FreshmenVN

Status Update #87

Added 2025-10-23 19:17:53 +0000 UTC

Happy Thursday, everyone! I have a long overdue status report for you today.

Today's cover image may seem familiar if you've browsed the Guy Galleries. This is a new version of the Riley selfie from March's remastered Salacious Selfies #1. I'll go over why this exists below!

This month has been flying by fast, in part because of how much work I've been doing. The days tend to bleed together, so apologies for the lateness on this post. That said, let's look at what I've been up to.

Game Planning

The scope of this game is pretty big, especially for one person to create, so I've been taking another look at the overall outline of the game to see how to scale it back a little bit.

The game was originally planned to last 8 weeks in game time, with each week covering a different theme. After looking through all the various plotlines and choice branches, I think I can instead have it cover just one month, reducing the timeline to 5 weeks.

I actually already moved up a number of story beats, so some of what was in the outline for the full 8 weeks was no longer needed. As an example, the scene with Will that ends the current release version of the game wasn't meant to happen until three weeks in. In real world time, that would take forever to get to, so I introduced it early.

Another example are the intimate and explicit scenes with Matt, both ones you can currently play and others that will be in the next story update. It would have been too much of a slow burn as originally outlined.

As far as I can tell, none of the main storylines should seem truncated at all. The only storyline I think I'll cut entirely is one that would involve Connor's brother, Fane. That's mostly because of real world issues with platform rules, although it was mostly tangential anyway.

This is something I'll go over more in the future since I'm still ironing out details.

Art

To come back to the cover boy, this CG will actually appear in the game and not just here on Patreon. There was a comment on a prior status report suggesting I could repurpose some of the Guy Gallery images for things like fantasies or selfies instead of making everything from scratch, which I thought was a great idea. I needed a selfie Riley could send Connor, and this one seemed perfect.

The only real changes to this image are aspect ratio, body hair assets swaps, and recoloring the walls & mattress so they weren't so glaringly white. I also rendered it in full 4k before scaling it down, which I hadn't done for the Guy Gallery image.

I'll still be making new selfies and fantasies just for the game. This just helps cut down the time needed to create this particular update's CGs, the number of which has grown from 65 to 101. This isn't quite as crazy as it seems, though.

A lot of CGs in this part of the game involve Connor playing with toys from the kit he can get from Will. If you played through the Will tease scene and took a bottom or oral kit, you know Will says the largest dildo is molded from his own dick. That's all well and good if you're actually pursuing something with Will, but I didn't want to imply that's what he gives you regardless.

So a fair number of the additional CGs are alternate versions of the same CG with some textures changed, like this:

Beyond CGs, I've also been scouting for assets like clothing and sets that will be new to this update. One character in particular that needed an outfit change was Marco.

There are a few Marco CGs that came in the Morning After Update which use conforming clothes. That type of clothing is really hard to manipulate within Daz (for things like lifting up a shirt) without looking weird. I might have stuck with that original outfit except I needed Marco to be able to be able to remove his clothes in a more realistic way for... reasons 😉

You may have noticed that more and more I'm using actual cloth simulation via a program called Marvelous Designer. I originally learned how to use it so I could do realistic-looking VPL, but now I use it any time I want to show someone undressing. You can see a number of these simulations in the Trevor Grind'm scenario. The Connor CG I shared in Status Update #86 is another example of what it can do.

Here's Marco new fit. Well, the one he wears when he's fully dressed, anyway:

On the environment side of things, I'd long been waffling over what kind of apartment I want Evan to have—something I needed to figure out since you can visit his place in the next update. The idea is that he was set up in someplace fancy by his very wealthy parents, but I was torn between making it way too grown-up for someone like Evan or making it a place that shows his parents don't think of him as an adult yet. These are two of the sets I was considering using:

I like both, but ultimately neither felt right. The tube slide in the second one seemed fun, with the idea that this was an apartment Evan's parents bought for him as a hangout place when he was younger, but I decided I didn't want to lean in that direction. The first one I will probably use for someone else where it's more appropriate, like maybe Will's place.

I decided on this one:

It's still upscale but has more youthful colors. It also has big windows so I can use "natural" light, a lot of areas that'll make for interesting backdrops, and doorways that can lead to a closed-off bedroom instead of an open loft like so many other environments have.

I tested this out by doing one of Evan's scene setups, which I think turned out really well. I'm thinking I'll share that in-progress CG in a Sneak Peek post, much like I did with some upcoming Matt CGs in Sneak Peek #39.

Writing

On the writing side of things, I've continued to expand the opening of the next update. I was originally going to keep it more focused on the guys featured in this update, which is primarily Matt and Evan with Marco and Leo as a lesser focus. However, when I was writing, it was feeling really weird not to address things going on with other guys.

Especially guys like Riley, who you can have a pretty significant scene with earlier in the day that would of course be on Connor's mind. So there are now more and longer text convos with other characters—hence the need for a selfie Riley can send Connor in exchange for the one Connor sends him.

This adds to the complexity of writing choice-based scenes, which in turn adds to the time needed to create everything overall. But even in doing this, I'm still continuing to combine dangling plot threads from all the choices I've given up until now, letting me focus in on just a few different versions of scenes that can encapsulate a number of different decision points.

I really, really like the additional stuff I added. It's my hope that no matter whose storyline you're following, you'll still get fun content while waiting for the guy(s) to be featured more prominently.

Beyond that, I also jumped ahead a little bit to write some of the transition between the day you've already started playing and the day where the Evan and Matt hangouts occur. I don't know yet if I'll include that in the first dev build, but regardless, it's now ready to be slotted in once I get to that point.

Other Tasks

There are a lot of menial tasks I have to do while making this game. Even though they encapsulate a big chunk of the work I do, I tend to leave them out of these updates since they're, well, boring.

But I did want to say that for the first time since I started this game, I had some help taking care of these things. I've long needed a more organized and readable database of choices that I can use as a checklist when writing to make sure I don't forget to address something. I started making one, but it was taking way too much of my time.

Thankfully, someone I know personally asked if there was anything they could do in a work-for-hire capacity, and this was the task I gave them. Turns out having help makes it easier for me to focus on the more important stuff like writing and art. Who would have guessed? 😉

It has me thinking about how I can continue to get assistance making the game, which has been tricky to figure out not just monetarily, but because I basically have to be the one doing all the art and writing—especially the writing.

I'm considering finding someone (or many someones) who can help with the initial CG setups that focus on lighting, basic poses, and framing, after which I would take care of all the finer details, finishing touches, and post-render editing.

I have no idea how feasible that is since I have a certain style that would need to be matched. I also don't know what a fair price per CG would be, what kind of contracts I'd need, etc. I may start with doing a trial run via helping make a Guy Gallery. We'll see!

TO-DO LIST

Finally, here's the to-do list for the next dev build and other game-related projects. Anything updated or added since I shared the list in Status Update #86 is denoted with an asterisk and bolded.

To keep the focus on the opening scenes, I'm not listing other work I've done that'll come in the second dev build and final release. There's been a fair amount of stuff done there, too, like some of the writing and art I mentioned above.

General Work

Relationship Guide

Creation of the new Patreon-exclusive guide.

Written (15/19 sections)
* Layout designed (15/19 sections)
Section covers (18/18, completed)
Final edit (14/19 sections)

Sprite Code Conversion

Coding changes to simplify how sprites are displayed.

Connor (partially done)
Main Characters (5/16 characters)
Side Characters (7/45 characters)

Revised Art

CGs and sprites updated to use the most visibly changed character models; not a top priority.

Alex CGs (3/32)
Leo CGs (5/50)
* Marco CGs (1/3)
Duke sprites (5/5, completed)

Restored Content

Scenes that were missed when making the Morning After Update.

Revised Evan pondering scene
Marco pondering scene post-Julian hookup

New CGs/Writing

"Nice to have" fantasies to go along with Connor's Morning After shower; not a top priority.

Morning After tease CGs (8/36)
Morning After tease inner monologue (1/36)

Getting to Know You Part 1, Dev Build 1

Before the final update is ready for release, I'll be sharing early, in-progress dev builds with Senior & Graduate patrons that also act as content milestones. This to-do list is for the first of these builds and doesn't contain all the work required for the final version of the update.

WRITING

"Variants" are different versions of scenes to account for choices; there are many choice-reactive dialogue changes in these scenes that are not included in the count.