10/3 Status Update

With the release of Naked Ambition .84, the great wheel of development has turned back towards Netoria Tactics 2. Even with the all development decisions being made by just me, there's a lot of inertia to these things. It really is like steering a large ship, I need to start making turns months before other people see the results of them. In this case it's all about artist output. Who is working on what is a good amount of time and effort to manage and I need to make sure all the timelines match up so things get done at around the same time and updates aren't waiting around for one person's output.

This week I sent off a bunch of Act 2 gropes to the character artist, so stuff can start getting made to be done in time for the first release of Act 2 content. Even though my plan is to release things by POV, a big chunk of work needs to be done is POV neutral. The grope art needs to be done earliest because it impacts the grope sprite animations too. So if the timing is right, those will come in as the sprite artist finishes the current Naked Ambition ending art batch, and then they can work on the animations. Then all of that will wrap up in time for the Act 1 release and the Act 2 POV content stream can start. But enough about logistics, let's talk about more fun things.

Last preview I should an in progress version of this pop-in and here's the finished piece. The biggest thing that changed besides just adding shading and stuff is I had them zoom in the composition. I felt that you didn't really need to see their full bodies. Even though these are large sprites as far as sprites go, zooming in lets there be a lot more detail. Especially in the faces, there's a certain point where the faces just aren't big enough to really have proper spacing between facial features while still keeping them proportional. The solution to that is usually to stylize them, make them more cartoony. But since the game's aesthetic identity was based on rotoscoping, even if the current sprites don't use that process anymore, going cartoony in the faces now isn't really an option without abandoning consistency between the old and new art.

Like I said, the sprite artist will be moving back to Netoria Tactics 2 stuff for a while. But that doesn't mean work on Naked Ambition is stopping. I've now built up art for the .9 and .10 releases. I'll have them move back at least before I'm working on the Player-Princess epilogues, which won't be for a while. I think .9 has a 50/50 shot of being done this year. It really depends on how fast the writing goes, and how smoothly Netoria Tactics 2 work goes. Because as an early access game, I can't really compromise the Netoria Tactics 2 schedule in favor of Naked Ambition. And yes, it still is early access for now unless Steam suddenly decides it isn't, which could happen.

On the topic of Netoria Tactics 2 and art, the scene illustration artist has been continuing to work on Vashti Act 2 content. This is less because of timelines, but more for them to build a cushion so they can take breaks later. They're the artist that I need to most consistent output out of, so without the cushion any break from them would drag the release schedule to a halt. This week's preview is a pretty fun one I think.

This is on the same route I had preview art for before. Here Vashti is asserting her dominance in the groups dynamics by fucking Zaman in front of Shah. The blue symbols are a barrier set up by Vashti to keep Shah physically separated from them. All she can do is watch as her former boyfriend fucks another woman. It's all part of Vashti's master plan to have Zaman and Shah completely under her thumb while still maintaining their love for each other so they can do the Orb ritual. And it looks like it's all going according to plan, I'm sure nothing could possibly go wrong...

That's all for this week. As always, thank you for your continued support.