Dev Report - Celebrity Flair

So this week I fixed hundreds of minor bugs to get the game script running towards a demo cut off.

I still have a few pieces to add to the engine in order to complete the porting process but it is essentially done.

I was always aware that the game had a lot of dead choices but the past year has really allowed me to corral them all together and look at them en masse for the first time.

I flagged several areas that will probably be altered to remove a pointless dead choice. 

The remaining dead paths within the Transfigure story have essentially four types:

• Branch - a path that leads towards a different route, either with a new character or with a unique story within that character’s arc. This is what the bulk of the Transfigure story is made of and known for.

• Cosmetic - these choices change a scene’s appearance and some flavor text but not the route. Choosing all of these options are necessary to unlock all of the game’s artwork and erotic scenes.

• Redirect - these choices bypass a route and the toss the player into a different section of the game. For example, if you turn down male advances, you may be thrown into a section of the game with more female interaction.

• Uncounted quick dead ends - Essentially a game over that doesn’t rise to the level of a tracked ending. These are quite rare. Many of them involve the player being killed or defeated.

On the art front I have finalized the model for Miss Cho. I am very happy with this one! I also tested some tools to fix the clothing of characters with large chests like Sam and Cho so that expands their potential wardrobe a fair bit.

The storyboard and a fair bit of written content is done for this area. I might release some of it for the visual novel and html game at the same time just to show some comparisons.

For the celebrity sections, getting high quality models has been a bit difficult. This is probably the only area art wise that I have a bit less freedom vs the html game. There are various celebrity personality rights that I have to respect. However most artistic outlets have inspirations and that includes many popular franchises that use celebrity influences or inspirations to create the characters. Meaning, lots of series have characters based on real life references without directly crediting the original source. A character that looks a bit like Natalie Portman obviously isn’t Natalie Portman or endorsed by the real actress. Natalie does not own the visual rights to all cute brunette girls. The character in my game is Natalie Prynn and she might be renamed to Natalia Prynn just to make her extra distinct. Basically I have to be careful about how closely the models and names line up. This is where various quirks and imperfections of the models help by making them distinct. No matter how good of an artist I am, I could never do a perfect recreation. At best you have a celebrity inspired character with its own story. This leads me into another of the changes that I am making to the commercial version of the game.

A lot of you may know, I am strongly against censorship. I’d rather eat dog food for a year than censor my game. That said, there are going to be some very minor rewrites. I’ve already done a few of them for the Ren’Py version. I’ve come to the realization after listening to other experienced developers like Tim Cain that there are parts of the story that should be rewritten (mainly a few minor jokes and references that almost no one will notice), not for any arbitrary censorship reason but because certain jokes and references date the game and exclude portions of the audience. I don’t care about offending people as long as it is incidental. Not everyone will enjoy every path equally or find the humor funny but I want to avoid confusing the audience, especially those in the future that may want to enjoy the game. I hope Transfigure has enough worthy scenes that players will want to replay scenes for years to come.

So certain character references are going to be renamed or changed slightly to make them more distinct from some of their original inspirations. Basically the idea is that those familiar with some of the references will recognize them but those who have no idea who a reference is should still be able to understand and get the gist of the joke, appreciate the model’s aesthetics, and enjoy the story. Historical references will stay but more specific parody and inspiration characters are getting an editing pass. 

I underestimated the time it would take to implement the decision tracking feature so I am chipping away at that here and there. It is about half implemented in the post demo scripts. Porting is ~95%+ complete.

On the sound front, I have edited and narrowed down some of the playlists and the songs within. I am pretty pleased with the variety and quality. For voice work, I have selected a few more core voices and replaced a couple in the later roster I felt were weak. I am doing my best to keep everything consistent and as high quality as possible but it is a difficult task without much experience in this area and a large number of characters to track. Tech is also changing quickly so I am constantly tempted to upgrade.

I have some things in the works for the other missing sound effects including licensing additional assets and sorting through a new free adult sound sharing project. It looks pretty good so far! I think I have the sound issues well in hand. It is really satisfying putting all the pieces together after so many years of work.

The most common question I’ve received lately is: when is a release coming? The answer is: I don’t know. I’m trying to coordinate everything to come out at once for maximum effect. I was doing everything I could to do that this month but my medical issues last month put back one of the consultations I need to set up some of the financial aspects of the new corporation I am setting up for the Steam release of Transfigure. In the meantime, I’ve kept growing the game but that doesn’t help me launch a page or a demo so that’s my current focus. Currently it is looking like December but I’ve read of Steam build approval delays and that kind of thing so I’m not sure when it will be published although it is my intention to release as soon as possible and then keep going from then on.

Renders: Cho from the celebrity spy missions. I also included a shot of the latest Nat Prynn model.

Thank you in advance for any feedback!