I’m Back!
Hi gang. I hope everyone who has access is enjoying the new episode. The delay allowed some catching up and we are currently working on how we can improve our animation work flow. We currently have to export assets from Daz into Blender every time we start a new scene and we are seeing if we can speed that up.
Burnout
Yeah, I was pushing a bit too hard and needed a break. Jim mentioned I’ve been writing 50K words a month. We currently have 3 scripts on the go. The main branch (Harem/Pimp) and the 2 NTR scripts (Theo and Bully). While the dialogue might not make it to 50K, between edits and rewrites as well as the directions for the artists, 50K is about there. For context, a trashy romance novel usually comes in at about that size. Think Mills & Boon, for anyone who gets that reference.
That, mixed with feedback, game testing as well as consulting on other projects… I was not functioning well.
Commitment
I’ve reached saturation points with work before, the difference is, this time, I care. MBD is my baby in many ways and I want to be here doing this job. The issue is, it was starting to impact my work and how I interact with the team. Take breaks people.
Anyway
I’m back and feel much clearer headed. It was nice to come back and play through the latest episode. That distance really helps you see things more clearly. I enjoyed playing it so I hope you guys enjoy it too.
Game making blog… stuff
Music
I’ve been working on some of the game tracks the last few days. We’ve mostly been using the tracks from Season 1 and I still think they are great but Kingpin has a different feel in places. Dante, for example, adds a very different feeling to scenes. There is also the issue of Randall’s new job (No spoilers for those who haven’t played the new release yet). The fact is, that we will need some soundtracks that just don’t fit with what we have.
Finding it
Should be simple right? There are a lot of sites that provide either royalty free music or subscriptions that allow access to thousands of tracks for a reasonable price. Yeah, we can’t use most of them. We learned that we have to scour the T&Cs for if the stuff can be used with adult content and… it can’t.
Still, we have managed to find resources to use but we have to be careful.
What to pick
Grief, I don’t know. It’s all vibes man.
Okay, that’s only half true. Sometimes I don’t know what I want until I hear it, but as time goes on, I manage to learn enough to make finding things easier. Sex scenes, for example, tend to fit into 3 genres: Funk, Rock or R&B, at least in our game.
You learn little things like, a chill background track tends to hit around 80bpm (beats per minute), or I have a growing distaste for the over use of crash cymbals.
I find myself going, “Hmm, some slow shifting chords with some deep synth pads would work well here.” I barely know what that means but I’m feeling it out.
Not the job you signed up for but the job you got
I’m a writer. Well, I actually trained as an actor but that’s a different story. I’m not a musician. I’ll play you a mean song on the ukulele but beyond simple chord progressions, I don’t really know what I’m talking about.
So yeah, it’s mostly just vibes.
As I work on Kingpin, the word Miami keeps cropping up, so that’s now a genre to me.
I’ll probably keep tweaking the music on the earlier part of the game, I added in a few new tracks in this release but I think we can improve the feel more here and there.
If you have a genre or artist I should look at that you think perfectly fits the games vibe, let me know.
Back to work
Yep, back to it. The break was great, but the pay-off is, I now have to make up the head start I had on the artists. They need their directions. Episode 9 is almost there. It just needs some editing. Sigh, so much to do. Get hyped for the current release and we’ll update you soon on when the NTR release will be out.Later!