Taking in a Stray - Dev Diary

[NandabaCanti]

@redknight00 Ya, it's been fun to work it out so far. In a way the story has largely in part been deciding how it should go on its own. I basically started out with a rough outline of some personality traits for the two main characters, a bit of backstory to get them to the starting line, and a few broad stroke ideas concerning the 3 major routes and some vague ideas on how to get them there. From there I just started to write with those in mind and the characters started to come to life the more I tried to think like them and how they would naturally react in the scenes. A lot of my plans early on changed a lot as I got to know the characters better.

The only place in the good routes that I could have possibly shoe horned a sex scene in would be the last good ending (for the sex slave route), but it would have felt forced or rushed and more than a bit insensitive considering the discussion they were having just before the end. So I opted to keep the good side fairly wholesome, aside from the quick peep scene, heh.

Originally all the bad ends were going to lead to her death; I was going to have things a lot darker with a more straight up rape scene as the first bad ending. But after working on the good routes, I just couldn't see the MC doing that anymore. She was originally just going to accept it, since she was planning to end her life pretty much right after anyhow, so she just didn't care and it would have made for a good guilt trip ending for the sick bastards out there, lol. But then the idea came to me that perhaps she spent her life trying to stay quiet and go unnoticed and got so good at it that no one's ever shown any interest in her before. So it never even occurred to her that she might be attractive and she was oddly intrigued and curious about the MCs unexpected proposition. Pair that with her mother's background and her sudden realization that this previously unknown aspect of her life could bring her pleasure, attention and money, and that corruption bad ending practically wrote itself.

The necro option wasn't even on the table at first (it might not even make it into the actual game), but when I got the MC out there the next day to find her body I saw an opportunity that would be sure to cross a lot of peoples' minds - even if it sickened them to consider it - and decided to run with it for a 3rd bad ending. Even though I'm not into it either, I still think it worked out fairly well. It was interesting to try and figure out the thought process that would have to go into rationalizing such a despicable deed by an otherwise fairly good person as they give in to taboo urges.

 

[Downhilldown]

@uradamus

even i absolutely hate text based games, because i care for my little eyes, i tried your demo and can't wait for actual alpha release. one more thing, pleeease just pleeease stay away from political correctness BS, because i am so sick of it mate. i want to see kinky stuff :wink wink nudge nudge:

 

[NandabaCanti]

@Downhilldown Ya, I have pretty much no interests in bending to PC nonsense, the story will go where it wants to go. The only reason I'd really consider cutting out the necrophilia scene is because it means having to do a whole other skin for her as well as a bunch of animation variants that would only be of use for that scene. So it probably won't make it in early on, just for those practical reasons. Also, if I do end up having to go with Patreon, it would be best to save that scene for later anyhow, and hide it behind a patch, since that would likely be the only scene they could take offense with based on their current rules.

Most of the real kinky stuff will probably end up in the sex slave route. The lover route will be mostly pretty vanilla standard fare action you would expect from a sappy romance route. The daughter route will mostly be sex free, though I definitely want some optional voyeuristic perversions for the player to decide it they want to keep things pure or cave in to temptation. Might also toss in something like a BJ scene if she catches you peeping, lol. But that would likely leave the MC feeling conflicted and guilty afterwards. I'll have to wait and see if it seems right to allow things to go further after that.

Though after the 1.0 release, I do want to do an update for the daughter route that would allow you to woo any of a number of side characters from around town to pursue an intimate relationship with and to give the girl a new mother of sorts. That's going to take a lot of work though, and since I'd like to get the core game done by the end of the year, it makes sense to put that off until afterwards.

 

[Downhilldown]

@uradamus
take your time mate, and deliver us something really good! :happyblush

 

[NandabaCanti]

@uradamus
take your time mate, and deliver us something really good! :happyblush

Even though I say I want to finish the core game with a 1.0 release by the end of the year, that isn't to say I have any plans of stopping at that point. I just don't like having games with a ton of dead ends and cliff hangers that linger for years while the dev(s) drag their feet with the game, like Summertime Saga that's still likely ages away from bringing any of the core game stories to their conclusion.

There will be quite a few post 1.0 releases. I'll stick with this until I've scratched all my itches and/or people lose interest in it. But I want something that can stand on its own, with all the essential ingredients in place, ASAP. Everything else after that is just gravy, stuff like additional dialog, clothes, animations, bonus scenes, mini-games, side character interactions, and character customization options for both the MC and girl.

 

[NandabaCanti]

June Progress Report

It's been a while since I've posted any news, so I thought I'd summarize some of the work I've been doing this past month. This is a long one, so I broke it up into sections and hid them behind spoilers.

General Overview & Engine Concerns

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Stylistic Decisions

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Character Models

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

City Map

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Park

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Player Home

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Goals for the Next Month

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

 

[NandabaCanti]

Semi-Hiatus Notice

Some of you may've already seen my recent thread about

You must be registered to see the links

and know where I'm going with this. But for those who don't, I'm putting this project partially on the back burner for a bit. I'm still working on models for it just about every day, but at a reduced rate to make time for a second project I'll be working on at the same time, namely a text adventure game that you can find out a little about in the above mentioned thread.

This is because a long standing issue with my computer, where it randomly reboots, has been getting far worse as of late and has started to affect my workflow with Blender. So I need to replace this system ASAP in order to get back to work as usual with this game, but I don't have the money to do so at this time. To that end I figured I could get a text based game to a finished state far faster than I could even reach a first release with this game at the rate I've been going. Since I don't even know if I'd be able to test this game without reboots with my system in it's current state, it's a safer bet to work on a project that won't over tax my failing system in the short term. Plus if worse comes to worst and this system completely fails I do have a crappy old notebook computer that would have no issues running Ren'Py, but almost certainly wouldn't be able to handle my large .blend files and Godot.

I've mostly just been running into issues while working on character models as they can be pretty heavy, especially during the sculpting phases. Working on props and environmental models that are far lighter weight haven't been a problem yet, so I'll continue to work on creating content for the maps a little each day even while working on the text based game. So this isn't a true hiatus, just a speed bump, slowing down my progress for a while.

I'm thinking I could probably get the text game done in 1-3 months as long as nothing further goes wrong and then after that it could be a few months or more before that game manages to make me enough money to build my new system. I'm looking to make the text game in Ren'Py - and even though most of my art time will be spent on adding models for this game - I'll probably do a series of somewhat abstract hand-painted backgrounds to use in the text game, just to give it a bit of visual interest and help pull the readers into the setting. I won't be doing any character sprites or anything like that though.

Anyhow, that's it for now. Just figured I'd let those who are interested in this project know why news and such may be a bit slow for the next few months.

 

[redknight00]

I have some doubts about Ren'py for a text game, it seems like other tools might be better suited for that purpose than Ren'py, like Twine.

In any case good luck and health for both you and your computer.

 

[NandabaCanti]

@redknight00 - The problem with Twine is that you can't (easily) do standalone desktop builds. By default it exports HTML files and I generally don't like using browsers for gaming outside of very particular use cases such as demos and game jam submissions. I'm also not a fan of JavaScript and I'd probably have to write a fair bit in it if I went with Twine. Don't get me wrong though, I really enjoy Twine a lot and I'm actually using it for the initial mapping out of the scenes of the text game; I've always loved it's flow chart node based story editor.

My main approach for the look of the text game will be a full window background image with a dark semi-transparent text box overlaying the majority of it to display the story in, when the story switches to a new location the background will change to match it. Though there won't be too many unique locations, so I'll only have to do a handful of digital paintings for it.

I'm also playing around with an idea where you will be able to go to a story map screen that shows off all of your currently unlocked choices and highlighting the route to your current location in the story. You can then click on one of the nodes to go to that point in the story to either revisit a scene or chose a different route. I'll also have a main menu option to reset the map data for those who decide they want to start over fresh. There won't be too many values to keep track of, so it will be easy enough to record the values as they were when you first saw a choice and I can just save those to the persistent data and then forgo messing with save slots and crap.

Overall I'm thinking Ren'Py will be a pretty good fit for it. The system I described above should be fairly trivial to implement with a few days of coding and testing, even if I end up having to do some of it with PyGame. I started using Python over 16 years ago, so I'm not too worried about running into anything I couldn't handle on that front.

 

[215303j]

Text Demo v1.0

I played through it once, got Good Ending 3.

It's a good concept and good writing!

My suggestions:
- I'd say homeless people, especially a girl in her situation, would be a LOT more guarded. Both due to personality / upbringing as well as due to the circumstances.
- Personally if I were a homeless young woman I'd avoid some stranger's house / car / whatever like the plague, regardless of any possible rewards.
- The girl does not strike me as suicidally depressed
- There is also a risk for the MC. He doesn't know anything about the girl. Can she be trusted not to (for instance) steal some valuables and disappear during the night? Yet the MC never even considers this. He could for instance have locked her room from outside. Or have her sleep in the garden shed. This may seem a bit harsh, but it's what I would do IRL.

Compare your story to Our Fate (see link in my sig), which has basically the same premise, although there the girl is your daughter (or the daughter of your ex-girlfriend), so you have a vested interest in her. Our Fate more or less avoids the comments above and therefore feels more realistic. Also in Our Fate, the girl is actually homeless for only one or two days.

With regards to how the life of a homeless person can be, with a lot of practical tips, do's and don'ts, take a look here:

You must be registered to see the links

 

[NandabaCanti]

@Thialf - Thanks for the feedback. I don't know if you mind certain aspects of the story being spoiled or not, so I will hide my response and let you decide.

Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

EDIT: That article was pretty interesting and I think I actually came across that a while back. I actually know a few former homeless people and spent a few years in my late teens not far off from being one myself. The only reason I wasn't was that I had enough friends willing to put up with me crashing on their couches or bands willing to take me out with them on their tours to avoid straight up living on the streets. During that time I got by on a combination of donating plasma twice a week, taking on the occasional day labor jobs that pay in cash the same day, helping out at local indie clubs, and a fair bit of dumpster diving.

 

[215303j]

Thanks for the response.

I do have to say that I didn't really feel the girls desperation during my (only, so far) playthrough.

I got the feeling that she was very eager to accept any help at all. However, due to her upbringing with a crack-whore mom as well as her experiences on the street, this just seems unlikely to me.

To be honest, during my "good guy" playthrough, I got a bit bored with how easy everything went... Because of that, and out of curiousity, I picked one "bad" choice, and got ending 3... I would really like to see a bit more strife and challenges. I think it would make for more interesting as well as more realistic feeling gameplay.

Also, if the MC would show some distrust, which would in turn affect the girl, etc., this could create some interesting dynamic.

But, you have more actual experience than me, so I probably shouldn't complain about realism.

 

[Cozmos]

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

What Downhill said, "Teaching Feelings" is one of my most favorite games/VNs out there. if you manage to make "take in a stary" work, you'd be remembered for years to come, I just gotta ask(still didn't search around yet) is there any sample of the art in the game? I'm not famalir with the GoDot engine, hence the reason why I'm asking you for a sample of the art.
Either way, I hope your project work well, I'll be checking up on this one every now and then, good luck @uradamus.

Edit: I just read the posts (were invisible till I pressed the"view them" choice) , the game is still in early stage, but like I said, I have a good hunch if you pulled that in the right way it'll make a pretty loud bang in the community around here.
best of luck mate.

 

[NandabaCanti]

@Thialf - On one hand I wanted things to go pretty smoothly because what you see so far is just a quick intro to set the stage for the meat and potatoes of the game, which is your daily interactions with her if you decided to take her in. There's definitely a lot more I could have done with the intro to spice things up or add to the drama, but that really wasn't what I was going for. I mostly just wanted them to start developing a chemistry right from the start so I could focus things on revealing a tiny bit of their backgrounds and making the decision regarding which of the 3 main routes you want to get into with her.

Once I've got you onto a path and they start dealing with the realities of living together, then I could start putting more effort into making things more dynamic with their relationship. Bring in some potential temporary strife that you'll have to work through to smooth things out from time to time. The intro is largely in part a first draft still though. I may tweak and alter things a bit when the time comes to start working it into the actual game, so I'll keep your feedback in mind when the time comes.

@Cozmos - As I mentioned in the

You must be registered to see the links

update, none of the assets have reached a finished state just yet. There are a fair few that are pretty much done on the initial modeling phase, but they still need to be UV unwrapped and given a material and textures. So they are all still in that generic gray no material state that isn't very appealing to really anyone besides other 3D artists, except as part of a sequence of images showing the progression of a model from start to finish. As such I don't really want to publicly share screenshots of unfinished models at this point. I'd rather wait and wow people with compelling finished work.

Also, I'd imagine you are most interested in the girl, but because I keep losing so much of my progress while working on her, she is basically on hold for now until I can replace my system. Which is why this project is taking a bit of a backseat atm. I'm still working on props and such for the maps, but at this point I've lost around 8 hours worth of work on the female model from my system rebooting before Blender can finish saving her file. If it wasn't for that I was going to start getting some of the models done with textures and such as I mentioned in that update, but now I'm in full on design doc development mode for my short term text-based game project that I'm hoping will make enough to replace my system by the end of the year so I can get back to this game full time.

One good thing that's come of all of this is that I never put much effort into texture work previously, but I'll be doing several digital background paintings for the text game. When I was a kid I used to draw like crazy and in my teens and early 20s I was into graffiti and tattoo design for several years there, but once I got a computer and got into 3D modeling I kinda gave up on 2D for the most part. I'd still sketch from time to time, but mostly just to brainstorm ideas and create refs for my 3D modeling. So spending a few months doing a bunch of digital paintings ought to get me back up to speed on my 2D skills and lead to far better texture painting results when I start focusing on those for this project.

 

[Cozmos]

Spoiler: Spoiler

You don't have permission to view the spoiler content. Log in or register now.

Thanks for the reply mate, and yeah, the girl's looks/persona will play an important role in the likeness and over all good rating of the game.
Like I said, I'll keep an eye on this, and good luck on the days ahead.

 

[215303j]

Thanks

You must be registered to see the links

That makes sense. Looking forward to playing this game!

 

[NandabaCanti]

So today I may have finally discovered the problem with my system. After yet another reboot while painting in Krita, I decided to shut things down and tear into my system again, this time probing around the motherboard to see if anything felt off, temp wise, since the CPU and GPU seemed fine, and it turns out the north bridge is running way too hot. It has a cheap and kinda useless stock heatsink, so I ordered a new copper one, as well as a fan to go with it, to replace it. With any luck this could mean I can finally work properly again later this week! Not holding my breath though, but it would be nice to be able to get back into sculpting and painting at a serious level without my system rebooting several times a day and losing me countless hours of work.

As to what that means for my projects - now that I've gotten this deep in to my text game project, The Ever-Setting Sun, I plan to stay the course and finish that first. That has grown a ton in scope from my initial plans, so it's taking a fair bit more time than I was originally planning, but I feel fairly confident that I can get that done by some time in October, assuming I can actually get some background paintings done without system reboots. Though if I can start using Blender again on my bigger tasks for Taking in a Stray, namely the character models, I'll be working on those on the side as well a bit each day as I really want to get back into asset development for that.

 

[NandabaCanti]

End of Year Update

It's been a while since I've posted any news here, so figure with the year quickly drawing to a close now is as good a time as any.

That northbridge heatsink I picked up couldn't be mounted to the motherboard I was using at the time, but it was a good fit for one of my older boards, so I gave it a try on that and it did improve things a lot, but didn't get rid of all of my rebooting issues, it just made them a bit less frequent. I think my mobos are just too old and budget grade to stand up to the kinds of work I need them to do. It seems higher end AM3/AM3+ boards are getting to be in ever shorter supply, it's almost impossible to find them new and the used market wants more than I think they are worth. So now I'm looking at just gutting out my system and replacing the mobo/CPU/RAM as soon as I can and just sticking with my old 750ti for the time being until I can afford to replace that as well. But even just getting those 3 parts, is going to probably run me around $300 or so, and it may be a while before I can pull those funds together.

With the recent release of the first Blender 2.8 beta. I started to give that a more serious try and it turns out my computer doesn't like PBR materials in Eevee any more than it does in Cycles. So that is a total bust. I'm going to have to stick with 2.79 and Blender Internal until I can rebuild my system. I really don't want to compromise the style I have in mind for Taking in a Stray, so that will have to continue to remain on hold for now until I have a system where I can work on the art the way I want it to be.

I've also run into snags with Krita. If I try to paint on a 1080p sized canvas, quick brush strokes can also often crash my system. This is probably down to Krita using hardware acceleration, but when I turn those features off, the response time of the strokes gets too slow to be tolerable at that size. So that has thrown a monkey wrench into my plans for my text based game as well. I either have to paint much smaller backgrounds or just push forward with it without art. I don't want to do it without the painted backgrounds, so that leaves me with smaller images or putting that on hold as well. Part of me is considering the possibility of doing the background paintings rather small, like 360x640, since those dimensions can be doubled to get 720p and tripled to get 1080p, so it would scale up rather nicely. But it would probably look pretty bad on anything larger than those, and still even not that great on them either. This is pushing me more towards the direction of putting that on hold as well.

So, that has led me to experimenting with different ideas to see if I could find some game ideas I can actually pull off with my current garbage system. So far two have come to mind that I'd like to pursue. One is a pretty simple picture puzzle game. You'd have a grid of square tiles that get jumbled and rotated around and you have to put them back into their proper order/orientation to win. You'd click on two tiles to swap their positions and the other mouse button would be used to rotate a tile. I plan to allow the player to import their own images, set the grid dimensions and even allow for cropping of the image to the bit they want in the puzzle. I may also work out an import module for converting animated gifs and apngs to sprite sheets so you can use looping animated images for the puzzles as well. There will also be a fair bit of animated bits to how the tiles move around and different options for customizing the background and such.

The other game I've been playing around with some plans for the past few days would be a first person 3D game where you explore a small town, discover some girls living there and try to get to know them and get a relationship going with them. I want to keep things simple, so I will do everything pretty low poly and the textures also a bit on the lower res side and probably entirely hand-painted, including custom light maps for different times of day. That way I can use shadeless materials and reasonable texture sizes I know my system wont crash from working on. I'm also playing around with the idea of doing all of the characters for the town as somewhat chibi-style 2D spites placed on billboard tiles (basically a simple plane object that always rotates to face the camera, with a bit of coding magic to decide which sprites to display based on a separate "direction facing" property the game would keep track of for each character in view). That would give it a nice retro sort of look and feel. I'm not set in stone on that last bit yet, but I am favoring it pretty heavily at this point. I'm not sure how I want to go about doing the action scenes for it yet though, as I said this is something I just started to plan over the past 2 days or so.

So that's basically where I'm at now. I've been messing around in Godot a fair bit recently working out the various mechanics for that puzzle game and when I'm in the mood to work on art, I've been starting to design that town for the other game. I already basically have the whole layout of the town planned and got some rough starter models going in Blender for it, I might be able to get the exterior models all done for it within a few weeks, but it will take a fair bit more time to get the texture work done for them and I'd still have to do the various interior scenes, and those character sprites. It will probably be at least a few months before I have something worth putting out for that game. If I'm lucky and things go pretty smoothly with the puzzle game, I should have a working prototype of that (without the animated sprite support at first) within a few weeks.

 

[Alcareru]

It sounds like a good game plan. Though I'll still be looking forward to it, whenever it gets going again.

 

[Downhilldown]

oh snap....man