Development Update!

What's up everyone?

With another portion of the rework finished, comes a new development update!

Things are going smoothly recently and I had a steady flow of work for a change, and today I'm going to show you guys some of the progress I've made and new features I've cooked up since the last development update!

As always, we'll start with comparison shots to showcase the graphical improvements to scenes!

Here's the first example:

Old version: This one's kinda better than the last one, but it still suffers from washed out colors and a not really believable atmosphere.

Reworked version: Pretty different, right? Yeah, I've been porting new models into HS like crazy for this rework, this clothing store is one of them.

Now, check out the second example:

Old version: Alright, I'm ashamed and proud of this scene at the same time. I'm proud because I literally made that entire thing out of basic shapes and random HS mods at the time, and that took some dedication... And I'm ashamed because it looks like crap, it literally looks like a styrofoam bathroom...

Reworked version: Now that's more like it! That's another one of the assets I ported into HS for this rework. PS: Don't ask why the neon letters on the wall... I don't even...

Now for the fourth and last comparison:

Old version: Yeah... Pretty janky pose... Not much to say about this one though...

Reworked version: Another good example of scene atmosphere better portraying the time it's happening. And this time the pose is not as janky as last time!

Anyway, that's all for the comparison, now we move onto the more technical stuff! Here's what has been done since the last dev update:

1 - ANIMATIONS

Yep, that's right! The Inn now features animated scenes for lewd content! (Maybe for some other kind of scenes in the future, who knows...)

If you have been following my patreon page lately, this may not come as a surprise for you, as I made a public poll asking everyone how the animations should be.

2 - REWORKED PHONE

"Wait a damn second there, Lykanz! REWORKED PHONE???"

Well... Yes... I had to completely rework the way the phone worked. I realized a little late that the way I had done it wouldn't work the way I wanted it to.

I mean, It worked perfectly, just not the way I wanted it to...

So I had to completely remake it from scratch. Some parts were easy, some weren't (SMS System), but in the end I managed to do it and even got to make it better than it was.

It was still a small setback. Sorry about that.

3 - NAVIGATION SYSTEM

Again, if you have been following my patreon page lately, this one might not come as a surprise as I made a quick development update when I finished it. But here's a quick rundown of it's features:

3.1 - Navigation Buttons:
You can use those buttons to navigate to different rooms of the map you're in. Just click on them and you'll be "transported".

Also, if a character is on that room, a visual indicator will show up there. On the image you can see that both Mike and Linda are on the kitchen.

3.2 - Time/Period/Day/Location UI:

On this you check everything related to the time and periods and also check what room you're currently in.

3.3 - Interactive Elements:

Some maps will have clickable elements you can interact with, be it just flavour text or even event triggering stuff. Also, if a character is on a room, it'll be displayed there and you'll be able to interact with said character by clicking on it.

4 - CLOTHING SELECTION ON THE REPLAY GALLERY

This one's a nice thing I came up with recently and goes hand to hand with the wardrobe feature.

Some scenes on the game will have the characters using different clothing according to either player's choice or any other important factor.

This feature allow you to select which clothing you want the characters wearing if you go to rewatch this scene on the replay gallery.

It still needs some work and polishment, but it work fine as of now.

5 - NEW TIME SLOT SYSTEM

Another thing I had to rework to acomodate some features I had planned.

As it was before, each day had 4 time slots:

Morning, Afternoon, Evening and Night

While it was nice and all, down the road I've realized that a feature I planned (which will be the next item on this list) would end up having a lot of issues.

So I had to rework the time slot system to now acomodate 24 time slots, one for each hour of the day.

This will give me more freedom when creating events and stuff like that.

6 - GIRLS' SCHEDULES

This is the thing that made me rework the time slot system.

Each girl will now have a schedule of her own, she'll be at different places during different times of the day.

The reason I had to rework the time slot system for this was because some girls' schedules would overlap, and we would end up having two or three girls at the bathroom taking showers at the same time (not that it's a bad thing, mind you...) and that wouldn't work well...

This was also one of the reasons I came up with the visual indicators on the navigation screen, so the player won't need to go mindlessly searching rooms untill he finds the girl he wants to talk to.

7 - GIRL'S LOCATION ON HER PROFILE

One other little thing I added was this little bit of text on the girls' profiles indicating where they currently are. This is another feature that will prevent the player from mindlessly clicking to find the girl he wants to talk to.

8 - SHIFT GIRLS PROFILES ON THE FLY

This one is more like a QoL addition.

You'll be able to shift to a different girl profile on the fly instead of going back to the character selection screen.

These buttons will let you toggle to the next girl on the profile's list easilly and quickly.

9 - GIFT EVENTS

Another new addition to the game.

Some gifts will trigger events with specific girls. Those gifts will be either found on the world or bought from the store.

"But Lykanz... What I give an event gift to the wrong girl???"

Worry not, young one as you won't be able to do that.

If you select the gif from the inventory screen, only the girl that gift is related to will show up on the selection screen. Also, if you try to give the gift from the profile screen, only the gifts related to that girl will show up on the list.

10 - FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

So... You're still here eh?

I wanted to thank everyone that's been supportive of this project, be it either by pledging or by giving input on stuff I should and shouldn't do. You guys are what make this all possible and what motivate me to keep doing what I love.

As many of you are aware by now, the development updates are posted when a new beta is release for testers.

For this beta though, I wanted to give my patrons a chance to take a look at everything I did so far and crash test the features I've been teasing since the start.

So, this time, this beta will also be available to all patrons in a post I'll make shortly after this.

So yeah... This is it for this dev update!

See you guys next time!