MNL Progress Report #118 - Full Opening Cutscene

Hey there nudies! I want to apologize for being so late on this... If you'll remember my last progress report, I made a brief mention of trying to sell my house. Well, I'm happy to share that this house is SOLD. And these last three weeks have been scrambling trying to get everything in order - everything packed, all the paperwork done, new apartment acquired, moving trip planned, and all the last minute repairs and whatever else necessary to complete the house closing. It has been an EXHAUSTING month, and it's hopefully going to get even crazier soon because within the next week, we'll be on the road and moving to Portland on a 5-day roadtrip! So updates may still be sporadic for a bit as I move out and get settled back in... so with that, I wanted to give you guys a bit of a meatier progress report.

Well, here it is. Attached to this post is the full 8 minute opening cutscene of MNL!

Unfortunately, Patreon doesn't let me upload a video directly for playback here, so I had to upload it as an attachment. Please download and check out the opening in its entirety, if you so wish! I will also upload a slightly shorter version on our Discord if you want to see it there as well!

This 8 minute long video contains everything all the way up until you gain control of Amber. I wanted to give you all a taste of the game - the driving motivation, Amber's characterization, the overall tone and style of the game... even just the stuff like how the text wiggles and the game sounds. Anne's art and Vanware's music is on full display here, much like Amber herself! I'm really happy with how this came out, and eager to see your feedback!

You may notice that the shots of Culo Culo near the end are fairly empty. That will be changed in the full release. In fact, that's the immediate thing we've been working on these last three weeks. We're trying to populate the area full of NPCs, but unfortunately, rigging has proven to be an issue. Invertex has had to work his butt off trying to figure out a universal animation configuration so that all NPCs can share from a pool of pre-set animations, rather than each one being uniquely animated. I've mentioned it before, but these last few weeks have mostly been trying to figure this out. It's been a hair-pulling experience that's produced a lot of truly monstrous looking creatures that I won't dare show you here. But eventually, Invertex figured it out!

Despite the size difference, these two characters are sharing animations pretty easily! Invertex even worked up some extra little bits on this business woman, like boob and hair bounce. With this figured out, we should be able to plop some NPCs down and get this area finished up! Though again, things are going to be delayed a bit until I get settled down in our new city.

That's all for today, though! Again, thank you so much for being so patient and understanding with these long delays. I hope to get back to my normal schedule as soon as I have my computer set back up in a fresh new apartment! Check out our Discord if you haven't already, and see you again soon!