So we're all unhappy with the slow updates & even slower game progress. As a plan to fix that for 2015, I decided I'd completely change my posting policy and post the game as-is with every news post. Instead of motivating me to post more often however, it's had the opposite effect. Now I've been paralyzed. I did't want to post the game until "thing" was finished, and I didn't want to work on it because "thing" would take too long, or wasn't turning out well, or because Skyrim.
Rather than give up on the idea, I'm going to force myself to post the game with unfinished & broken pieces. If this works well, I'll try to continue working this way. If not, well, at least y'all get to see that there has been some minuscule progress over the last *cough* years. I'm hoping this will turn into a way to discuss what's working & what's not working as the game is built. That may be optimistic, but let's give it a go.
What's New
All of the backgrounds for first half of Act 3 are built. Run around, check it out. I don't like some of the zone transition pieces - the path looks strange when trying to move into & out of the plane. Otherwise I think it works well enough for backgrounds though. It is a porn game after all, we're not here for the scenery. Take a look, let me know if you see anything wrong or find yourself getting stuck. I'll note that it is very empty right now, as I haven't added in the actual content yet. As a substitute, I've added lots of random Naga. No need to thank me. ;)
Oh, I reckon I should mention that the Naga are new as well, eh? That's the only new sex animation, and there's no double team animations yet.
I've changed how poison works, so that's another good spot to check for bugs. The Naga are supposed to have a poisonous bite attack. The poison causes a slowing effect, and if it gets bad enough it can petrify you temporarily. Being petrified prevents grapples for now, which can make the game slow if you're not careful. Not sure that's how it "should" work, but it keeps the rest of the code under control.
I've also changed how the Naga & male elves attack. I was having the problem where blocking their attacks correctly would leave them on top of the hero, resulting in an automatic grapple. I've played with knockback modifiers, I think this new solution is better. Note that I said "better", not "good".
There are three new armors available. After completing Act 2, the merchant in the dune crawler should have them available. You get to pick ONE, so chose correctly. Or, y'know, reload. There will be an option to acquire the other two later in game, just haven't coded that event yet.
Ruby Plate drawing progression
I'm reasonably happy with the Chainmail Bikini & the Sorceress' Robes, but the Ruby Plate is really rough atm. I was going for magical princess armor like you see in too many animes, but I don't actually watch enough of those shows to know how to draw such things well. Making something defensive & sexy at the same time is harder than you might think. Anyway, ruby plate is NOT done yet, so if you notice pieces disappearing - that's "normal".
One of the biggest changes is one that you should not see at all. It normally takes me a few hours to undo all my testing mode changes before I can ship the game. I've gone through & toggled all of those so that I can just flip one variable & turn them off. Should you see hitboxes floating around or numbers on the screen though, it means I missed something. For those of you who actually want to see my test mode, I'll leave it in as a code. Cheat code: test
Around the interwebs:
I really love the idea of this section, but I haven't been playing much porn lately. The few games I've found haven't been anything to rave about. So I don't have any content this time around. Fortunately, I don't need "content" to babble about things on the internet. ;)
There was a huge event here on blogspot, where they were going to ban all adult content. That came & went before I even noticed, so didn't make a lot of sense to comment on it. Although y'all did not see it, I got copied on a lot of e-mails from fellow amateur game makers. I thought that was cool. Nice to be in the "in" club.
And there was another big event in amateur game making news. Steam wanted to post for-profit Skyrim mods. I'll go ahead & say that I think the folks who make mods do deserve to be paid. I'll even go out on a limb & bet they aren't making nearly as much as they "should" from the current donation system. But Steam's system was bad for several reasons, and I have trouble viewing it as anything but a money grab by Steam / Bethesda. I'm glad they've rescinded, but I'm wary of what will come with the next big Bethesda game. I assume this paid system was groundwork specifically for that, and I doubt they will leave money on the table.
Til Next Time
DirtyC101
