Things happened

To preface this, I've been ill. I have a bunch of animation work to get done, but I picked up some bug while down in London. 100% it was on the Underground. As a result, I've been in and out of creative patches. Got some animation stuff done but not been in the right frame of mind, so I dug into the pre-Phase 2 base game that I said I would in a few weeks.

To start with...

This is still really early on, but to catch people who don't know up, Phase 2 should have been started by now, but from playing with Unreal, I've learned proper ways of building the core game. Because Phase 1 has been a variety of tutorials cobbled into a game, it's spectacularly resistant to new features and fixes to old bugs. So using the old game as a base, I've created a new project and I'm rebuilding it from scratch using the old as a reference and importing anything I can from the old game. 

Yes, it sounds like a waste of time, but in the long run it should make the game more robust and easier to build. But, the thing I didn't even consider when I first announced this was that it's a perfect opportunity to polish the shitty bits on the way past.

The Core

First up the game has had a proper core built. Real game instance, savegames, menu characters, the works. Looking back at the original savegame, it was massively complex. The new one handles it in 4 functions.

Main Menu

The Adult warning and main menus have now been made far nicer and have been polished, along with all the options off of the main menu. The only things not currently completed are the load game button and setting the options. Both of those need some gameplay levels to test on first.

New Menus - Itch won't let me embed videos. Need to add a Youtube channel or something first!

Character Creator

This time everything is working on the Character Creation screen. Gender and species are now active, as is Sexual Preference. Switching Gender or Species updates the character model. So far it's just the default Unreal mannequins, but that will change soon.

Character Switching

Next up is the Character Stats page. This is something that is kind of in the current game and probably needs some explaining.

In the current game, when you make a new character, you'll briefly get a box of stats with random numbers. Each species has a base statline, and each stat has a min and max range. When you start the game, it randomises in that range around the base stat.

So for example, if Base HP = 200, Range = -50/+75, when you start the game it would randomise between 150 => 275.

The idea behind this is that it's a Roguelike game, so there should always be an element of randomness. Some species have higher strength, others more HP or better speed and jump.

And now we have this.

The new version takes the base stats and shows you what they are. It also gives you 5 rerolls total, so you can either play the character on default stats or take a chance and reroll some of them. So we still keep the Roguelike spirit, but with a degree of customisation available.

Finally

There's a few things in there still to do, but to this point nearly everything is functional and working as intended.

• Tweak min/max settings
• Block Character screen button until a name is added
• Show additional (non editable) stats
• Set up continue button on Stats page
• Save stats to savegame

There's also the Preference setting which hasn't been used yet. Players, NPCs and Enemies will have this stat.

For players, if the preference is for example Male, if you get caught and fucked by a female, you could take additional damage. Or it could be easier to struggle away and escape.

For NPCs, it could open certain encounters with them. Want to seduce someone in Pineridge? Only if you match their preference!

For enemies, it will influence their decision making. If a gay male wolf finds a female player, they're more likely to go aggressive. If they find a male player, they'll favour sex and so on... Of course this will also tie into things like enemy aggression stats. If they have high aggression, being a suitable partner might not stop an attack. Then again if a wolf that started off with low aggression gets beaten up by someone, next time you see them they'll favour attacking over sex because they'll know what you did to them earlier.

I'm also putting serious thought into bosses. I'm liking the idea of having bosses with multiple possible resolutions. You could try and sneak past if you're a particularly stealthy build. Fighting is an option, as is seduction. The bosses will be pretty much the only fixed encounter on each worldmap, so they need to also tie into that random roguelike pattern. It may even be possible to set up different options depending on species. It's all stuff that's getting thought about. There's still time though, the first boss is scheduled for the end of Phase 2, so a bit of time yet!