So, the good news is that we're rapidly bearing down on completion of Phase 2a. Work has commenced again, a couple of big bug reports have been submitted and dealt with. That's something that is worth mentioning, I do read all bugreports submitted, and will usually respond to them if an email is provided. Sometimes the bug is something that's already been fixed but is unreleased, or is something that was deemed minor or due to be changed soon anyway. Either way, I'll usually respond and let the submitter know whats going on with each bug they reported, and most of the bugs go straight on to the Trello.

Obviously, if it's a duplicate or something thats not gamebreaking and due for an update shortly, it won't go on, but I'll explain that in my response.

So, on to the current updates:

Procedural Animation

Nothing too fancy just yet, mostly testing out how to do it. The main takeaway is that the current skeletons do not work. I've tried to do a thrust motion, but the hips are the root bone, so the whole skeleton wiggles backwards and forwards. Luckily I've started on new models and finally got the UE skeleton into Blender for that.

But for now, there's sort of foot height detection for stairs and slopes, which doesn't work because of skeletal shittery and digitigrade feet. That was added then disabled. I also added in a procedural animation so if you walk into a wall, you put your hands out and against it. This will be useful for other things in future,

Pineridge Spawning

A few weeks back I added the mechanic for buying bedrooms at the Inn. Part of that was to add a system to move the player to their room for the morning. I expanded on that and set a tunnel, inn, upper town and registration start point that sets based on what you've completed in town. This needed to happen because with multiple playerstarts, it randomises which one you go to. You should be able to use Tags to specify which start to use when loading a level, but it kept choosing a start in a locked bedroom. Now it all works right.

Item Upgrades

First up, when you kill an enemy, they dropped loot, but the dropped loot had a ui showing what it was and picked up immediately. The items you find needed collected and had no labels. The dropped items didn't have the particles either, so both were made to be identical.

Next, the detail ui has had a range added, so it's not visible from space any more. They also got a sound effect added on collection, the item disappears but allows the particle effect to complete before it despawns. Then, when the item disappear it emits a burst of particles that dissipate into the air.

The final step was Notifications. The player HUD now has a notification panel. You collect an item, it pops up a small notification of what you got in a vertical list. It's a pretty robust system, so in theory I might move the "heard" and "seen" notifications to it as well.

The Bugs

• Locked doors were showing as unlocked and vice versa
• When you opened a door it showed the E prompt but not while closed
• PlantTrap was still using old camera mode, updated to new version (no idea how I missed that)
• PlantTrap was not giving player control back
• Males were not cumming in the PlantTrap
• If you passed a struggle without clothes, the next time the struggle ui would appear but you'd fail in the background instantly
• PlantTraps just straight up ate enemies without checking stamina or health first
• Modified water volumes in forest levels. Some water was poking above landscape and could trigger swimming. Hopefully got the one that was reported. If you find stray water effects, please screenshot the location and hopefully I can find it in the editor!
• Players Busy tag not disabling in some situations blocking pretty much every other gameplay element
• Stealth takedowns were impossible (think UE might have changed how box triggers work)
• Camera sinks into ground on takedown
• Cum flies behind masturbating males
• Collected items weren't stacking

Still To Do

Throwables have been removed from 2a. I was enjoying the stuff with cumdarts, but I need to build a throwable functionality for hotbar and ingame, and it's going to need a pile more animations, which is a nuisance to do if I'm updating the models, so I've shifted it back a few phases to give time for new models.

I *might* bring it forward again if I can get the animations done quickly in Cascadeur, but it depends on the learning curve for it.

Tasks

• Quest log in Inventory needs to show multiple active quests
• Secondary loadscreens for Character Builder, Pineridge, Worldmap and Dungeons
•  Improve Night > Day transition in Pineridge
• Change Forest levels to PCG foliage
• Improve Hornlizard

Bugs

• Camera issues when entering photomode during a camera transition
• Auto camera raise and lower can go through ground
• Random enemies generate without stats or name

So, progress is happening again. Hopefully should get Phase 2a knocked out this week and get the new build up on Patreon. Phase 2b has a lot of character models, animation and procedural stuff, so is liable to take a long time. So I'll probably be looking at another intermediate public release eventually. I'll keep everyone posted!