RPGM Sword Art Online RPG Prototype

[Chuuni Badger]

Release 3 - What's Left?
It's been three months since the last release. Throughout that time I've been hard at work, hammering on the core features necessary for the next version, each week inching us closer to the goal. There's still plenty to do, mostly on the content side, but we're getting there.

Why is it taking so long? Because of the single person nature of the project and the fact it's a side activity rather than something I can focus on completely - simple as that. I'd love to spend more time each day tinkering away on the game but it's not something I can do right now.

So, how much work is left until everything is ready? Here's a simplified list of remaining tasks:

• Add automatic orgasm CG display based on the active H scene.
• Create sprites and dialogue renders for the main cast of floor 1 (Kirito, Agil, Argo, Diavel).
• Create a new optional location - Kirito's lodging (for bath scene).
• Write and implement all the story events for floor 1 (7 planned at the time of writing).
• Update all of the currently existing text to improve adherence to the source material and make sure it works with the new font (some lines go out of the dialogue box due to larger font size).
• Update SAO Guide with new gameplay info.
• Implement a new story based status effect.

And here's a list of "nice to have" tasks:

• Add hints to the "Find the ancient necklace" quest to make it doable without the need for "Tracking" skill.
• Fill up the item list with more entries.
• Implement throwable items (poison, pebble, throwing knives).
• Improvements to the winter tileset.
• Create a new death animation, apply it to enemies on the map and in battle.
• Create enemy respawn animation, apply to on-map enemies.
• Markers for interactable objects, draw them based on distance (similar to transition triggers).
• Decide on final dialogue renders art style, export new CG set based on that.

As you can see, work on the core mechanics is mostly done for this release and the remaining effort will be primarily focused on the content side of things. I'm still a little wary of starting some of this stuff (especially events) due to the annoying voice in the back of my head constantly telling me I can improve the process and design of certain things but that's not something that will ever leave, I just need to power through it. Things should go relatively smoothly once I warm up a bit so lets aim for that for now.

As for the dreaded "when" question... I don't know, honestly. I hope to get things ready in January but my situation is far from stable and things might shift, one way or the other. Until then, I'll keep my usual posting cadence to keep you guys updated.

For now, just wish me luck and hope for the best. I'll be back on Monday, as usual.

 

[Chuuni Badger]

Progress report
As always, TL;DR/full task list can be found at the bottom of the post for easier reading.

My first task for this week was rework of the orgasm threshold calculations and formula. Initially it was based purely on max arousal but after adding the possibility of arousal going over limit to allow for rolling orgasm, keeping it that way made no sense so I changed it to a static value.
Thinking this through uncovered its own problems however, causing me to rework things yet again - hopefully for good in terms of general direction but with space for minor balancing. This new formula is based on a base value and Asuna's lewdness, meaning her resistance to H activities will increase with experience.

This change is a result of a rather longstanding problem I had with ero design for this project - should H progression be based both on story and player choices towards such activities (with max lewdness limited by highest reached floor) or should it be more free-flowing, focused purely on player freedom. As you can see, I decided to go with the latter option.
This still doesn't mean I want to allow for turning Asuna into a full-on slut, openly gangbanged in the middle of the street but the decision on whether to go into a complete "heat mode" ASAP will be fully in the hands of the player.

That said, some of the ero content will still be locked behind story progression - early days are filled with some amount of hope so it doesn't make sense for people to go feral from the get go. There's also the fact that setting certain ventures takes time and opportunity which aren't immediately available for someone starting from nothing.

After that I implemented few throwable items. From pebbles, through knives to poison - each with their own damage types, scaling and possible side effects. They aren't meant as your main source of damage but rather as tools focused on causing status effects, with small amount of damage on top of that, as a treat.

Next, I updated the "Family Dinner" quest. I missed it when going over the missions earlier so work on this focused on moving it to the new quest management system as well as fixing the issues with requested items not being removed on completion and another small issue which could lead to locking access to the quest location before finishing.

Speaking of quests, I laid down the event progression for the boss raid quest. There's not much to say here - I wrote down all scenes I'll have to implement, there will be a few more then the initial 7 mentioned in my last post. That's it.

Last but not least, I started working on Kirito's hideout on floor 1. It's only planned to be used in a single optional event for now, with more scenes possible in the future (I'm focusing on core source material scenes for the next release).

Spoiler: Full task list

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