Road to v0.1 - Update 1

With this week being the last week for art posts until v0.1 has been finished, I decided to start making weekly updates on what I've added into the game instead. I didn't want to just disappear for a week or two and have anyone unsure if I was still working or not. Plus, I thought it'd be fun to talk about the game a bit.

This week, I focused a lot on formatting and implementing the collectables. Since the game was originally in 4:3 instead of 16:9, a ton of text just doesn't fit right. So I've had to go back and change the length of lines to compensate.

Here's what I mean. This is an example of what it looked like before.

 And this is it now.

It's not especially difficult to change, but it is time consuming. While I've been reformatting I've also been rewriting scenes as needed to better fit with the new CG. This process will be ongoing until I finish everything and v0.1 is ready for release.

Collectables

I primarily focused on getting the collectables implemented though. I thought it wouldn't take too long, and I was horribly wrong. To get them setup, first I needed to make the NPC you get the "quest" from and make a dialogue to set everything up.
Then I had to create an an area for all of the collectables to be displayed as you collect them. I'm using a plugin to properly position all of the CG in game, because there were issues getting the seduction mode CG to be positioned correctly just using RPG Maker. But that plugin messes with everything's position. It's not a big deal for anything that's the full size of the screen, like scene CG. And I had it setup for all of the character CG to be in the right position already. But all of the collectables are different sizes. So first, I thought I'd just resize all of the collectables and then just extend the background to make them full screen. I already had to resize to be the right height, so I didn't think it would be much more work. For some art style consistency, I also added the same kind of texture overlay I use for the rest of the CG. I tried that with the first set, and it came out like this.

Which was a little weird, but mostly fine. But then I got to the next set, and the guy was cutoff on the side. Using LMSketch lines are already a little weird sometimes, because they are just sketches most of the time. So there's unfinished guys and rough details a lot of the time. It still works fine, but having that and also having the artwork suddenly cut in the middle was just too much. It really took away from the piece. So I had to start custom positioning each of the sets. Trying a position, testing the game to check what it looks like, over and over until it looked okay. Which took some time. Luckily, there were only 5 sets, so I only had to do it 5 times. Here's what one of the sets ended up looking like.

 Much better for sure. It looks more like an art piece when it's in the original dimensions like this. I may go back and redo Annie's set, but not right now. This whole process is taking significantly longer than I expected, and it's not that big of a deal.

You also may notice the tag. These are just pieces of artwork you can find, so there's no scene or anything. It just shows the artwork, what set it's from, the number, and then the color variation inspiration. Here's an example using the "Bubbles" color inspiration.

 When I made coloring sets, I always liked to do the PPG colors, because the color combinations work extremely well, and making them usually meant I'd have everything I needed for most color variations. So the "Bubbles" one just means blonde hair and blue clothes.

Since I'm not the only artist on these, and there potentially may be guest artists later on, I also made sure to include the artist credits.

 I asked for permission years ago from LMSketch to be able to color and share their work, so I feel okay using these colorings, but still wanted to be sure to give credit. Hopefully if people like the work, they can go and support them as well. I was going to include a link to their Patreon in-game, but I couldn't figure out how to get it to work without automatically opening every time. Which would be super annoying. Instead I'll be including a folder in the game with a link to any artist's work that gets used.

Once the quest and gallery were setup, I had to start actually placing the collectables. Some are completely hidden without any kind of sprite to show where they're at, and others have this little shiny sprite.

 I was considering having the money you earn from each scale with your tier, which is determined by what house you've bought. But decided to just make it a flat rate. There's going to be 5 tiers in the game, and having to make 5 variations now would just make for a lot of work later. Since I can guess what the balancing will be like later on in the game, but wont really know. Balancing like that requires a lot of playtesting, and I haven't even fully implemented tier 1 or 2, let alone tier 5. So I just made it a flat $20 each. I may increase the amount you get for finding the ones that appear in later areas you can only unlock with higher tiers, but for now, each one is worth $20, because that works well for the current balancing.

There's currently 59 in the game. If you find all of them, that''s $1,180. The apartment costs $1,000, so it's basically enough for that and then a little bit more. If you want to get everything in v0.1, you'll still need to work though. So if someone makes a guide on where all of them are, it will make it easier to unlock the apartment, but wont completely break the game.

Sandy/Ivy

Another big thing I started working on this week was the hooker system. I was able to get Sandy and Valentine done, but still need to implement Ivy. That's really just going through and replacing the CG though. Which can be pretty time consuming. Since I have to go in line by line and change the art for every line of dialogue that the girl has for 3 scenes. I also implemented a system so that the exp for buying hookers scales with your tier. Basically, for each tier you go up, each scene's cost and the exp you get is multiplied by your tier. At tier 1, an HJ is $10 and gives 5 exp, but once you unlock the apartment it goes up to $20 and 10 exp. Tier 3 is 30 and 15 and so on. This is mainly so that the exp somewhat keeps up and hopefully never becomes completely useless. The lower scenes will become less effective the more you level, but that's intentional. I have the system in the game for if people end up with a lot of money and don't want to grind seduction mode, but never want it to be broken or the most effective thing to do. It's just meant to be the lazy way to level.

Here's a screenshot of Valentine's HJ scene to better show what scenes will look like in-game.

Since the base scene CG I've shared so far doesn't have backgrounds, it can be a little different than how they're displayed in game. So I hope this does a better job of showing what it's like.

The plan 

That's the primary things I was able to implement this week. Next week, the minimum goal is to fully implement all of the character CG and reformat and rewrite all of the scenes in the intro and the neighborhood. As well as implement Ivy. I've got Kaori and Shiori done so far, but no one else in the neighborhood. Which means I still need to do Ayako, Seika, Angela, Madison, and Sakura. Assuming nothing goes horribly wrong or something unexpected happens, it should be easy enough. Hopefully it goes smoothly and I can get more than that done though. I'd really like to complete everything and release next weekend, but I'm not going to plan on it.

If it does end up taking me all week, the rest will be done the following week. Which includes reworking the school by removing everyone that isn't in v0.1, implementing Ms. Hartley's scene, closing off all the areas I don't want in v0.1, like the hospital and lab, and then finally doing a play test ensuring everything works properly. Then I'll be duplicating the project and replacing all the CG with the black guy CG, so that there's both versions of the game available. Which shouldn't take too terribly long, unless I run into a lot of bugs.

Which means, at the latest game should be released on the 31st. If I get it done by the end of next week, I'll launch it either the 24th or 25th. But if it's not done in time I'll be making another update post and holding it to the 31st no matter what. Mainly because I want to start posting and advertising the game on a weekend to try and get the most potential exposure. If I post on a random Tuesday, there just wont be as many people on to potentially see the game.

Hopefully everyone is looking forward to the release of 0.1!