Long Development Log and Roadmap Post

Hello everyone! 

So the last month sucked really badly. It involved multiple hospitals, a lot of strong drugs, and me redefining my pain scale. It was pretty bad and I’ve been stressing about updates for the past few weeks. I have now healed enough where I don’t need the drugs with the worst side effects and I can physically use my primary workstation again. I am also finally clear headed and can think and move which is awesome. The summer is now a good chunk over and I have a lot of catching up to do!

Although my medical issues this past month caused me grief, I still had a lot of time to think and get some work done. Like many of you, I am disappointed in the amount of updates lately. It feels like I do a lot every month but it’s not enough. I hate that excuses have piled up. I am doing what I always wanted to do: creating adult games with a story focus… but I am not doing it as well as I could, especially in the communication department.

I am very thankful to all of you who have allowed me the privilege to experiment and learn enough to share my vision of not just Transfigure but other stories as well. Tango Fiction hasn’t been financially successful (yet) but it is quite fulfilling in other ways.

The past couple years I have done less crunch focusing on updates and more on development itself along with creative writing on the side.

I usually do not talk much about side projects because they are essentially just concepts (or distractions I guess, depending on how you look at it) until Transfigure is finished but many of these have flourished over time. They have morphed into a solid backlog of VN, game, and comic concepts. What has crazy Tango written the past few years? A lot of stuff that no one has ever seen!

After I finish Transfigure I will be able to take the same rough systems and reapply them to my other ideas that best fit a visual novel style. Most of the ideas are much smaller in scope, so they are in theory much easier projects to complete and implement. I have quite a few of these, and I am trying to set them up so that they are diverse and punchy to eventually offer a catalog of different VNs at various price points on Steam. I hope I get the opportunity to finish these potential projects one day!

In order for that to be possible, I need to finish what I started originally. I also want to put my best effort and make a full service visual novel, even if it takes a bit longer. I define a full service VN as one that has a large branching story with good art, voice acting of all important characters, and essential features like a gallery, scene recall tracker etc. 

The game text has been mostly scripted into Ren’Py. I’d estimate I am over 80% done. This is just one of the many time consuming things that must be done for the game to function. Getting these tasks done early is important so I can focus on writing and graphical work that is now the majority of what now needs to be finished.

Since I have been back in the realm of the living, I am almost done with the Zen Master section.  This means I still need to produce graphics and all the presentation work but I know exactly what I need to make and how.

Working on my laptop recently, I was able to do some organizational prep work for the graphics and sound side of things. This has taken hundreds of hours over the past two years to organize and get together but I don’t mind wearing an artist or musician cap on occasion especially if it makes this final production phase as efficient as possible. 

I am trying to winnow down and organize all the sound files I have amassed. Transfigure’s music track has about 100 songs (rough number) at the moment. I am cutting and editing some of the tracks and making them into appropriate playlists for different moods, characters, and situations. This is another example of the synergies I mentioned, where organizing the tracks has led me to sort them into potential future projects. So many project ideas now have a very solid concept stage with story and potential art and sound assets.

I am held up by editing a lot lately but it seems I spend a bunch of hours a month editing and coding (which is very similar to editing in a way). I am probably getting a bit burned out there but the task is nearly complete and it has helped me build out many assets for the game. I am also confident that the 3D version will be the most readable version with many exclusive edits, lines, and slight modifications.

I have also trimmed some redundant paths from Transfigure’s html game. A lot of the routes are designed to flow to a specific path while still offering players an out to an alternative story or another section of the game if they find the content is not to their taste. I realized a lot of these choices are probably not necessary since they are essentially the player repeatedly answering the same question (albeit with more information about the route’s content). Having all the alternate paths link up and make sense is more writing busywork that I don’t want to just gloss over with a sentence or two and throw the player into another random area without cues to its outcome. I want to respect player choice while also telegraphing enough they can infer a likely direction of a scenario all while not spoiling anything and preserving the possibility of surprise. That’s a delicate if not impossible balance!

This has also led me to consider cutting a couple scenes from the 3D game that exist in the html. The main one that pops to mind is the protest scene. A decent percentage of the game’s total complaints are because of that scene alone. When I was scripting it out and thinking about making all these hard to make assets for it is definitely on the chopping block. It is controversial, it will take days to make, and it probably doesn’t add anything significant to the game aside from a skippable comedy scene.

To finish the Transfigure 3D demo I need to shoot a couple scenes with Sam and Rhea and finish a couple minor details in the code, closing some menu loops and that sort of thing. I also saw a cute redhead model posted recently that I thought looked really good and gave me a kind of Sam-vibe. That is when it became clear that Sam and Rhea’s models may need an update. And now is probably the last / best opportunity to do it. So, like many things in the game, I redid it. Because I have more / better assets and more knowledge I can make art that looks better than a lot of things I started with. Of course I can continually update things forever and a line must be drawn, but I don’t want Sam’s model to be one of the models that brings the average down. 

I don’t mind the original model but I wanted to try again so I made a new Sam with more up to date tech. I am letting patrons vote in a follow up post on which model they would prefer. 

To summarize all the work done to date here is a brief log.

Current status of the Transfigure 3D project:

-Approximately 80% of text content has been added, edited and scripted in Ren’Py.

-About half of the game’s existing ~40 endings are in the game.

-Final (or near final) assets exist for most of the important main characters like Taylor, Drew, Evan, Mitch, Deter as well as dozens of other less important characters like one-offs on various endings.

-Models that have not been finalized exist for most of the game’s characters including a large amount of minor and secondary characters like police officers, a gym trainer, secretaries etc

-Voices and styles have been chosen for all the demo characters as well as others in the later game such as Peeshi. Some old voices have been altered and updated (I changed Deter’s voice recently for example).

-Basic UI options, voice control, and quality of life features like ending, scene, and a gallery tracker have been implemented.

-Music and SFX system has been greatly expanded and updated (primarily outside of the demo). The game will probably have 50-100 music tracks and several hundred sound effects meant to properly match characters and various actions and situations.

-Approximately 1000 CG assets have been produced for the game, about half exist in the demo. The complete game will probably have at least 10,000 but likely double this number.

-R and D continues for a couple of non critical code additions.

The to-do list for the demo:

I want to finish the solo party scenes (the ones directed towards Rhea and Sam, not Evan)  but for that I need a final Sam model so I need to decide between the new and the older model. I am also touching up Rhea a bit too. 

There is a bit of minor code cleanup to do. I also want to change Tim’s model. 

(Side note: I tried several times to make a better Tim but I just inadvertently expanded the cast that can appear on the Celebrity Candy route.) 

The final thing I want to improve a bit is the game’s general presentation where it looks a bit too similar to most of the low effort Ren’Py games that people make. One of the most obvious things is changing the font. I tried a few different ones but I’m not sure what style to go with. If anyone has a suggestion let me know!

And that’s it. The demo is far from perfect but it almost has everything I want in it. I could redo many of the backgrounds and tinker endlessly but I have opted for a light blur effect and focus on more important priorities. I have now built well beyond the scope of the demo and I intend to put in the effort to finish the game as quickly as possible.

The Development Roadmap for the next half of the year:

Completely finish porting the html text to the Ren’Py Engine including all existing endings.

Complete and release the 3D demo (first with a private patron release followed by a public one).

Release the MIA .61 html update as a companion to the demo release.

Release Discount Wishes with a couple minor panel fixes to the public.

Restart proper monthly updates and posts at least twice a month.

Create and approve the final character models and assets.

Finalize and approve the game’s final soundtrack. 

Acquire missing SFX and voice actors.

Complete writing and editing the connection scenes between various sections of inaccessible complete content. This will unlock another 20-30 ends for both versions of the game.

Complete renders for most of the primary routes, prioritizing those from previous poll winners as well as those with a large amount of the assets already finished.

Release more dev logs, game updates, renders, and promotional artwork.

Once the game is more comprehensively filled in, I will take feedback into account and make updates where necessary. I will do an assessment and then focus on the identified areas to complete the project.

Complete all 100+ endings for Transfigure. 

The final polish stage will involve completing bypass routes and a lot of the choices that were lower priority or refused to enter main content areas. This time will be used to make sure there are no more dead ends, no bugs, minimal or no typos. And minimal or no graphical errors. 

Once everything is in I will survey you all what you think the game is worth and launch with an appropriate value oriented price.

This is a lot of work but I have already done so much over the years that I’m certain it will get done. I’ve already written all of the important endings for Transfigure and it has genuinely interesting stories that will lead to some very expected (and unexpected!) conclusions. 

More words and pictures coming soon!

<3 Tango.