Game Status Update #64

It's time for the mid-month status update! Today's cover boy is Leo in a new version of his first fantasy CG. His model received a glow up, which I'll go over below.

First, let's get to the the biggest news of the last few weeks—the second dev build for The Morning After Update is finally complete! If you're a Senior or Graduate, you can check it out here.

I've already put out a couple of updated versions to fix errors/oversights that were reported to me, and I'll continue to do so if any more come up. But overall I think I mostly pulled my mess of code together!

Now, to what remains. The dev build came out late, and I desperately needed to catch up on sleep. Between that, spending time fixing bugs, and doing promo stuff, I didn't make a ton of progress on the remainder of the update—but progress was still made. Here's the checklist from Game Status Update #63 with the finished content noted:

Writing Checklist

Completed:

• Showers - 2 variants

Still to do:

• Dorm to Showers - 11 variants

• Unlocked Character Scene - 2 variants

• Dorm to Class - 5 variants

• Tomas's Class - 2 variants

• Will's Class - 2 variants

Coding Checklist

Completed:

• Bug fixes to what was already released.

Still to do:

• Code new scenes once written

• Re-insert scenes that were removed from the dev build

• Final testing

Art Checklist

Completed CGs:

• Shower entrance (new)

• Leo tease day 1-1 (revised)

• Trevor Grind'm profile pic 1 (new)

Completed sprites:

• Jordi (6 new)

• Wes (4 new)

• Xavier (4 new)

Still to do:

• 19 New CGs

• 12 Revised CGs - Currently optional

• New Sprites - Week 1 clothing and/or various states of undress for Connor, Blaze, Cherish, Evan, Kaleb, Quinn, Riley, Will, & Tomas.

• Revised Sprites - Currently optional

The Next Two Weeks

I have all the remaining work scheduled out. Taking into account marketing work I need to do and fitting in some breaks, it's looking like early October for the final release going into early access.

I did decide to do what was previously mentioned—put the update into early access without all the revised CGs finished. I know everyone wants new content, so I assume seeing the wrong Noir if you play back through old content is a decent tradeoff for getting the update earlier.

Let's look a little bit further into what was done, starting with Leo.

Art

I didn't plan to do more to Leo than fix his body proportions, but when tinkering around with a new character model, I realized the skin materials I was using would easily pass for Leo with a few modifications. So I did just that—edited the face textures, applied the materials to the existing Leo model, and adjusted the warmth of his skin tone. The result might be my favorite character model upgrade because in isolation, you can look at it and think, "That's how Leo always looked." But side by side...

...definitely not the same Leo!

The image on the left is one of the first CGs I made for the game—and one of the first CGs new players can unlock. As with much of the earlier art, it was in need of an upgrade. I want the game to make the best first impression possible!

As the game developed, I moved more and more in a realism direction. The Leo model wasn't really holding up—the original face looks "airbrushed" and a little cartoon-y, and it also has baked in details like a permanent pink nose. The new textures I'm using are more advanced, so they react to light better, and more detailed. I think it turned out the best I could hope for with any model update—it looks just like the character we already know and love, only upscaled.

Here are a couple more side-by-sides:

These CGs/sprites weren't on my to-do list, but I made them 'cause I had the new model and wanted to play with it. But I'm pretty much stopping here—I'm definitely not redoing all of the Leo CGs for the Morning After Update. All the rest of the Leo art will be revised later down the line.

The one thing I wish I had a better solution for is his hair. I'm playing around with a new advanced hair shader that isn't made for this type of hair asset, so I also need to composite it with a render of the original hair. I would love to trade his hair out for something else, but I can't find anything remotely similar, and he just doesn't look right with any of the different hair I tried. So this will have to work for now.

And yes, I know his hair is too long in the new images. I didn't realize until after these images were made, but I'll fix it!

As for the actual new art, the reason only one of the CGs was made is because it features 10 characters in a room with lots of reflective surfaces, so it took awhile to set up and render. I also decided to do a lot of advanced fabric draping to get VPLs like the one Leo is sporting above, so that added time as well. (I personally think VPL is always worth the effort!)

You may also have noticed I listed one Trevor Grind'm CG finished. I'm not jumping ahead to that hookup, I just needed it for one of the Grind'm vote CGs. (Technically I didn't need it, but I had an idea and didn't want to compromise!). I'll likely share a sneak peek post soon with both that image and the shower one.

Touching back on the reflective surfaces thing—Daz 3D and my GPU really struggle to bounce light off of mirrors and other shiny objects, so finished renders under those conditions end up with a lot of noise. Denoising the image to fix that also removes a ton of detail. You can see that in the game anywhere there's a mirror.

Each new game update brings a lot of new Patreon support, so I have my eyes set on a new computer with the beefiest GPU I can get. Specifically, I need VRAM, which is what determines how much I can display on screen and in what resolution before my GPU refuses to render.

Right now that's usually three characters max, and I have to spend a ton of time optimizing by downscaling textures in the background, removing props from off screen, doing multiple renders I have to composite together, etc. It can also be slow to even just preview what I'm working on or manipulate the figures in Daz.

I'm hoping I can make that purchase before I have to do all of Trevor's Grind'm CGs—because there are a lot!

That I can even consider upgrading is thanks to all of you—this game only exists because of the support I receive here on Patreon!

Writing

The only writing I got to was the shower sequence that goes along with the CG mentioned above. It serves as an introduction to all the dorm boys you haven't met yet, so I had a lot of fun finding ways to show who they are in just a few lines. Some of them definitely make a big first impression. Yes, that's a euphemism.

I'm getting more and more used to the new way I write the script—namely, actually putting code in the document instead of using placeholders, as well as using a new system to easily keep track of indentations needed in the coding program once I copy the script over.

The trickiest part of this and all future scenes is jumping between the different versions of Connor that can exist. For instance, in this portion I have a confident version (if he hooked up and feels like a stud), a general good mood, a down mood, and a hyper-horny mood. I find myself going a bit slower in places than I might usually, but it saves me from needing to go back later to try and work in the variants, so it's all a wash in the end time-wise.

I'm growing nearer and nearer to writing one of my most anticipated scenes—the closing one with Will. I know a lot of you have been waiting awhile, so I want to make it as good as I can 🙂

Grind'm Voting - The Final Round!

The semi-finals have ended, and the two guys moving on to the finals are Blaze and Parker... you know, the guys who were the runner ups to Jordi and Trevor. I probably should have figured it would shake out that way, but the voting did actually stay neck-and-neck between a few other guys until the end, so I wasn't sure!

I have a separate post with new pics and profiles for the two guys here, and Graduates can hit the poll here to vote. I am actually putting out a call for hookup scenario ideas for these two guys, so if you have any, feel free to comment and let me know! If I end up with several good ones, I'll put it to a vote to see which scenario I'll go with.

I think that's it for today! I'll leave you with a too-early Halloween image I made of Leo for Instagram. October has always been my favorite month, and what better way to celebrate than have a naked college guy pose with an improbably large pumpkin? (Or is the pumpkin normal-sized and Leo got really small...?)