I mean, as the voice of the Narrator. She has a pretty sexy voice... The Narrator mainly ties in with the tutorial but may speak up occasionally just for fun.

Yes, there is a tutorial already which explains the interface that I showcased waaaaay back in the OP.

I originally wasn't planning on invoking 'headshots' along with the dialogue script, but I may add the 'face shot' to the left of the dialogue from time to time. Those that are familiar with RenPy will probably have seen this feature in a few of the RenPy games.

 

[OhWee]

Also, just leaving this here (need it for another thread).

 

[seden]

Looking promising, Ill check from time to time as to see how it progress.

 

[OhWee]

So, this is a non-update update.

So I've mentioned before that Consent will occasionally have some 'wackiness' going on, as I don't like to take myself too seriously all the time. Mitzi riding a bike which relies on a non-traditional power source is one minor example of this. Not really wacky, but also not quite grounded in today's reality.

The 'universe' of Consent is modern day, but that doesn't mean that all elements are modern day. I'm not going to drop any spoilers here, 'cuz you really should find out about those ingame.

There are a number of interests in adult gaming, and a number of fetishes. I'm certainly not going to attempt to cater to all of them, as some really don't interest me. One of these is depraved corruption. What I mean by this is a gal that is slowly corrupted into doing darker and darker acts. There are a couple of games I have been following that have went too 'dark' for my tastes. There's nothing wrong with this, as some people like that in their games, but it's not my cup of tea.

Hence, you aren't going to see that sort of story in Consent. As I've said before, Consent is a happier game, which draws it's inspiration from erotic comedies, and some of the more 'classic' porn. The game itself won't be a comedy, it's more of a 'seduce, date and fuck' game, but there will be silliness interspersed throughout, as I've mentioned before. Kinda sorta along the lines of Buckaroo Banzai (the cult classic film) if that makes any sense to you.

Of course, even I get sidetracked. I created a minor character recently after starting a thread about underboobs. I like underboobage, it's hot. Anyways, one thing has led to another, and now I'm feeling the need to do a short story involving UnderboobGirl, whom I created on the spot a bit after I started the thread, because at that time I felt that shouldn't ask other developers to include more underboobage if I wasn't doing it myself. It kinda snowballed from there...

UnderboobGirl is a perfect example of what I mean by wackiness. While at first blush she may not seem to fit in with the Consent storyline, in fact this is the sort of 'background noise' that'll help set the tone for Consent. You might see her make an appearance or two in Consent, but she'd be a minor character at best (I have enough main characters already). You might see her on the 5 O'clock news fighting a Tyrannosaurus Rex, or she might zip through a scene, throwing off the converstation for a sec. Again, I don't like to take things too seriously, and I enjoy the occasional WTF moment every now and then.

Consent is a ways off from prime time. Once the new rendering machine arrives, I'm going to be quite busy playing 'catch up' on a bunch of renders. I refuse to release Consent without a fully developed storyline for day 1 (I fully expect to have to patch it though, minor things can fall through the cracks). And I don't do techdemos (those are fine, but they aren't something I'm interested in for Consent). But for right now, I want to tell a quick story...



I'm going to use the 'simpler' RenPy mechanic of the background image + character overlay for this story, with the characters placed ingame similar to what you see in the image above. This will cut down on my render times considerably, so I should be able to crank this out in a fairly short amount of time. I'm also not going to put a lot of time into making 'perfect renders' for this short story. I just need to get this out of my system before drilling down on Consent again...

The storyline for this occurs in a 2-3 hour timeframe (including travel time), so it'll be a short visual novel (maybe 10-15 minutes of content). I will probably include a couple of dialogue forks, but this is by no means a game, it's a visual story. This will be a 'warm up' for Consent, and will give y'all a peek into how I approach storytelling, disjointed as it is sometimes...

BTW, this 'side story' is about you meeting UnderboobGirl, and you are not the Minotaur. He's just a plot device...

 

[seden]

Background noise = Immersion material, in case, on the RPG consideration of thing/playing.

So, adding in peripherical data wont deprecated the main content, given case, if there is a lot of it, use a setting as to make it optional ?
(Not like they are so many peoples who are interested as to RPG immersion).

 

[OhWee]

OK, it's time for the I haven't gotten a single thing done update time!

So, since my last post, I attempted to give the Minotaur some hair, but that didn't go well.

I've been busy with other stuff the last couple of days, and then the new rendering machine arrived this afternoon...



Yes that's the new machine underneath my current 13.3" machine. I wanted to show off the comparison in size (18.4" screen on the new laptop). And that's the external HDD that is currently being loaded up with a bunch of files on top of my smaller laptop.

An yes, this new MSI laptop has a backlit mechanical Keyboard! And dual GTX 1080's... I will NOT miss the chiclet keyboard!

There was an even sweeter liquid cooled dual 1080 Asus laptop in this size with a mechanical keyboard, and a higher resolution laptop screen, but it wasn't in stock anywhere I looked. And it was another $2.3 G's or so, so I probably wouldn't have pulled the trigger anyways. There was a 'newer' version of this MSI machine with a newer Intel processor, but this machine was on sale for a (comparably) nice price, so I'll live with the .2 GHz less speed...

The other Daz folder I'm backing up right now says it's got about 10 hours to go to transfer the files, and then of course I need to add them to this machine (yes, I'm on the new machine as I type this. Click click, I forgot how much I miss mechanical keys).

So, the rest of my night will probably be spent installing software, adjusting settings, that sort of thing. Yeah, it's heavy, but so far it seems to be a really sweet machine. It better be, for what I paid for it!


Did I say that I'm loving the mechanical keys yet? Oh Hell Yeah!