Progress update - April

Hello everyone, long post ahead, I have a lot of things to tell you. Also, a surprise (I don't know if a good or bad one for you) at the end, but first, let's break this chart up here, I've divided it into sections to make it easier to understand.

INTRO

This update replaces the final cliffhanger of v0.4.2 and is available after all the content has been explored, then the MC can go to see Laura. There is a small scene where the player has to find the way to enter the detention room, but I reduced it as I want to focus on the meat of the update (before the MC could spy in other rooms, but it would require CGs with a lot of extra characters so it was discarded for now).

A CGs is missing from this section (not too complicated) and some navigation BGs that are easy to do, this part I already have it written, I just have to put it in the game.

MINIGAME

TBH I'm kind of regretting doing something so complicated, but I'm almost done with all the assets so I can't back out now. This section includes the 2 strippable sprites I've made plus a close-up (see above). There were supposed to be more close-ups, but I realized too late that the sprites have enough quality to be usable for the same purpose, and the other close-up is likely to be animated since the pose allows it (more on this later), so it's just those two.

I've already finished the hand assets for the minigame, and I'm almost done with the items you can find (which are visible in the sprite). When I say I regret doing this minigame it's because of the "Item Detail" part, which is basically a close-up of an item after finding it, other than that, the assets for the minigame are almost ready to be incorporated into the game.

The mini-game is plausible with the knowledge I have, the only thing I still don't know how I'm going to integrate is that the hand follows the cursor while the player caresses Laura, and how to play a small animation after clicking. In terms of writing (and how the game works mechanically), each item found comes with a small comment, also with each piece of clothing you take off, Laura will have something to say, and it will change depending on what you decide to take first, but nothing too complicated since the conditional branching takes time to write and I'm a bit burnt on those.

Animation

After enough foreplay, comes the animation, this one above is just a little tease, as I think some parts still need a bit of polishing and are not well sectioned for the rig. I have yet to draw some hands for this piece, as it also serves as one of the close-ups I wanted to do for the minigame.

One thing that takes a lot of time and effort to do is the talking animation, I won't do it for this one as it has other complicated aspects that I want to focus on, and I don't know if it's necessary, do other games make the characters talk during the animated scenes? I'd like to know your views on this, maybe I was putting too much effort into something that people don't notice/don't care about.

As for the "optional" stuff, it's probably best to remove it for now, as it will add a lot of development time and add a big deviation in Laura's route, taking her virginity is a big deal (same with the other girls), and having that happen earlier means a big change for a future scene. I was planning to add it for people who aren't interested in a romantic route with her, but it's been scrapped for now (the scrapped content could be part of the game later, more on that later).

After the animation, there is an "After climax" CG and then the ending.

End of the update

After v0.4.3, the update goes straight to another cliffhanger that leads to Mia's update, but I plan something less scripted for when v0.5 comes out.

Scrapped/optional content

And back to the topic of scrapped content, there are 2 main factors that make me do this, the biggest and most obvious one is to release the update faster, I probably shouldn't have added that minigame if I wanted that, but it's something I wanted to do, and it would be the last one for a LONG time, I'll focus on scenes/animation for the next updates, reducing the fluff to speed things up.

The other factor is that more content in an update doesn't really seem to affect the success/reception of the update, the game has been a bit stagnant in terms of popularity so I think it's better to focus on releasing a solid update with little fluff and add more stuff later.

For v0.5 there is supposed to be another one of Luna's lectures and all the scenes (most of them) are available from the start to explore, between breaks the player could play with Ruri a second time and there is more content I cut from her scene that I plan to add in an in-between update. I will probably add the gallery in one of these updates with the intention of buffing up the already in-game scenes.

In case it wasn't clear, the plan is to release a faster update after v0.4.3 (Laura update) to add more content to other scenes, for example, v0.4.4 would add more Ruri content, v0.4.5 would be the Mia update, v0.4.6 would add the gallery + Laura/Lena content, and so on. The idea is to get faster releases as the game hits a low point between long updates, and this is a way to mitigate that.

What do you guys think of this? I'd love to hear your feedback.

In other news...

More info on Flat injustice soon.

That's it for now, bye!