YO FOLKS! Hope y'all have been well!
Here's what we've been up to! Starting with A word from Vixel!
12/9 update:
Hey floofs, happy new week! Last week I worked on Act 4 environment design and shortened the bugs backlog after our recent public update on Itch.io. At this stage, the environment work involves configuring cameras, modeling props in the new rooms to have the correct sort order and collisions, defining the walls and doorways of the new rooms, and making sure there's a strong sense of space and dimension as you walk around.
This week I'll be charging ahead with more Act 4 environment work, and knocking out a few additional bugs so we can push a hotfix build to Itch soon! Have a lovely week! <3
-Vixel
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On my end, I've been up to a few thinnnngs!
The Forest of Love
TFOL-wise since we're finally getting around to adding Act 4 content, I've been pushing ahead with some exploration of some new characters that will be introduced. Sorta introduced in act 4, and firmly introduced in act 4.5. But I didn't really have a grasp on their character yet, or what their dynamics might be with some other critters - SO I was doing those explorations! WHICH IS UNFORTUNATELY, still some stuff i'm gonna keep secret. Once act 4 is out, ThEEENnnNn sharing this stuff'll be fun and make more sense. But good news is I thought of some fun lil mini archs and interactions, some cute drawings too!
Horsin' Around
What I DO wanna show though, is some of the stuff I've been doing for Horsin' Around!
First is this mockup of our menu screen, it's the image at the top. It's also a video, but Patreon still doesn't allow 18+ to upload videos, even if they are clean. Cool. There is an attachment of the animation though! It's too long for a gif, so ya gotta download :|
Anywho, our Title screen is SUPER inspired from how Red Dead Redemption 2 loads a game. If y'all haven't played it, definitely check it out, it's nuts. But basically, the game will save your general location, and have the main character doing something when the game fades in. Like maybe he's reading a book, or snoozing by a tree.
This sorta thing kinda helps feel like the character live beyond when we play them. PLUS, I thought it'd be super cute to have a few different sleeping bun poses!
Of course, the amount of things to consider to pull this off ends up getting larger and larger, and might mess with how we handle stuff, so we gotta be prepared and think ahead when considering stuff like this. SO I made a game design document getting more into it.
This also has a section where I decided how we'll handle "navigating" the game's content. Originally we were thinking Horsing Around would be open world and pretty dynamic. A lot like TFOL. But now knowing what that entails in terms of a database, and systems to manage that data, FUUUUCK THAT.
I always imagined Horsing Around content to be episodic and bite-sized. Not really larger arcs, or anything too crazy. It's a glorified 3D smut gallery after all! (big quotes around glorified). But yeah, so instead, the entire game will be segmented into parts, and each part will be chosen which will load up the necessary stuff for the game. Nothin' fancy, just keeping it compartmentalized and simple. (Well, "simple")
Our "Adventures" system in TFOL is very similar to how ALL of Horsing Around will work. A level selector basically that changes the world, and has a fixed end. Except in Horsing Around, it'll kick you back to the "level select" once you finish a part.
BUT, one of the cool things about how Horsing Around handles it, is combo'd with the sleeping bunny "in game" start menu, I think it'll still feel pretty cohesive and seemless.
I've learned a LOOOOT during TFOL, (still learning haha), and I wanted to make sure any other games will be designed from the get-go to be simpler on the back end, and live with that as the constraint for the writing/art stuff. The great thing about this constraint is, Art is SUPER flexible. Just like we can make a black and white sketch very appealing, we can use constraints like game systems and design with those in mind. There's a lot of advantages to "episodic" narratives - like we don't need to consider how things bridge with each other, we can just have one episode jump into random shenanigans, than another be totally unrelated, and I don't have to write the transition between the two.
I'm pretty stoked, because this kinda sets us up for some "hopefully" really efficient game making? I dunno how else to put it lmao. Like, ONLY spending on time on the stuff that matters. TFOL has some areas where we have to spend time on things that aren't directly related to the stuff that matters. It's needed, but doesn't matter as much. One example is creating the extremely complex systems in TFOL that manage data and critters, which ends up in potential bugs, but lets us do a lot of dynamic stuff when we want.
BUT by keeping with smaller bite sized linear narratives, we don't have to have a complex system to manage the stuff, and we can just make the content and move on.
ANYWAYS.
I did that and set up our IK look-at system for the bun. AND figured out a decent way to adapt the rig to the horses! This was like, A TON OF WORK crushed into 2 sentences, I can definitely write an entire post on that alone xD But long story short:
Lots of this shit.
Turns into this!
We had this sorta-functionality in the demo, but this one's a lot more paired down, and a lot more dynamic, and polished now! It looks pretty good from all angles, including looking down! Which will be good, because she will probably look down sometimes.
Anywho that's about it!
This week I'm gonna keep drawing/writing fun act 4.5 stuff to figure out these characters more! And prolly adapt that look at rig to the other horse.
Byeee!