Unreal Engine Soldier Stories - FFVII (Final Fantasy VII) Parody Game [Development Thread]

[AlternateDreams]

Overview:

Soldier Stories is a FFVII (Final Fantasy VII) parody game.
The main theme of the game is corruption.

Soldier Stories is based on the original game and even begins in the same way.
However, the story quickly separates itself from it, and tells a new adventure within the FF7 universe.
This game can be seen as an alternative timeline where events would not have turned out the same way.

The story begins when Cloud (the player) returns to Tifa's bar, the 7th Heaven, to collect his reward after his mission to Reactor 1.
After (reluctantly) accepting Tifa's proposal, he becomes involved in AVALANCHE's activities against the Shinra and all kinds of low-life villains.

All goes well... until his everyday life is disrupted by a mysterious curse that begins to make him act strangely.
As the threats he encounters become more and more dangerous, Cloud begins to wonder whether the strength he's been able to rely on until now will be enough for the challenges that lie ahead.

Should he accept his new condition and make the most of it, despite the impact it may have on those around him and on his own life?
Or would it be better to stick to conventional methods and rely solely on his own strength?


Gameplay:

It's a third-person 3D JRPG (so not a pre-rendered game).
There are mainly dialogues, at least for now, some of them linear and others offering choices (fairly limited at the moment).
There are also quests, mini-games, turn-based battles and lewd stuff.

Although the game retains a linear structure, it will offer more and more activities in the future, optional or not, depending on the player's progress and choices.
These may be serious activities, such as recruiting new members for AVALANCHE or helping a Midgar citizen, or more intimate ones, such as inviting Jessie to a date or frequenting the city's ill-famed areas.


Progresssion:

The game is still in its early stages, there are a little over two hours of playing time.
I'm developing it in my free time. I'm using it as a way of learning Unreal Engine, which is my main objective. This is my first game on Unreal.
That's why I'd rather be honest and tell you not to expect regular updates.
If you're interested in the game, it's better to concentrate on what's already there rather than on what the game could be, because nobody knows when the next update will be.


If you'd like to know more about the game, feel free to take a look at the screenshots or ask me any questions.

Any constructive advice or feedback would be greatly appreciated.​

Thread Updated: 2024-07-29
Release Date: 2024-07-29
Developer: AlternateDreams
Censored: NO
Version: 0.4
OS: WINDOWS
Language: English
Genre:

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Installation:

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Changelog:

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Developer Notes:

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[AlternateDreams]

I had a little more free time than expected so I was able to add some content to the game.
Here is a "summary" with some screenshots and a video.

I switched the game to third person view.
I don't particularly like the Cloud model I use. I always have trouble importing Genesis 8 models (compared to Gen8.1), probably because their materials are not PBR so I basically have to recreate the shaders in UE (and I'm really not good at it haha).
But I already spent too much time tweaking it so I will keep it like that for now and retry later.





After the v0.1, I was stuck. My goal was still to learn Unreal Engine, making a game being just a way of achieving it.
But at some point, I needed to have at least a basic story to keep everything coherent.
I already knew what gameplay I wanted in the long term, but I needed to write some story to get there, so I spent a few hours on the story and built content around it.
Unfortunately, I'm still far from the main gameplay loop. These last months, I realized that to produce 1 minute of game content, it actually take me days of development. So even the simplest quest requires multiple weeks to finish.
Fortunately, it gets faster and faster as I go along because once a system is built, I can reuse it. But even with that, there's always new stuff to add and it takes time.

I added two new maps to the game.
The first one is the room where Cloud stay sleeping. It's a very small map but it's basically its home for at least the next hours of gameplay.
For now, there are only a few dialogues and some interactions/scenes. I want to add some customization to it but it's not a priority.





The other map is slums (it takes place in sector 3 slums of Midgar for those who played FF7).
It's where the main events of the v0.2 occurs. There are mostly dialogues, but also 2 quests.




Just to be clear, I'm not the designer of these maps. I used some assets from the marketplace and tweaked them for my usage.


Speaking of dialogues, I spent some time working on my dialogue system.
It's easy to use, most of the features are automatic now which saved me a lot of time.
I still need to place cameras and lights for each dialogue though (but switching between them is automated). I may automate these things too in the future if the results are good.
While working on the dialogues, I realized it was really strange to have characters doing nothing so I added 3 things:
- animations: some (not all) dialogues have animations to make characters more alive. Source animations are good, but I implemented them in a really basic way which make them bad, mostly due to transitions (that's also why I stopped adding them at some point).
- facial expressions: I was expecting to found already made expressions, but unfortunately it was not the case. So I imported a bunch of morphs from Daz and made simple loops with them. It's very basic, and I'm hoping I will find another way of doing them. Facial expressions seem cool with LiveLink but unfortunately it needs an iPhone to capture our own facial expressions so I will search for an alternative.
- lip sync: I didn't spent much time searching for a lip sync solution, but it was way too strange that characters were not moving their lips during dialogues. So I added a simple morph to move their mouth and I animated it. Let's be honest, it sucks badly, it actually looks like they are eating something. But having their mouth shut was too strange so I kept this morph.

Working on these three things is basically one of the best ways of enhancing the game right now in my opinion. I actually had to choose at some point if I wanted to work on them or continue to add content, and I preferred to add content. But it's clearly one of my priorities because dialogues are a big part of the game. The good news I that they all are automated and integrated in the dialogue system, which means that when I will work on them, every change will be automatically available in all previous dialogues.





One of the other things I spent time on was the battle system.
I wanted to develop both a turn-based system and a real time system, so I had to make a choice.
I opted for the turn-based system because it's the one I prefer but I definitively want to do a real time system later, so I need to find a way to integrate this in the game (maybe some sort of minigame, or maybe I can simply add some battles in turn-based mode, and others in real time... but it may seems strange for the player).

For now, there is only one battle in the game, and it's not really interesting (only melee attacks).
The thing is, I had no reason to add a battle in this part of the game, so I was kinda stuck. I developed the battle system because I wanted to, but had no way to integrate it in my story, so I just added a simple battle just to have something. If I continue this project, the next map is actually an area with monsters so I will be able to use it.
At this time, the system handle melee attacks (the only thing visible in the game for now), range attacks, magic spells (offensive/defensive; right now, there is Fire and Cure), techniques (Steal), items (offensive/defensive; right now there is Potion and Grenade), stats/xp/leveling. I plan to integrate them in the game little by little.




Now for the "sweet" part, the game currently has 2 sex scenes: one blowjob and another scene with doggy+blowjob/facial.
I thought I would be able to add more scenes, but like I said before, I underestimated how much work is required to produce just one minute of content, so I haven't managed to reach the point in the story where I can add this type of scene. Fortunately, I know I will be able to add more scenes with the next map, even if I’m still a bit stuck with the type of scenes I can add in this part of the story.

Concerning the existing animations, I made them in Daz and exported them to Unreal. They are basic loops. I'm also expecting to get better at them in the future because for now it's basically the first animations I made, so I will probably improve as soon as I'm able to work on new scenes on a regular basis.

I also hope I will be able to use another tool to animate. Blender would be a sane alternative, but I also hope to find a VR solution because it makes posing SO MUCH easier.



I also worked on other things like a travel system (working but its window has no design), a save/load system, and a SMS system, but it's not really interesting to write about this.



And now?

As I said earlier, the game needs a lot of polishing in its current state, and obviously more content.
My priorities being adding more lewd scenes (which need me to progress a bit in the story and also add some other gameplay mechanisms like the affinity/corruption stats) then tweaking dialogues (animations/facial expressions/adding some sort of lip sync).
My goal was to finish this in order to release a v0.2. However, I won't have much free time starting next month so I prefer to make a release as soon as possible, even incomplete, because I'm not sure when will be the next release.

Right now, the packaged game doesn't work well. I fixed all bugs I found on my side, however I'm using a plugin that works well in the editor but not in the release, so I contacted the developer and I'm waiting for a fix.
It's needed for a critical feature, so I need to wait. If I have no response this week, I have an alternate solution, but it will require a few days to redo some scripts.

In the meantime, I'm optimizing the build by reducing textures size and removing unused content. I also need to test the game on an older computer to see if it works correctly.

To end this (already too long) post, here is a short video to give you a better idea of how the game look at this stage.

Provider seems to compress the video in 720p. If you want to see the uncompressed video click here :

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[osanaiko]

Finally, a girl who appreciates me just the way I am.

 

[AlternateDreams]

Release 0.2

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I uploaded release v0.2.
I had to redo a bunch of blueprints to fix the problem I explained in my last post.
But everything seems to work now.
Demo ends after the SMS conversation (no more content after this)
Enjoy!

 

[TheExordick]

I hope to try it this evening. It looks very promising!

The visuals are very good!

As i said, i played it and it was very enjoiable. No bugs, smooth gameplay and very good optimization: i was basically always at 120 fps (3070ti laptop).
The environments are really well designed and they feel pretty organic but not too tight.

I saw you have the quest journal in the menu but it is not implemented yet i guess, not that it was difficult to understand what i needed to do but sometimes it would be nice to be able to recall the mission. So i hope you implement it as soon as possible.

if i may present you a few suggestions:
the combat system feels too slow because the parties walk to the opponent and that feels very dragging. I would suggest to make the walk skippable or make it way faster.
the sex scenes are very nice, but as well as a forward button i would like to have a rewind button to be able to navigate them back and forth.

Overall it already has a very polished look. I imagine it is taking a lot of time to develop it.
Best of luck!

 

[AlternateDreams]

I hope to try it this evening. It looks very promising!

The visuals are very good!

As i said, i played it and it was very enjoiable. No bugs, smooth gameplay and very good optimization: i was basically always at 120 fps (3070ti laptop).
The environments are really well designed and they feel pretty organic but not too tight.

I saw you have the quest journal in the menu but it is not implemented yet i guess, not that it was difficult to understand what i needed to do but sometimes it would be nice to be able to recall the mission. So i hope you implement it as soon as possible.

if i may present you a few suggestions:
the combat system feels too slow because the parties walk to the opponent and that feels very dragging. I would suggest to make the walk skippable or make it way faster.
the sex scenes are very nice, but as well as a forward button i would like to have a rewind button to be able to navigate them back and forth.

Overall it already has a very polished look. I imagine it is taking a lot of time to develop it.
Best of luck!

Wow thanks for your feedback, it means a lot for me!

Yeah, there is no quest journal yet. I know it's an important feature, but I postponed it as much as possible because I am not really interested in developing it.
But it will quickly become mandatory, especially in the next 2 maps so I will probably add it at the same time of the inventory system, which is needed in the next map.

Thanks for your suggestions.
I don't know if I will make turns skippable, but they will clearly be faster than that.
The other enemies I added have the same speed than the main hero.
However, for the robot, I wanted him to be a slow robot, but you are right I clearly overdid it. I will speed its walk animation.

You are also right for the sex animations. Especially since there is no replay menu yet, so if you miss an animation or skip it by mistake you just can't watch it again without loading a previous save. I will add a back button.

Thank you. It does take a lot of time. I hope I will be able to continue this in the long run because it's really fun to do.

 

[AlternateDreams]

Hello everyone,
I'm alive (yey!)
I'm planning to upload a release soon.
Here is a summary of the changes.

My main goal was to add the first map with monsters.
For this, I had to update the battle system.

I won't go into too much detail, but the main points are :
- making it easier to add new spells/actions and their animations, regardless of who's casting them
- improved battle speed: it's still a bit slow, but a first step has been taken. Other improvements will follow.
- it is possible to add a different AI depending on the enemy. For the moment, there are only two different AIs, but it's now very easy for me to create my own AI for certain enemies, and even later, for certain allies.
- better turn management
- random battles
- updated leveling, stats, loots, etc.
- link between combat system and inventory (see below)

Here are some images:






In the previous version, there wasn't really any inventory (it was static).
So I've added it in this version. The inventory stores consumables, key items and materias (magic). Later, it will also store equipment.
For the moment, the inventory can only be used in battles (it's not possible to access it from the pause menu, as I haven't coded the UI yet).
So I've been able to add items to the new map, and I've updated the old maps so that the inventory can be used.

The new map focuses on gameplay and battles (there are very few conversations).
Not much to say without spoilers, so I'll just post a few images:








This map will provide access to another area in a future version of the game.
For the moment, the map is mostly about gameplay, battles, picking up a few items, a materia, and (indirectly) unlocking sex scenes with Gloria.
However, I still haven't added a quest log, which may make this new map difficult to complete.


I also worked on the graphics as a whole.

The rendering is slightly sharper and warmer in all maps.
I've also improved some of the lighting.
Overall, it's still a long way from what I'm aiming for, but I'm learning as I go.




I've also updated the conversations so that there's a dedicated camera and lights for each one, to bring the whole thing to life.
I've added animations where they were missing.
I didn't update lypsync or facial expressions. I've done a bit of testing, but for the moment I don't have anything interesting to add to the project.

I've also updated the skin shader of the main characters.
There's still work to be done here, but it's already much better than the previous version.





As for the animations, I've added 3 new sex scenes with Gloria.
Each scene is a succession of simple loops, with various camera angles.
For me, Gloria is a good way of easily adding animations at the start of the game. That's why I added her in the first place, even though it's intended that the character will be more involved in the story later on.
Indeed, Gloria's "job" makes it easy for me to add sex scenes, as Cloud doesn't have to develop his relationship with her as he would normally have to do with a regular character.
It allowed me to add sex scenes early in the game.
Now that this character has a few scenes, I'll be able to put her aside and develop the other characters in future versions.
Gloria will return later when the story is sufficiently developed (although I may still add scenes with her from time to time before that).

Note that I now use both Daz and Blender for animations. I spent a few days learning the basics of Blender to be able to animate.
Even if for the moment I'm not necessarily producing better animations than with Daz, it's a LOT easier with Blender. Clearly, I now only use Daz if I have to.







I've been working on a lot of other little things that don't necessarily belong in this post.
So I'll move on to what's still to come.

I'm currently in the cleaning/compiling/testing phase, so I should be able to post the release very soon.
As for the next version, unfortunately it'll be like version 0.3: it'll take several months before I can produce enough content for it.
And my obligations are likely to catch up with me at the end of the year or early next year, so things will get worse.
So I'd like to wish the 2 or 3 people reading this an early Merry Christmas 2023. It'll be done at least :-D

 

[Michelangelo da Mouso]

I spent a few days learning the basics of Blender to be able to animate.

Must confess I haven't fully read all your log but that got my attention. Have you really learned Blender in a few days? is Blender that easy to learn or are you experienced or a prodigy in 3D?

 

[AlternateDreams]

No, I already knew how to use some of Blender's basic functions (especially fbx import/export, which is what I use the most).

And recently I spent a few days learning how to animate in Blender.
I'm a beginner in animation but I know the basics. I made a few animations in Daz but it's hell... Even when it works, it's very slow, impractical and as soon as you touch the keyframes too much, the animation bugs or Daz crashes. And there's no IK! That's why I spent a few days switching to Blender. Daz was driving me crazy.

So to sum up: Blender is a very complicated piece of software, but if you want to learn a specific thing you've already done in another program, it doesn't have to be complicated (it's mostly a matter of learning shortcuts).
You don't have to learn the whole program to use it.

What's more, as my animation skills are very limited, it didn't take me long to switch to Blender, simply because there wasn't much to relearn. For example, I haven't yet tried things like baking physics simulation, mesh deformation etc. to keyframes, as these are advanced techniques I'm not yet familiar with.

And for animating, Blender is clearly simpler than Daz. The functionalities are logical, everything works, there are a huge number of possibilities, the software is responsive, and so on.

 

[osanaiko]

Lol, I'm highly amused that there was a 9 month silence and then a mega post with details of lots of progress!!

Welcome back, good to see that this game has legs!

 

[TheExordick]

So glad to see your game back to life!

it was really pleasing to play it back in the day, so i'm looking forward to try the new release!

Good luck, keep us posted.

 

[AlternateDreams]

Release 0.3

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I've updated the first post with the download links for the new version.
Enjoy!

 

[AlternateDreams]

How is progress on this? Bit of a bump I know but it seems like a very promising project since we don't have much in the way of Final Fantasy games here.

Thanks for asking. I'm still working on the project. In my spare time, though, so it's not going as fast as I'd like.

For version 0.4, I mainly worked on the technical aspects.
I ported the game to Unreal Engine 5 (it was on version 4) and spent the time learning how to use the new tools, and in particular the new way of managing light.
I took the opportunity to rework the lighting on most of the maps, at least slightly, to apply what I'd learned.
This does, however, make the game more demanding, so I also had to add some graphical settings to keep the game running on lower configs. I also need to add DLSS/FSR later for people playing in 4K or with very low configs.

I also tried to automate as many things as possible to avoid spending too much time on certain tasks.
I automated my import process with Blender, and continued my work on automating the management of cameras, dialogs and lights.

I've updated the way the characters are managed, to use the same code as much as possible: body animation, lip-sync, movement, equipment and clothing, and so on.
The characters already shared most of the code, but the little I had to write for each character was already too much, given that I already have a lot of other things to do on the project. And it'll make things simpler for when Tifa/Jessie etc. join the team and are controllable.

I replaced the 3D model of Cloud with one closer to the remake. I've also started updating the other models with an 'HD' version of each (they have the same look overall, but have more polygons).
For the moment, different versions of the models cohabit with each other, until I can get through everything on the new models.
I also worked on the import of Jessie and Barret, who are the next characters Cloud will meet in the story.

I've worked a bit on the physics, notably the breasts, butt, thighs and hair but the result isn't satisfactory at the moment.
I'm also having a lot of trouble preventing clothes from clipping when I activate the physics.

Unfortunately, I haven't added any content to the story in this version yet.
I preferred to continue improving my technical skills, being my main objective, to the detriment of advancing the story.
But to talk a little about what's planned for the next part of the story, at this point in the game there are multiple paths the player can take, which involves a lot of work.
So I'm trying to find a way to simplify the content as much as possible, for example by reusing the same assets or deleting/rewriting certain parts, so that it can be done in a reasonable amount of time.
That's what I'm working on at the moment.

Cloud is supposed to go to sector 2 to meet the materia expert. There's a complex area (Lagula District) that needs a lot of development time, and a smaller area after that.

At the same time, Cloud also has access to a mission with Barret that will enable AVALANCHE to discover some activities of the Shinra that will be relevant to the rest of the story. This will make the group realize that they need to get more involved in monitoring Shinra's activities, and that their usual acts of eco-terrorism may no longer be enough.

Finally, I'm also planning to introduce Jessie with a mini-quest, a bit like the filter quest with Tifa at the start of the Remake, which will allow me to work on the character 'social stats': a set of basic stats that each character has and that can be increased/decreased depending on the activities/discussion you have with them. This will stay very basic, but will make it possible to modify the way characters behave, and what they are or aren't open to.

For now, version 0.4 is in an intermediate state, with many systems not yet fully integrated into the game, making a release difficult, and the lack of new content for the player makes a release uninteresting anyway.
So I'd like to add at least one of the three paths I mentioned above (probably the scene with Jessie), then go through a cleanup phase to be able to release a version.
But I have no idea when that will be, given the large amount of work still to be done for version 0.4 and the limited time available to me.

 

[AlternateDreams]

Does sound like some good progress either way! Any screenshot you would be able to share?

Sure.
A big part of the changes concern the code, but I can still show the rest.

Here's a before-and-after look at what's changed the most in terms of lighting (left is before, right is after)



In the previous version, I used static lights (baked lights) most of the time, which is very interesting in terms of performance.

I liked the way most of the maps were lit, but the problem is that this works well for the environment, but not for the characters (or other moving elements). The latter need dynamic lighting. With Lumen, Unreal Engine 5's new lighting system, all lights are dynamic.
(I'm intentionally simplifying, but that's the idea)

So there's no longer this problem, although performance is much poorer than with the old system.





Ideally, you'd like to maintain two versions, one with Lumen and one with baked lights, and switch from one to the other depending on the performance of the player's computer.

However, this is far too much work for one person (at least for me). I therefore preferred to make lights that are designed to work with Lumen in the first place, but that also look 'okay' when Lumen is deactivated.

In the end, it's a compromise where I can't get the most out of Lumen, but I can still make something prettier than before, while keeping the game playable on computers that can't use Lumen.



The game is darker than before due to the switch to Lumen.

I hope it's not too dark. I realized too late that my screen is set to be very bright so I hope I haven't lit everything too dimly for someone with a 'normal' screen.

I'm planning to add a Gamma option in the settings just in case, but before the next release I'd better make sure that the lighting is good on a properly calibrated screen.




A close-up of the new Cloud model and Jessie's model.

Please note that these are the 'non-HD' versions of the models.
That's why you can still see the edges (especially on the shoulders or the ears).

This will no longer be a problem once all models have been converted.






Hair physics :




Breasts jiggle applied to an existing animation (not mine) :



Both still need work, but it's a start.

 

[AlternateDreams]

Since my last post, I've been working mostly on rewriting some parts of the game.
As discussed in my previous messages, the idea is to be able to reduce development time, as I'm getting caught up in my obligations and have less and less free time to work on the game.
However, even if I've been able to modify/remove certain parts, the workload for the rest of the game remains high.

From a technical point of view, I've got a few game mechanics to try out that could replace some existing parts of the game and take less time to develop (in the medium term at least). They work on paper but I need to prototype them to see if they're viable/fun.
The difficulty is also not to stray too far from the original project, otherwise I risk losing motivation.

For version 0.4, I think in the end it's better to post the version as it is now, even if I would have preferred to have more content, to avoid prolonging its release any further.
I'm currently preparing a version in which I've removed what isn't yet completely finished (notably the new models of Barret, Jessie and Tifa).
The version will include the switch to Unreal Engine 5, the work on relighting the maps, the new Cloud model (non-HD version), an overhaul of the graphics settings to manage presets, FSR/DLSS, Gamma etc. and other modifications that are not very important or not visible to the player (code).

I still have some testing to do, but the version should be ready in a few days.

 

[AlternateDreams]

Release 0.4

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Links in the first post have been updated.

Please note that your graphics settings and key bindings from v0.3 will be reset.
However, saves from v0.3 will work on v0.4.

Important note:
By default, the game applies the "Very High" graphics preset, which is the preset with which the game was developed.
However, these settings will probably be too high on lower configs or when playing in 4K.

I recommend enabling DLSS or FSR (eventually with Frame Generation) if you have performance problems, or tweak the other settings if necessary.
As there are a lot of graphics settings, to simplify things I've added a "How to configure" button at the very top of the settings screen that explains what you need to do to get the best quality/performance.

In the future, I'll add a feature to automatically detect graphics settings to simplify things.