Meet Hikari - The Scientist

For this bonus post, I'd like to introduce Hikari, the scientist in charge of the portal experiments!

Hikari is a serious woman who takes her job very seriously. She's dedicated her life to the potential exploration of other dimensions. She was a child prodigy who graduated from college at just 13, and got a doctorate by the time she was just 17. Hikari was able to secure funding for her research almost immediately and has spent more than 15 years working towards creating a stable portal to another dimension. Now the time has finally come for a human test, she just needs a willing guinea pig...

Hikari is the one who will start the Lab storyline, and is the person you'll be reporting to. Because she plays such a big part in the game, I made three different facial expressions for her. First is the one above, which is her "smile" expression.

Then this is her resting face. This is actually how she'll look most of the time.

And lastly, this is her happy expression. It will mostly just be used for when you complete an objective. Which I'll talk a little bit about further down. First, I'll talk about the design process and inspiration.

Inspiration -

If you've seen Evangelion, the inspiration is probably obvious. The main inspiration here was Ritsuko Akagi. I was considering naming her Ritsuko, but I took a lot of different elements from Ritsuko's design and didn't want to directly put the comparison there. Then I had considered naming her Flare, because in the original version of Waifu Wonderland, the scientist CG was from a character named Flare Valens. But Flare doesn't really make much sense with the design. So I went with Hikari, because in Japanese, you can use the kanji for principle/logic/reason as part of the spelling of the name, and I thought that was appropriate. Then you can use another kanji that means radiance/shine/brilliance as the other part. I thought it was all very fitting.

As for the design, I kept Ritsuko's overall color scheme. The short dirty blonde hair, blue top, and then black skirt. I did make a number of changes though. For one, I made her hair a bit flatter and more like a bob cut rather than the more wild style that Ritsuko has. I thought a more kempt look made more sense for Hikari's personality. Then I gave her an open top instead of a zip-up turtleneck for two reasons. First, boobs. Second, Hikari is a perfectionist who excels at everything she does. She would want to come off as attractive, and so she puts effort into her appearance by wearing more fashionable clothes than your average scientist. Then there's the longer skirt with the belt. It just didn't make sense for her to be wearing a super short skirt, but I also didn't want to give her pants, so I gave her a longer skirt. There's also not many characters with longer skirts like this right now. Then I gave her the stockings and lace bra to bring the look together. Since the bra is exposed, it should be ornate. I had tried not having stockings at first, but the design looks a little unbalanced that way, so I added them in afterall.

On top of all of that, I gave her sharper eyes to help illustrate how serious of a character she is. She's not just some random woman for you to try and sleep with, she's an extremely smart, successful, and driven woman, so I wanted her to look a little intimidating. And finally, as a weird note, I gave her the little mark on her boob as a reference to the pose reference I used for her.

Lastly, I had originally wanted to give her a lab coat to make her look like a "scientist", but decided not to. For a few reasons. For one, a lab coat is going to cover a lot, and being an adult game, I want characters to be as attractive as possible. Hikari especially is extremely difficult to unlock and you're going to be seeing her a lot. I didn't want to mostly cover her up and take away from any attractiveness. Another reason is because she's not going to be in a lab doing testing on chemicals or anything, and that's really the only time you need a lab coat. As someone who has worked in a lab, lab coats are pretty uncomfortable, and you never want to wear one outside of the area you work in anyway. Since if you do, you could cause serious cross contamination. So having her wear a lab coat all of the time just doesn't make any sense. Then lastly, I decided against it because lab coats, and all long coats really, are very detailed. You have to worry about folds compounding from different directions and it takes a lot of time to do. With the other reasons, it just didn't feel worth it to spend the time.

How to Unlock Hikari -

Alright, since this is a bonus post for patrons only, it's time to talk spoilers and tips. If you don't want any spoilers, you can skip to the end. It'll be clearly labeled, No More Spoilers.

Alright, so to unlock Hikari, you have to complete the first part of the lab storyline. You'll have to beat Almiranda, Freya, Skadi, Hitomi, and then the final unannounced character. I honestly haven't decided on which idea to go with yet. I'll probably end up going with cat girl because that's the safest, but we'll see. Anyway, you'll have to go fight each one of these girls and win before Hikari will let you into seduction mode. These women are all meant to be difficult. I hid Almiranda in one of the houses in the neighborhood, and you can go try to seduce her if you want to see how hard they're going to be. Almiranda is the very first one you go up against and is the easiest. You'll need to level up a bit and learn a few skills to beat them all, as they're going to have different weaknesses that you'll need to exploit. Then even after all of that, Hikari is going to be even harder. She'll be on par with Seika in terms of difficulty.

Since not all of the lab characters are in the game yet, you wont be able to seduce Hikari until they are.

Tips -

Like mentioned above, the lab characters are all going to have different weaknesses. Almiranda is weak to a basic compliment. Which is the first skill you get, aside from Run Away. If you look at the elemental symbols on the different skills, that will give you a clue as to what Freya and Skadi's weaknesses are. Freya is fire, so she'll be weak to the one with ice, Skadi is ice so she'll be weak to the one with fire. Hitomi and the last one will be a little trickier, but hopefully that helps get you started.

There's only going to be one lab character in each of the major areas. One in the neighborhood, one in the commercial district, one at the university, and one at the apartments. The ones in the neighborhood and apartments will be inside, so you'll have to explore until you find them. I haven't decided where the last one will go. It's going to depend on which design I go with and what makes sense for them.

Scenes Are Optional -

Since the lab storyline features sort of light monster girls, the actual scenes will be optional. with the only exception being Almiranda, to setup how it's optional. She's basically a human in a costume from a design perspective anyway, so I don't see it as a big deal.

When you start the storyline, you'll be given an item that lets you suck up each of the girls into a canister (may or may not be inspired by the Fenton Thermos lol). The lab girls will play out like this. You have to find them, seduce them so that they get super turned on and lose focus, and then you'll be able to either sleep with them and then suck them up into the canister, or you can just suck them up into the canister and send them back to their own dimension. If you sleep with them, you'll have the option to keep them instead of sending them back. This way you can redo their scene. And this also sets up the potential for them to get new scenes later one if a character ends up being popular enough. But if someone just has no interest in one of them, like if Hitomi is too monster girl for them or they don't like one of the characters, they can just get rid of them.

If you keep a girl instead of sending them back, they'll then appear in your apartment. Everyone except Almiranda. She's being kept at the lab for study. If you want to repeat her scene, you can go to the lab. Anyway, you'll need the apartment to replay the scenes, but they'll all be so difficult that you should already have the apartment before you can beat them anyway. Unless you kind of go out of your way to avoid getting it for some reason. I had originally wanted to make players have a house, so that they could stay hidden in the basement or something similar. If the game gets to the house tier, they'll all be moved there instead.

In the storyline, you'll be getting paid for each portal you close and monster girl you send back to their own dimension. If you send them back, you get the full amount because Hikari is able to confirm successful transmission of them back into their own reality. If you don't, you don't get as much money, because she can't confirm they were correctly sent. Just that the portal closed. So you'll get a big bonus amount of cash if you send them back, but then you'll never be able to unlock their scene. If you keep them all, I'll also be including a little bonus scene where they're all hanging around your apartment. No H scene or anything like that, just something with them interacting with each other. I'll likely add in a big stat buff too, something important like more stamina.

As a final note, you're kind of locked into the Lab story when you first start. Because of how it unfolds, it wouldn't make any sense for you to be able to just leave and wander around for a bit. It's pretty lengthy, but isn't too crazy. When I did a quick run through, it took me about 10 minutes. So a normal player who is fully reading will probably take around 20-30min or so. In that is Almiranda's scene. Which is unmissable. Since you can't leave to go train, I made it so you can lose against her, and the story will still progress. You will get a stat bonus for beating her, and of course the exp for winning in seduction mode. So if you go in more prepared, you'll be rewarded. I also throw a lot of money at you for sitting through the opening. You get paid for signing up to be a volunteer, for the initial experiment you do, and then for dealing with Almiranda. You also get a stat bonus to every stat and some bonus exp before you have to deal with Almiranda. I wanted to be sure there was a lot of incentive to at least do the opening.

Pregnancy Chances -

One last little spoilery kind of thing. Each woman has a different chance of getting pregnant and give different rewards. So I thought I'd say what they were. I also put what tier they are, because it's important when explaining why they pay as much as they do.
Tier 1 - Starting Tier
Aoyagi - 100% Chance - $50
Sakura - 30% Chance - $120
Random Schoolgirl - 50% Chance - $100
Alicia - 10% Chance - $140
Madison - 40% Chance - $210

Tier 2 - Apartment Tier
Random Skank - 10% Chance - $280
Random Cheerleader - 70% Chance - $260

There's only round chances of impregnation from because it just makes it easier for me to both program and calculate how much to pay for each.

If you're wondering how I came up with these numbers, I have a specific formula for how much to pay. I do a base of $50, and then add $10 for every -10% pregnancy chance. Then I add an extra $50 for if there's extra conditions to unlock the scene, or if they're a less popular character. Like with the Random Cheerleader, she wont spawn every day, so she gets the modifier. And Madison gets two, because you have to do her BJ scene 2 times before you can get her sex scene, and because dark skinned girls are almost always unpopular. Then I double it for anyone who needs the apartment unlocked to seduce. Which is why Aoyagi pays the base rate. She's in the first area and has a 100% chance of being impregnated. But since the Random Skank has a 10% chance, that was a -90%. So I added $90, bringing her to $140. Then doubled it because she's in the apartments, for $280. If we get to the house tier, I'll then triple it for anyone you need the house to seduce.

As for the chance of impregnation, that one is less of a science. I just do what I think feels right for the character/scene. The Random Skank has you pull out, so I made it as low as possible. Sakura lets you cum inside, but she's a little older, so it made sense for it to be less of a chance. Then Alicia I put as the lowest, because it makes sense for her to be on birth control. But you still do it raw, so it made sense for there to still be a chance.

No More Spoilers -

Finally I wanted to talk about a potential release for v0.2. I had really wanted it to release this weekend, but it's not going to be done in time. I've got the opening to the lab storyline finished, the intro for the rare women and the framework for spawning rare women implemented, Aoyagi fully implemented with pregnancy, Goth Seika fully implemented, Almiranda's repeatable scene put in, pregnancy for Sakura and the static Random Skank implemented, I made it so you can now enter every apartment in the apartment complex's first building, I've started on Shizuka's/the Pregnancy storyline, and started implementing the other lab women and setting up their repeatable scenes. This was roughly half of what I needed to do to implement everything for v0.2. Which will take another week or so.

Here's exactly what I still need to finish -

Programming stuff -
Finish Implementing Shizuka's Storyline
Implementing Pregnancy for the Random Cheerleader, Random Schoolgirl, Alicia, and Madison
Scenes for Freya, Skadi, and Hitomi
New scenes for Ayako, Kaori, and Shiori for unlocking the apartment
Random Schoolgirl/Cheerleader

Art -
Alicia Pregnancy variation
Madison's new scene
Kaori's new scene
Shiori's new scene
Hikari, Shizuka, Freya, Skadi, Hitomi, Aoyagi, and lab guard sprites
Rare women sprite (just going to be a generic sprite to save time, it'll make sense in game)

That probably seems like a lot, but most of this is written and planned out already and just needs to be put into the game. Which isn't that time consuming. The real time-heavy stuff is the new scene artwork. Each one of those takes at least a day, sometimes two. For everything else, I should be able to do at least 2-3+ things a day. If I'm super efficient and everything goes perfectly, it should take about 8 working days to get done. Some stuff may go faster or slower though. And unfortunately, I'm going to have surgery in a couple of days. I'm just getting my wisdom teeth out, but I don't know how long it will be before I can get back to work. They say I need to rest for at least 24-48 hours. So I'm hoping to get back to work Monday. We'll see what happens though.

I'm also considering pushing the new scenes for Ayako, Kaori, and Shiori to the next update. I decided to implement impregnation for Kaori with her new scene, and also her unlock for if you didn't choose her at the start of the game. I'm just not sure how long it will take to implement. Since she's a starter, her programming side is a lot more complicated than most characters. I'm not sure how long it will take to implement both her normal unlock and pregnancy. Then I don't want to implement new scenes for the starters unless I'm able to implement a scene for all three in the same update. I want to make sure everyone gets a new scene, no matter which starter they chose. Since I have to make 2 new pieces of artwork, that's a minimum of 2 days for that alone, then at least part of a 3rd. So I'm going to be doing that last. If it hits next Friday and everything else is done but their scenes, I'll release v0.2 without them. Speaking of which...

At the very least, v0.2 WILL be releasing into early access in September! I'm shooting for Sept 6th, but it will most likely be Sept 13th. Then it's mostly the final stretch until the game is "done" and can launch on Steam! There's only two more storylines that I plan on implementing, and they're going to be fairly short, so it's mostly just going to be finishing up existing storylines and completely filling out the world. I'll go into more detail on that in the monthly update when I plan on detailing how I'm planning development moving forward.

Anyway, that's all for now! I'll still be releasing a preview build on Friday for Waifu Early Access supporters. It's going to be an unfinished "as is" build, so please don't share it, and be sure to make a separate save once you start so you don't accidentally lose all of your progress! I'll be back next week once I've recovered. Until then, I hope you look forward to v0.2!