Taking in a Stray - Dev Diary

[NandabaCanti]

I started to plan a game over the past couple of weeks, tentatively named Taking in a Stray, and I thought it would be nice to put together a dev diary thread here to keep those interested up-to-date on my progress. Keep in mind that anything I post here is subject to change, so try not to get too invested in mentioned features until they manage to show up in a game update.

For historical purposes, here is the first post where I mentioned my plans for this game in the Teaching Feelings thread:

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Updates Index

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(2018-05-04)

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(2018-05-04)

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(2018-05-04)

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(2018-05-20)

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(2018-06-18)

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(2018-06-26)

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(2018-12-07)

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(2019-01-18)
September 2019 Update (2019-09-25) new!!!

 

[NandabaCanti]

Overview

This is a game inspired by

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. You take on a first person role as a single man living alone who finds a teen girl living under a bridge and decide to take her in.

The game is being made in

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using real time 3D graphics and has elements in common with visual novels, dating sims and dress up games. Most interactions are text based with visuals. The ones that push the plot forward are scripted like a typical VN, but there's also a very simple chat AI planned where keywords/phrases can be used to elicit scripted responses. Some of the AI responses are context sensitive - changing depending on things like mood, stats, location, time of day, etc.

The game focuses on developing a relationship with your new charge by leveling her stats through a variety of interactions, going out to various locations, interacting with side characters around town, buying gifts and clothes you can dress her up in, and unlocking events as your relationship advances.

In this game your relationship can take one of three primary routes. You can adopt her as your daughter (with options to make it a bit less platonic if you want). You can also treat her as your equal and become her lover and eventually open up the possibility of marriage. The final major route would be to take possession of her as a sex slave to do with as you please.

Throughout this dev diary I will use female pronouns for the teen and male ones for the protagonist, but eventually their genders will be customizable at the start of the game. The teen defaults to female and the protagonist defaults to male, but you'll be able to make them male, female, trap or futa in any combination you wish. These additional options probably won't show up until post-1.0 releases though.

Another post-1.0 addition under consideration is allowing you to pursue other potential romantic partners from around town if you've chosen the "daughter" route. Other post-release updates I'm considering would introduce mini-games like strip card games, fortune telling, and an optional mode where you will get an up-close view of her face and give you the option to change her facial expression, trigger animations and decide a target area of the screen where she will tend to focuses her eyes on. This mode will also likely include the AI chatting features.

 

[JustHereToTranslate]

Good luck and Nice to see someone else using the godot engine.

I would suggest getting starting on the small and building up get the easy wins under your belt. (Visual novel short intro.)
The polish can come once you have a demo. (AI-chat etc.)

 

[NandabaCanti]

About Me

Here's some background on me, on the off-chance anyone was wonder what my qualifications are. I'm in my late 30s. I first got into gaming in the early to mid-'80s with a Pong console, the Atari 2600 and NES. I started to get fairly serious about drawing and had my first encounters with programming in the late '80s. I got a Tandy CoCo2 from a garage sale and taught myself BASIC with the book that came with it.

Throughout my teens and into my early 20s I continued to draw, getting into graffiti, designing tattoos and clay sculpting. I also kept up with programming from time to time, mostly with Basic and dabbling with C/C++.

Around late 2000 I started getting into 3D design with Maya. In the early to mid-2000s I got into Second Life where I created a ton of 3D content and did a fair bit of LSL scripting to make my creations interactive. Then around 2006-07 I made the switch from Maya to Blender, which I've been using ever since. I also started using Linux more seriously around the same time.

Throughout the 2000s up to the present I've picked up several programming languages. Though I only really stuck with Python, Bash and Lua and focused mostly on scripting to automate boring repetitive tasks. Around 2014 I started to get a lot more interested in the possibilities of game development and began my obsession with reading about and experimenting with a lot of game related programming topics. I spent a good chunk of a year focusing on the Love 2D engine creating tons of mechanics demos and a few very small practice games.

Over the past few years I've tested out most of the more notable engines available. Ren'Py and Godot are the two I've found to be the most promising for ero game development. Since I want to have some interactive 3D content for this game, I've opted to focus on Godot. I'll be creating all of the art in a combination of Blender, MyPaint and Krita. (Maybe GIMP from time to time if I need to do some image editing tasks).

Even though I've been involved with gaming, art and programming for the past 30+ years, I've never been involved with any of them professionally. (Though I've made several hundred dollars off my art in the past, mostly through Second Life.) They've always just been hobbies for me, though it's nice to have all that disparate experience finally start to culminate into making games (maybe even full time eventually if things go well with this project).

 

[NandabaCanti]

Good luck and Nice to see someone else using the godot engine.

I would suggest getting starting on the small and building up get the easy wins under your belt. (Visual novel short intro.)
The polish can come once you have a demo. (AI-chat etc.)

Ya, Thanks! Once I've had a chance to go through some 3.0 tutorials I plan to start by making isolated mechanics prototypes for each of the major components I need for the game, then I'll worry about putting them together into a proper demo afterwards. Right now I'm mostly focusing on the design doc that I've been compiling in a Zim notebook and messing around with some preliminary model sculpts in Blender.

It's probably going to be at least a month or two before I have anything worthwhile to show off, demo-wise. Though I'll start sharing screenshots of the models once I've got a good start on the sculpts, as well as when I get them retopo'd, textured, rigged, etc. I'm also kinda tempted to do some quick and dirty rough sketches to use as placeholders for event scenes until I've got the full 3D interactive scenes worked out to replace them.

 

[NandabaCanti]

Homeless Girl's Backstory

This contains a fair bit of mild spoilers that would normally get uncovered throughout the course of early game conversations, so I'll hide it away for those who'd rather wait to find out. Though a good chunk of it probably won't make it into the game, as there is no way for the girl to have known about some of this, since a lot of it concerns her mother going back before her birth. But it will still remain true and an interesting insight for those who are curious.

Spoiler

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[redknight00]

First of, I think this should go in Programing & Development.

Now for the premise, I played Teaching Feeling once, but didn't get too far, I though there was something creepy about the whole thing. And I let Sylvie die. I'm curious to see how you do with this, especially the part where one would be able to adopt her as daughter.

Some of the post release mechanics sound very ambitious, but if you think you can do it go ahead, I know that the real time 3d will attract a lot of people if you deliver a half decent game.

 

[NandabaCanti]

@redknight00 I was considering that forum, but it mainly seems to be focused on more technical help type threads. So I figured when it doubt, go general discussion. I'd be fine with it being moved to another forum if there's a mod who feels it would be a better fit somewhere else, as long as it doesn't break all the links within and to this thread in the process.

 

[Alcareru]

Very interesting premise though I haven't seen anything that would prevent this from being on patreon, if you want to go that route, or if this is just a labor of love for you then that is fine as well. It sounds like it would be highly interesting to play, so while I'm not very good at programming I can help with the writing, like checking the grammar and spelling, and I have dabbled in gimp but I can only do cleaning up line art, flat colors, and highlights and shadows. Anyways Good luck with this project and I hope it comes to fruition so everyone, myself included can experience this story of yours.

 

[NandabaCanti]

@Alcareru Thanks. I'll look into getting support eventually. But at this early stage, before I even have a demo, it would feel wrong asking for money. I want to have something tangible to share first. Basically I want to get the two main character base models done (retopo'd, textured and rigged/weighted), a few important backgrounds designed, as well as all the base mechanics prototyped and into a first demo with a UI and a good amount of one route's text worked out first. Probably at least one animated event to show off how the sex scene controls will work as well.

After that stuff is in place, the rest is mostly busy work to flesh out the rest of the game's assets and text. So once I've cleared that first hurdle I can feel quite confident about seeing the whole thing through to completion. That's when I'd be comfortable about seeking funding, then at least potential supporters could have a demo to try out and see if it's something they really want to support.

I'm not sure about Patreon though, they may be willing to let the project on their platform, but I'm not so sure I want to support a company that's so detrimental to the games we all love around here. I'd rather find a more open minded company to work with, but not sure there are really many dependable alternatives just yet.

 

[Downhilldown]

@uradamus you sir will enter the hall of immortality if you pull this one!:eazyHype:

 

[NandabaCanti]

@Downhilldown Heh, thanks for all the likes! I'm hoping I pull it off too, as this is a game I'd love to play as well. :biggrin:

 

[Alcareru]

How are things going?

 

[NandabaCanti]

Pretty good. I'm hoping to have something to post in the next few days. I'm currently working on something of a text based demo, since I've been using Twine to map out the intro story. Once I've fleshed out the last few missing scenes in that I'll share it here for those interested. It isn't too big, but already up to around 10k words and has 6 endings. 3 bad and then 3 good that are basically the lead-ins to the 3 main routes you'll be able to take in the actual game.

Other than that I've been putting a lot of time into modelling sets. Built the bridge where the girl is found, including a quick mock up of her shelter that still needs a bit more work. Mostly need to make some tree and bush models and do some landscaping and design some park equipment to finish the park/bridge set. Also got a huge chunk of the player's home done. I've got the rooms laid out and the outer shell for the whole house made, just putting the finishing touches on some of the door and window models right now. Next I'll probably add in the cabinets and counters and some of the appliances. Then it's mostly just furnishing and window treatments and some stuff for the yard and street before I'm done with the modeling of that set. Though that's likely still a few weeks worth of work for that set alone; I'll probably toss in a few screenshots in the next update post.

Coding wise I haven't really got started yet. I've messed around with a few simple mechanics prototypes and been going through Godot tutorials, especially ones for 3.0 to get caught up to speed on what's changed and refresh myself. Planning to put together a simple scene scripting markup language and a basic interpreter to deal with it, that'll probably be among the first major tasks I'll tackle on that front.

 

[Alcareru]

Wow, That is a lot of stuff already in progress. Good to hear its going well.

 

[NandabaCanti]

Text Demo v1.0

Since I've been using Twine to plan out the branching narrative of my game's opening story, I've decided to release that as something of a teaser, for those who don't mind getting a chance to check out the story early in a text only format. It covers your meeting with the homeless girl and your interactions that can lead to one of the three main routes that will be in the full game. In addition to those 3 good endings, there are 3 bad endings. Be warned, one of those bad endings involves necrophilia, it can be easily avoided, but just figured it was worth noting, as I know that won't be a lot of folk's cup of tea.

Excluding the title screen, there are 11 scenes. The story comes in at just under 12k words, putting it around novella length. If you were to go through all of the routes, I'd say you could get through everything within an hour or two, maybe less if you speed read. The choices are pretty well telegraphed, so you shouldn't have much trouble figuring out where a choice will lead you. There are only 2 scenes with sexual content atm, they are both in bad ending routes, so you'd have to chose not to help her in order to reach either of them.

I've hosted it on itch.io for now, you can find it here:

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[Alcareru]

Looks really good so far, and I found a slight grammar error. As seen here.
"And finally, these stairs here lead down to the basement, our finally stop, come on down"
Shouldn't it be final stop?
This it coming together faster then I thought it would. Keep up the great work.

 

[redknight00]

Never clicked so fast, must protect.

 

[NandabaCanti]

Looks really good so far, and I found a slight grammar error. As seen here.
"And finally, these stairs here lead down to the basement, our finally stop, come on down"
Shouldn't it be final stop?
This it coming together faster then I thought it would. Keep up the great work.

Good catch. Things are still pretty rough, most of the text is still first draft. I went through proofreading a few times, but there's always something that slips through the cracks, lol.

@redknight00 Heh, I almost feel bad that all the really interesting scenes are actually on the bad side of that choice for now. We do get to see the two of them forge their connection when you chose to help her, but most of the good action stuff on that side won't come until after you are well on your way into the routes that are beyond the scope of the opening story covered by the demo. Since all the bad endings for the game happen early on as a consequence of not helping her properly, I was able to fully flesh out those figurative and literal dead ends.

 

[redknight00]

Heh, I almost feel bad that all the really interesting scenes are actually on the bad side of that choice for now. We do get to see the two of them forge their connection when you chose to help her, but most of the good action stuff on that side won't come until after you are well on your way into the routes that are beyond the scope of the opening story covered by the demo. Since all the bad endings for the game happen early on as a consequence of not helping her properly, I was able to fully flesh out those figurative and literal dead ends.

Never feel bad for taking the story in the direction you want it to go, to be honest getting to know a little better and help this young woman felt much more gratifying than the sex+bad endings (especially the necro).