Unreal Engine Porn-O-Shag [Development Thread]

VL4DST3R · Apr 30, 2021

About a year later and here we are again.
Figured i should post this as a new thread here since the previous one's purpose of presenting our initial idea and getting a general discussion going, served its purpose.
I'd like to present our project in the making for the past year: Porn-O-Shag, a sandbox/dating sim game.

To reiterate a bit from our first thread: we're two software engineers that want to improve this field in terms of mechanics and gameplay quality, and, after studying the erotic gaming landscape for the past couple of years and seeing both the good and the bad available out there, figured we should give it a shot ourselves and see if we can come up with something neat.

Now that a year has passed, we had some time to play around with ideas and prototyping, figuring out if what we want is feasible within Unreal's physics engine, and especially getting to learn blender (since our main gripe at the moment still remains the lack of a dedicated artist, as we are both just programmers), I'd like to provide an update.

The type of the game that we decided to aim for is a sandbox/dating sim game (open world may be a bit of a hopeful dream at this point) hybrid, with focus on replayability and modular mechanics, with immersive physics-based interactions.

Because of this, we decided to break the game up into two main game modes, which also serves nicely as internal guidelines for development: the Sandbox and the Dating sim components.

The Sandbox

Since the technical side is both what we're the most familiar with and also serves as the groundwork for anything that will eventually come on top, this was and still is our main focus. We wanted to achieve something inspired by Bethesda RPG's when it comes to standard game-y elements things like the in-game camera, movement, world interaction, level transitions, items/inventory and dialogue. Then drawing inspiration from games like X-story with its very intuitive and immersive interaction mechanics.

In this game mode you will be allowed full control over the NPC and all toys/interactions currently implemented in the game to play with as you see fit.

Here, we currently have:
- a toggleable, zoomable, first/third person camera, [with an eventual free-cam mode later down the line];
- player movement, jumping, running, sprinting, walking [also crouching in the near future] to actually navigate to locations or characters;
- fully rebindable keys, volume sliders, scalable graphics and gameplay options. (do note that given the "WIP" status of the game, there are also a few unlisted, hard-coded keybinds used for testing inside builds - these will be listed in a note for each build)
- multiple levels/areas and transitions between them;
- a day/night cycle, with tracking of days passed [currently only visual, but will play an integral part to the gameplay loop in the Dating Sim].
- a rudimentary save/load system for player location [currently disabled during testing] and physical object locations in-game;
- pick-up and throw mechanic for moving both physical items and for interacting with the characters during sex. More on this below;
- a female NPC with a basic set of physically-enabled animations and poses, meaning they can at any point be interacted with, nudged, pulled or otherwise manipulated to create unique scenarios. While temporarily disabled in the latest build while we're working on AI and navigation, there is also a full ragdoll mode where you can pick her up and pose her however you want in the environment, in preparation for the various devices and restraints that will be made for her later down the line.
- a chat system to issue commands to NPCs with stuff like "come here" "sit down" "follow me" to initiate different behaviors
- finally a interact system with level elements, currently only light switches and lamps, [but ultimately aimed at things like interacting with sex machines or devices, doors, picking up items etc.]

While character customization is very high on our list, given our current situation, it's proving to be very difficult to achieve a decent looking "basic" female, never mind one with properly adjustable proportions. For the time being, only things like hair, eye color and hopefully skin -once we get that looking proper- will be available.

The actual sexual interaction will be a mix of hand-used toys that you can physically use to slap, rub or insert inside your girl, and stationary machines and restrains to have her play with.

The Dating sim

We want to let the player progress via gameplay, unlocking new activities and developing relationships as he plays the game. All of this while also maintaining a degree of freedom for the player to prioritize and pursue activities in whatever order he likes. Thus, except for the core gameplay loop, what actions you can do, where to do them, and with who, is left to the player's volition. This is another reason why we want to make individual mechanics modular: you can mix and match them however you see fit, once unlocked. Emergent gameplay is something very near and dear to us and something i personally value greatly in other games, so we will try to offer this here as well.

Since this is quite a way off still, things like all the settings, fetishes, mechanics, characters and storyline are not yet set in stone, but we want to include whatever fetishes are people most interested with.
As an initial starting point, the game takes place in a present-day small town, on a nondescript island, where you are starring as a lonesome nobody who just moved in with barely any money to your name and with rent due, trying to make ends meet, while also trying to satisfy his (your) -up till now!- restrained sexual appetite and fantasies.

As a basic gameplay loop, we aim for something along the lines of:

1. player has stats/rent/toys/devices that require money or resources to purchase and maintain;
2. player can work various jobs or do tasks to earn money (erotic or not).
3. player can also spend time out of his day to explore, focus on improving relations with potential love interests, talking with them, going on dates, or, engage in one of the pre-determined "scenarios" we want to have available. More on this in a bit;

All of those actions will take an actual chunk of time out of an in-game day to complete, so the user will have to be somewhat considerate to both his needs and to track what activities are available at different times of day (think Stardew Valley or My Time At Portia).

An example for a day would be: going out in the morning to work or satisfy your needs, spending some time with a potential love interest in the afternoon, then as night approaches, purchasing needed toys or items to be used during the night either with a budding romance or in one of the scenarios.

Scenarios

The scenarios mentioned above are something that came up quite organically early on when discussing the game with KinderAlpha (overall great dev dude and also our very first patreon!). The idea was to provide:
- an environment where more exotic fetishes and mechanics can be worked on;
- help prevent scope creep by segmenting off more complex/specialty mechanics and locations into chunks;
- section off more extreme fetishes that a user may not be interested in exploring;

The first scenario that we came up with is called "home invasion":
- main fetishes it would cater to: voyeurism, stalking, bondage/domination and restraints and non-consensual sex.
- in this scenario, you will attempt to break into a victim's house during the night;
- the house will have various challenges that the player needs to overcome to successfully break in and escape, like avoiding detection, peeking through keyholes, lockpicking, stealth;
- once you reached the target, immobilizing your (consensual, of course) victim by gagging/tying her up, and putting to good use your previously unlocked toys on her;

Once a scenario is completed (development-wise) its mechanics will be incorporated and available in the broader game and in the sandbox to play with.

Links
Below you can find more about the game, download links and ways to contact us. We also opened a public bug tracker on git for user-submitted issues or suggestions