VN Ren'Py It Started with a Kiss [Upcoming Lesbian-Themed Erotic Game] ~ Development Journal

[ssbarryerotica]

Hello everyone,

Hope you are all doing well. I've been holding off on posting this thread for several reasons, but I think it's time that I do now.

Back in April, I posted a thread here in order to find a partner who was potentially a DAZ 3d artist and a coder/programmer to team up with me on a wrestling-themed erotic game. I came across several talented people and even began working with a DAZ artist. Although I am a self-learner, I have become relatlvely well-versed with DAZ, but the reason I initially decided to just stick with the writing was because I am using a 13-year-old Dell Latitude D630 laptop that cannot handle Iray and I presently cannot afford anything better. Nonetheless, not being able to do the artwork for the game caused me to feel less inspired and I could not proceed with the writing. Eventually, I decided to put the wrestling-themed game on hiatus/hold in order to instead transform my existing novella It Started with a Kiss into an erotic game, while also taking over doing all the artwork, even if it meant that the images were rendered via the 3delight engine and were slightly lower-quality.

Recently, I came across a coder/developer from here who is pretty much exactly what I was looking for. His creativity matches mine and he is willing to work at my pace (considering my slow, old hardware) and vice versa, and things seem to be working really well so far. In fact, he has managed to complete the general UI of the game and I have completed a few starting renders, which is why I felt it was time to post all of this. So, moving on to the game.

Synopsis

"Kristina leans closer, pressing her lips against Adrienne’s, giving her a soft kiss. .... Adrienne wonders if this is how Americans say thank-you. Sometimes, all it takes is one kiss, for sparks to fly, to fall in love. This is a tale of a chance encounter that blossoms into full-blown interracial lesbian romance between a French and an American woman in the heart of Paris. There's a catch though. One of them has a boyfriend, the other is leaving soon. Will they leave their existing lives behind? Or will they eventually part ways?"

Adrienne has been leading a rather monotonous, mundane and uneventful life, living in Paris for the past 10 years with her 44-year-old boyfriend Gérard. She is content and satisfied with him, or at least she thinks she is, but that is all about to change when she runs into a distraught American woman on a bridge in the city. Yet, a sudden kiss changes everything for her, giving rise to feelings she did not think she had. All these years, Adrienne has been nothing but heterosexual, but now her mind is teeming with the possibility of indulging in some interracial lesbian romance. Will Adrienne go against her own sexuality and pursue Kristina, possibly cheating on Gérard in the process? Or was this merely a one-time encounter and a kiss that will eventually fade from her memory?

Gameplay & General Facts

As you may have realized, this game is going to have a female protagonist and it is predominantly lesbian-themed, which I hope will be regarded as something different, new, and unique. However, there will also be adequate heterosexual content in it as well. In fact, there is even some, slight minor homosexual content in it too. I'm a heterosexual guy and I've had no issue writing such content nor will I creating the art for it, so I assume and hope that players will neither, although if required, this could end up being optional (although I hope not).

As for the general appearance and aesthetic of the game, I am heavily and predominantly inspired by Being a DIK. If I was to name one, it would be my most favorite erotic visual novel game. Since I love music, it will be heavily featured in the game, although probably mostly instrumentals for the time being. I am also drawing inspiration from Dating My Daughter and Melody as well.

Furthermore, the game will be expanding on the plot of my novella, so it will likely contain more plot elements and arcs that are not in the novella. In fact, I even have ideas to expand the game beyond the novella, if it becomes popular enough. Also, while I do not mean to outright steal ideas nor do I have any intention of doing this, but kind of like BAD, I shall be releasing each game update as a new Episode. This is also because I watch a lot of television shows and I have already decided that every game that I work on, including this one, shall have a TV show-like, animated/slideshow/video opening sequence.

Additionally though, I feel that this game is going to be diffrent and unique because I am also inspired by a lot of different Android and PC point-and-click games, so I intend to incorporate aspects of such games into it as well. Of course, the game is being created via the Ren'Py engine. There will potentially be animated sex scenes. As stated though, the in-game art/images are being rendered via the 3delight engine right now and may not be what a lot of players here are used to, but I am hoping that you will still find them appealing.

GUI & Preview Renders

Here's a preview of the GUI, some promotional renders that do not appear in the game, and a few in-game images too. I forgot to mention that the game's GUI has a postcard aesthetic and theme. I'm tempted to reveal some of the little, interesting functionalities that my partner has incorporated into the GUI, but I feel that I should leave them to be discovered when the demo is released.

Feedback

The foremost reason I have posted this thread here is to request everyone who goes through this thread to provide their feedback and opinion regarding what they potentially think about this game I am working on. Above all, I would appreciate if you could let me know, based on the current art/renders and also the general plot and gameplay ideas, whether you would be interested in playing such a game.

Patreon Support

Last but hopefully not the least, and perhaps the most important aspect, is certainly that my partner and I are going to need all the support we can get in order to work on and consistently improve this game. As mentioned, I honestly cannot afford a better computer right now, but with your support, I perhaps could. Of course, you could do that by subscribing to our Patreon.

The Patreon is currently under construction since I am managing it, along with the rendering and writing. I am also aware that is barely any content on the Patreon currently, but please do not let that discourage you from subscribing. I assure you that in the coming days, I shall be posting new, exclusive content there as well. I have not created the Discord channel yet either, but I shall be getting to that shortly as well. If you even see even the slightest potential in this game and if you feel that you would end up getting something worthwhile out of this, then you would have my humblest and utmost gratitude for supporting this endeavour through Patreon. You can find the link to my Patreon in my signature.

To everyone who has gone through this thread and may potentially reply here, I thank you for sparing the time to read this and comment.

Kind regards.

 

[ssbarryerotica]

Reserved for future updates, etc.

 

[RckStr8]

First

 

[ssbarryerotica]

First

Haha. Wouldn't have managed to get this far without your assistance.

 

[ssbarryerotica]

Update

Thanks to FeaturedOn, I am now able to render in Iray, 4k/UltraHD. Of course, I am not quite used to working in Iray, so it is proving to be a learning process with some trial and error, and due to my old laptop, not being able to easily preview renders before actually rendering them is a bit of a hassle. Considering the results though, it all seems to be worth it. Therefore, in addition to potentially supporting me and this upcoming game of mine through Patreon, you could perhaps also consider supporting FeaturedOn for the generous service they are offering for free to artists like me who do not have access to sufficiently powerful hardware. I cannot thank them enough for this favor.

As for my

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, I have not started making posts there yet, but it will be active really soon. Regardless though, anyone who sees any potential in my game and is interest in supporting this endeavour may go right ahead and expect fresh, new content to be available once they do. It was slightly disappointing to have not received any feedback and response here yet, but I am not disheartened.

Below is a preview of what the Iray renders in the game are going to look like as well as an artistic/promotional render.

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As stated earlier, at this point, I could use all the support I can get, so your generous and gracious contributions would be highly appreciated. I have also set up a Discord, which shall be accessible once I figure some things out. I look forward to your feedback and support. Thank you for taking the time to go through this.

Kind regards.

​

 

[ssbarryerotica]

Update of progress

Greetings everyone,

I hope you are all doing well. It has been quite a while since I have posted here and updated this thread. However, I have been constantly and consistentl working on the game, although progress has been slower than I would prefer due to several reasons, which I shall explain below.

This might be irrelevant and too personal, but I almost came close to being 'bankrupt,' of sorts, as a result of excessive procrastination, so I am now following a somewhat fixed schedule for my home-based day job, which leaves me just around 2 hours every night, or sometimes less, to work on designing the in-game scenes in Daz Studio.

For this very reason, I have not been able to post in this thread or even start posting regular updates on Patreon because I'm left with little energy and time that I have mostly been investing into designing the game's visuals, among other things related to it.

Despite these setbacks, I managed to upgrade from my age-old laptop to a relatively better one with a decent dedicated GPU, although not a high-end one. This has been proving to be a major asset to make the designing process easier and more manageable, while ensuring that that the visuals of the game look as I want them to. Of course, considering the limited time that I have to design the scenes, the service that FeaturedOn continues to generously and selflessly offer has been proving to be invaluable for actually rendering those scenes.

Nonetheless, here is a brief overview (as I am planning to make a similar, more detailed post on Patreon) of the updates, but more specifically the changes, I have made to the game.

• Probably the biggest change is that I have completely switched from 3Delight to Iray. Although I had already switched to Iray once I began using FeaturedOn's service, my new laptop allows me to actually preview, to quite an extent, whatever I am working on.
• Since I was using 3Delight when I had started working on this game, I had designed my character's skins to be 3Delight compatible, which means I have to remake their skin. It is not too complicated, but can take up a bit of time to get the same skin tone as before. Fortunately, I have already remade Adrienne's while her boyfriend's skin was already in Iray, so only Kristina remains.
• I also had to use different hair for Adrienne because the previous one I was using appeared too stiff and I could not pose it the way I wanted to in certain scenes. I have switched to different hair, which I feel look relatively better, but as a result I have to redo all previous renders.
• Another reason I have pretty much been working on the scenes from scratch is because I decided to use a different asset for the house Adrienne lives in than the previous one because I felt it looks better in several ways.
• In addition to the changes, I have also been working on special hidden renders that will be hidden throughout the game and will have to be discovered.
• As initially planned, the game is going to have several other clickable elements that players will have to find on their own, which may not contribute to the progress of the game but will make it more immersive, giving it a point-and-click sort of feel.
• I am hopefully going to be incoporating more animations in the game than initially intended and not just in the sex scenes.
• Last month or so, I designed a female character for an unrelated side project, but since I used the same base figure for her as Adrienne's, so I decided that she is going to be her younger sister. I then proceeded to decide that she is going to make a cameo in the later episodes of the game, but as of now, she might actually be making more frequent appearances as the game progresses.
• Last but not least, I have plenty of other creative and unique ideas for this game, since it is my current passion project, which will hopefully set it apart. For instance, I intend to invest effort and time to find good music for the game, which will enhance the overall mood and vibes of the game.

Below are some scrapped renders that will provide you an idea of how the designing is progress and what the game will end up looking like.

This is what Adrienne looks like at the moment


The previous kitchen & the new one





A preview of the bedroom with Adrienne and Gerald asleep


Adrienne (with the old hair) in the subway, pissed off about something
i

Sophie
Adrienne's younger sister. I intend to change her hair and there is a possibility I might change her facial features a little too.

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So, I hope the above previews give you an idea of what you can expect from the game and you like what you have seen so far. Even though progress has been slower than I would like, I have absolutely no intention of giving up on this game. As stated, this is my passion project, I have high hopes and even greater plans for it, and I am putting my utmost best into it. Despite the lack of time, I hoping to somehow manage updating the Patreon regularly as well. Therefore, stay tuned for more updates.

Yours truly,

 

[ssbarryerotica]

Update of progress

So, this an update of sorts, although progress has been limited and I shall explain why. When I began working on this game, my DAZ skills had been slightly limited than they are now, so I was not even sure if I would be including animations in the game, even for sexual scenes, as I was not sure I would be able to create them. As I continued working on the game though, I developed a desire for the game to have animations, which kept on growing as time passed. I eventually did gain some basic experience on how to create and/or import and work with animations in DAZ, but for several reasons it was not working out for me.

Firstly, I was finding creating some poses for animation quite flimsy in DAZ (but I have realized that is not always the case). Secondly and more importantly, I eventually decided that I want my game to contain as many animations as possible compared to the still images. However, even though my new laptop is better than the previous one, rendering long 4K animations seemed like an impossibility, or at least far too time-consuming. I am a bit of a perfectionist, but still considered rendering at 1080p.
However, even that did not seem feasible.

This was quite a conundrum for me until I did some research whether it would be possible to export content from DAZ to other software that would faciliate animation. I spent quite a decent amount of time searching for the right software, tried Blender but it was far more complicated for me and did not work out. In due time though, I fortunately came across iClone and then Character Creator, and though they were capable of importing DAZ content, there was tremendous trial and error involved. It took quite a bit of time to import my content, including the main characters, who I have had to recreate or at least modify for this new workflow.

Despite these setbacks though, Character Creator and iClone seem to have been enabling me to improve my game beyond my expectations. To many, perhaps this may seem like a bit of a downgrade since iClone's render engine does not compare to Iray, but it is surprisingly faster, even when rendering animations, and the quality is not too bad, as you shall see. Character Creator and iClone have also enabled me to bring my characters to live even more with elements like real-time dynamic hair and soft body physics, which perhaps may have been possible in DAZ, but never seemed convenient to me.

I am quite surprised that I actually managed to adequately learn using CC and iClone this quickly, although it had been the same when I first started using DAZ, and I'm technically still learning new things about all of these software programs. Anyhow, compared to all the images of my characters you have seen so far, they have since undergone a bit of transformations, though not major ones. I personally feel they look much better now, and above all, they are alive, i.e. animated.

Hence, as of now, I am stating that It Started with a Kiss is going to be a far more animated and interactive visual novel game, compared to many others. I had been planning to make this post for a while now, but I wanted to finalize my main characters and create demo animations of them, which took a while as I continuously had to make animations. Fortunately, as far as I know, Adrienne and Kristina are now complete. Gerald was also pretty much complete, but I ran into some last-minute issue with his model due to which I need to make some changes, but I decided to not further stall posting this.

Thus, below you can find the new animated character models of Adrienne and Kristina. I hope you enjoy and like how they look and move. I am also including a previous Iray render that I created to compare it with a render of the same scene I am currently working on in iClone. Please note that the iClone version is not complete, so you may notice that the props are missing parts.

Woops, so it looks like I did not realize that websites like Giphy and Imgur do not upload videos in their full 4K quality. So, the following previews are going to be of a lower resolution, but I shall also attach links for you to download the original 4K animations and view them.

Adrienne

Download:

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Kristina

Download:

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Iray vs. iClone (First one is the Iray render & the other the iClone work-in-progress)




​

Okay, so it is nearly bedtime for me, but before I post this, I want to address something. Those of you who actually checked out the animation files and even downloaded them may have noticed their somewhat large size. I just want to let everyonw know that I all animations in the game will eventually be resized to 1080p and maybe compressed a little without any loss of quality, just so that the size of each animation is manageable. Nonetheless, I still assume that the download size of each episode of the game is going to be fairly larger, but I have every intention of offering my players a game worth downloading, despite its eventual size.

Also, yes, I have still not begun posting on Patreon. However, I shall get started with that very soon. Once again, I have big plans and high hopes for this game, and am hoping that you like what you have seen so far, even though it may seem little, for now. Until next time, stay tuned. I shall be returning to this thread fairly soon, just to post Gerald's demo animation as well.

Yours truly,

 

[robothehobo]

Good Job it is looking a lot better

 

[ssbarryerotica]

Good Job it is looking a lot better

Thank you, I appreciate it.

 

[Nasao]

Hello ! Project still in progress or abandoned ?