https://www.patreon.com/posts/150866478A technical test for Venus Derby has been released! If you haven't heard of it before, Venus Derby is a vore training sim created by hmal/slough that I've been helping out on a little on the game design/art side, partially in exchange for his help with coding advice, but mostly because I think it will be fun. Our two games are also built on similar systems, allowing art created for mods from the two games to be compatible. The developer is looking for feedback, so try it out and let them know what you think!
Progress Report:
Erased old AI.
Started on new AI using a Utility-based approach.
Rebalanced AI attack evaluation to avoid vore when hit rate is not high enough and pick better targets for damaging attacks.
Removed all turn and event handling from units.
Created method of assigning priority to non-damaging attacks, such as Shaman's curse, as well as assigning different priorities to different attacks based on class.
Removed all turn handling on update, everything is now handled through callbacks AFAIK.
Continued setting up new turn manager.
Progress has been slow this week, as expected as I figure out what I'm doing, but I've got the foundation down for my new AI and turn handling now. I decided on using a Utility AI system, which means that rather than making fixed decisions each possible action an enemy may make will be given a score and then they will select the action with the highest score with a small degree of randomness. This should allow the AI to be fairly adaptable and dynamic, but that's really going to come down to how well I can balance things behind the scenes. In any case, it will be much more straightforward and easier to balance than the old system I had.
In other news, meet the athletics director of VSU, Go Your Way! If your job is to take care of your athletes, then Way's job is to take care of you. This is an NPC I made for Venus Derby to go along with its prototype releasing, one of a good number that are planned. She may not be able to eat wayward trainers just yet, but I hope you'll enjoy seeing her in-game!
On that note, the simpler art style of VD is working out great! A character like this, excluding WG and vore bellies, is entirely reasonable to design and draw in ~2-3 days, which is good news for both projects. For VT, I want to aim between something done with a limited art style and palette like this and Corn's outfit where almost every surface is detailed, maybe extending that art time from a couple days to a week. I'm still going to be holding back on art until I catch up though, it's full steam ahead on development right now! Of course, the fact that I can make art like this to begin with is all thanks to you, so thank you so much for supporting the game!