6/27 Status Update

This was a very productive week, I managed to get a lot done for both Netoria 1 and 2. The new grope animations for Netoria 2 are all done and that means the artist is officially moving on to Naked Ambition! That's right; real, live, art is being made! Except it isn't real or alive since they're pixel drawings, but you get the idea. This process will almost certainly take a while since besides the story art leading up to the end of the game, there's lots and lots of endings to do.

I've always thought that Naked Ambition is a game that doesn't really make all that much sense without the endings. Because the whole getting on the throne thing isn't a win condition, not being queen is a completely valid outcome for the Princess. Some routes it's even a happier ending. There's a lot of "failing" in the game, but not passing those checks isn't the same as missing a jump in Mario or something. The whole game is about trying to influence the Princess's life and seeing what happens. And I think the endings will make that a lot more fulfilling and apparent.

Which makes it pretty bad that the game has no endings! Of all the games for me to take forever to finish, Naked Ambition is a pretty bad one to leave hanging. I'll say it's about 80% my fault. Some of it has been outside of my control, mainly artist stuff. But it's on it's way now, I think the game coming to a conclusion is almost a certainty at this point.

Now that the grope animations are in the game, I'm pretty happy with them. Having the action happen on the battlefield feels a lot more visceral than just having the event at the end of the turn. Although seeing them physically kiss and stuff does make the question of why the other characters don't notice when they're standing like five feet away even weirder. Zaman! Look! They're literally making out right there! I guess he doesn't have the watchful eye skill like Carwyn did.

I don't think it's that big a problem, but removing layers of abstraction does risk making contradictions or convenience more glaring and evident. The more clear you make something, the less people fill in the blanks with their own logic. But they're still little pixel people, so I don't think it's too bad. There are a couple other cons to the new system as well. I had to remove the swap mechanic because it led to unfun play patterns where a character would be on swap duty to stop gropes you didn't want. Without a way to interrupt them, it performs better at its intended goal of being an aesthetic improvement rather than an early warning system.

For Netoria 1, I did a whole bunch of writing. I needed to lay the foundations for the new route so I could start building them up. When I first came up with the idea of this route, I had it centered very firmly around Carwyn and Owain because I thought their dynamic in a romance would be really fun. They've got a nice banter going on already, I just need to shift that away from Owain trying to fuck Carwyn's girl and towards fucking Carwyn himself instead.

Overall I think it's going well. The scenes are flowing which is always a good sign. Usually if the dialogue just pours out it ends up being better than things I agonize over and have to take a lot of time to get out. The scenes in the Netoria games being all talking and very little narration is 100% intentional. I like to write my games like they're plays. Just people talking and the actors will bring it to life! Well... there's no actors but there are cute drawings of people sucking cock. And that's just as good.

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