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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[Chuuni Badger]

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

This week was almost completely dedicated to knowledge refreshment and updating my portfolio (yeah, I'm still looking for work) so this will be a short one.

I decided to focus on planning and writing events for the the boss raid quest again, starting with multiple approaches to learning about and accessing the first raid meeting. I also came up with a small branch for the rumour cave encounter for those who visit it a little more prepared.

I'd love to say this was purely to lock-in on the upcoming content but the truth is a recent OS update broke my ability to use RPG Maker and I had to spend some time on figuring out how to fix it. The project is fine, no need to worry about that, it's just the editor that wouldn't cooperate.
Things are up and running again, for the most part, so there won't be too much of a break - just an annoying distraction to round up the month.

The end of the year is a busy time so there will be no update next week. I'll be back in January, hopefully with some more substantial news about my progress.

See you next year!

Spoiler: Full task list

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[rerezsf]

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

This week was almost completely dedicated to knowledge refreshment and updating my portfolio (yeah, I'm still looking for work) so this will be a short one.

I decided to focus on planning and writing events for the the boss raid quest again, starting with multiple approaches to learning about and accessing the first raid meeting. I also came up with a small branch for the rumour cave encounter for those who visit it a little more prepared.

I'd love to say this was purely to lock-in on the upcoming content but the truth is a recent OS update broke my ability to use RPG Maker and I had to spend some time on figuring out how to fix it. The project is fine, no need to worry about that, it's just the editor that wouldn't cooperate.
Things are up and running again, for the most part, so there won't be too much of a break - just an annoying distraction to round up the month.

The end of the year is a busy time so there will be no update next week. I'll be back in January, hopefully with some more substantial news about my progress.

See you next year!

Spoiler: Full task list

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I want to let you know, you're doing a brilliant job in making this game a reality. Sure, Asuna is a waifu material but I, like other cultured men out here would love to see her getting down and dirty while maintaining the facade of a respectable female lead in this story. Your technical knowledge in fleshing out detailed mechanics to make this game move and feel the right way goes way over my head and I can't wait to see it in the final version.

I love how the direction is going and although I'm silent, you will always have my vote of confidence in your work. Thank you!

 

[Chuuni Badger]

I want to let you know, you're doing a brilliant job in making this game a reality. Sure, Asuna is a waifu material but I, like other cultured men out here would love to see her getting down and dirty while maintaining the facade of a respectable female lead in this story. Your technical knowledge in fleshing out detailed mechanics to make this game move and feel the right way goes way over my head and I can't wait to see it in the final version.

I love how the direction is going and although I'm silent, you will always have my vote of confidence in your work. Thank you!

Thanks! I do hope to release a new playable version sooner rather than later but, as always, I'm not really in a position to promise anything in terms of deadlines. We'll get there eventually.

Don't worry about the technical stuff, it doesn't really matter until you guys get to experience it anyway - feedback on that will be the important part. Writing this down is as much of a proof project isn't dead as me keeping track of what I did each week. Feel free to treat it a fluff and just enjoy content focused parts whenever that shows up. Those parts should be slowly growing as I'm getting closer to finishing the core gameplay.

Thanks again, I hope the wait will be worth it.

 

[Chuuni Badger]

Hey guys! I know I said I won't be posting anything new until next year but I do have a question I could use some outside feedback on.

How do you feel about showing stat check dialogue/interaction choices? For example, you need to convince someone to help you and having strength is higher than 20 unlocks an option to intimidate them and having lewdness at 40 allows you to seduce them. Would you rather:

• Have them be visible so you know there's an alternative way?
• Keep them hidden to avoid fear of missing out?

Just to be clear, options locked behind stat checks won't necessarily be the best choices, just different ones. I'm adding a poll so feel free to vote there or drop a comment if you'd like to provide more detailed opinion on that.

Anyway, that's all I wanted to say. Take care everyone!

 

[flimey]

Just recently discovered this and was surprised somebody else out there had a similar inclination to do what I've had an itch to do as well. Wasn't sure if I wanted to make it an H-game or not but the system structure is surprisingly similar to what I had in mind. I'll be spending some time looking over the prototype and comparing notes, though I doubt I'll be starting my own project for at least a couple years as I want to learn some basic programming and pick up a few other supporting skills to give things a nice coat of paint over traditional RPGM assets. This was a pleasant find.


Good luck friend, ill keep on eye on this.

 

[Fioli]

Just recently discovered this and was surprised somebody else out there had a similar inclination to do what I've had an itch to do as well. Wasn't sure if I wanted to make it an H-game or not but the system structure is surprisingly similar to what I had in mind. I'll be spending some time looking over the prototype and comparing notes, though I doubt I'll be starting my own project for at least a couple years as I want to learn some basic programming and pick up a few other supporting skills to give things a nice coat of paint over traditional RPGM assets. This was a pleasant find.


Good luck friend, ill keep on eye on this.

I wish you luck in your endeavors!

 

[Chuuni Badger]

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

Happy new year everyone! Congrats on making it to 2026.

First things first, I'd like to thank you all for participating in the poll. I honestly didn't expect much engagement so seeing the results was really motivating.

In my last post I asked you about which approach to conditional conversation choices you prefer: showing disabled options to let you know about alternative approaches or hide them to avoid fear of missing out. The results were completely one sided in favour of showing them so that's exactly what I'll be sticking with going forward. Also, small reminder on what I wrote before - some unavailable choices will still be hidden if locked for story/knowledge reasons. This will be limited to situations where it makes logical sense and most of the choices will be visible but I wanted to make sure this is clear to avoid confusion.

Now, let's move on to the actual work since the last update.

I've reworked my inhibition based clothing system. The original was kind of a stop-gap solution which would work perfectly fine in a usual H game where the protagonist can get from a prim and proper innocence to full-on slut mode but it was a little too free-form for this project. I mentioned before that I want Asuna to keep some level of "respectable front" towards the general public and happily trotting naked through populated areas does not gel with that plan. It will still be possible in un- or less populated locations or under special circumstances (being forced during an event, visiting a beach or public baths) but there will be some limitations. I also added a bit more granularity to requirement to further emphasise this point.

Next, I implemented small branching to the initial rumour cave encounter. Depending on Asuna's stats there's a chance she'll avoid or block monster's attack, giving her a chance to fight properly or run to safety. Winning or running will lead to a slightly different ending of the event and add a little bit of reactivity to player actions.

After that I focused on checking and fixing text content to make sure it works correctly with the new general font which is a bit larger than the old one. I also changed and improved some of the writing, cleaned up clunky wording, removed unnecessary glyphs, adjusted flow etc.
The glyph part is something I especially need to think about properly as I do want to make use of them (it's a good way to show which option leads to more info, progress or ends the interaction) but I don't want to spam them everywhere or use them inconsistently.

On the mechanics side of things, I've been thinking about how to approach the "Add automatic orgasm render display based on the active H scene" task mentioned in one of the previous posts. Lots of brainstorming went into this process only for me to realise that this idea makes no sense - not in the way I intended to implement it anyway. See, my initial plan was that the orgasm display would be handled by the event which handles the initial conditional check and all the post-orgasm actions (stat bumping, stamina hit etc). That could maybe technically work for generic scenes (prostitution and stuff like that) but the unique, story related acts need their own approach to each scenario, i.e. exactly what I did with the test scenes available in the prototypes.
Long story short, I took this off the task list and decided to simply update the existing scenes to make proper use of the check event before moving (or not) to orgasm specific section of their content. I might make another common event with some generic orgasm sub-scenes for repeatable content (already mentioned prostitution comes to mind) but that's something that I'll think about when we get to implementing such activities.

Finally, I've got the first look at Argo and Kirito models for you today. They need a bit more adjustments, especially Kirito, but I thought it would be nice to show off someone else besides Asuna for a change. For transparency, I'm using downloaded cards with my own modifications (mainly clothing for Argo, clothing and body adjustments for Kirito).



On a less positive note, I spent quite a bit of time trying to fix my RPG Maker installation. I'm at a point where pretty much everything works except for in-editor play testing, which is still a no-go. I tried reinstalling, switching to Proton, replacing the nwjs packages - nothing managed to fix it and I'm out of ideas at this point. It's not the end of the world as I can do most of the testing in an exported build (it'll help catch instances of stuff working in test but not after export) but anything focused on code requires debug tools which aren't available in normal play.
I'll move some of the testing to my laptop for now. It's not a great idea but it's the only sensible solution I have if I want access to debug tools. Good thing I'm done with most of the planned feature work at the moment, I guess.

Man, I didn't want to finish this update on such a sour note but these issues put a pretty serious dent in my momentum. I just hope I can regain some of it going forward since things are already pretty slow as they are.

Anyway, that's it for this progress update. Happy New Year everyone!

Spoiler: Full task list

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Just recently discovered this and was surprised somebody else out there had a similar inclination to do what I've had an itch to do as well. Wasn't sure if I wanted to make it an H-game or not but the system structure is surprisingly similar to what I had in mind. I'll be spending some time looking over the prototype and comparing notes, though I doubt I'll be starting my own project for at least a couple years as I want to learn some basic programming and pick up a few other supporting skills to give things a nice coat of paint over traditional RPGM assets. This was a pleasant find.


Good luck friend, ill keep on eye on this.

Yeah, I tried looking for something like this but couldn't find anything that would satisfy my needs and decided to do it myself eventually. Will see how it turns out but I might as well try.

Let me know if you come up with any ideas/criticism after checking things out, I'm always interested to hear people's opinions on that.